For Wilshire Baptist Church
“Look, it’s St. Floyd Church.” We were watching the local news on TV and they were reporting on several Catholic priests who risk their own safety by visiting and praying with hospitalized COVID patients whose families aren’t allowed into the wards. I don’t know the priests but I recognized the interview setting. It was St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Richardson. For some reason I have always had trouble remembering that name and I call it St. Floyd because it is on Floyd Road. But I have to confess there’s some warped humor to that misnomer because the name Floyd puts me in mind of Floyd Lawson, the gentle, goofy barber on “The Andy Griffith Show” from the 1960s.
I didn’t grow up knowing about saints because I didn’t know too many Catholics. Richardson was pretty WASPy back in the day, and kids didn’t talk much about church, religion and faith outside of the youth group at their own church. Except if there was a girl involved. I went just once to a Young Life function because the girl I liked was going. Otherwise, I didn’t know who was what when it came to denominations. The two kids I knew for sure were Catholic were Tony, who came from a stereotypically large Italian family, and Billy, an only child who would bow his head for a moment and cross himself before digging into his sack lunch in the school cafeteria. Tony and Billy both would have attended St. Floyd, uh, I mean St. Paul, because that was the only Catholic church in Richardson at the time.
As far as I can tell there’s not a Saint Floyd among the saints venerated by Catholics, and Floyd Lawson wouldn’t meet the strict requirements for sainthood anyway. Still, there was a certain way about Floyd that made him beloved in his community of Mayberry. He was dependable; he could always be found at the barber shop. He was a constant encourager to everyone who came in. Even though he couldn’t hold a secret more than a few minutes, he was still trusted with everyone’s secrets because he was completely guileless. But mostly, he just was a sweet, gentle soul who was always in your corner no matter what.
The only saints I have known are the lesser saints — the ordinary people who inhabit our lives. They’re on your side when nobody else is; believe in you when nobody else does; talk to you when everyone else has gone away. You know the kind: they can’t really do anything concrete to help you except to just be there. When you are all alone, they turn your one into two.
Those priests at St. Paul and the others working with them are doing saintly work for sure, and so are the neighbors and strangers who give us strength and make us smile just by being there. People with names like Mary, Chuck and even Floyd.