Biography
The Reverend John Shea is Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Mundelein Seminary of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Formerly a Professor at the University of Notre Dame and Boston College, Father Shea is the author of eight books of theology and two books of poetry, including The Hour of the Unexpected and The God Who Fell From Heaven.  [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"The Lure of Faith" 
This first story is a contemporary parable inspired by a line in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It is about a little girl by the name of Patricia who is ten years old and plants pennies. Patricia lives on Farmer Avenue. They call it Farmer Avenue because many, many, many, many years ago farmers used to go back and forth on this thoroughfare bringing their produce in and out of town. As they would, they would stop and talk to one another and trade news about births, deaths, baptisms, and weddings.

The highway changed all that. Now Farmer Avenue is a tree-line suburban street. The only people who go down Farmer Avenue are people who go down it to get on the bus and go to work in the morning. The only people who come up Farmer Avenue are the people who get off the bus and walk up Farmer Avenue in the evening back to their homes.

Patricia lives on Farmer Avenue. It is summer time, but the summer time has not proved to be all that Patricia wanted it to be. Although she plays baseball during the day and goes swimming and hangs around with Tim Croak, who is a year older than she is, as much as Tim Croak will allow her to hang around with him, she is bored -- like totally.

Her mother has said, "Young lady, if I hear you say one more time you're bored......." So, Patricia goes into the bathroom, locks the door and looks into the sympathetically listening mirror and says, "Boring, boring, boring, boring."

It was in this frame of mind that our ten-year-old Patricia began to plant pennies. She went down three houses from her own house and with a yellow chalk drew a large arrow on the sidewalk and wrote, "Treasure ahead." Three squares farther down the sidewalk, she drew another arrow and wrote, "Treasure ahead." Then directly in front of her house, she drew a sideways arrow and wrote, "Treasure near." The arrow pointed to a large tree in Patricia's front yard which split for the first time about four foot from the ground. In the notch of that tree, Patricia planted a penny.

Then she ran upstairs to her second floor bedroom window which fronted the front lawn, which fronted the tree, which fronted the walk, and she watched all the people go by.

No two people went by in the same way. Some people just walked on by. They never looked down at the arrows at all. Other people walked on by and looked down at the arrows, but they didn't stop. They knew they were going to be taken. There were people who got to the sideways arrow and gave it a sideways glance.

There was a woman who went all the way to the tree. She peeked into the notch and found the penny. She flipped it in the air, grabbed it and went on her way.

There was a man who went to the tree. He looked in, picked up the penny and looked at it like a rare coin collector and put it back. No, thank you, please.

From her second floor bedroom window, Patricia saw them all. She hoped that the hurriers would stop, the stoppers would seek, and the seekers would find, and the finders would rejoice and she would come down from the second floor and place another penny in the tree.

Patricia's favorite was a tall, thin, young man, with a three-piece suit and briefcase. Although he was dressed like that, he didn't fool Patricia for a moment. She knew that when he got home, he took off those clothes and put on cut-offs, tee shirt, gym shoes and shot baskets before dinner.

The first day he walked on by and never looked down at those arrows at all. The second day, when he got to the sideways arrow, he did give the tree a sideways glance. The third day when he got to the sideways arrow, he genuflected to tie his shoe.

From her bedroom window, Patricia saw him and thought to herself, "He needs help." It was late that very night when Patricia was thinking about how to help him. She looked out her bedroom window and there through the dark and tangled leaves of the tree approached a tall, thin, young man in cut-offs, tee shirt, gym shoes. Instinctively Patricia threw open the window and yelled, "Go for it!"

The young man looked up like he had suddenly been drenched by a storm he had not seen coming. In the surprise of having been found out, he turned and began to run away from Patricia and the treasure she had planted there especially for him. From her second floor bedroom window as she watched him run farther and farther, his back bobbing away from her into the darkness, she thought to herself, "I'll get him yet!" Patricia knew that even while we sleep, the seed is in the ground; even while we sleep, the seed breaks the earth; even while we sleep, the seed that breaks the earth becomes a stalk; even while we sleep, the stalk sprouts an ear; and even while we sleep, in the ear the wheat ripens and the sickle waits.

* * * *

The second story may be about some unpopular people. It is a story about a cigar smoker, a cigarette smoker, an airplane, a little girl and a surprise.

