Bus Riders Union and a Downtown for All

Tuesday I was asked to speak at the Bus Riders Union public meeting at the Rialto Theater. My name was on the agenda under “Bus rider stories” and I was there because I have a hard time saying no to Brian Flagg. He made it more difficult by employing this secret weapon:

Monica, stage right, my adopted daughter
and the secret weapon of activism in Tucson.
She doesn’t normally dress as a hotdog, but
if anyone can pull it off, Monica can.

Flagg, the man who has run the Casa Maria Soup Kitchen for 30 years, is a Tucson activist who has been helping organize bus riders into a union to fight the removal of a bus transit center from downtown Tucson. They were successful in this effort, but the City Council – encouraged by developers – is still considering re-imagining the center and concerned bus riders are pushing to have a voice in any further discussion. That’s what Tuesday evening’s meeting was about.

I had three minutes to speak, but was interrupted by applause four times. Ergo, I was unable to finish my statement, which had been carefully timed to come in just under 3-minutes. When I arrived home – having waited at the downtown transit center for 20 minutes in the company of dozens of people waiting for evening buses (the place was bustling at 7 p.m.!) – I had requests asking me to send out my complete statement. So, here goes:

My name is Renee Schafer Horton and I write the blog Bus Stop Jesus, which documents my thoughts on riding two buses every day to my job at the University of Arizona. I take the 312 Express to the Tohono Transit Center and then take the #6 the rest of the way to UA. After a poll of other Express riders this morning, I bring the message that the Express riders stand in unison with riders of all the Sun Tran routes, believing bus riders need to have a voice in how the transit centers are set up and where they are located.

the problem is, I don’t think the City or developers really care what poor people – and many bus riders are poor – have to say. I don’t think they really think bus riders have an opinion worth listening to. But actually, they do. there is talk that downtown merchants don’t like the look of the downtown transit center, or perhaps more accurately, they just don’t like the look of the people who use the transit center. They think that transit centers draw the mentally ill, the homeless, the addicted and the poor – and in truth, this is accurate to an extent.

But relocating the transit center someplace out of downtown does only one thing: It removes from our sight problems that need to have a solution. If these “undesirables” are removed, then we don’t have to think about how to reduce poverty, homelessness, drug addiction or mental illness.

You learn a lot riding the bus – how to be patient, for one, because the buses are often late. Compassion for another, and finally, if you pay attention, gratitude. There are many people who ride our buses, and most of them are different from the folks running City Council or building the fancy restaurants with their $12 cocktails. And I challenge the non-bus riders to spend some time on the #6 and recognize something important as they look upon the regular riders: There, my friends, but for the grace of God, the place of your birth, and a life that hasn’t had something ridiculously harsh thrown at it, goes you.

RE-imagine the transit center if you must – with a playground for children, clean, well-stocked restrooms with running water to wash hands, a garden, and a greater community police presence. And then perhaps put your critically thinking minds together and imagine solutions for the problems that present at transit centers instead of taking the short cut and trying to “relocate” the people with those problems.

Pope Francis and the Possibility of Change

I’ve loved Pope Francis from the moment I heard NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli and the rest of the MSM stumble during the announcement of his election. There’s nothing like a dark horse taking off with the race. I loved him when he asked a blessing from the crowd before he blessed them, loved him more when a text from a priest friend asked me what I was going to do with “the fact that the Pope rides the bus” (“HE RIDES THE BUS????” I texted back, nearly apoplectic), and of course, I loved him when he walked out on the loggia with the demeanor of a guy coming to your picnic.

Hi. I’m the Pope. So nice to meet you all.
(Image courtesy of fmcmissions.com)

In spite of my natural bent toward skepticism (all that journalism training), my admiration has only grown as reports come in about Pope Francis declining to live in the Papal apartments and calling his Buenos Aries paperman to cancel delivery of his paper and celebrating Holy Thursday in a detention center for youth. The latter has caused all manner of bloggers to get their boxers in a twist over PFI washing the feet of – gasp! – a woman.

