Don: As we all know, Alice’s daughter died on Wednesday. It is perhaps ironical to see, playing out in our own small community (that is, this class), the subjects we have been discussing: Community and individualism.
Harry’s comments on the Maureen Dowd article we have been discussing in emails are also relevant to the topic. Maureen Dowd has often been criticized for a lack of spiritual depth, yet there was no lack thereof in the article we have been sharing.
Harry: Dowd may not herself be spiritual, but in this article she was definitely meeting the needs of people in search of spirituality. It was a timely article, too, given that there is so much tragedy taking place. Close to home: The son of one of my employees died in a car crash on Christmas eve. The police came to tell the poor woman.
To me, the Dowd article shone like a beacon. It caused a paradigm shift in my thinking about Jesus. What really resonated with me was that the priest who wrote the article [Dowd published it; a Catholic priest wrote it] really did not want to visit with the grieving family that had just lost a child. But it was his duty as a priest to do so.
All he did was sit with the family, not knowing what to say, so saying little. He was just there for them. Jesus helps people in a similar way. When we help people who are hurting, we too, in a very real sense, become God. Jesus told the Jewish priests: “If you have seen me, then you have seen the Father.” He is saying that “You have to be my representative to people in their time of need, in times of chaos.” Jesus wants us to intervene in chaos. That is the cross we must bear.
Our emphasis on personal piety and religion, which says self-justification is a form of godliness, robs God of who he wants us to be, and how he wants us to be. It’s not your theology that matters – it’s your love; it’s the time you spend with people in need. God wants us to know very little about him, except that he is Love. Everything else dies, but Love persists. It is life-changing, not only for the ministered-to but also for the minister.
Don: Does ministry require a certain personality? Is it dependent on an innate trait? Or is it expected of all of us? Frankly, chaos unnerves me. I don’t seek it , I don’t want it. I want to flee from it. Yet there are people who have a skill set, a personality, or training in chaos/crisis management. Is this something that each of us is expected to have? I want to be let off the hook – I want to be told I don’t need to be involved in the chaos of other peoples’ lives.
Harry: The toolbox of the priest in the Dowd article did not seem to include “comforters,” tools for consoling. The priest just sat there with the grieving family, not saying much, for the most part. But by his presence he was letting them know they were not alone. He was just being there.
In situations like that, we think we have to act; we think we must do something. But that’s not so. Just by being there, we experience their chaos, we live their crisis. Everybody can do that. You can’t stop someone from grieving over a lost child, but what you can do is say “I am with you. You are not alone in your grief.”
Eb: As individuals, we occupy a single body. No single part of our body is more important than another. We need the whole. The problem is, how to feel that way about our place as part of a communal body?
Don: One of the things that forms community is chaos/crisis. People tend to be drawn to help. Neighbors who may never have even talked with their neighbors do extraordinary things to help them in a crisis.
Another thing that forms community is personal vulnerability — fear, anxiety, loss of self-control. These things tend to make one seek comfort and safety in community.
Eb: The chapters in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 where Paul talks about the spiritual gift seems instructive:
Concerning Spiritual Gifts
Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Unity and Diversity in the Body
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.
Love Is Indispensable
And yet I will show you the most excellent way.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Eb: If you don’t love, you cannot be a part of anything. But you cannot force love, you cannot legislate it. It has to be a part of you and you don’t get that unless you are aligned with Christ.
Harry: When one becomes religious, or tries to become spiritual, perhaps one is looking for insulation from pain, a guarantee that things will be better, that tragedy will be avoided. But I saw a TV documentary in which a crocodile grabbed a wildebeest, whose eyes were filled with fear and terror. That’s Nature, red in tooth and claw, filled with terror and death. The bad news delivered to the mother on Christmas eve? That was nature too.
People go to church hoping thereby to prevent these things happening, hoping to stop nature in its tracks. But it just doesn’t work that way. To deny that chaos can touch you is futile. The gift that God gives you is not to protect you from nature, it is to tell you that you are not alone.
Jay: We make a mess of community. We make communities that bring so much destruction. But what if we were to build community on the concept of perpetual crisis? All the evils that come with community – selfishness, conviction in the rightness of our group perspective – seem to go away in a time of crisis. If a community were to function as if it were always in crisis, would it not be so much better?
Robin: Disease is crisis, and it results from evil, and yet Fay demonstrated not only that she was going to rely on God but also that she knew he was with her. I don’t know that I would be strong enough to make that statement of faith. I hope I would, but when one is in the midst of a crisis, who knows? I was very touched that even though she thought of herself as different from us theologically, she was reaching out to us to try to explain herself, and to encourage us to care for her mom.
Don: Alice texted me on Wednesday that Fay was slipping away. As a surgeon, life and death are in a way my business, yet the fragility of life never fails to amaze me. To watch a loved one transition from a living, pulsating being into a lifeless mass of cells is profoundly moving, disturbing, puzzling. It reminds me of the scriptural reference to man being made from the dust of the earth, and returning to it. The key element is the breath of life that comes from God, which takes something that is lifeless and enlivens it.
