L
LSK
Guest
As many of you know I found my way to sobriety through AA and am still an active member. My homegroup - a group I helped to start - six years ago meets at my home parish. We are a small group - about 10 or 15 - and there are a core of four ‘founding members’ that are there almost every week without fail. One of these people was Moose.
Moose was 16 years sober, about 6ft 10 inches tall, wore leathers and rode a harley. He also knew all the words to the opening songs of every major American musical written and produced in the past 50 years - why? Because for thirty years he worked as a carpenter and stage hand in the Theater. He loved the Theater and all it could and did provide in terms of artistic integrity, beauty, silliness and fun.
He came to the first meeting of the Principle Study Group with a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder. He wanted to make sure we were not a “Catholic AA Group” (AA is not affiliated with any particular faith or religion or political organization - you cannot have a protestant AA group or a republican AA group). Anyway, he had heard this “Catholic Chick” (me) was starting a meeting at St. Joe’s and having the ego usually found in abundance in AA
rolleyes: ) he came to make sure our meeting was ‘kosher’ (and yes, that is a joke). He hated Christians in general and Catholics in particular, having been damaged by some very mean people in his youth under the guise of Church Authority.
At the time of his death Moose had an AA sponsor who is a practicing Catholic, a ‘sister’ in AA who is a practicing Catholic (me!) and had developed a great relationship with the pastor of our Church (way to go, Faddah! he would often tease him as Father rode by on his motorcycle). He had come to the conclusion that Catholics were generally ok - it was those darn evangelicals he couldn’t stand (and yes, that was a joke too).
He loved his wife, his dogs, AA, the theater and his motorcycle. He was a loving, opinionated, giant bear of a man who would go to any lengths to help a suffering alcoholic but had no problem looking you right in the eye and saying, “If you don’t want to do this, fine…go somewhere else, but this has saved MY life and I love it”.
He once attended Celebrate Recovery at the urging of a sponsee who had become ‘born again’. I had had my own experiences with this organization. I asked him what he thought and he said, “If it works for you, fine…in my opinion it simply proves that white people should not try and sing Gospel music”.
I am going to miss this man more than you can know. My family is fractured. I do not have the relationship with my brother that I once had and Moose was someone I could always talk to, laugh with, argue with and love for being sober and available - 24/7.
I don’t know what his last moments were like - but I hope he was met by Our Lady who said, “Oh, so you’re the guy Leslie has been talking to me about for the past 6 years…welcome home, my son”.
Please pray for his wife, Andrea, in this time of sorrow. Please pray for the repose of the soul of James “Moose” Parsons.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
amen.
Moose was 16 years sober, about 6ft 10 inches tall, wore leathers and rode a harley. He also knew all the words to the opening songs of every major American musical written and produced in the past 50 years - why? Because for thirty years he worked as a carpenter and stage hand in the Theater. He loved the Theater and all it could and did provide in terms of artistic integrity, beauty, silliness and fun.
He came to the first meeting of the Principle Study Group with a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder. He wanted to make sure we were not a “Catholic AA Group” (AA is not affiliated with any particular faith or religion or political organization - you cannot have a protestant AA group or a republican AA group). Anyway, he had heard this “Catholic Chick” (me) was starting a meeting at St. Joe’s and having the ego usually found in abundance in AA
rolleyes: ) he came to make sure our meeting was ‘kosher’ (and yes, that is a joke). He hated Christians in general and Catholics in particular, having been damaged by some very mean people in his youth under the guise of Church Authority.At the time of his death Moose had an AA sponsor who is a practicing Catholic, a ‘sister’ in AA who is a practicing Catholic (me!) and had developed a great relationship with the pastor of our Church (way to go, Faddah! he would often tease him as Father rode by on his motorcycle). He had come to the conclusion that Catholics were generally ok - it was those darn evangelicals he couldn’t stand (and yes, that was a joke too).
He loved his wife, his dogs, AA, the theater and his motorcycle. He was a loving, opinionated, giant bear of a man who would go to any lengths to help a suffering alcoholic but had no problem looking you right in the eye and saying, “If you don’t want to do this, fine…go somewhere else, but this has saved MY life and I love it”.
He once attended Celebrate Recovery at the urging of a sponsee who had become ‘born again’. I had had my own experiences with this organization. I asked him what he thought and he said, “If it works for you, fine…in my opinion it simply proves that white people should not try and sing Gospel music”.
I am going to miss this man more than you can know. My family is fractured. I do not have the relationship with my brother that I once had and Moose was someone I could always talk to, laugh with, argue with and love for being sober and available - 24/7.
I don’t know what his last moments were like - but I hope he was met by Our Lady who said, “Oh, so you’re the guy Leslie has been talking to me about for the past 6 years…welcome home, my son”.
Please pray for his wife, Andrea, in this time of sorrow. Please pray for the repose of the soul of James “Moose” Parsons.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
amen.
you have my prayers.