Losing a Friend

On Monday night, my friend Jean died. She had had three strokes last year, and I had been visiting her at her home for several months, often with my two dogs in tow. We talked about American pressed glass, which we both collect, traveling to Europe and cities in the US, our families and friends. Jean was an airline stewardess, so she had been to the cities I love, Paris and London and New York. She loved beautiful things like crystal and glass and enjoyed showing off her collection. She also appreciated that I would bring some of my collection to her to look over since she couldn't come to my house with all its wheel-chair-unfriendly stairs.

She could be a pretty cranky lady, and she had no patience for people who couldn't be bothered to do a thing well. When she asked me about Notre Dame Cathedral and what I liked best about it, I told her about the stone-carved, beheaded saints whose still open eyes look down on church-goers. But I liked Chartes Cathedral better, with its Blue Madonna stained glass and huge sundial. She agreed. She wouldn't put up with vague, "Oh it was beautiful," comments. She wanted details. She wanted to know that I had thought about the places I had been. This also meant she had little patience for herself as she tried to say the words that would form in her brain, but that her vocal muscles refused to push out. She would hit her leg and curse her body for its failure.

Jean reminded me of my grandmother, another woman who liked a job to be done well, no matter how inconsequential it seemed. And my grandmother could also be pretty critical of people, and often sound like she never had a good word to say. Like my grandmother, as Jean got sicker, she also got softer. She would let us know very clearly and vocally when she was done with coffee hour and ready to go home, but she would also smile a little more and be more forgiving.

Unlike my grandmother, Jean left us pretty quickly. I noticed on my visits to her she was getting weaker, sinking deeper into her chair. When she went into the hospital just over a week ago, I went to see her in the ICU. She was like a baby bird in its nest. Her tiny frame was supported by pillows, her mouth open as she slept, her eyes in relief against her pale skin. I prayed with her, spoke with her, just in little bits. I brought a picture of my dogs, and she lit up a little when I showed it to her. I stroked her hair and told her about my memories of Ireland, how green it was, how I hoped she was dreaming of Dublin. She held my hand and called me Friend. I told her I loved her, and I meant it. She said she loved me back as she drifted back to sleep.

Fr. Charlie called me Monday morning to tell me that Jean was able to go home before she died, so she was able to go on her terms, in her house as she wanted to. But I wasn't sad. I had cried when I said goodbye to her when I left her on Saturday morning for a conference, and my prayers had been for God to please, please take her and end her suffering. She had cancer eating away at her body. She was on morphine to control her pain. It was no way to go on. I am relieved that she is with Jesus now, that all her frustration and pain are over.

I am writing this here because this is not the last time I will sit by someone's chair in her home, or at her hospital bed, and watch her die. That I will tell stories and listen to stories, be a friend to a person whose life will not last a year, or two, or ten. My grandmother sits in an assisted living apartment in Ohio, and I cannot be with her to talk to her, to help her go to her death. When I do get to see her, she doesn't remember me. She's closer to her childhood now than to the present, and picks up the paper several times as day as if she hasn't seen it before. I pray for her not to suffer, and I pray that I can serve her spirit by serving others. I pray that someone speaks to her each day as I spoke to Jean. I pray that my friend will look down on me and continue to see herself, her best self, in me.

Happy Easter!

We made it through Lent! I don't know about you, but this year's Lent was a contemplative season, even though it was busy. Taize services on Tuesday nights kept me centered on silence and God's peace. Sunday sermons kept me on track with my goals and where I should be (Thanks Charlie). I fasted on Fridays to connect with the suffering of so many of God's people. Maundy Thursday was humbling with an Agape meal and foot washing in our dimly lit parish hall before the symbolic stripping of the altar. As the perpetual light was taken down, snuffed out, and taken away, I had a huge lump in my throat that lasted through much of my time spent sitting up in the silent chapel during my wait with Christ.

But today, the church was filled with flowers, music and singing. Our congregation stood outside laughing and joking for a group photo before the kids went for an Easter egg hunt, and we all ate brunch together as one big family. But the best part, the part that brought me to tears, was saying and singing the Alleluias. They're back! Thanks be to God!