These times of death and illness and fear bring out both the best and the worst in us. The best is that we reach out to one another, and give birth to a renewed sense of community. But it also brings out the worst in us, even if we start out with the best of intentions. People will seek to control and manipulate situations, to settle scores, etc. Evil takes advantage of chaos and confusion. Innocently trying to actively do something about a problem can be bad – it may be better to Do Nothing [as the Taoists would prescribe – DE.]
Fay was a very private individual. She said she did not want a funeral, or a memorial service. I will tend to share her wish, when the time comes. I would just as soon the casket be closed, and have done with it. Just let me go. And yet, I believe Fay would be strongly in favor of her funeral and memorial if it gives hope and comfort to her family.
In chaos, crisis, distress, all of us become affected, drawn in. That is the very lesson we have been studying. It’s about shepherding, it’s about belonging to a flock, to a community. The lesson has been sharpened by Fay. It was a great blessing to us, and I hope to Fay, that she was able to participate in our discussion, through the meeting notes and her emails. To hear about her faith, her confidence in god, her lack of fear… these were heartwarming and encouraging to all of us, and brought us into a stronger sense of community. She touched our hearts. Touching one another to lift and inspire is what the Kingdom is all about.
Fay was intelligent, well-read, and a creative thinker. But above all she was fiercely independent and would not be railroaded into adopting any kind of thinking or platform that was inconsistent with what she could make sense of for herself. These traits sometimes brought her into conflict with others and may have resulted in misunderstanding of what she was trying to say, and to have led some to mistake her independence for aloofness.
Being also intelligent, well-read, and creative, Alice would was bound to have some intellectual struggles with her daughter. But I am reminded of Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” This is how I saw how Alice and her daughter sharing their thoughts and ideas.
There’s no question in my mind that Fay was part of the fold, of the flock; just as our dear sister Alice is, just as all of us are. God knew who Fay was. He knew her name, he knew that she was a sheep of his fold. The fact that she heard his voice, and could respond to it, regardless of her theology, should be enormously comforting to all of us.
In the scriptures, death is likened to sleep, and there are many metaphorical references to waking up from it and being renovated and rejuvenated. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
In 1 Corinthians 15:54-57, Paul taunts death in a way similar to what Fay was doing with her full-throated defense of her confidence in facing and overcoming death. This passage is a resounding proclamation of triumph over death:
But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Just like Fay, Paul dismissed the fear of death; taunted it, even. The believer can taunt death, can face it down, because victory is assured. What is stronger than death? As Eb and Harry have said: Love is stronger than death, and memory is stronger than death.
As humans, we all cannot help but feel a sense of loss, but Fay has given us also a great sense of hope and expectation.
Jay: As an educator, my most common association with death is through the death of children. But I have never known anyone so at peace with her situation as Fay was, and so profound and inspiring in her faith.
Don: She was very much her mother’s daughter.
Alice: After our talk last Saturday, I was so busy talking to caring people that I had no time to grieve. When I finally got the chance to be alone, I cried so bitterly, and begged God to give me something to help me – anything – a word, a thought, a suggestion of what to do, of how to pray. In desperation, I reached for the bible and opened it at random. It opened at:
Matthew 26:36
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Thy will be done. The passage gave me instant peace, and it lasted from that Sabbath through the Wednesday of Fay’s passing. It gave me the courage to encourage her to go. I whispered in Fay’s ear that there is hope, there is eternal life, and that she should not worry about going. I prayed with her so many times , just asking the Lord to be close, to drive away every fear, to help her be in peace, without pain, to look forward to the moment when she would see the face of Jesus. I asked God to make her want to go to him, to believe and trust in him. I kept telling her that one day we would meet in eternal life. That’s his promise, and I believe it. You have to believe it. Nobody else can promise that, only Jesus.
I hope she heard, but at the end, she was truly in a lot of pain. I finally understood something she used to say to me: “You want me to live for you.” In the final two days, I was begging God to take her away. I could not bear her suffering. I felt that in his mercy God had been just waiting for me to reach that point. He did not just want to snatch her away. He wanted me to be at peace with his judgment. He waited and waited. He does not just force his will on us. He waits until we are ready to accept it.
Don: If you want to know where Fay got her extraordinary ability to express herself, listen again to the words just spoken by Alice.
Robin: Sometimes we forget that God entrusts his children to us. As the creator of life, he entrusts that precious being, the child, to us, for a while. We learn how to love unconditionally through children. But when it is time for them… when they go to their rest having accomplished whatever mission he put them here for, they may yet be very young. And yet, parents who have lost babies talk about what a life-changing experience that short life brought to them. My sister died at 20, and my aunt reminded me that she had accomplished the mission she was put here for. But we fall in love with them, and it is hard to let them go.
In thinking about chaos, the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) came to mind:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
David: The Beatitudes are the most beautiful words I have ever read, and the most difficult to understand. Perhaps the best – perhaps the only – way to understand them is through the examples we see around us. And we have just been shown two shining examples of the blessed, in Alice and in Fay.
Don: We will continue to think of Alice and Gada and Rimon.
Chaos touches us all. None of us are immune. We are all ministers, but we are also people who need to be ministered to. That is the essence of community, of the Kingdom.
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