Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(53)
Moira regularly attended AA meetings, and one day before her performance at Steppenwolf she went to St. Michael’s Church on the North Side of Chicago, searching for a meeting there. When she entered the church through a side door, still searching for the room where the meeting was held, she accidently walked into the room where the priest was still putting on his robes in preparation to perform a baptism. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Moira said. “I’m looking for the AA meeting.” The priest finished putting on his gown, then walked her into the main auditorium of the church, past the family that was waiting for him. He pointed Moira toward a door near the front. Moira said thank you and started walking away, and the priest called after her, “Pray for me.” Moira turned back, smiled, waved politely, and said, “I will.” As she was on her way toward the door of the meeting, she passed by an elderly French woman, a member of the parish. The woman said in a thick French accent, “My dear, you need to become a Catholic. You need to convert,” and walked away.
That got Moira to thinking . . . here she was playing this Irish woman searching for strength in a play set in a tavern, and in her own life she was searching for strength to help with her sobriety. Nothing was said or done immediately. But Moira told me later she began to feel a quiet yearning for her own shooting star.
She finished up her play, then got on a plane with the three kids to meet me in North Carolina. Shirley MacLaine was directing Bruno, and the morning before Moira and the kids arrived, Shirley quickly gathered the cast and crew together and informed us that a literal hurricane was heading straight for Wilmington. Everyone was ordered to pack up and evacuate ASAP. All flights were filled out of Wilmington, so I hastily booked my family a flight out of Charlotte. Moira and the kids arrived on set and saw everyone frantically packing. I gave them all a quick hug hello and said to Moira, “Hi, honey. Welcome to Wilmington. We’re leaving!”
We raced down the highway in our rental car, trying to outrun the fury of Hurricane Bonnie. Lightning and wind and rain and thunder chased us. From the passenger seat, Moira turned to me, quite out of the blue, and said, “Oh, when we get back home I’m going to become a Catholic, and our kids are going to go to Catholic school.”
Well, I wasn’t quite ready for that. I wasn’t religious myself, and I didn’t know much about Catholicism, even less about Catholic school. I’d had some buddies back at Steppenwolf who’d attended Catholic school in their youth, and they’d always said the nuns were overly strict, even scary. That’s about all I knew. With only that image to go by, I wasn’t terribly excited about my kids going to Catholic school. Moira’s announcement felt like another part of that wild storm. My practical side took over and I thought, For heaven’s sake, we’ve just moved right across the street from a public school! The kids can walk there—and it’s free!
We beat the hurricane and sure enough, after we arrived home, Moira straightaway met with the local priest and nun and began a program to be confirmed into the Catholic Church. A week later she asked me to meet with the sister. I was reluctant, but Moira persuaded me it was important for me to go too. I went only to be supportive of Moira, yet I ended up talking to the sister for three hours. She was warm, friendly, and funny—no semblance of scariness—and she got me thinking a lot about life and God, purpose and meaning, about the importance of having a solid rock in your life. Moira and I started to attend Mass regularly, and our kids started going to Sunday school.
In the spring of 2000, I was in Chicago with Steppenwolf playing Randle Patrick (R.P.) McMurphy, the lead role in the Dale Wasserman play of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’d arranged to take off a weekend and have my understudy play the role while I was gone. I flew home on Friday, and on Easter Sunday, after two years of classes, my beautiful wife was confirmed into the Catholic Church. My children and I stood by her side, so proud of her. The fall after Moira was confirmed, Ella started third grade, Mac started fourth, and Sophie started sixth at our local Catholic school, with my full agreement. The Church and the school became a positive force in our lives, and our family only got stronger because of our involvement in the faith.
As the years rolled on, Moira began attending daily Mass, and the church became an important part of my life as well. I found that the church gave me strength and comfort and promoted service above self, all values I would particularly lean on in later years when I began to work more in support of our veterans. I saw how selfless service to others gave purpose to my life, and I was so grateful for that.
On Christmas Eve 2010, I told my wife and kids to get dressed up—we were headed for a special family dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse, a place we all enjoyed. On our way to dinner, I suddenly pulled into the church parking lot. A Mass was already under way, and my family looked confused. It was too late to attend Mass: What were we doing there? Without any of my family members knowing, I had been attending private sessions to be officially confirmed into the church. Our priest was expecting us, and in a small, quiet ceremony on Christmas Eve, surrounded by the family I love and cherish dearly, I was officially confirmed into the Catholic Church. It was a very special night in our lives. Moira was so touched. She had come a long way. Our family had come a long way, and I wanted to belong to the faith as Moira did. It meant so much to her, to me, to all of us.
In the years that followed, my faith grew, and I began to feel called by God to take greater action, compelled to use everything I’d been blessed with to serve in a more substantial way. I wanted to create something that could be there for the long haul and, over time, do good work for others. My journey of faith had basically started with Moira’s need and our dark time. In hindsight, I know that God used that difficult season to deepen and strengthen me to be a better husband and father and to bring us joyfully together to faith.