On the Road- Gettysburg

Steve and Noreen Neitz

            I spend a lot of time on the road in the Silver Bullet;  our gray Dodge Caravan takes me a lot of places.  This summer I started thinking that, at 212,000 miles, maybe I should rename it the Silver Dove.  My mission of loving all and serving all brings me many places, but the image of the bullet often references a can of Coors Beer or a shotgun shell, neither representation seems to be exactly in sync with the purpose of my travels.   Images are important to me for they often serve as powerful symbols of things much greater than themselves.  So yesterday when my amazing husband took the first five hour driving shift after leaving the hotel outside of Cleveland, Ohio, I picked up my Salvation Army Store (http://www.salvationarmy.org/) find, The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (http://www.suemonkkidd.com/MermaidChair/) and found a quote attributed to Thomas Merton (http://merton.org/), which will remain with me in this way forever. ..”My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.”  In reflecting on this quote, I am drawn to think of my friend Noreen (http://nneitz.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/what-would-you-say/).

            Throughout this summer, the fourth anniversary of my own Dad’s death, I lost other giants from my childhood, but nothing could have prepared me for the loss of Noreen.  Twelve years ago when our “road” took us to live in Gettysburg, I remember spending a lot of nights over those four years sitting on our neighbors, Steve and Noreen’s back porch.  In hindsight, I think that the Neitz Family sort of adopted us… maybe that was part of their family mission… to live “the Jesuit charisms of ‘finding God in all things’, ‘seeking to help souls’, ‘to do everything for the greater glory of God’… (and) going forth for the sake of ‘the service of faith and the promotion of justice’ in the world” (http://jroselle.blogspot.com).   That was Noreen.  And as I sat nestled in at my beloved and packed St. Francis Xavier Church in Gettysburg, PA (http://www.stfxcc.org/) at her funeral Mass, I heard such loving testimony to all of these precepts in her life.  Steve, surrounded by their inspirational children and extended family, read excerpts from Noreen’s blog throughout the eulogy, and her voice was there with us all through her writing.  I think daughter Sarah said it best when she wrote and Noreen later quoted in her blog (http://nneitz.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/becoming-a-woman-for-octaves/), “I bring to my leadership an understanding of the difference between singing and silence. People need … leadership that supports a joyful and enriching life beyond mere existence. I know that a woman for others must also be a woman for octaves; true leadership gives others a life of song.”  That was Noreen… a woman for octaves.     

            And so it was on July 30^th as they were planting a tree in Gettysburg to honor my dear friend Noreen, I was driving down a highway in Iowa, missing my dear friend Noreen and praying to be fruitfully busy about living while trying to do God’s will in perfect pitch.