Tomorrow I have the great fortune of doing something I can only do every few years. I get to go watch the New York Yankees play a game that counts (as opposed to an exhibition game). I’ve only had the pleasure of seeing them play during the regular season twice before in my life. First, I got to see them play in 1997 when they came down to play the Marlins as the defending World Series Champions, while the Marlins were en route to winning the World Series themselves that year. The game I got to see actually got rained out after Gary Sheffield had hit a home run for the Marlins. Due to the rainout, a double header was scheduled the next day and I was able to go see the entire 2 games (minus one inning because Dania just couldn’t take another inning of baseball, 17 was enough!!). The Yanks split that double header with the Marlins.
The next time I got to see the Yankees play was at Yankee stadium back in 2000. It was the one and only time I was able to go to Yankee Stadium, and I’m glad I went now that that stadium is no longer in use. I was able to be in the House that Ruth Built. The Yankees won that day en route to winning the World Series that year. The last time I saw them play wasn’t a regular season game. It was a playoff game… a World Series game against the Marlins in 2003. It was game 4.. Roger Clemens last professional baseball (RIGHT!!). It went into extra innings and the Marlins pulled off with a 331 foot home run by Alex Gonzalez that I did not see because there was no line of sight to where he hit from where we were sitting in the upper deck in left center field. It was a tough loss that merely set the stage for the eventual Marlins World Series title (notice I didn’t use the words en route…). Well, it seems that every time I go see the Yankees play, either the Marlins or the Yankees win the World Series! Let’s hope it’s the Yankees!
In case you haven’t noticed I am a big Yankee fan. Actually I’m a HUGE Yankee fan. I’ve been one since 1977. That was the year of REG-GIE!!! REG-GIE!!!, the three homer game and the end of a decade and a half drought without a title for the Yankees. I, at 7 years old, immediately jumped on the bandwagon, and I haven’t gotten off of it since, both through good years (winning 4 titles in 5 years from ’96 – ’00) and some lean years (no WS appearances from ’82-’95). I get all the grief for the high pay roll, as well as the grief from the oh so tough Red Sox fans who are so snooty with their whole two titles after we had owned them for over 80 years. No matter how you look at it I love loving the Yankees.
Well, earlier today I was wondering about the Yankees because of something that would appear completely unrelated. Yesterday I attended a meeting at the Archdiocese of Miami (soon to be no longer) Youth Center. The topic of conversation? The closing of the Youth Center for retreats and other activities such as being the home for the Encuentro Juveniles Movement, and for the closure of the office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry at the pastoral center. If you’ve been reading my blogs, you probably remember me discussing this some weeks back, and how I’m not very happy about it.
I attended this meeting because I wanted to see what we could do to make sure that we have resources available for the youth of Miami so that they will be able to participate in activities, sponsored by our Church, along with other kids throughout the Archdiocese. The closure of this retreat house, as well as the potential closing of a second retreat house (the Madonna Youth Center, which for now is thankfully going to continue being used for retreats for the time being), and the possible end to a THIRD retreat house, Morning Star (formerly the Dominican Retreat House), has left me wondering what will be available for our kids when they are teenagers and beyond. And without a youth ministry office,who would make sure that the different parishes would be able to coordinate in such a way that they can work together? Well, I wanted to make sure I went to this meeting set up by super fired up Frank “Panchi” Gonzalez, who was even more bitter about the situation than I am. I wanted to make sure that my opinion was heard and that whoever attended would decide to join myself and Panchi in doing something about the injustice that we are facing.
Along for the ride with me came my friend Rene. Rene is my oldest son’s godfather and is married to my daughter’s godmother, so for all practical purposes he is family. He also was very involved with youth and young adult ministry for many years, and was also very upset with the decisions made by the archdiocese. Throw in the fact that we had once done a radio show together some 14 years ago on the now defunct Radio Peace (another casualty of the Archdiocesan cutbacks) with our target audience being Young Adults, and one could see why he’d be fired up about this himself. What the two of us had allowed to cross our minds but didn’t allow ourselves to believe was the direction the meeting was going to take. Instead of it being 50/50 for the two topics that I felt we were going to discuss, it appeared that a third focus took over altogether… how this was affecting the Encuentros Juveniles.
Now, I had no problem discussing this particular issue. You see I myself went through the Encuentros Juveniles myself. I received mine, it just so happens almost 20 years ago, back in September of 1989. And I was fortunate enough to have participated in them for over 4 years in some capacity or another. My involvement led the Youth Center to being my second home. If I wasn’t sleeping at my house, I was sleeping at the Youth Center… I did this 5-6 times a year for those 4 years I was there, whenever there was a retreat going on, or if there was a liderazgo (a leadership training program run at the Youth Center). But I didn’t think that we would spend too much time on that issue because in my mind there were more pressing needs. And Rene, having not gone through an Encuentro himself figured the same. He wasn’t there to talk about them… not at length anyway. Wellllll, I guess we just were misinformed as to the focus of the meeting. In fact Rene was the ONLY person in the room that had never attended an Encuentro (not including my friend Rossy’s three daughters, not yet of age to have attended). But as the meeting progressed no matter the direction that the discussions went, everything seemed to go back to the Encuentro Juveniles, nuch to the discomfort of Rene. And I’ll be honest, also to myself.
