Echoes of Service,
Seasons of Song

Cycles of renewal move through all things. The wide, expansive scale of seasons and communities move the same way as the tight, intimate scale of bodies and identities; from the breath of the body, communities rise, and they can bring weightlessness to the seasons. All things go through physical, and sometimes spiritual, change, creating something new. When the land is bathed by the water, the spring winds blow gruffly through the landscape, opening the soil so new crops can grow. Change can be a low, distant thunder, coming from a silent breath deeply embedded within a body, calling for someone to change into who they are meant to be. Rebirth and renewal are constant; perhaps they are the only aspects of the land and the body that remain permanent.

Rebirth and renewal are constant; perhaps they are the only aspects of the land and the body that remain permanent.

The word "deacon," derived from the ancient Greek word, "diákonos," and the Latin word, "diacano", meaning "servant" or "helper," has had resounding sovereignty in Paul Benoit's (MA 91) heart for a lifetime. In the early Christian church, deacons were appointed to perform practical tasks, like giving food to the poor or caring for the sick, and, slowly, over time, like the subtle shifts and change in the body, deacons began to take on more spiritual duties.

As a boy, Paul Benoit witnessed his father's dedicated ministry as a deacon, and since then, the embodiment of the word "diacano" has been an echo within his body, always guiding him towards renewal. The service of a spiritual and community leader is ever-changing. Benoit considers that the course of his own life has been defined by rebirth and renewal. He always hears the call of becoming and serving at the core of every major decision he makes. "My faith is a big foundation," he mentions thoughtfully through the phone, his life full of service and dedication to education and his community speaking to support him in harmony with the devotion he has from within.

When he was young and his father was still in the military, the communities Benoit was a part of felt fickle and cyclical—change of military station, school, friends, and community—there was no permanence. When Paul was 12 years old, his father was called to service once again, but this time, his station was within the Catholic Church. Benoit's father was called to begin the process of ordination to become a permanent Deacon in the Diocese of Tallahassee, Florida. Finally, Benoit felt a sense of permanence and found the community for which he yearned. Not only was the church community a catalyst for change and continuity in Benoit's life, but it was also a place where he learned to sing. Young Benoit found revelation both in his body and his soul; through hymns, he was lifted from his knees, and in the harmonic release of communal song he felt himself resonate in the church's highest chambers, echoing. He followed the model of his father's steady Catholic faith with him through the magic of everyday life and the most volatile times. Watching his father have the tenet and courage to answer the profound call to both embody the essence of deaconhood and emanate it changed him.

The Catholic Church categorizes four dimensions of formation for those learning discernment in the steps to transform themselves into the diaconate. The four dimensions of formation are meant to teach those learning through them how to use their mind, body, and spirit to guide their community; each step renews the future deacon as he learns, deepening his connection to his faith. The four dimensions are the human, the intellectual, the pastoral, and the spiritual.

Though Benoit may not have known these terms as a child, he was able to experience their embodiment. Whether it was singing and playing guitar alongside his father in a nursing home or preparing food for the sick, he recognized the spirituality taking shape in his father's life, each dimension of formation acting as a ripple of inspiration for himself. He remembers noticing the man his father was renewed as through discernment. He had changed. His bond with God and his family only strengthened. "I knew then that I was going to be a deacon after seeing him," Benoit says, steadfast and melodious. Long before Benoit truly knew what watching his father meant to him, the dimensions of Catholic Diacono echoed throughout his childhood. The spirituality that he was immersed in made the seemingly mundane possess universal and other-worldly purpose; walking to school he now listened to the mourning doves coo in the soft dawn and saw faith in ways he never had before. He heard the whispering sound of song in his father's voice. For him this was not doctrine, but a spiritual splendor that illustrated what a life with purpose and meaning is. Watching his father, Benoit inherited more than memory. He began to know the tunes and harmonies of a vibrant spiritual life, an understanding of purpose and environment, and the ways that lightness and ever-changing service renew the world.

He began to know the tunes and harmonies of a vibrant spiritual life, an understanding of purpose and environment, and the ways that lightness and ever-changing service renew the world.

Religion and spirituality are different aspects within faith. Religion is the manner of expression in which spirituality is manifested, and spirituality is the belief system in which religion stems from. The two aspects function separately, but their meanings are expanded when they work together. "My spirituality grew from my deeper understanding of religion," Paul notes, believing wholeheartedly that "spirituality can and should be enriched from the religion we practice."

When spring shifts into summer, the sun beats down heavily and meaningfully. There is a sense of growth in all bodies that soak up those piercing rays. There is no choice but to grow. This season teaches all bodies what it means to be alive. The depth of understanding that the summer offers is boundless and bright, and whatever the lesson, it can only be learned from the experience itself. The sun brings light to the things we need to see, and sometimes those things are not how we imagined them.

