Suddenly She Realized She Was Decorating God's House

By Robert R. Schwarz 

           

The beauty of the images moves me to contemplation,

as a meadow delights the eyes and subtly infuses

the soul with the glory of God  ( St. John Damascene,

in Catholic  Catechism 1162 )

Adorn: to add beauty, splendor, or distinction

( Webster's New World dictionary )

Posted originally March 1, 2013

In  a way, it's like the work of a fairy tale elf. You  enter the church on Christmas Eve or  during Lent or, for that matter,  on  any feast day celebrated by  St. James in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and you look at the altar and ask: who in heaven  did that and when ?  You look some again,  and though you've been coming to mass here for years, you're   now seeing  an altar you've never seen before:  flowers,  plants ,  banners , and  sacramentals  have made visible a new spiritual dimension of your church.

            As the organ pipes up,  chances are you've never seen  the altar  decorator—or artist, a more fitting word—nor  know his or her name. You pretty much  take his work for granted.  

            Well, it's Mrs. Kathy Borresen , and she's been adorning the St. James sanctuary and  altar for 17 years.  We talked recently.
            " My challenge ," she said, " is having to come up with new ideas all the time. " She corrected herself: " No, not new, but doing something usual unusually well.  Sometimes  I ask if I'm looking at altar with lazy or jaded eyes or is there something I don't see or can do better?  And then all of a sudden, you realize you're decorating God's house  and wonder what He would say if He walked through the door . Would He pat me on the back or would He say, ' You know, you're just not getting it . ' "

            Kathy  is 64 . She has light brown eyes  and  salt-and-pepper hair. For our interview she wore small, pearl-shaped earrings,  blue jeans and a gray, sleeveless  sweat shirt—she called it a "hoodie"— over a white tee-shirt.  She soon becomes animated about her "ministry"  and allows her eyes do her smiling . When she senses humor in her  words—which is often—her arms gracefully sweep upward like a cantor's prompting a congregation to sing.  And she  speaks with  sort of  a loud whisper,  with candor  that  needs no pause to weigh her words. 

Good Friday Taize Service

            Last year's altar and sanctuary  decoration for a Good Friday  Taizé service she considers her best work.  "It was awesome," Kathy said, as she recalled the prayerful silence that filled the sanctuary,  lit only by 35 candles. " The music and the environment came together. "  

 Her altar artistry reflects  consummate professionalism yet Kathy admits to no formal training except for a certificate earned in Liturgy, from which she learned the importance of matching her altar design to the  color of the church's liturgical season. "You put up banners and order flowers but can you arrange them so they don't impede liturgical movement ? Can you give them a sense that all this is suppose to reflect God? "

Pentecost Service

For lack of interest in academics, she dropped out of Harper Junior College where she "gained a great education in pinochle " played in the cafeteria .  Her interest in decoration stems from the second grade where she helped the nuns decorate the first grade class rooms. " We'd come in two weeks before school would start, open the windows ( the school had no air conditioning )  and decorate the walls with mimeographed figures of ducks ."   Then,  many decades later,  came that  fateful day when a neighbor asked Kathy to help sew advent banners for St. James.  

      Her  faith , she says,  " has always been a  part of my life. "  She is a cradle Catholic; her husband a Lutheran. " But that's okay, " she joked, "I still love him ."  She says she  prays to get through the family's struggles of finances  and to get out of bed in the morning.  There is a home mortgage,  bills for a newly built garage, and college loans to pay off .  "I often wonder,  " she muses, what it would have been like to be  a stay-at-home mom and not have to work. "  She and her 71-year-old husband Tom , a night-time clerk in the Lincolnshire postal office,  raised a daughter  and son. Katie, 27, is an pre-school teacher living with her husband in Cartersville,  Georgia; and Casey, 30, a pre-sales technical specialist for an anti-virus software company. Casey currently lives with Kathy and Tom and his dog Buddy.

"My kids are happy," Kathy says,  "and that's what makes me happy . I'm sad when they are. "

" Where Else Can  You Hang a Cross on Your Office Wall "

Triduum in the Parish Center

     For the last nine years, Kathy has worked for the Chicago Province of the Society  of the  Divine Word in Techny, Illinois, where she maintains a website and  helps priests from all over the world enter the United States to study or do pastoral work. She was recently promoted to education office manager .   " When  I was twelve, I went to Techny with my grandmother for  picnics , and then years later when I needed a job and saw an  ad for a  Divine Word secretary , I knew it was my job. I've never been happier. I can take holy days off  ! I mean, where else can you hang pictures of Jesus or crosses on your office walls. ! "   (  She favors a cross over a crucifix because, she says,  "it allows you to more freely add  your own meditations to  it . " )  

     Shortly after Kathy  and Tom  married in 1979, they moved into an Arlington Heights home one block from the home in which  Kathy was raised with two sisters and five brothers, all younger that she.  Her father is dead, her mother is a Lutheran Home resident.

Getting married and having children  are what have shaped Kathy's life the most, she says.  She adds, however, that her marriage to Tom "  freaked me out because I met him at a gas station."   The first time she  pulled her car in for fuel, Tom, a mechanic there at the time, filled her tank and then , though never having seen Kathy  before, told her,  "It's on me. "    And so it was "on him" for the next six months.  "It was obviously  love at first sight, " Kathy said grinning , arms slightly rising.  When that  beastly snow storm came in the late 70's and left snow  mounds several feet high around Tom's service station entrance,  Tom stood out  in busy Dundee Road and blocked  traffic until Kathy's car had exited safely.

"You realize you're decorating God's house ! "

The couple honeymooned in Pittsburg for five days .  Though Tom had no ties at all to this city—he had never even seen it— nor to the Pittsburg Pirates, but was a Pirates fan and wanted badly  to join the street celebrations of their  world series victory that year. He hadn't seen any of the games either.  " Tom is a big sports fan, " Kathy explained , " and he likes to back  winners."  

Asked about their recreation,   Kathy sighed, then  mentioned how her husband's feet are killing him when he gets home. " We don't go out often because he's so tired. He works Saturdays so we just go out on Sundays."  And the future ?  " I have a goal that in five years we move down to Cartersville and live near my daughter.  "

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 rrschwarz7@wowway.com                                                                                                               

                                             © 2013,  2014  Robert R. Schwarz