Four years ago, a woman came to visit our houses to see what the Catholic Worker was all about. Laurie Watson had just taken a job at Cathedral Parish in Winona as the Pastoral Associate, pulling up roots from a full, abundant life and work in Missouri to move to a town she had never known.
With a newly earned Master’s in Pastoral Ministry from Loyola U of New Orleans, Laurie was shifting gears into direct parish ministry, after decades working in various social service settings. Much of that time she had worked with troubled teens, refugee teens, sexually abused children, and the foster care system. For the last 18 years, she’d had her most loved social service work of all, with developmentally disabled and autistic adults in a group home where she was a supervisor for 14 years.
Things have a mysterious way of working out, for those who have eyes of faith to see the mystery. On that day four years ago when Laurie visited the Dan Corcoran House for the first time and was welcomed by Mary Farrell and others who shared the vision of the Catholic Worker with her, a very distinct thought came to her: “I wish I’d known about this place before I took the job at Cathedral.”
But as is characteristic of her, Laurie leaped into her work at Cathedral enthusiastically, becoming a beloved member of the staff there who coordinated faith formation, RCIA for initiates to the church, lay ministry among volunteers, and a myriad of programs. Wherever the action was happening at Cathedral, Laurie was there in a leadership and collaborating role. At the same time, she sought ways to be ever more involved in the Winona CW community. Over the past four years she has volunteered in many ways, being a house coordinator, cook, and listener extraordinaire once a week for the 4-7 pm hospitality time.
“But in these four years in Winona, I always had the sense that I needed to be more involved in the Catholic Worker. It felt like a prodding from God. So I prayed about what I could do.”
And here is where the mystery begins to unfold. This Spring the sad news came that because of dwindling finances, Cathedral would have to lay off a number of staff, including Laurie. “When I got the news, over the next few days the smile on my face got wider and wider. I loved my job, and I never would have quit it. But losing my job I began to see as a wonderful opportunity. Now I could be a live-in Catholic Worker. Moving to Winona had been the hardest time of my life because I felt like I’d left my spirit behind in Missouri, where I had so much connection and spiritual family. But something told me that God would lead my spirit to where I’m meant to be.” And that seems to be what is happening.
Laurie moved into Bethany House this summer, with some time off to be with family before entering fully into the work of the houses; she has two grown children and four grandchildren. As this article is being written, she is helping her parents back home neat the home farm in northeast Iowa where Laurie grew up, as her father is close to death.
Where did Laurie’s yearning for a Catholic Worker way of life come from? Without hesitating, she traces it back to her parents and their life on the farm. “Only recently it dawned on me that we were poor when I was a child. We had what we needed because we had the dairy cows and pigs for food, and we were content. We had no ‘wants.’ We had nothing beyond the essentials, and we were happy. My parents are Catholic Workers without realizing it.” Though they wouldn’t have called it “stewardship,” the family was “taught never to waste anything, to care for things, to improvise something out of nothing, to reuse.” That dimension of simple living appealed to her in the Catholic Worker.
Laurie also traces her CW affinity to a tendency from a very young age to be sympathetic to the underdog, to have a deep concern for what would happen to the marginalized, the outsiders, if they were not treated with care. As an example, she recalls riding the school bus when a new family of children, who were poorer than the usual farm families, got on the bus for the first time. “The kids were saying, ‘Scoot over, don’t make room for them; they’re dirty.’” But Laurie deliberately made room for them because, “I wondered, “What’s going to happen to them if no one makes room for them?”
Laurie has been making room for the poor and vulnerable ever since. In her teens she took a special interest in the elderly, spending many hours and building many relationships at nursing homes. Her parents modeled well how to take care of other people, especially older folks.
Though she has lived on her own for a number of years, Laurie says that living with others at Bethany House is something she thrives on. The simplicity of life, even compared with the relatively simple life she had been leading, is a challenge, but one she is eager to embrace. “The conservation of things here is so intentional—the saving of water, the composting, sharing our excess with the local pigs.” She has not missed TV one bit. “Conversations with people and reading are so much richer.”
What amazes her is the generosity of people, the sense of abundance. “We get donations all the time; we never have to feel stingy about giving away what we have because we know that more food, or more whatever, will be on the way.”
Laurie is also moved by the tremendous need for shelter—“how many times we have to turn people away.” But Catholic Workers do what they can with what they’ve been given. “At the Catholic Worker, you’re kind of forced to live in the present. When you get up in the morning, you have plans for the day. But your day is dictated by unknowns—whoever knocks on the door, maybe a huge donation of produce or other food that needs to be dealt with. We’re responding to whatever happens that day, and there’s a huge variety. It allows me to be open to the gifts of the day.”
And one of the gifts that each day brings is a chance to be with the guests at Bethany House, whether they are the men residing there or the people who come for a meal and some company in the afternoon and evening. “They come with such different backgrounds and stories,” Laurie says. “It’s so life-giving to be part of their lives. That’s a wonderful reason to be a Catholic Worker.”
We rejoice in the mysterious ways that God works to bring just the person we need to us at just the moment we need her. We embrace Laurie with a full heart.