Between the ages of 16 and 20 Benoit sought out the spiritual guidance of two priests, Father Ronald Osinski and Father James Schiffer, to follow a path to priesthood. Benoit believed in his heart following the steps to become a priest was the right call for him because of the song forming within him, pulling him towards service. He describes the calling he felt as a genuine love for his faith and belief in his actions. As he grew older, he began to recognize the call within him as something else. "I had too many girlfriends [to become a priest]," he jokes about knowing at age 20 that he had to follow a different road for his call to service to be fulfilled. Looking back, he says, "God has a way of calling us to patience and growth before we are ready." Benoit's path is one made of the seasons that fill schoolhouses and the rhythms of children in classrooms. Pursuing education became the ministry he sought out.

Benoit attended the College of Santa Fe, in the state capitol of New Mexico, where he received a bachelor's in psychology, and met his wife, Lucia. He continued to engage with the song of service that he nurtured deep within the chambers of his heart, and he shared his values with his wife. Together, the college sweethearts found teaching jobs that led them to Tucumcari, NM, and Benoit sensed that rebirth would come. He was not sure when, how, or from where, but he knew his commitment to service was a constantly moving and ever-changing song, and he would follow it through its seasons.

While discovering an artery away from his spiritual pursuits, Paul's passion for service continued to prove itself in his personal and professional life. He received a master's degree in education administration from Eastern New Mexico University in 1991, while maintaining a family of three children under the age of five with his wife. When he became a father, he felt that the sense of religious integrity, morality, and hope that he learned from his own father would be an integral part of his parenting. "Being a father made me realize how important it was for my father to be a deacon and follow the path to Diacono," Paul says. This season in his life reminded him to seek out the Church community and serve wherever possible.

"The first call that a (married) deacon must answer is to be married and have a family," Benoit says. In a similar way that religion is a catalyst for spirituality, family seemed to be the catalyst for Benoit to answer the call he heard within his heart; singing in his father's tune. In 1993, when Benoit was nearly 35, he recalls his priest summoning him and a group of young men into church, sitting them down, and saying, "I need you all to consider if you have been called to the diaconate." It was then that Benoit could feel the song in his heart ring out, swelling with the hope of fulfillment, the feeling of alignment in his body and soul, but he could not get his mind into it. He rejected the call, the feeling, because he let life get in the way. "I was busy in my younger years, I was busy," Benoit says of the work he did with schools, coaching and becoming a superintendent of multiple districts in the state of NM, "you always think you have later."

Seasons change and summer becomes fall, the sun loses its heat, and all things seem to go dormant to thrive. Living things grow first under the surface, unseen, but intentionally held close. The heart only knows. This season is an intimate call to the self. The touch of lightning is far in the distance in these times, bringing calls of thunder without action, building its voice and rain song. This season is the time for roots to spread and stabilize. In the body, this season may look stagnant, but a life being made is discovering networks under the surface, excavating until it is ready to be who it needs to be.

It is in times of silent prayer, or adoration as the Catholic church calls it, that Benoit finds the most answers. Some parishes hold adoration for hours, and though there may not be sound, there is so much work being done by those praying. "The way you listen to the voice of God comes in the strangest ways," Benoit mentions in a thoughtful cadence, "some people talk about adoration, and they hear God, but we all have different stories." Adoration is a time where Benoit slowly uncovers the mysteries of his faith. "It is a beautiful, quiet time in the presence of God," he hums in the rhythm of excavating his connections and growing in stability like dormant fall weather.

After working tirelessly, spanning multiple decades and many positions, for the students in Floyd, Estancia, and Animas school districts in New Mexico, Benoit decided to retire at the age of 51. During his tenure impacting schools, he extended his hand to help and serve in exceptional ways. Notably, he and his family offered a stable household to a young girl in high school whose single father was unable to give her the support she needed to graduate. Upon seeing her situation, Benoit's family took her into their home and became the environment she needed to earn her diploma and eventually graduate college. Benoit calls her his bonus daughter, "she fits right in with my family."

Benoit continues to make an impact in New Mexico schools. He was honored and inducted into the New Mexico Athletic Association (NMAA) Hall of Fame because of his work over the years in promoting student growth through service to the NMAA. He also currently serves as the Northern Services Manager for Cooperative Educational Services. In this role, he assists schools with compliance and state purchasing statutes, and, for the NMAA, he chairs the appeals committee that helps student athletes transfer schools. On being inducted, Benoit has said, "I started teaching, not for any recognition or awards, but because I felt drawn to serving the community."

Thunder reflects its own sound, rolling through land, bouncing from the mountains, the hills, and the rocks on unpaved driveways. It reverberates in the chamber of its landscape and encompasses everything that will listen to its presence. When thunder arrives with lightning, it is no longer a warning of what it carries. It is a presence demanding attention.