The cigar smoker had done a workshop in Los Angeles. The workshop went from fair to pathetic. He barely escaped with his life. He hopped in the cab and was moving toward the airport. This having been one of his worst days, he thought that if he could only get to the airport, if he could only get to his plane, if he could only get a ticket in the smoking section of the plane (this was many, many, many years ago when they allowed you not only to smoke on planes, but they allowed you also to smoke cigars on planes), if he could only have some food, if he could only smoke his cigar, everything would be all right.

He got to the airport. He got a seat in the smoking section. He got to his seat. He plunked himself down -- it was an aisle seat -- and there next to him in the middle seat was a small four-year-old girl. She carried on to that plane everything that four-year-old girls carry on to planes. She had a half eaten bag of Fritos; she had a box of broken crayons and a coloring book that was mauled; she had a doll with an arm that was broken. Next to her in the window seat was her mother.

There are a lot of great things about flying out of Los Angeles, but often times it smogged in. When the plane takes off, it moves into the darkness of the smog, but as it climbs the sky higher and higher, there is one magnificent moment when it breaks out of the clouds and into the sun.

This happened and the pilot turned off the no smoking sign and the woman in the window seat, the mother of the little girl, lit up her cigarette. You see, she is the cigarette smoker. And she smoked ever so carefully in short little puffs to keep from blowing any smoke into the little girl's face.

When the cigar smoker saw this, he began to boil inside for he knew what this meant. This woman was going to smoke her cigarette, but there was going to be no smoke in this little girl's face. But, when he lit up his cigar, this little girl would be there, coughing next to him. He would be the bad guy of all times.

Inside he began to boil, for did he not get a seat in the smoking section? He did. Did they not allow you to smoke in the smoking section? They do. Would he be allowed to smoke in the smoking section? He would not. He sat there and fumed.

The woman in the window seat put out her cigarette. She turned to the middle seat and said to her daughter, "Jennifer, come here." She picked the little girl up, put her on her lap and said to her, "Look out at the clouds." Jennifer did. She looked out and she looked down at the clouds. She said, "Uh, uh, uh, uh. We're upside down. We're upside down."

Her mother told her, being the soul of logic and reason, "We are not upside down at all, Jennifer. We're in an airplane. We have gone up in the air. We have gone through the clouds. We are now above the clouds. We are right side up." Then caught in her own logic she said, "The clouds are upside down."

To which Jennifer said, "Uh, uh. We're upside down."

The woman rang for the cabin attendant and down the aisle she came with all six months training on the line. She leaned across the cigar smoker and said to the little girl, "What is your name?"

The little girl said, "Jennifer."

She said, "Jennifer. What is the matter?"

Jennifer said, "We're upside down."

The cabin attendant said, "No, no, no, Jennifer. You are not upside down. I, too, sometimes am afraid when I fly but, Jennifer, you are not upside down. We are right side up. I'll get you a coke."

To which Jennifer said, "We're upside down."

At that time, Jennifer's mother leaving reason resorted to discipline. She picked Jennifer off her lap and sat her very firmly down back in the middle seat and said, "Sit there and be good."

Now the cigar smoker was taking this all in. He was usually a very reticent chap but he leaned over to the little girl, as she held her bony four-year-old legs and whimpered a little bit to herself, and said to her, "Jennifer, you are upside down, but it is okay."

To which Jennifer climbed over the arm of the chair and sat in the cigar smoker's lap. For one moment, one dazzling moment, before her mother could rescue her, one moment comparable to when a plane breaks out of the clouds and into the sun, the cigar smoker knew he really didn't need his cigar.

Interview with John Shea
Interviewed by Gunther Knoedler

Gunther Knoedler: John, thank you again for those marvelous stories. They remind me again of parables and how effective they are as a teaching method. I was thinking about how Jesus used parables as his principal form of teaching. Do you have a favorite parable from scripture?

John Shea: I suppose mine would be the parable of the prodigal father. I also like the workers in the vineyard a lot. I like those stories because they have a way in which the listener can be taken by surprise by the story and forced into looking at things in a new way. I think that was what Jesus was trying to do with his stories.

Knoedler: To me, parables are really a picturesque story of every-day life which packs a dynamite punch somehow. Tell me the dynamite punch of ten-year-old Patricia's story and her planting the pennies.

Shea: Patricia's story is that in life situations there are continual invitations offered to people. Part of the power of faith is to respond to those invitations and to run with them. Even if we don't respond to those invitations, the invitor keeps inviting over and over and over again. That is how the story ends with tapping into the parable of Jesus from the gospel of Mark about the seed growing secretly. The power of the seed continues to produce even though we may or may not be responding to it. Even though we may be asleep, it continues to beckon. That is what Patricia is about.

Knoedler: Thank you, John.