The SuperDeacon with a Garage Full of Dirt

There is an old phone booth, from the 1950s, that sits in front of Deacon Ray Deabel’s house in Chicago Heights. A Superman costume hangs inside for those spur-of-the moment calls to duty.

That phone booth is symbolic for Deacon Ray. 

This 35-year Chicago Heights resident is known to make quick changes, in heroic fashion. From being a deacon at St. James Hospital, to leading a grief support group, to burying a non-Christian community member, to leading a service for a mobster—the man has a way of seemingly being everywhere at once.

Ray could wear that Superman cape very nicely.

“I was the first lay (non-ordained) minister in the Chicago Diocese for Communion,” Deacon Ray says. “That was in 1971. I gave communion out at St. Agnes in Chicago Heights. I was afraid I wouldn’t have anyone come up to me because only priests gave out communion at that time.”

But Ray was wrong. “I had the longest line.”

This was the start of a long career of serving people for Deacon Ray, who went to seminary school at Quigley Preparatory in Chicago before starting his theology education.

Ray says he then got his calling from God after spending a week at a monastery in Maryland. That’s when he began working at a funeral home, comforting the mourners and starting a new ministry. 

Serving the ‘Unchurched’

For years, Ray started grief support groups throughout the area, and he began doing funerals for the “unchurched”—individuals who didn’t attend any church regularly or maybe weren’t even Christian.

“Sometimes you listen about a person’s life. They know God, they just didn’t go to church,” Ray says.

He says he doesn’t see a need to treat anyone differently based on his or her attendance record.

“You really don’t need these rules,” he says. “Everybody has it in their heart, even though they never graced the inside of a church. Who am I to judge who is going to heaven because of your religion?“

Digging in the Dirt

One day Deacon Ray had the idea to start placing dirt from a place that meant a lot to a man on the man’s casket during his burial.

“Dirt can mean an awful lot; it’s a great catharsis for people,” Ray explains. “When I worked at the funeral home, I had to go to Wisconsin to pick up a body. When I was there, I saw some nice dirt, so I found something to put the dirt in, an old shoe. I filled it up with dirt, brought it back, put it through a sieve.”

Ray initially had collected the dirt on a whim, but he soon found a special use for it.

“It wasn’t two weeks later, I was asked to do a funeral for a guy who loved Wisconsin,” the deacon continues. “He grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. Every vacation was spent there. He always missed Wisconsin. We were at the cemetery, I pulled out my Wisconsin dirt and said, ‘Because Jack loved Wisconsin so much, I’m going to bury him with some dirt from Wisconsin.’ I said, ‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,’ and sprinkled the dirt on his casket.’”

The moment was a surprise for those in attendance and brought forth a sea of emotions in the man’s family members and friends.

“Well, all the men all started to cry,” Ray says. “The women saw the men cry, then they began to cry.”

A light sprinkling of dirt quickly evolved into a journey, thanks to a conversation Ray had on the day of that funeral.

“After the service, someone came and asked me if his brother brought the dirt,” Ray remembers. “I said, ‘No, I got it.’ I thought, ‘I have to get dirt from the 48 other states,’ and that’s how this started. So I began collecting. I now have a rack in my garage with dirt of all 50 states and other countries. I’ve been collecting dirt for many years.”

Helping to Grieve

Ray also tells stories of comforting grieving people at all hours of the night in his role as a chaplain at .

He remembers the story of a 16-year-old girl who died after being hit by a train. Her body was destroyed, except for one of her legs. The doctors did not want her parents to see her remains, so Ray talked the doctors into covering the girl’s body except for the leg. He says her parents were able to come in, rub their daughter’s leg, cry over their loss and accept her death. 

The Long Walk

Deacon Ray Deabel sums up his life and inspirations with a series of questions, instructions and songs:

“We always rejoice in Jesus in the breaking of the bread. What about the road to Emmaus? What about that walk?

“We need daily walks in life. If it’s in our gardens, on our jobs, or at the grocery store, you’ve got to be walking with Jesus. You have to recognize him. I remember the song(s), ‘He Walks with Me’ and ‘He Talks With Me.’

“Then I have the courage to go out and help the sick and pray for the mourning. It’s a seven-mile walk that goes on forever.”

As Ray speaks about courage and staying the course forever, it’s hard not to think about that phone booth in front of his home.