LANDLADY KATHY: STRIPPERS AND LANDLADIES

I peaked around the corner before heading up the first flight of stairs. There she was, floating in a cloud of cigarette smoke and coffee stains.


At first she didn’t recognize me, which was fair, because I had been gone for a full month. But then all of her wrinkles reassembled into recognition and she grabbed my face with both hands, narrowly missing my cheek with her lit cigarette. “MY CLARE!” 


I sat down cross-legged as my 84 year old land lady filled me in on all the gossip I had missed while I was gone. She asked me how I had liked “nasty old Florida”. I told her how much I had loved it, and in a moment of vulnerability, I told her how much it had meant to me to have Catholic community down there.


She took a drag and asked without a hint of malice: “Are the Catholics in New York mean to you because you’re a pole dancer?” 


I couldn’t help but grin. Despite knowing that I run a religious education program for a living, Kathy believes that I earn some extra cash...another way. 


She had first let me know that “she knew I danced for men” a few months back and in a moment of mischievousness, I hadn’t corrected her. 


And truthfully, I’m glad I didn’t - and not just because Kathy is the only person in the world who thinks I can dance. 


Kathy and I go to the same church. She even prays the rosary with me - but she’s never once questioned whether or not the “stripper” in Apartment 19 has a place in her Church. I’ve had people in the Church treat me so cruelly for a million much smaller offenses against modesty or purity, but my octogenarian landlady treats me kindly despite her suspicions.


I tell myself that I still haven’t corrected her because it would just be too confusing at this point, but truthfully, I think I haven’t told her because I crave her radical mercy and constant invitation. I needed someone to tell me that as long as there’s room on the stairs for coffee, cigarettes, and conversation, there’s room in the Church for broken people who love God. For strippers and their clients. Tax collectors and their debtors. Addicts and their suppliers. 
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For land ladies and their tenants, praying on creaking stairway pews - radical mercy extends to all.