Most of us wear several hats in our many relationships. We may be children and parents and spouses simultaneously. We’re coworkers, neighbors, friends, and citizens, exercising these distinct roles all in a single day. We’re believers with convictions but also an openness to other points of view. Most of us are not just one thing. We play more than one role that’s of great concern to us. We don’t drop out of this constellation of identities when we actively engage one of them.
Among the primary roles I play are those of writer, public speaker, and catechist of the church. I don’t cease to be any of these while performing as another. In fact, it’s fundamentally as a catechist that I write and speak. My family members might even roll their eyes should you ask if I ever stop being a catechist for five minutes. Before I earned a certificate authorizing me to serve as a religious educator, I was in pursuit of the teachable moment in religious matters as early as the playground. I’d send my Protestant pals home with a rosary or take them on a tour of the stations of the cross around the parish church. How many childhood friends knelt beside me as I endeavored to explain the veneration of saints in front of some imposing statue? It’s a wonder, really, that I managed to have playmates at all.
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