On Facing Reality

Two of our dear friends and colleagues in ministry are journeying together these days through the last throes of death--she of ovarian cancer, he of yielding as her caregiver to the reality of it. Though wrenching in many ways, theirs is not a dark scenario, principally I believe because God and his people are surrounding them in love and because with their children they are facing it openly and bravely.

On a visit last Sunday, my colleague shared with me a devotional by Teilhard De Chardin that has spoken to him. As couples, we listened to it read out loud before praying. Based on the psalmist' joy in deliverance--Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped (Psalm 124:6,7)--it reads as follows:

When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more when they touch my mind); when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from within or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all at that last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me in all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself.

Strangely, in ways that I cannot fully explain, the pulpit, lecturn, and table of the Lord have moved these days from the sanctuary we all know and love at Salem to the bed by the window where our sister is ministering to us while dying and our brother and their children are shepherding by keeping watch. They are now proclaiming to us the same good news that we have proclaimed to them, of the love of God and the hope to which Christians have witnessed in every age. A phrase from an old Latin hymn comes to mind: The love of Jesus, what it is, none but his loved ones know.

Chardin's moving devotional, set in context by the psalmist's call to praise is fitly framed at its ending with a similar directive from the Apostle Paul, calling on each of us not to lose heart but rather devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving (Colossians 4:2).

Thank you, God, for such good friends and colleagues. And thank you, colleagues and friends, for so lifting up God by your witness to all of us surrounding.