5/21 ST. STEPHEN'S HIGH [Riverton, Wyoming]

The first of many stops that have a name including “River.” I will eventually mix them all up hopelessly and require outside assistance to sort it out. The White Bison page is currently down, but I'll track down the real name as soon as I can.

This stop was an odd one. At each stop, we have a local coordinator who is in charge of making sure everything is ready for us and in charge of local advertising. We couldn’t get in contact with our coordinator as we pulled in late at night; but of course it was late. Stranger still was that we couldn’t get in contact with our coordinator the next morning, while we waited around trying to figure out which building we were supposed to set up in. To cap it off, no one at the school had ever heard her name before.

This was a bad sign.

Eventually, someone at the school let us into a dark little basement beneath the church. The feeling was instantly oppressive; combined with everyone’s confusion at our presence, I had a strong feeling that we were not supposed to be here, or that there was something we weren’t supposed to stir up.

The four walls were, at last, decorated festively. Apparently, the night before the church was used for a celebration: the Jesuit order which had presided there for 125 years had decided to pull out, abandoning the church and focusing their attentions on some other community. Last night was their last community celebration.

The Jesuit priests were in attendance, apparently having no further regular duties left to do in this place. One, an older man, stood up to speak during the day and came within a hairsbreadth of apologizing for the Church’s abuses. Then, he either became frightened or simply distracted, because his mind wandered off in new directions and he spoke for several more moments before running out of steam and sitting down. Much time was spent in the cars afterwards debating if he had intended to apologize, and about what stopped him, if so.

After lunch, the feeling in the basement started to get better, and I no longer felt so unwelcome. Keeping busy helped, too. This was the first time I needed to set up the PA system I had borrowed in Minnesota, and there was a certain amount of frenzied, hidden trail-and-error involved. Sound has never really been my forte (hehe) and there’s a lot for me to learn. For now, however, I just need to get it working and sounding not-awful with little time to spare.

Predictably, turnout was very small. I don’t think many people knew about this.

One woman, looking very, very pained, said something interesting. She said she loved the Jesuits and all that they’ve done; but maybe, (hard swallow), “it’s time for you to go.” It was clearly a difficult thing for her to say, and I ran it through my head many times while driving to the next location. I had a long time for it to run.