Illuminations Despite amputations and endless ailments, he
keeps going deeper
By ARTHUR JONES
St. Ambrose pastor Fr. Tom Ryan has
no legs, but his Berkeley parish runs like clockwork anyway.
Hes got three kidneys (his license plate is Kidney3) and
needs a fourth. (These days doctors dont remove failing kidneys when they
do a transplant.)
Ryans had hundreds of laser surgeries on his eyes, yet can
still see peoples needs. In less than five years, hes brought a
161-family parish, median age 68, up to 320 families. He revels in the new
noises in church: babies crying.
He had a major heart attack in 1998, only 22 percent of his heart
is functioning, yet his embrace is as large as all outdoors. And, his doctors
tell him, heck, you can live a while longer with a partial heart and failing
kidneys. (Hes on dialysis three days a week and hoping for a donor.)
Ryan, 60, is a member of a local group of have-nots called Stumps
R Us (some members are an eye or an arm short, too) but his own stumps
arent doing too well. The blood vessels around the stumps are drying up,
and walking on his prostheses is getting harder. That doesnt stop the
parishioners. They take him over to church in his wheelchair if need be, even
though they know hes going to give them the 25-minute homily hes
been working on all week.
Life lessons? Ryan doesnt dwell on his ailments,
doesnt avoid them. But he does start at the beginning, what it was like
as a 15-year-old who lost 56 pounds in 10 days and was plunged into viral
diabetes when an everyday immunization went wrong.
If you fight whatever you have to, said Ryan,
and say this is not something that will destroy you, you go deeper. You
deepen your religion, your spirituality. My spirituality has deepened
immensely.
Because of his illnesses, I think I learned more about
Christ or Jesus himself. Nothing was going right, physically. I was a diabetic,
totally dependent on things.
His family prayed a lot, he said. He had a distant cousin who was
Blessed John Neumanns third miracle. Ryan himself, as a teen, went out to
Mother (now St.) Katharine Drexels shrine and told her: If you
dont want to do anything, dont want to take the diabetes away,
fine. Im not closing my heart to not being cured.
Seated 45 years later in his small paneled office, people passing
through doing parish stuff, Ryan reflected on his teenage attitude, I
said, but if Im supposed to have it, obviously its for the benefit
of those who have something, and theyre not dealing with it. They just
want to give up on God. They want to give up on themselves. They want to give
up on prayer life.
I have to be an instrument of prayer life for a lot of
people, he decided, and entered St. Charles Seminary, Philadelphia. When,
later, the seminary suggested he take a year off to bolster his health, Ryan
switched tracks and became a Marist priest, ordained in 1969.
His first assignment was Atlanta when Archbishop Paul Hallinan (an
American star at Vatican II, 1962-65) was there. Great innovator, putting
everything together. Ryan loved those years, which ended when he was
assigned to Marist High School -- a chore. I was trained for parish
work.
Then parish life again, in Marietta, Ga., Newt Gingrich
country, St. Joes. The best times. I was innovative, trying to do
well.
But he had one of those legendary pastors: I tried to change
the liturgy to Vatican II rulings. The next week the pastor would say,
Let me tell you what the real rule is, and changed everything back
again.
There were slave cabins on the church property. Ryan wanted them
used as youth cabins for programs for the kids. Nooo. No, no, no.
No kids on the property, said the pastor and the other priest.
Hemmed in on two sides over many issues, Ryan appealed to higher
authority and was told it was easier to move one person than two: Did Ryan want
study time in Rome or Berkeley?
There was a new Institute of Spirituality and Worship at Berkeley.
Ryan went.
It was the early 1970s. Ryan offered to help out at the Oakland,
Calif., cathedral on weekends. He loved the region but returned to his Marist
roots after his study year. Not for long. The Oakland cathedral pastor called
him, said, The people loved you here. Can you come back?
He did, and has been in Oakland ever since. He was almost six
years at the cathedral when, in 1978, his health suddenly worsened. The
diabetes rapidly affected his eyes. More than 900 laser treatments saved them,
but his kidneys failed.
He was on dialysis, working in a Danville, Calif., parish, when
the University of California hospital called, said they had a kidney, and did
he want it? July 2 is 22 years, said Ryan. But the diabetes had
created a leg infection. The first leg was amputated in 1980. As a priest,
I was the radical in Danville, pushing things out there, people coming
alive. Then they moved me to Hayward, and then as pastor at St, Josephs,
Pinole. My first pastorship, almost six years. That was good.
Ryans next assignment was hospital chaplaincy, but he was
susceptible to all the bugs floating around the medical center, getting
whooping cough, strep throat and myriad other diseases in rapid succession. A
stint as associate, then to St. Augustines, Oakland, as co-pastor with
two women. That was an experimental three years, he says with
satisfaction.
Following a 1989-90 sabbatical, Ryan nursed his health in a series
of associate positions. But in 1995 he lost his second leg to diabetes.
I thought, How the hell am I going to get
around? I mean Id learned to do everything with one leg, shower,
everything. But how do I shower with no legs?
More than a decade earlier, when Ryan was about to adjust to life
with one leg, he met local radio DJ Dan Sorkin at a wedding reception. They
were introduced because Sorkin also had only one leg. And Ryan thought, if this
fellow can do so well with one leg, I can, too.
Sorkin said he was thinking of starting a group called Stumps R
Us, and Ryan became a member. You can have any part of your body
missing, said a laughing Ryan, and theres 188 of us
now. At the Giants and As games, when the Stumps are present in the
skyboxes theyre invited to use, the scoreboard lights up and welcomes
them. One Giants official has an arm and a leg missing.
Through Stumps, Ryan found people who could help him adjust to
losing two legs. Legs or not, hes in his fifth year as St. Ambroses
pastor.
Ryan succeeded an elderly pastor who had canceled everything from
the parish council to Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Sea Scouts. They were using too
much electricity. The pastor had installed 25-watt bulbs in all the house
lights. Ryan recreated the parish council, expects every new parish member to
sign up for one ministry and said the name of the game in any parish
thats going to work is hospitality. If theres no hospitality
in a gathering of one hour, forget it. And he put in 100-watt bulbs.
But the kidneys are failing, and the legs are ailing. The
last two years have been the worst, because Ive had to go back on
dialysis. Im trying to get another transplant.
He thought for a moment and added, My health energizes
me. And storytelling. I can sell peanuts to an elephant, he
said. For his homilies, I tell a lot of good stories. Sometimes Ill
read a poem. Some people say, You talk too long. Others say,
I forget how long youre talking once you get started.
Some of his best tales are those that trip off his tongue about
death and dying. I tease people about being morbid about death. Death is
a wonderful experience. [Cardinal Joseph] Bernardin taught us this. I mean
Ive already got two feet in the grave. In my coffin I want a mirror right
up to my neck, and a sign that reads: Hey, howre you doin?
Dont forget youre next.
He laughed at himself, and added, Ive got one other
thing planned. Ive told the funeral director -- put me in a boys
coffin because Im not that long. Im only 5-foot-1 with my legs
off.
This day he had his legs on. And on them walked me to the door.
Stumps an all.
Arthur Jones is NCR editor-at-large.
National Catholic Reporter, May 12,
2000
|