And here I must diverge briefly to yell across the blogosphere to this guy and this guy and especially this guy since he seems to think the Pope is sowing confusion instead of setting an example of priests (and bishops and popes) as servants of all the people. You know, guys, all people, even those of us with double X chromosomes. Must I remind you that Jesus hung out with women all the dang time? That the first witnesses to the resurrection were women, who took the message to the scared-poopless-in-the-upper-room men? That a woman washed Jesus’ feet at one point, causing scandal to the men around him but not phasing the Savior himself? Good gravy, guys: Please — get over yourselves.

Ah. Now I feel better. So I can get to this teeny, tiny challenge I have for the Holy Father. PFI has spoken many times since taking office that he cares deeply for two things: the poor and the environment. He has said, in essence, that we humans are not real good at taking care of the least among us or Mother Earth.

Christiana Z. Peppard, an assistant professor of Theology, Science & Ethics at Fordham University, wrote recently in a Washington Post essay that the pope is “guiding the global church towards two major right-to-life issues: poverty and the environment.” Then, for good measure, she added, “Take heed: it’s not just about prophylaxis.” Instead, she argues, it is about excess greed and the unbridled pursuit of corporate profits. I agree, but I’ll go out on the Crazy Limb here and say it is also about prophylaxis – or, in layperson’s terms, birth control. And in this lies my teeny, tiny challenge for the Pope I love.

You see, Holy Father, even if we came up with a way feed all the humans in the world (super rice is one example of this sort of thinking), we would still be failing to care for the earth because the earth can only support so many humans while she is also supporting animals, insects, oceans, forests and everything that isn’t human but – according to both Genesis and the theory of evolution – came before humans and makes life something other than this horrible struggle:

Part – not all, but a good part – of the problem with the degradation of our environment and massive poverty has to do with unbridled population in parts of the world that cannot even sustain the population they now have. And part – not all, but part – of the problem in some of those countries is that the institutional Church fights any and all efforts to give access to artificial birth-control or education about same.

Yes, I know the Church offers Natural Family Planning to these destitute persons. It is a method that is quite accurate if – and only if – a woman’s cycle is regular, her husband cooperative and – as any honest Catholic women will attest – the wife doesn’t mind the fact that she has to abstain from sex during the one time of month she really wants it. It is also a difficult method to learn, something the Church seems to ignore when offering it up to women in illiterate and starving countries. Starvation, by the way, also throws off a woman’s cycle.

Catholics are not, contrary to what some believe, told to have as many kids as we can. We are instructed to plan our families around how many children we believe we can support financially, physically and emotionally. Since Vatican II, we’ve even been encouraged to consider the impact of family size on the environment. Still, offering married Catholics only one option for contraception – see limitations above again – the Church sets itself apart from other Christian religions and negatively affects the environment by inadvertently encouraging over-population in certain areas of the world.

As Father Andrew Greeley and other clerics pointed out numerous times, the Church (sadly, IMHO) lost its moral voice on sexual matters with Catholics in the developed world when She rejected the majority recommendation of the papal birth control commission. (The sexual abuse crisis hasn’t helped matters much, either.) Married Catholics in vast numbers simply ignore what the Church says in regard to married sexuality and still participate as lectors, religious education teachers, Eucharistic ministers, choir leaders, confirmation sponsors (and more!) in their local parishes. In fact, as the matriarch of one “very Catholic” family I know said, if every man and woman in the average U.S. congregation who uses some form of artificial contraception were to abstain from Mass one Sunday, the churches would be nearly empty. Pastors don’t ask their parishioners to do this, of course, because these “contraceptors” are also the people who donate the most time and money to the parish. Such a quandary.

But Mother Church still has great moral voice regarding sexual matters in developing countries, and it is there that She could do some real good both in terms of helping the environment and the poor. Perhaps, Pope Francis will consider martial birth control education and access to artificial contraception to allow these women the choice – not the requirement, but the choice – to limit family size and, in so doing, save both their children and earth upon which they live.

