I do a lot of walking. I’m supposed to be moving for the good of my body, but it’s just as much for my soul.
Lots of reflecting is done on these treks.
Sure have needed that thinking time lately. Go ahead and call me a spoilsport, drama queen or worse, as so many people who write me regularly do. I think I have good reason to be worried about what the results of our presidential election will bring. We’ve just completed a campaign season during which I’ve seen my gender, ethnicity and profession attacked by the team that is now about to take charge. So, yes, this also feels personal.
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Progressives have to figure out how to move forward and preserve our freedoms and rights, as well as protect the vulnerable. (I keep repeating in my head: Midterm elections, 2018.) In the meantime, I’m doing what I can to not slide down into a pool of negativity.
“Show me something good” was my prayer during one particular walk. Like a little boost sent from above, there was the placard I almost walked into, announcing an afternoon’s speaker at Loyola University’s lakefront campus.
Who would have thought that the way to combat — albeit temporarily — my concerns about the first reality-TV star president would be to listen to another reality TV star, albeit someone very different from our newly elected leader.
That’s how I find myself listening to one of those inspiring Chicago stories that fill our city. In this case it was Sister Alicia Torres, who one year earlier took home the top honors on the Food Network’s cooking competition show “Chopped.”
Torres originally came to Chicago for a college education. The plan was to get her degree, eventually marry and have children. And she’d keep cooking, something she’s enjoyed since she was a teen.
Instead, the 2007 Loyola grad became a nun, a member of the Franciscans of the Eucharist. Her order is based at the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels in West Humboldt Park, where they feed some 700 families a month. Oh, she’s still cooking alright.
Isn’t it something how plans can get upended and result in something more glorious than imagined?
Word was out that “Chopped” was on the hunt for a cooking nun, so though Torres wasn’t familiar with the Food Network show, before long she found herself slicing and dicing in front of the cameras. Winning came with a $10,000 prize, which has gone toward feeding those the Franciscans serve.
You’d think someone who lives among and serves people who are truly hungry day in and day out, someone who – just like the residents of the community – wakes to the sound of gunfire and sirens might be weary. But, no; Torres is a tiny bundle of joy and energy with an infectious laugh.
When Torres tells the audience she’s gotten more from those she serves than they from her, you believe her. She describes with such love the children she feeds, her admiration for the moms she calls “heroes” trying to do right by their offspring. Her account of hauling produce in the early hours of the morning makes the task sound inviting.
The lecture was just the sort of thing I needed, proof that even when things are bleak, positive exists.
I know we’re in for a prolonged battle to truly keep America magnificent, and to save the world, really. But I thank Sister Alicia for the reminder that there’s good around us.
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