Mansfield Fox

Law student. Yankees fan. Massive fraggle. Just living the American dream.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

A Triumph of Market Principles

I got called on for ushering (ushing?) duties at yesterday's solemn liturgy of the Lord's Passion. (One of the many privileges of being in the Father Michael J. McGivney Council of the Knights of Columbus is that we're the first line of assistance for the parish.) St Mary's was packed to the gills (standing room only!) so there was a concern that, without ushers to control the flow of traffic, the Veneration of the Cross and Holy Communion would disintegrate into confused morasses. So I was assigned to the far-right aisle (how apropos, you think to yourself), the one with the Shrine of the Infant of Prague at the head, to maintain a short, orderly and constant line.

That was the theory, anyway. In practice, I wound up making a (not enormous, by certainly non-trivial) mess of things, and confirming in myself a general libertarian that top-down supervision of human affairs often introduces far more problems than it solves. During the Veneration, I wound up sending people far too quickly, far faster than people were actually venerating the cross, so that pressure from the rear caused the line to snake around, to the point where those in the last pew had to go up the side aisle, across, and then down and back the entirety of the center aisle. Among these people was a big bear of a guy who looked to be about 19 and was on crutches with some kind of foot injury. Man, I feel bad for that guy. Why not make him climb some stairs, while I'm at it?

For Communion, I resolved to correct for my earlier mistakes (which was, of course, my next mistake!) and to send the pews more slowly. (Thankfully there was no risk of creating an enormous line that snaked around the church, since Father Kalisch was distributing the Eucharist at the head of the aisle.) Of course, as always happens when one is fighting the last war, I was blindsided by new, but in retrospect utterly predictable, problems. The line I was creating was somewhat staggered anyway, and the back traffic of people returning to their seats widened those gaps substantially (or created new ones). Would-be communicants were compelled to rush up the aisle (not running, of course, but, shall we say?, hustling), a sight which was odd and, in appearance, somewhat irreverent (though doubtless they were reverent in their hearts). I was the last of my aisle (indeed, the last in the church, my wards continuing to receive long after the rest of the congregation was silently at prayer) to receive the Blessed Sacrament, and, because of the stress and because I hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day, my tongue was so dry that I almost lost the Host. (Thankfully, not.)

And so, for all the problems I caused, what is my reward? I'll probably be asked to usher again at the Easter Vigil this evening. (Will they never learn?) Hopefully, I'll be given some measure of wisdom to go with my experience, and won't produce such disastrous results this time. Hopefully.

UPDATE: I just wanted to suggest that this might be an example of the "secret sin" theory of politics: that my libertarianism (to the extent that I'm a libertarian) emerges from the knowledge that, were I King of the World, things would be egregiously poorly run.