You see although I AM an Encuentrista, I wasn’t defined by that particular part of my life. I went and I learned a lot there and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is not THE defining moment in my life as it appeared to be for many people there. I was involved in youth ministry before I got there (SpiritFire the St. Brendan youth group, Encuentros Familiares), while I was there (4 Christ’s Sake),and after I left (St. Brendan SpiritAlive and St. Timothy CrossRoads). And although I cherished my time there, it was no more or less important in my life than any of these other experiences. While I was attending weekly meetings, I always felt that some people there felt that this place was the end all of youth ministry. While it definitely had a unique focus that parish groups didn’t have, though, I felt that many were missing the bigger picture which was that we were called to work in our own little communities in our parishes as well as at the archdiocesan level. Sitting there I realized that a large group of the people there still thought along those lines and it worried me. They sounded like it was their job to go out and make a difference because that what the Encuentros Juveniles are being called to do. It may be, but not any more than the rest of us, such as the Rene’s of the world. I have met as many people outside of the Encuentros as I have in, that find the immense value in the ministering of our youth. And they are as important to me as many who went through the Encuentros with me.
Now, I’m not here trying to bash the people there. They are my brothers and sisters and we all have a common goal. I guess what I am trying to say is that I’m not comfortable being pigeonholed into this one little sector. Which brings me back to the Yankees. Reggie Jackson will forever be remembered as a Yankee and I’m sure he’s okay with that. But his career is not defined by his time in pinstripes. He actually won more WS title with the A’s than with the Yanks (and was the MVP on one of those teams as well), and in fact when it came time for him to retire, he chose to retire, not as a Yankee, but by playing one last year with the Athletics. Another big Yankee was Dave Winfield. Most people who remember this Hall of Famer remember his time with the Yankees. In fact most people have trouble picturing him in another uniform even though he spent a good number of years after leaving the Yankees with the Angels. But when he was elected into the Hall of Fame, he did not go in as a Yankee, he chose to go in as a San Diego Padre. Now in any Old Timer’s game at Yankee Stadium it is not rare to see one or even both of these guys, but they both made it clear, they are not JUST Yankees. They are much more.
That is how I feel about the Encuentros Juveniles. I love them, but I am not just an Encuentrista, and in fact if I were to ever get selected into any Hall of Fame for youth ministry (this is hypothetical obviously because beyond there not being one, I’m not even implying I deserve induction into one), I would probably choose to go in as a St. Brendan-er. That is how I see myself. That is where I felt I was most productive as a minister to youth and young adults for my Lord. Many people there may not even know I was ever at St. Brendan and may just think of me as that loud guy who had to have the last word or who would give the endless retreat talks at the Encuentros, but they’d be missing the whole picture.
Despite all this, I had trouble saying anything about the fact that the meeting was a tad bit skewed towards this one facet because I felt that maybe I had the wrong impression of the point of the meeting. But I also felt that we couldn’t here one more person say how, “we are all encuentristas here”, when we all weren’t. We were all CATHOLICS there, MOST of which were Encuentristas. And then a voice came out like an angel from somebody other than the person who gave Rene the ride there. An encuentrista who had spent 10 years there at some capacity or another spoke up and made sure that everybody understood… this is not ALLL about encuentros… there is a world out there filled with youth and young adults who have never been to encuentro who have encountered God just as vividly and who are making as big a difference and if we were going to accomplish any of the things that we were meeting at the Youth Center for, these people would have to be included, and not just as participants, but as decision makers. After all wasn’t that why Rene was there? As they say in my part of the world… Se la comio!
So we stand here today a group of people looking to make a difference, knowing that we have to inform our leader, our shephard, our Archbishop that we are not happy with some of the decisions he is making. We are aware that some of the decisions he’s made will have to stand, but others we will just not stand around and watch without our voices being heard. And I am going to be calling my brethren from St. Tim’s and St. B’s to make sure of two things… that all voices are heard, and that although the Encuentros are the bomb (they really are, despite my tone), that there are plenty of grenades making a lot of the noise necessary to make sure that youth ministry is alive and well.
Now, I do want to reiterate. this is not a knock on the people at the meeting. Again, I may have just misunderstood the meeting’s purpose. But it is vital that everyone knows that outside of the little cocoon that I myself was a part of for four years, there is a world of many butterflies looking to also spread their wings! If we all get out together, then we will be noticed for the wonders that we represent. We must just pray that the one who needs to notice us has his eyes open when we all fly by.
Now, one last thing with baseball again… I wonder if a guy like Kenny Lofton who has been on like 13 teams gets invited to ALL those teams Oldtimers games. If so, then I guess the guy would never truly be retired then would he? You know, come to think of it, I’d like to have some Old-timers moments with my former teammates from all my “incarnations”. It was great seeing many of the faces I saw yesterday… it’d be cool to see many many more. Maybe this whole “fiasco” will turn out to be a good thing in the end, huh?