The BIG Question

We’ve been through two un-shepherded discernment meetings so far. The first one covered my spiritual autobiography and prayer life, and the last one, just this past Monday, covered my physical and mental health. I won’t go into all that here, but one of the members (who knows me well) had poked a little fun saying that my mental health is a little touch and go. This was meant in a positive way (see my last entry), but I also alarm some people. I’ve been known to read dessert menus aloud as if they were some sort of sexy romance plot. I don’t do this to strangers, but still… it’s a little strange.

Anyway, at the end of the meeting, after we had talked about my exercise, diet, drinking habits (social and not too often), my occasional need for therapy and bouts of depression and stress, one of the members said something like, “Next time I want to know THE answer to the BIG question. Why do you want to be a deacon?” I said, “Sure,” in a cheerful voice, but really, it’s not an easy question to answer.

I’ve been asked this question by a few people recently, all from my parish, and all inquisitive and positive people. I tell them about Trinity’s need for more leadership, about our priest’s need for help, about my own spiritual growth. But these were all short answers given to slightly curious folks who just wondered. The question in the discernment committee is a big one. And as my husband, Paul, said, if I don’t have a good, specific answer for this, why am I going through all this and making other people take time each month for it as well?

So I’ve been praying about it, and the Holy Spirit has been giving me some ideas. When I’m wearing my professor hat at Joliet Jr. College, I have three areas where I am asked to set goals: my professional career, my department and the college as a whole. So I go to conferences for me, and to bring back ideas to my department. I serve on committees for my department and my college (I don’t get a lot out of meetings for my own well-being). What if I look at my deacon calling in the same way? What do I feel called for personally? What about for my church home? What about the diocese?

Personally, I love serving people and God in them. Serving others feeds my soul. I’ve been taking my dogs to visit a woman named Jean in our parish who suffered from a series of strokes. She loves dogs but can’t have one of her own due to her abilities right now. I love to talk to her, to see how happy my little pups make her. But when other people in my parish find out I go to visit her, they tell me how kind I’m being. Maybe it is kind, but it’s not a burden. I like spending time with her and her friend Grace. So, being a deacon will bring me to more people in the world who need someone to talk to, who need healing and prayers. And by being with those people, I am also healed and brought closer to Christ.

My church is a small but vibrant and growing church. We have one priest who has to do most everything. Being a deacon will allow me to help him out in some ways that I can’t right now. We have a growing population of older folks who are home-bound or in nursing homes. Wearing a collar will enable me to be available in hospital settings where not just anyone is allowed to visit with patients. And since I don’t know a lot of our parishioners who aren’t able to attend church, a collar might make me more “official” as a church visitor than just some woman who stops by to say hello and say a prayer. I already serve on the altar, but I’ll serve in a slightly different capacity if I’m a deacon. The same goes with committee work or serving in our community. When we go into the community to volunteer, people know Fr. Charlie’s our priest since he’s wearing the collar. But unless the rest of us have t-shirts on that say “Trinity Episcopal Church,” we lay people aren’t as visible. I’d be one more visible person serving our community.

Deacons answer to the Bishop and are considered to be part of “The People.” They are liaisons between the world and the church. I pray, and am pretty certain, that if I’m allowed to become a deacon, I’ll be able to stay in my parish and serve. In fact, I’d be the only deacon in Aurora, IL since our other Aurora parish, St. David’s, doesn’t have a deacon either. I’d be able to be a voice for the people of Aurora in the Diocese of Chicago. That is a huge responsibility, but our city is one of the largest in the state of Illinois, and also of the suburbs of Chicago. I pray that more deacons will come to Aurora to serve the many populations here that are in need of help and prayers. But one person is a starting point.

I don’t know that these answers will be the ones that satisfy my discernment committee when we meet again on April 27th, so I’ll continue to pray about them. But this is a starting point. If you read my first couple of posts, you’ll see that this call didn’t come from within me. When asked why I should be a deacon, part of me wants to say, “I don’t know. A couple of people suggested it, my priest was thrilled when I asked him about it, and then a deacon said I should move ahead.” But I know too that I need to hear the calling within me as well as without. And that call is growing more steadily and becoming less uncertain as I move forward in the process of discernment. This is a celebration of my work in the world and a confirmation that God is calling me to witness in His creation.