Just A Little Bit

Have you ever heard something that was so foreign to you that it took your breath away? Have you ever heard something so jarring that it resurrected itself and nudged you years after you first heard it?

I’ve worked for The Message for 30 years. For the first 28 years, I was a staff writer. Every week , I would go out around the Diocese of Evansville and interview people. And then I would write their stories.

I used to think that I was meeting ordinary people who were doing extraordinary things, but now I know I was meeting extraordinary people.

One day I met with a young man from Haiti named Steeve Jean. He was a college student at the University of Southern Indiana, who was being sponsored by a host of people including Resurrection parishioners Kim and Jim Riordan.

During our interview, Steeve told me about his childhood in Haiti, about living in poverty, and about losing his precious mother when he was way too young.

He talked about arriving in America, a country that — although its streets weren’t paved with gold — was a place of amazement for him with all its luxuries and inventions.

He told me that when he arrived at the Miami International Airport, he walked into a new world. Even the public bathrooms were fascinating to him with autoflush on the toilets and automatic soap and towel dispensers. He just stopped and stared when he saw the airport escalators.

When he arrived in Evansville, he enrolled as a student at USI. I met him shortly after that. During our interview, he told me this about himself, “I'm from Haiti. I don't want a lot. I don't want enough. I just want a little bit.”

I think for the first time ever in all my years of interviewing, I put down my pen. I remember just looking at him.

I had never heard an American say anything like that. I have lived through the prosperity of the 1950s and the excesses of the 1990s. I am familiar with the terms “upward mobility” and “conspicuous consumption” and “McMansions.”

They are the roaring mantras of our country, and they have been for years.

There have been quieter voices, of course.

Ann Cavera is a wonderful award winning writer; she was a columnist for The Message for years. I remember listening to her say that if items of clothing were in your closet and you weren’t wearing them, then they belonged to the poor.

I think Mother Church — and our pope — would agree. He often reminds us to serve the poor among us.

We are now in the season of Lent. It’s a time of quiet, before the explosion of spring. It’s a great time to reflect and to be still.

It’s a great time to consider the words of the young man from Haiti who doesn’t want enough. He just wants a little bit.