Across the Line ©2002 Becky Chabot//Guarabamba Productions
What can I tell you about my memories of Georgia? This will be my seventh trip to Columbus (it would by my eighth, but I missed the 2005 vigil). I can now drive around Columbus without a map (no, really, I can....so if you get lost this year, let me know!). I have watched friends get arrested. I have heard amazing speeches, heard great music, and watched people have their preconceptions blown open. But there is one moment that stands out for me, beyond everything else.In my very first year at the Teach-In, I heard a homily that has stayed with me since. Fr. Ted Gabrielli, best known as one of the emcees every, presided at that Mass and his homily, about the nature of God's love, carried me through my time in El Salvador, through working at an orphanage in Cochabamba, and through all of the Teach-Ins and Sunday morning vigils over the years. That one homily explained the preferential option for the poor better than any book I've read, better than I would ever be able to explain it on my own. As I'm not sure I can do Ted's homily or the stories within it justice, I'll just give his main point: A mother loves all of her children equally, but the one who needs the most she has extra love for. And that is how God loves. It's pretty powerful stuff and when I think of Georgia, I'll forever remember it as the place where I learned that.
Becky Chabot
Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, 2009
Creighton University, 2004
