Tag: agency

Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, 
for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. 
Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, 
for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.

Rumi

There was this one time of mistaken identity at my eldest son’s wedding. If you have a son getting married, I feel your pain. There’s basically nothing for you to do at his wedding except maybe be a roving psychotherapist or unpaid Lyft driver. As I have five sons, I suppose I should just get comfortable with the ideal: a week of looking bemused coupled with directing questions to one of the many people who are actually in charge. Father of the groom is not a bad gig, really, it just takes a certain willingness to follow orders and then hide when things get tense.

So there we were at the wedding rehearsal at an old Catholic Church in Brooklyn, New York. It was late in the afternoon and fat, humid summertime clouds were threatening rain outside. Inside, there was some tension up by the altar—lots of wedding directions running headlong up against bad listening behaviors, so I made an excuse to go out to the front of the church and direct the late arrivals in. God forgive me, but this was a lie. I was going outside to hide.

The thing about New York on a summer afternoon is that if you are still enough, you can hear the symphony of the place. Standing near the curb, I could hear the orchestra tuning up: the distant sirens running scales, car horns hooting and the rubberized, hollow d-sharp of a basketball being dribbled. Children were laughing, and a dog was barking. There was the rasp of a window being opened and the bass notes of car engines idling. The comfort of the city singing to itself and the heat of the pavement leaking up into my shoes lessened my stress. In front of me, next to the curb, a minivan had popped its hatch and was beeping a warning as the back door was rising. A man stepped out of the passenger side speaking jovial Spanish to the driver, he couldn’t have been more than six feet away. He smiled at me, nodded and walked around to the back of the now open van. Leaning inside he said something else to the driver, and they both laughed, then he poked his head around, looked at me and said, “I can get the first one, but you’ll have to take the other.”

Now, this is one of those moments where you can argue the point or submit to whatever strange thing the universe has planned for you. Maybe it was also because I’d just spent several days congenially doing whatever I was asked in the name of peace and harmony. Whatever the reason was, I went along with it. “Sorry!” I said hustling over to the back of the van. Inside were two suitcases, one of them was apparently my responsibility. By this time the man had the other suitcase out and was saying his goodbyes to the driver. I didn’t know what to say, so I opened with something neutral: “Did you just get here?” 

“No,” he says. “I’ve been here about a week staying with my cousin.” The guy in the van toots the horn and waves as he drives off. “That’s my cousin.”

I’m standing there with his roller board, its metal arms almost accusingly pointing at me.

“Well?” he says. “We should get going! Lead the way.”

You might say at this juncture that that would have been an ideal time to clear the air as it were, but the city was so melodious and the walk of shame back to the apse just seemed wrong, so I went for it. I picked a direction and ambled up the sidewalk, suitcase in tow. Amazingly, he followed. Next to a black wrought iron fence, he stopped to admire a little garden full of flowers, and we chatted amiably. He had arrived from Costa Rica a week ago. He’d been to New York several times before. There was so much food at his cousin’s house, he felt as if he’d gained ten pounds. I started walking again, slowing down by a gate to let him catch up. To my surprise, he turned, opened the gate and began walking up the pathway of the enormous house next to the church. 

Now what was I going to do? There he was, standing at the foot of the stairs of the house, apparently waiting for me to go up and in before him. At this point even I was really curious about how this was all going to turn out, so I soldiered on, hefting the suitcase up to the porch and ringing the doorbell. The man I now knew as José was standing with his back to me, staring out at the front lawn. I could hear someone coming from inside, so I took the opportunity to walk down to him and get the other suitcase too. By the time I was back to the door it was open, and a woman was waving happily to José saying, “Father José! I’m so glad you made it! We’ve been expecting you!”

The plaque to the left of the door told me the rest of the story: “Blessed Sacrament Rectory.” Father José was the new Priest. Now the only remaining questions were: who did Father Jose think I was, and what did he think I was doing with him?

The woman (who as it turns out was the Parish Secretary) turned to me, held her hand out and said, “And you are?” 

Shaking her hand, I replied, “Father of the Groom.”

Father José was stunned. “Father of the Groom? What does that mean? Why did you help with the luggage?”

“My son’s wedding rehearsal is at the Church. I was standing outside getting some fresh air when you asked me to carry your suitcase, so I did.”

“You’re not a Priest? I could have sworn you were a Priest here. You were just standing there like you were waiting for me, so I assumed…” He says.

I picked the two suitcases up and moved them into the vestibule. José, the Secretary Alexandra and I were laughing. I extended invites to them to attend the wedding on Saturday. It was starting to drizzle, so I jogged back over to the church. Back inside, no had even missed me; they probably wouldn’t have even cared that I almost joined the Priesthood while I was gone.

Over my career, I’ve had a lot of people work for me. It was only after I was older and a tiny bit wiser that it occurred to me my employees had their own (unspoken) rationale for doing what I asked. People do things for their own reasons. A person’s motivation is wholly their own. Consider this: you cannot make anyone do anything. The best you can hope for is a result matching your request. The actual reason you got to a conclusion? That dwells in a place you cannot ever see (as Rumi might say). Every day we look at the outcome of our demands and believe we are the ones that made the results happen. In so doing we negate the precious singular agency of another person and substitute our own. When we do this, our spouse, friend, or co-worker ceases to matter in a small but significant way. What a loss! My new friend Father José thought a fellow Priest was waiting for him to carry his luggage. He walked all the way to the rectory with a worldview based on assumed motivations. Me? I did what he asked because I was happy to be away from a wedding rehearsal. This kind of thing happens every day to each of us. Give up the idea that you can make someone do something. Stop assuming you know the why behind another’s actions. And should you ever find yourself being asked to carry someone’s stuff but don’t know why, consider carrying it for them anyway and see where it takes you!