I know this is a big, big can of worms. If you doubt me, just ask any of the still-living members of the aforementioned commission. And please realize I’m not a big fan of hormonal birth control because I think there’s good evidence that millions of females dumping estrogen into the water supply through their urine ain’t a good idea for our environment either. That said, there are non-hormonal methods of birth control and rumor has it scientists have been working on a male pill that will have fewer negative environmental effects. Something must be done. We can’t put our heads in the sand about the total population — humans and all the other creatures St. Francis so loved as God’s creation — the earth can safely sustain. It isn’t all about prophylaxis; greed and consumption must be addressed as well. But some of it is about prophylaxis. And it is that part the Holy Father could help with if he’s up for the teeny, tiny challenge of considering a change in the teaching on artificial contraception in marriage.

Why sidewalk preachers make my life hell

Saturday, as I was finishing up my brief shift at the Tucson Festival of Books, I came across a sidewalk preacher, outfitted with a wireless mic and amplifier. The horrible thing is he’d set himself up near a long line snaking its way to the book-signing table of of R.L. Stine, one of America’s most popular children’s’ book authors. Thus, dozens of parents and their 4th to 8th grade children were being evangelized right out of belief by this lunatic.

My reaction to the preacher’s “work” was strong: I wanted to walk up and explain that I’d have to spend the next month or so attempting to reverse the damage he was doing by spewing a gospel of hate. “You, sir,” I would say, “give one very demented picture of Christianity, and now I’ll have to explain how your limited, incomplete, superficial interpretation of Scripture is limited, incomplete, and superficial. It is exhausting, I tell you.”

But I refrained because I didn’t want to cause more of a scene and because I knew – since these traveling crazies visit the university frequently – he wouldn’t listen to me. He doesn’t care. He is on a mission that he’s convinced himself comes from the Almighty. Like Islamic fundamentalists with their panties all in a twist today because Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hugged the mom of recently deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he and his ilk are the Pharisees of our time — so focused on judging others they cannot see God’s mercy.

I have a zillion theories on why these people are the way they are, but they all boil down to this: They have not had an experience of God. Period. No exceptions. They have read – even memorized – parts of the Bible or the Quran or the Torah and they have their literal interpretation of those certain parts and cling to them thinking knowing the words is the same as knowing the Person. They are dead wrong.

If they knew the Person, they’d be preaching the parable of the Prodigal Son, which, ironically, was the Gospel reading on Sunday. I doubt street-corner preacher man was in Mass that day, but if he had been at say, St. Cyril’s, he would have heard the priest explain how this parable is about the “lavishness of God’s love.” You screw up in the worst way and God takes you back anyway. He interrupts your apology to call for the fatted calf to be slaughtered. He brushes away your attempt at explaining your sinful ways and says, in essence, “I don’t care. I only care that you are here with me now.” You are always welcome. Period.

If only the sidewalk preachers could put down their mics and amplifiers long enough to hear that message. Then they wouldn’t have to fret so much about trying to save everyone – they could trust in God’s mercy to handle that instead.

There but for the grace of God

There is no place like the bus when it comes to keeping life in perspective. Except perhaps a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. But for me – having been to both soup kitchens and homeless shelters – it seems the bus is the epitome of a reality check. You can be having the worst day and get on the bus and look around you and realize your day isn’t nearly as bad as you thought.

At least twice a week – and usually more often – I find myself whispering words I heard as a child, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” If I had taken the wrong road, made a wrong choice, was born in the wrong part of town, picked the wrong group of friends, turned right instead of left … I could be the old woman in the wheelchair chewing her gums because she has no teeth or the rail-thin man with the portable oxygen tank carrying paper-thin plastic bags jammed with processed foods that are bad for his health but fit his budget or the obese guy who reeks so badly of sweat and urine that my eyes water.