With the free time Benoit had in retirement, he began to listen to the call in his heart again. He had kept active in church circles and was still interested in serving his community through spiritual power, when he decided to apply for the Diaconate Formation Program. He remembers telling himself, "Well, now is the time to apply," not because he heard his song or because everything aligned, but because his mind was ready for the journey he had originally ignored. In 2015 he completed the application, and "I didn't get accepted."

He remembers telling himself, “Well, now is the time to apply,” not because he heard his song or because everything aligned, but because his mind was ready for the journey he had originally ignored.

Like the fading sound of thunder over the high plains, the refrain of his internal melody never sounded so distant. He felt what he now calls a "very human disappointment" in his misunderstanding of the call that he swore he had inside his chest. "I thought, well, maybe this is the end of my search," he remembers, "I became at peace with it." Benoit focused on the ways that he could serve God, his community, and still follow the song of purpose in his heart without being an ordained deacon, "ordination makes it possible for ordained men to celebrate things that nonordained men cannot." For Benoit, becoming ordained meant deepening his spirituality, religion, and familial bond; it meant filling the echoing chambers in his chest with song.

When winter begins, the deep cold of the earth and the pastel glow of the sun silence the world into intimate conversations and closeness. Birds find a nest to cozy in, giving their wings a reprieve; people turn to hobbies and their family within their homes, taking up a new skill for the next season. The world is quiet. This is not rest, it is understanding. Through inaction, understanding becomes the way of the world. In winter, we take upon ourselves opportunities that we may not have deemed possible. In winter, thunder is silenced and lightning does not strike, but those elements inspire the world as it sleeps.

Some days, Benoit felt his song pound against his chest, and others he only heard an echo of it in the community work he did, but he kept looking for ways to align himself with his purpose. When his priest, and friend, Father Charles began inviting him to join the diaconate, Benoit felt the invitation reverberate through his body. Benoit remembers being a bit stubborn, "I said, I had been through it once. I am happy with the church, and I really feel like I am doing what I have been called to do." For three months, Father Charles invited Paul to the meetings, and each time Paul had a different excuse. Not wanting to tap into the disappointment he had felt just a few years prior and not wanting to dull the echoes of his purpose again, Paul kept his distance from the inquiry meetings. December 2017 came around and Paul remembers Father Charles calling him up and asking if he had plans that weekend, in a friendly response, thinking that Father Charles needed him for something, Paul said he was free. On the other end of the phone, Father Charles said, "I need you to go to the inquiry meeting this weekend." At that moment, he knew he could not fight against his purpose any longer; his mind, body, and soul, were in the right place at the right time.

Taking courses in Catholic and Christian theology, philosophy, morality, and history, and meeting in person once a month with his deacon formation group to learn about his specific diocese, the liturgy, and the role of the deacon within his parish, Benoit found that the song spilling out of him with each step in his learning was the song he had been hearing inside since he watched his father's ordination.

Through what he describes as empowered ministry, Benoit found that the essence of 'diacono' truly lived through him, whether teaching the gospel in prisons and nursing homes, or sharing his wealth of knowledge with those in the hospital. When reminiscing on his experience in formation, the melody of his song pokes through his words, "It strengthened my call and my resolve. Through the years, formation and learning were the biggest things that strengthened my call. Spending time in what we call adoration strengthened my desire and belief in the eucharist, and that was the most meaningful thing to me."

About 40 years in the making, and after six years of learning, on June 10, 2023, Benoit was ordained to the clergy as a permanent deacon. This moment felt like lightning hitting the earth and the echoes of thunder reaching into the world and singing life into it. This day was the lifelong journey for Benoit, a fulfillment of the "diacono" he had felt growing within him for so long. His wife, three children, and eighteen grandchildren were all supporters of his newfound purpose, and proud to see him following his lifelong call to serve. As he trains those in the church community on week nights, serves the altar during masses, or visits a nursing home to help those in need, he remembers the paradox he felt as a child; his kneeling body and the lightness of being that he learned to lift into holy song, reverberating in the highest chambers of the church. Benoit is answering his call, and his call, like a song, is answering him. A constant cycle of renewal and rebirth.

Benoit is answering his call, and his call, like a song, is answering him. A constant cycle of renewal and rebirth.

Change comes through seasons with a strength and a stubbornness that wants to hold on to what it once was. The rains of spring drip into summer before the sun dries them out; the summer's fruits grow through autumn until they are told to rest into their deep shades of red and brown; the fall begins to darken the sky into winter, for the world to know what the dark feels like; and the quiet of the winter seeps through the rains of spring before the birds begin to sing again. A body goes through these seasons, transforming the last bits of who it was into who it is becoming. This change, this renewal, is a permanence that each season brings to our environment, our bodies, our lives. Our limbs rooted, connecting us to our voices in a harmony, that lifts us lightly into the transformation of who we are becoming. The world, and you, are in a constant state of becoming.