I’m so pleased this week, to feature another in this series of musings on growing up in Pittsburgh and growing up with the Kerry campaign:

The Little House, Part 3: The Prayers From the Porch Swing
Rediscovering My Faith as a Call to Service

by Jessica Szabo

The first time I put on a Kerry campaign shirt, I reached into my jewelry box on a whim and grabbed a tiny gold necklace I’d been given years before, a pendant with Mary, the mother of Jesus, engraved in the center. The necklace was a high school graduation gift from my father. I wore it for a time when he gave it to me, but it had been hanging on a hook in my jewelry box since college, a time when I made several attempts to completely re-invent myself into something I never even wanted to be in an effort to fit in with one of the little cliques at the small school I attended.

At thirty-two I know I would have made more genuine friends if I had just been myself, but at nineteen and twenty I was lonely and a bit naïve. I never did anything truly dangerous, just plenty of silly things I would have been better off not doing. I’d spend all the extra money I had on some ugly shiny velour shirt and CDs I didn’t even enjoy listening to just because my friends were into the gothic subculture, or I’d let my grades suffer just because everyone else wanted to play a role playing game and wanted me to watch them or go with them when they went shopping for more materials. The only time I paid attention to spirituality or religion was when my friends got interested in it, then I’d delve into whatever books they were passing around.

In my four years of college I wrote one paper on Catholicism and attended Mass one time with a devout Catholic friend who graduated the year I started and moved away. In graduate school most of the people I studied with were very rigid in their anti-religion beliefs, and there was an unwritten rule that you did not disagree with the group if you wished to obtain your degree. The two times I thought they were going to run me off campus were when I voiced support for the decision to use military action in Afghanistan, and when they found out I was baptized and raised Catholic. By then I had matured enough not to unquestioningly go along with everything everyone around me said, but I lacked the confidence to speak up for myself.

A few months after graduation, I became involved with the Kerry campaign.
As I learned more about the Senator’s life and work, I slowly began to realize that the faith that sustained him was the same type of faith that my grandmother taught me on the porch of the row house overlooking the little house; a deep, personal faith that taught that we are here to serve others, not just pursue our own interests. My earliest religious memories are of watching grandma’s mother’s ring glint in the sun as her hands moved in prayer, and learning the power of patience and compassion by example as she attempted to teach a curious four-year old to recite the rosary. And so it was on that day that I put on my first Kerry campaign T-shirt, and added the necklace that had come to symbolize the faith I had pushed aside, that I took a quiet moment, as my grandma had taught me so many years before, and prayed for my safety campaigning in a very unfriendly area, and for Senator Kerry, and for our country.

I have prayed every day since, and when I realized I would be purchasing and remodeling the little house for myself to move into, I decided I would begin attending Mass as a fully practicing Catholic when I returned home. I enrolled in RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults) classes and began to read Christian and Catholic web sites. I searched for more information about the Catholic religion, and a parish to join in my home area. In the meantime I began attending Mass at the church nearest to me and chose a service organization to do volunteer work. I will make green remodeling the little house the first step in a lifestyle that makes me a part of the solution to all of the environmental problems our country and our world are facing.

I’m still working on determining how my professional life is going to serve others. For now, I pray the mental health articles I write for the local paper inspire those who need it to seek treatment. I pray the articles I write on the environment encourage someone to switch light bulbs or turn off a light. I pray the soldiers and veterans whose families I write about read the articles and know their loved ones are thinking of them and those who serve with them.

I still reach for the little gold necklace when I need to be reminded to make that extra effort to do at least one thing that day that will serve the greater good, instead of simply doing whatever would be easiest for me at that moment. I also wear it when I need to remember that I am on a path that will lead me home. Recently, I learned that the little pendant represents Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, the patron saint of the state of Pennsylvania.