Most likely, I could be the 30-something woman (except 20 years older) who boards the bus with an older guy, she angry, he cajoling, her stumbling down the aisle in a way that makes me look out the window to see if there’s a bar nearby. She nearly throws herself into the seat in front of me and can’t stop pulling at her hair (I notice she has a nice haircut and wonder how she can afford it and then immediately chastise myself for, once again, being not Jesus) and jerking her head back and forth like a chicken pecking at feed. She starts scratching her arms and her hands are shaking and the guy carefully puts his arm on the back of her seat and leans in close to whisper something. She pushes him away and tells him he doesn’t know what its like. He says she can make it through one more day and the next day won’t be as bad and by the end of the week it will seem like this Tuesday never happened. She spits, “Liar” at him and pulls her hair more. His phone rings and she demands to know who it is.

“Codac,” he says, trying to keep his voice down. He’s holding his cell in one hand and all the makings of homemade cigarettes in the other. I recall that homemade cigarettes are really popular among riders of the #6 and wonder if maybe they are way less expensive. “They’ll meet us at the apartment.”

Codac is a publicly funded community-based provider of mental and behavioral health care and drug treatment. This woman was suffering from either extreme mental health issues or, more likely, DTs. And, frankly, there but for the grace of God go I.

Addiction and mental health issues run through my extended family like the Rillito runs after a massive monsoon. I have spent more time and money than I care to recall battling episodes of extreme anxiety and moderate depression that hit me like a surprise tsunami. But I’ve never had a craving to cure this mental pain with alcohol or illegal drugs — why not? All I can say is I’m lucky. There but for the grace of God.

People who know me and know what I’ve done in my life, especially this:

often ask how I escaped the plague of drug addiction or alcoholism or rampant crazy-making. It has been suggested I have the resiliency gene. It’s been suggested I’m just too dang stubborn and angry to let myself go down the wrong road. But I know myself and my weaknesses and I know there have been times I was one choice away from a life that would have led to riding the bus with a tortured mind and addicted body.

I often half-joke that my salvation was college and marrying someone with health insurance – thus, when I suffered from anxiety or depression, I could actually afford health care. But it is more. Plenty of people on the bus get health care and still they suffer – mightily.

That more was my religious community. I was drawn to faith from the time I was four years old (my earliest memory is praying with my cousin) and that, surely, is the grace of God since most 4-year-olds would rather play outside than pray. But without the community of a Catholic Church in every parish we’ve joined, I don’t believe I would have had even the modicum of mental health I have, and I can easily see that at some point I would have looked to alcohol or drugs to wash away the various struggles of life and memory. While others turned to drinking and drugging, I turned to other Catholics. It was a misfit bunch as I recall now (some would say it still is), but they were my misfits. And they give me something (and someone) to cling to when the going got tough.

Yes, I still had to “make good choices” (such a popular phrase with my kiddos when they were young!), but the strength to do that didn’t come entirely through conscious choice. I know me. I have the willpower of a flea. Through the grace of God, I’ve never had the urge to drink more than one beer or a half a glass of wine. And at 12 years old, having seen drugs run roughshod over various folks, I made the specific choice that I would never touch illegal drugs. I don’t have to be Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled; I simply never lit up.

So, I’m not at this point, and hope to never be, the woman on the bus suffering so desperately she wants to pull out her own hair. She has a harder life than I will ever have, and I believe she is brave for trying to wrestle her demons to the ground with the help of her Friend of the Homemade Cigarettes.

We need to remember, hard as it can be, that anytime we see someone carrying their belongings in a trash bag or sleeping in the downtown park, or crying and disorderly on the bus, that they didn’t start out that way. Something happened.  Maybe it was their choice – one small choice leading to bigger, more life-altering choices – but maybe (many times I think this is so much more likely) it was the circumstance of their lives. Once they were children, innocent and looking for love. And something along the way didn’t go right. It could have happened to any of us. There, but for the grace of God.

And the next Pope is …

Image courtesty of biography.com

Unless you’ve been living in a cave or, like so many people I meet on the bus, simply really busy working for a living, you know that Thursday night at 8 p.m. (Tucson noon), Pope Benedict XVI will become the first pope in nearly 600 years to step down voluntarily from the Chair of Peter. This is a big deal for practicing Catholics, Big Media, Catholic journalists and people who like to Tweet “Will the next Pope choose Prada?”

For Catholics serious about their faith, eyes are turned toward Rome because they’re concerned about the future of the Church and the man who might be chosen to lead it. From what I can tell, they are not that concerned over the supposed “gay lobby” in the Vatican. And yet I’m being asked about Vatileaks by various people, including some of my bus-riding buddies. So, here’s my two cents.

Quick nutshell background, not at all comprehensive:  Last year sensitive documents were leaked from inside the Vatican. Huge breach of security which lead to Pope Benedict asking three cardinals to investigate. Investigation produced a huge dossier currently under lock and key that will be given to the new Pope. Italian newspaper reports last week that dossier reveals a “gay lobby” in the upper reaches of Vatican clerics and that those clergy were blackmailed by their consorts to leak documents. Since there were no sources quoted by the Italian paper, is any of this true?

“The common presumption remains that senior clerics were leaking documents,” said Rocco Palmo, a prominent Catholic blogger who himself walks a tightrope of getting information from inside the Vatican through confidential sources. I spoke with Palmo earlier this week via the wonder that is phone lines.  “I don’t know about the veracity of the reports – no one has actually seen the dossier – but what we do know is that there are significant problems in the Roman Curia,” he said. “And after all these years of sex scandals, it makes it easy to believe that at least some of what is being reported might be true.”

Sadly, I think he’s right. I’ve reported on the Church in one form or fashion since my now 28-year-old son was in diapers. I’m no John Allen, (although I have dreams of buying him a cup of coffee someday) but like any Catholic journalist who built up a stable of sources, I spent a good number of years in the company of priests and religious sisters and I’ve heard my fair share of stories regarding double lives. Add to that everything we’ve learned (or not) over the past decade regarding the clergy sex abuse travesty, add the recent removal of the Scottish archbishop following claims of inappropriate relationships with priests and, well, really. We simply have to remove our blinders where some of this is concerned.

But, my questioners wonder, was the Pope involved and is that why he’s resigning? No, he wasn’t, and no, this alone wouldn’t cause him to resign. Why do I know he wasn’t involved? Because he wouldn’t have asked for an investigation if he was, and even the people I know who know him and don’t care for his pontificate agree that he, like all the popes of recent history, actually are men of holiness. And they don’t get one moment of privacy, as the Pope himself revealed in his final address early today, so it is pretty hard to get into any trouble. In my experience, the saying about an idle mind is the devil’s workshop is accurate. Evil needs two conditions in which to operate – privacy and free time. The Pope had neither.

As for this revelation pushing the Pope to resign, I find that hard to believe. That said, it probably was one of the proverbial last straws. For someone as introverted as Benedict is,  realizing the house cleaning he’d have facing him after reading the dossier might have contributed to his honest assessment that, at 85, he just didn’t have it in him. At his age, most people are in a rocking chair reading a good book or watching Dancing With the Stars. I don’t blame him for wanting a rest.

And, frankly, I think he knows it is time. There have been complaints for the years decrying  B16′s lack of management skills. I don’t know any cardinals, but I know a few bishops and priests who have cardinal friends and all of them say the Curia has been out of control for years – something about power corrupting, probably. It is time for new blood, and I really believe the Pope recognizes that.

For now, picking the future leader of the Church is up to the 117 cardinals who are eligible to vote, and, we pray, at least some influence of the Holy Spirit. The conclave won’t start until mid-March, but the cardinals should all be in Rome by Friday to begin consultations, and as of Tucson noon Thursday, the Holy See will be vacant until white smoke announces the new Pope. Everyone loses his job and we have a chance to start fresh. It is actually pretty exciting for those of us who care.

If you want the best reporting on what’s happening as it happens, you can do no better than reading veteran John Allen who is in Rome. Just bookmark his NCR page right now. He’s doing a cool Papabile of the Day blog examining the most likely candidates for Pope and his Conclave 101 is must reading in preparation for what’s to come.  For a different take with behind-the-scenes information and – who knows? – a leak or two, Palmo’s Whispers in the Loggia blog is the go-to.

A man, a bus, and a big crucifix

There was a remarkable man at the bus stop last week. You couldn’t miss him: He wore a hat adorned with a racoon tail and at least a dozen buttons connected to various veterans’ groups. In spite of the cloudy day, he donned dark glasses, and around his neck hung two thick necklaces decorated with an array of pendants, most of a religious nature. He smiled when I spoke to him, which I had to do because the thing that made him most striking was the large, metal crucifix laying across his lap. My first thought was that he didn’t have a wall upon which to hang it and my second was that it must get heavy carrying it around. How could I not have questions for a man like this?

He identified himself as an ordained monk, and the gravely shakiness in his voice reminded me of many recovering alcoholics – smokers all – with whom I often share the bus. Years lived in the bottle with drinks spaced by cigarettes have permanently affect their vocal quality even though they are 12-stepping their way through days now.

“A monk?” I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head.

“The priests out at St. David’s did it for me.”

Pronouncements like this make me happy for my background reporting on the Catholic Church. Most folks would have written this man off as crazy as soon as he announced his monk-ness. But I know of the place of which he spoke, know that not all monks are ordained, understand Third Orders and ascertained, after a few more questions, that what he considered being “ordained as a monk” was almost certainly him becoming an Oblate of the Order of Saint Benedict. Or, perhaps, he never actually became an Oblate, but thought he did because of how the welcoming, loving treatment he no doubt received out in St. David’s.

His hands shook slightly, so the crucifix did as well, rubbing against his jeans. It seemed like it would be uncomfortable lugging it around, but he said it wasn’t. He explained that he needed it with him for protection against evil.

“You know,” he said, “you can be under attack. Spiritual attack. I’ve had that. This protects me.” He lifted the crucifix slightly before launching into a monologue about demons and the devil that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Then his bus came and I thought that would be that. But luckily it wasn’t because the next day – different bus and different time – he was there again.

So I asked more questions and discovered he was injured in Vietnam when his forehead met the butt-end of a shotgun carried by enemy forces. “My head was just bashed in. The guy left me for dead.” He smiled and shrugged. “But I didn’t die.”

He did, however, suffer for nearly two decades with horrific migraines, dreadful neck and back pain, blackouts and the particular type of mental misery that affects people in chronic discomfort, the kind that makes suicide look like the light at the end of a dark tunnel. He tried many cures and none worked until 1998, when doctors finally found a drug that replaced whatever had been lost in his brain. The medicine makes him shake, but he’s been free of pain and blackouts since, and he hasn’t been in the hospital for more than a decade.

“Used to be I’d wind up there for a month at a time,” he said. “Now, they gave me these pills and it makes things work in my brain. Miracle of modern medicine,” he said, raising his gold Jesus crucifix in my direction. “You just gotta be grateful.”

But if he’s cured, I wondered, why still carry the heavy crucifix?

He shook his head the way a professor sometimes does when a student just doesn’t get it.

“Evil is still out there.”

Indeed, one glance at the headlines confirms that. And like second-hand smoke, we’re affected by what surrounds us. It doesn’t have to be huge life-and-death evil. In fact, most evil isn’t. It is the little things that build up into a habit. Little white lies. Little “God really doesn’t care” excuses. Little rationalizations leading to larger ones. I’m pretty sure the guys who brought us the banking crisis didn’t start out a liars and cheats. They slowly were tempted, one tiny step at a time, toward the evil of greed. Maybe if they’d been carrying around a big crucifix they would have been less tempted?

