178 Who Do You Think You Are?
grace of God there could be I,” the person without an arm, the person
who is feeble, the person who is not in control of their mental or physical
capacities, the person who is homeless, the person who is destitute. I
always looked at the glass being half full, as opposed to many who would
believe that it was half empty.
As I matured and became more educated and worldly, I recognized
that armed with some of the human resources that I had been provided
with either because of genetics, care, input, understanding, or my parents
and extended families desire to mold me that I had a mission to undertake,
even though I had no idea what that mission was.
There was a definite natural draw to say that whatever time I
would spend in this world would have to be dedicated to improving
matters for other people, and not just for self. Growing up in the 60s and
70s, it was clearly a time when young men and young women were
venturing out, giving up worldly goods and desires, to try to make a
difference in people’s lives and to change the world for good. They ended
up exasperated; they ended up apathetic and indifferent and becoming
immersed into a world of I and me. I think I just blossomed into
thinking about us and we. And more importantly, based on that old Roman
Catholic worker’s tradition of knowing that there will be nine failures
for every one success, I knew that this mission, whatever road it would
take me on, would be strewn with failures and set-backs and that I’d
better start preparing myself. I knew that I’d better get ready.
What event or series of events led to your discovery?
It was clearly the time that my father spent with me. He was a merchant
seaman, so he was away most of the time, but he gave me a global view
of things. I wasn’t contained in a parochial or insular community. It would
have been very easy to become immersed in that, because I was in the
ethnic enclave in Brooklyn that consisted of the Jews and Italians. You
could become very provincial, as opposed to very open-minded or global.
My mom would consistently give of herself as my aunts would also. I
was surrounded by females constantly attempting to give, give, and give
more, and deriving a great deal of satisfaction and a great deal of
fulfillment from that. You could actually see them being almost euphoric
every time they would help someone.
St. Francis of Assisi influenced me as well. I saw a movie made
about him at a very young age, giving up all worldly desires and resources,