3 Meditations

ONE
I don’t know how I found out about Agnes, or her husband, who had been taken to the hospital in his final illness. I think one of the old-timers at the church phoned in with the news that this couple, long separated from the life of the congregation, were in trouble. No one on staff remembered them at all, and some of those folks went back a long way.
Fortunately, it isn’t often that someone sees me coming, and bursts into tears, but that was what Agnes did. Now, mind you, she’d never laid eyes on me in her life. I’ll never forget it, though.
“I was so afraid you’d never find us!” she sobbed.
It wasn’t the time for questions just then, but gradually, the story came forth. This was a couple who had taken great umbrage at the revision of the prayer book and the ordination of women as priests. They had made, it seemed to them, a great commotion about “the direction the church was taking,” (though, interestingly, no one at the church remembered their outrage at all!) After awhile, the little break-away group they had joined dissolved in disarray, and having burned their bridges, as they experienced it, they were too ashamed to go crawling back to their old Episcopal congregation.
Meanwhile, life had gone on, and this couple waited for years, hoping that someone would eventually come looking for them. I shudder when I think of how that could so easily have never happened, and wonder how many times it has happened. If I had known their history, without knowing them, would I have trotted right over? I wonder about that.
I suppose none of us has an unblemished record when it comes to seeking after the Lord’s MIA sheep. Being sheep ourselves, as well as shepherds, perhaps it is understandable that we carry emotional conflicts about our fellows.
One morning Claire came into the church office to announce that she had played bridge the day before with Elizabeth, who reminded her that Elizabeth was a long-time church member, and pointed out to Claire that I, the rector, never visited her. It was not lost on me that Elizabeth, age ninety-two, could sit at a bridge table all day, but was “a shut-in” when it came to attending church. And she had recently moved, without letting me know where.
“So tell Elizabeth that I said she never comes to see me, either. And I’m easy to find!” I responded.
Rhetorical question: Now why is it that my rare statements of compassion and wisdom fall to the ground like wormy peaches, useless and unappreciated, while each and every one of my rude and sarcastic remarks rushes like a cruise missile to its target?
Guilt, my most reliable motivator, drove me to visit Elizabeth within a week or two, and she knew all about my quip. She wasn’t mad, though. Elizabeth was a crusty old coal-camp gal, and she had enough mettle to think it was funny. We soon kissed and made up, and I was a regular at her place for the short remainder of her life.
Elizabeth never visited me at my place, though. Instead, she convinced me how excruciating it was for her to sit on a hard, wooden church pew with her condition of osteoporosis. I was embarrassed ever to have judged her. Whose idea was church pews in the first place? Was the Marquis de Sade an Episcopalian? Do the kneelers actually fit any body size or shape? Should people really have to suffer an agony of pain just to attend church? Are my sermons ever really worth that? And the bathrooms! Should anybody have to wear Depends to worship God? In designing and furnishing our places of worship, what are we thinking?
Our neighborhoods are full of Agneses and Elizabeths. They may seem resentful sometimes, even cranky. But underneath that, they’re afraid.
They’re afraid we’ll never find them.

Let us pray:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the eternal working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

TWO
When I visited Margaret in CCU, after her heart attack, I explained that I was the new assistant on staff at the church, and that her admission had been reported to us by the hospital chaplain’s office (an indication that this episode happened quite a few years ago.) I told her I had brought Communion, and asked if she would like to have it.
“What are they telling you, then, that they aren’t telling me?” she asked. She knew she was very ill, and she had a suspicion that I might be trying to say, ineptly, that I’d been called in to administer last rites.
“Oh, I’m not afraid you might die, Margaret,” I stammered. “I’m afraid you might live! I mean, if you live, you need communion even more than….Well, that’s what I’m here to pray for, and…”
I was digging a pretty deep hole for myself, and the silence of one-and-a-half seconds seemed to drag on forever. Then, the old lady’s face cracked open in a big grin.
“You’re probably right,” she chuckled. I could tell she was relieved it wasn’t the scenario she had feared. But Margaret had that kind of laugh that breaks a face wide open in friendly, genuine, unpretentious good humor, as I came to appreciate deeply during the two years or so remaining to her life, and our friendship.
It turned out that Margaret was a retired physician, a specialist whose practice had been in Manhattan, and I believe she was the first woman licensed in her specialty. I learned that from others, though, not from Margaret, because she never talked about it. What she did, after learning that I used to be a teacher of English, was try to “stump the chump” with quotes from Shakespeare, which I had to identify by play, act, and character speaking. I was lucky if I got half of them. And she laughed with equal joy, either way.
She was always happy to receive the Communion I brought, too, and have the anointing, the laying on of hands, and the prayers. I never did give her last rites, or final unction. Yet each occasion was viaticum, “food for the journey.”
When we receive the Body and Blood of the Lord, do we ever know which road he strengthens us to travel, what journey he sustains us to make? We know he is with us, and in us—behind and before us. So that where we are going starts to matter less, in the light of whom we are going with.
In the end, we don’t need Jesus because we are going to die—we need Jesus because we are going to live!

Let us pray:

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness, we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, now and for ever. Amen.

THREE
Although I had not met Mr. Smith, his wife had told me a few things about him. He was a staunch despiser of the present Prayer Book, which explained why I had not seen him at worship. It was not just that he was attached to the stately, Cranmerian cadences of the 1928 book, though he was that. Even deeper, he hated change—any change, all change, change ever.
The cardiac arrest that put him into the CCU caused a serious alteration in Mr. Smith’s way of life. When I showed up, I had not only to pray for him, but also to introduce myself, under awkward circumstances. He eyed me suspiciously. I was new on the parish staff. Mr. Smith did not like “new.”
I prepared to lay hands upon him. “What name does God know you best by?” I asked, meaning, “Do your friends call you Robert, or Bob?”
“Mr. Smith,” he croaked.
I managed not to laugh, but barely. Even here, in extremis (and Mr. Smith did, in fact, pass on the next day to new and larger life in the 1928 Prayer Book Division of the Heavenly Kingdom), this elderly man, God’s own dear child, preserved his dignity by keeping his distance—even from God.
“Lord, we ask your blessing upon your servant, Mr. Smith...,” I began, the sense of irony falling, apparently, only on my own ears.
After twenty years thinking about it, I still wonder what name God knows me best by. I hope not Mr. Vinson, the name my students used to call me. Even worse, “Buddy” or “Sweetie,” the name servers use, according to whether they are male or female. I’m old enough to prefer even Mr. Vinson over those. Family and friends call me “Donald,” the name my sainted mother gave me; those who haven’t known me so long, or those who balk at giving more than one syllable to a man, call me “Don.” Parishioners who want me on a pedestal too removed from themselves to meddle much, say “Father.” My mail nowadays sometimes says, “the Reverend Canon.” I’ll bet I won’t hear that one much in heaven.
My daddy used to call me Bo. I have no idea why. But he made up a dozen rhythmic and melodious variations on it, and used them all, interchangeably, up until he forgot who I was, much less my name. You know what? For the most part, I liked it. When he used that name, I knew I was wanted, but I was not in trouble—in contrast to my Mother’s sharp “Donald Keith!”
Maybe when the role is called up yonder, I ought not to care by what name I am called. “Present!” I ought to reply respectfully. But I must admit, I have a hope, secret until now, that I might hear my Father’s voice call out. “Bokum!”
Just so I’ll know right off the bat, what I long to know: I’m wanted, and I’m not in trouble.


Let us pray:

O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen.