Saint Francis

Someone saw me drive down State Street yesterday and asked me about the Saint Francis statue that I have on the dashboard of my Subaru. The simple reason is that I like Saint Francis. I’ve liked him since I was a little girl. My mother liked Saint Francis and told us, Kevin and I, stories about him. My favorite story was the one about the town that was terrorized by a wolf. The wolf told Saint Francis that he had a hard time hunting because he was injured. So Saint Francis told the town to feed the wolf and all was well. I just loved the idea that he could talk to the animals and make peace with them. We were Methodists but my mother said we didn’t have to be Catholic to follow St. Francis. I didn’t find out until later in life that one of his teachings was to renounce wealth, a teaching my mother failed to mention and she was certainly not going to follow. But in her own way she did love him and she taught us to love him too. To me he is an example of someone who was true to himself no matter what the cost was. I like that in a guy. My favorite book on Saint Francis is The Lessons of St. Francis by John Michael Talbot.

The statue on my dashboard was originally my mothers’ but when she remarried she turned her back on St. Francis and threw all her Francis stuff away. I was able to retrieve some of it including the statue on my dashboard. To me that statue is a constant reminder to be true to my self, just like he was true to himself. I just want to make sure that I never become one of those women who disappear into a man. You know, the kind of woman that gradually absorb the opinions and worldview of the man they are attached to. Eventually what happens is that when these women speak you listen but you don’t ask questions because you know she is just repeating what she was told and if she had an answer for what you asked it too would be his words coming out of her mouth. I would rather have my tongue ripped out of my mouth than have someone think that about me. I know I’ve got plenty of my own problems when it comes to relating to the thicker sex, but disappearing is not one of them. And that St. Francis statue on my dashboard is a reminder to never disappear. It is also a reminder of when my mother did.