Sandpoint

On a balmy afternoon in a car lacking air conditioning and bursting with my belongings, a nine-hour drive from Boise behind me, I pulled into Sandpoint, Idaho for my summer assignment on Friday. Fr. Dennis Day excitedly showed me the four-bedroom rectory just a couple blocks from St. Joseph Church. He gave me a tour of the still pristine new church facility, recently built on the edge of city limits to house the 500 or so families who call the parish their spiritual home. We went on a tour of the town and surrounding area on Saturday morning, including a quick trip to Schweitzer Mountain where the local layers of mountains, lakes, and creation can be most breathtakingly indulged. My snapshot does little justice to the scenery.

For my first evening Fr. Dennis planned an ambitious schedule. I unloaded my bags, cleaned my face, and changed my clothes before we met friends of Father's for dinner at a steakhouse. Jim and Susan related their friendship and adventures with Fr. Dennis and asked a few questions about me too. Afterward we walked down the street to the Panida Theatre, which reminded me slightly of the Egyptian in Boise. There they were showing a movie called G-Dog, the story of a white Jesuit priest named Fr. Gregory Boyle who went into the gang capital of the world, Boyle Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles, and launched the country's most successful gang-intervention and rehab program by adhering to a simple idea: "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." We left astounded at the way Fr. Boyle transcended race and background to give people a chance at sustainable, meaningful futures after they were incarcerated. See the movie if you are able. It's available on iTunes or Amazon, and Fr. Boyle's book Tattoos on the Heart is a companion to the film.

The first night in Sandpoint also included a barn dance. Does it get any better than that for small-town Idaho? This one was across the lake in the Lewis family barn to celebrate their daughter's high school graduation the next day, and I would have sworn half the population was there to dance the electric slide and roast marshmallows over the bonfire. It was a dose of simplicity and joy.

Before the weekend Masses at St. Joseph, Fr. Dennis and I drove 25 miles to Clark Fork for their 5 o'clock liturgy on Saturday evening. He told me it was the smallest church in Idaho, only a few hundred square feet with capacity for 80 shoulder-to-shoulder and spilling into the entryway. The carpet looked like astroturf, and the parishioners conversed and cackled before Mass like a tiny town should. They invited me to their last-Sunday-of-the-month potluck and expressed gratitude for my being here this summer and decision to pursue the priesthood. We visited for a short time and hopped back on the road to make it for 6:45 Mass at St. Joseph.

At St. Joseph, I shook an endless stream of parishioner hands on Saturday and Sunday. Fr. Dennis had me introduce myself briefly after communion, and I invited as many people as possible to introduce themselves. I won't be able to remember most of the names, but one interaction stands apart. A slight, gray-haired grandma got my attention by putting her hand on my back as I talked to another couple. She waited patiently until I could give her my full attention and said something I couldn't quite make out. I had to lean quite close to her frail body slightly hunched over a walker. She repeated herself: "Going to Mass is the most important thing in the world to me," she said. "I can't imagine why other people don't get that." Faithful people abound here.

Now I'm sitting in the office having spent a couple days meeting the staff, counting the Sunday offerings with Kathy, the parish administrator, having shared a few fine meals with Fr. Dennis, including fish tacos for lunch today overlooking neighboring Dover Bay, having made plans with the Legion of Mary to visit the sick and distribute communion tomorrow, having talked to the parish youth minister about bringing a delegation of teens to the Steubenville Northwest Conference at the end of July, having slept soundly in the cool, sunny reaches of Northern Idaho, having settled comfortably into a place that will treat me royally and form me vitally during the coming weeks. It's good to be here.