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MIM: The Big Secret

Mary Paradis is a long time member of St. Joan of Arc with her husband, Claude. Mary is currently the co-chair of the Mental Illness Ministry. Mary can be reached at claudemaryparadis@comcast.net.

Andrew Zimmerman, in telling the story of the Philippine government approving his visit, used a phrase that I love: “a pinch-me moment.” Our whole Mental Illness Ministry is a pinch-me, a wow moment and we have such moments almost daily.

Much is happening, but when we’re in the middle of it with our sleeves rolled-up and our running shoes tied, it’s easy to forget to treasure the marvel of it all. We need you to consider how you can be a part of this marvel because it happens in such small, seemingly insignificant moments. The tasks aren’t a blogger’s much sought after story; it’s just the opposite.

It’s described perfectly today in our 365 New Words calendar; “ragtag;” which the etymology statement says, formerly meant common, unspectacular, not considered the cream of the crop. That’s a description of most tasks that need to be done to keep everything at MIM rolling along; unspectacular. All the moment-to-moment work that we do is grunge work that upon completion, adds up to one big pinch-me-moment.

There were numerous leg-work, phone-work, list-gathering, book box-carting, book-sorting, shelf-dusting tasks that Gene Sylvestre did before we had our library shelves filled. There were numerous gathering, carting, arranging, organizing, returning tasks that MIM members did to have resource tables ready for our Mental Health Sundays. Upon completion, piles of ragtag, grunge jobs give us our pinch-me moments that motivate us to tackle the next ragtag step. And so our ministry goes and the marvels do happen because we move on to the next and the next and the next grunge job. That’s what it takes for the spectacular to happen.

The big secret is that the ragtag grunge jobs are the spectacular because the process is the spectacular; the miracle of people stepping forward to create and to own this ministry. I believe that was the real miracle of the Loves and the Fishes; people stepping forward together.

We are just beginning to create our teams of ragtag, grunge list workers and we invite you to consider if or how you can participate in the building of our dream. The members of our MIM Task Force will be the team leaders and the contact people. We are still meeting to fine tune our job descriptions to help people understand the tasks and time involved. Anyone interested in being part of our dream can contact Roseann Rogers at the parish center, 612.823.8205, or me at claudemaryparadis@comcast.net. But remember; it’s almost all ragtag.