Temptations are everywhere. Maybe your temptation is pride, or sloth, or envy, or fear. Temptation is like a spiritual and moral virus — and like a physical virus it strikes at a person’s weakest point. Which is why the disciplines of Lent can actually be a pretty cool deal. They are like carrying around a large metal cross. They are a reminder that evil is out there and we should try to keep ourselves spiritually fit so we can fight against that evil (or be offered protection from it).

You give up sweets and every time you’re tempted and say, ‘I gave that up for Lent,’ you’re leaning toward God — even if you don’t recognize it. You give up gossiping and every time you walk away from the water cooler negative chat, you’re walking toward God. The final line in last Sunday’s gospel about Jesus being tempted in the desert was, “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.” The emphasis is mine and, in 50 years of hearing that gospel I’ve never noticed them before. Then I met the man with the crucifix at the bus stop and the words rang true. We don’t conquer evil once and for all. We conquer it a little bit every day, with every good deed we do, every prayer we say, every cross we bear, every virtue we practice as we fight our vices. And when we do, the devil departs — for a time.

 

A Pope’s Resignation

The word itself is telling: Resignation.

The etymology of is based in the word “resign”, which has an original meaning in the reconciliation of accounts but from which eventually came the sense of giving one’s self up to a particular emotion or a situation. An elderly man steps down from his powerful job and we say he resigns. And then we ask why because we’re not used to the powerful willingly letting go of the reins.

But it isn’t just that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning from his job. He’s giving himself up to his situation – he’s resigned to what he knows of himself before his God: He’s old. He’s tired. His health is waning, if not failing. He’d probably like a few naps, for God’s sake. Instead of pretending (as many of us do in this culture of youth) that he can keep going on with the energy he once had, he is resigned to his situation.

If this were not the Pope stepping down from a job, no one would notice. Thousands, if not millions, of elderly stop out every day, and we all consider it quite normal. What 85-year-old in your life still works? They are tired and aching and, in many cases, quite aware they are slowing dying. Most elderly people accept this fact of life. They are “resigned” to the vagaries of old age. And we let them be.

But when someone of great leadership and power resigns – especially by admitting in humility that they have become old and are no longer able to carry on – people are surprised. They question, they challenge. One of the first messages I saw on my Facebook news feed today asked: What? The pope resigned? Can he do that?

Yes, actually, he can. While there’s no app for that, there is a rule for it in Canon Law (Canon 322 special squiggle typeface character 2, specifically). No, it hasn’t happened in lo many hundreds of years, and so it is unexpected and pretty big news. For church geeks, it’s a heyday of speculation and prognostication: Benedict waited until some of the old guard had died out, so some wonder if he held back from resigning sooner so he could stack the deck for those who would elect his successor before he resigned? Oh, fiddlesticks, others will say. He appointed more than 60 of the current 118 cardinals eligible to vote, so the deck – if it can be stacked – already is. And besides, people were surprised when John Paul II was elected and even more shocked when Benedict was. The Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways.

That said, some of the names being bandied about as potential popes can be found here and here. Lots of people want an American pope, but it makes more sense to have one from Africa, where the Church is growing exponentially. Then again, my heart lies with religious orders, so I think we might do worse than Christoph Schoenborn, O.P. But if Cardinal Dolan was elected, would that mean Stephen Colbert would shoot at least one Colbert Report from the Vatican, and if so, how cool would that be? (If you don’t get that reference, see here.)

It will be an interesting couple of weeks for Catholics, and even more so for Pope Benedict. He deserves a rest and, while I cannot say I’ve been thrilled with much of his direction, I respect his intellect and I admire his courage and humility in stepping down. And, heck, I admire his energy thus far. I’m tired all the time; I can’t imagine how I’ll feel at 85.

Pope Benedict is letting go of power – something many leaders have a hard time doing – because he knows the Church needs something he cannot give at this time. We could all probably learn a lesson in that.

(If you are curious to know how a papal transition takes place, one of the best descriptions can be found here, written by Thomas Reese, S.J. )