The Eyes of the Heart: Alma Mater

Do you notice how the main characters in these after-Easter appearances of Jesus – the locked room and the road to Emmaus – are guys?  In the U.S., today is Mother’s Day as well as the Third Sunday of Easter.  No doubt.

Earl the Twirl - courtesy UDM Athletics

ALMA MATER
In this morning’s Detroit Free Press is a story   that warms my University of Detroit Mercy heart.  It’s on the Sports Page.  It’s a Mother’s Day story – about a guy.  “Earl the Twirl”, we called him back in U of D’s Calihan Hall, this 6’ 9” basketball transfer who ran with his thumbs up all the time, most noticeably when he was loping across the court after scoring, like he was giving himself a thumbs-up, and maybe us, the cheering throng, too.  We guys saw him as points and rebounds, our hope to get back to the NCAA tournament after the Dick Vitale/Long/Duerod/Tyler years that gave our struggling urban university some time in the spotlight.  His mom saw him as a college student.  And she believed in him.

I think that the reason Jesus kept appearing to guys after that first Easter morning was that

we are half blind; we see with our eyes.  Theologian Karen Armstrong  writes of the trap of Logos, clinging to objective meaning in the way we see the world – the logic of the previous post.  Mythos, on the other hand, “provides people with a context that makes sense of their day-to-day lives; it directs their attention to the eternal and the universal. It is also rooted in what we would call the unconscious mind....” (The Case for God)

Earl Cureton and his mom PATRICIA BECK/Detroit Free Press

­I prefer to substitute Armstrong’s use of “unconscious mind” with her Ted Prize-winning “compassionate heart”.   While we guys in the Calihan Hall seats were looking at her son’s points and rebounds, Minnie Mae Turner  was looking at the mythical aspect of her son, seeing him graduate from college, past his late father’s illiteracy, past her own third grade education.  So today, thirty years later, Mick McCabe wrote a Mother’s Day story in the Free Press sports section, about Earl Cureton graduating next Saturday with his Bachelor’s Degree in Human Services, and giving that diploma to his 94 year old mom.

But the story leaves us guys some hope in the examples of UDM’s Ron Naski and Mike Witkowski and Fr. Justin Kelly, who advised and taught Earl Cureton, who believed in him because they saw with the eyes of their heart that he was more than points and rebounds.  They saw with their own compassionate hearts the man that his mom saw.  Earl would say it without opening his mouth.  Two thumbs up for my unforgettable colleagues Ron, and Mike and Fr. Kelly.  Here’s to guys who give other guys hope that we, too, can see with the eyes of the heart…just like our Moms.

An afternote.  On my way to church, I thought of the phrase "Alma Mater", which we use to refer to the colleges from which we have graduated.  These three guys have helped University of Detroit Mercy live up to that, to being part of the "nourishing mother" that my Alma Mater - and Earl the Twirl's is.  Check UDM out at http://www.udmercy.edu  

An oh so inadequate word of thanks to the mom I’m married to, whose heart shows me so much more than my eyes ever could.   I love you Kathy!