Questing Parson

Life, Death, and Special People

The parson had known her close to twenty years. Long ago, when she was a single girl, working in the growing IT industry, she moved into a house seven doors from the parson's church. It was then she became a lurker.

She was a lurker but not in the lurk around the blog sense. She lurked around the parson's church. She might have attended a couple of times in the decade the parson served that parish, but, if she did, the parson couldn't remember it. Nevertheless, she was spiritual; she was a seeker; she was what the parson termed a “non-church going Christian.” She wasn't afraid to ask questions, hard questions about God and Jesus, and sometimes she asked unanswerable questions about the organized church.

It took a while for her to discover that right fellow. But he was the right fellow, the very right fellow. The parson married them at a wonderful celebration at a country retreat not far from where the parson would retire.

When the parson did retire, he didn't seem them as much. But there came that day when the call came, “We're pregnant!” There was rejoicing, anticipation, trepidation. And within months they brought their child to the country where the parson supplied the pulpit in his retirement to be baptized. There was lunch following the baptism accompanied with Ms. Parson rocking the baby in a rocker on the front porch of the restaurant, rocking him and rocking him and rocking him, cooing and smiling and, unknown to the parson then, creating a precious memory for him. A memory she too had and which she shared with the parson.

Two years later they were back. The second child was baptized. Lunch was shared again. Ms. Parson was happy to have another child to rock.

It wasn't long after the tragic call came. Her fellow, her knight in shining armor, had cancer. It was a horrible cancer. It was a devastating cancer. There was no cure. The parson and she shared flowing tears. The parson and she talked a lot about bad things happening to good people. But there was no adequate answer. “Why do these things happen?” she asked. The parson told her he didn't know.

There was hope. There was an experimental treatment he could volunteer for. He did. It wasn't the easiest treatment to be borne, but he endured it and he got better. He was better for a few years. And then it happened. Things when from bad to worse. The boys were now five and seven. Their daddy was dying.

The phone call came. The parson answered. She told the parson he was home now. Hospice had been called. The doctors said maybe it would be two weeks. She told the parson she thought it would be two days. The parson told her he'd be there the next day.

It was a beautiful spring day in the inner city of Atlanta. The youngest boy met the parson at the door. He wasn't in kindergarten that day. Her high school friend who was there to help her told the parson she'd let them know he was there. So the parson and the five-year-old played games on the floor. Then the hospice nurse came out. She talked a while. Then the oxygen technician came by. Then the contractor remodeling the basement came up. Then the ….

Finally, she came out. She told the parson they'd just given him some morphine and he was out of it. She and the parson went out on the deck, into the bright spring sun, the budding flowers, and the promise of new life. The dog accompanied them, assuring their conversations would punctuated by periodic tossing of the tennis balls which were quickly retrieved and dropped at their feet.

That conversation bounced from one thing to another, from talks of death, of her acceptance of what was coming, of the fact she'd already been grieving for years. They talked of funny things that had happened back when she lurked around the parson's parish. They talked about the children and the counseling they'd been put into to prepare them for what was coming. They laughed about children, and Christians, and the absurdity of it all, of the wedding when the parson danced a jig with her eighty-year-old grandmother.

Four hours later the parson left. He headed home, knowing he'd retrace his steps soon to return and talk some more, if she wanted; but to be there because he wanted. Navigating through the traffic the parson thought of how she was so typical of the new Christians. Church membership is secondary to faith. She is full of faith; she is well-acquainted with God. The parson remembered how when she and her fellow, having not seen the parson for a year or so, were there when Ms. Parson died, being pastors to their pastor.

She'll lose her fellow soon. The parson is experienced with what that will feel like. She'll go on, probably facing it much better than did the parson. And maybe that's the miracle of it all: even in the shadow of death life goes on.

Day of Redemption

Charlie Brown, the parson's faithful canine companion, had graciously condescended to raise himself from his bed to take his companion on an afternoon walk. Charlie led the parson down the road to the old abandoned barn replete with a smorgasbord of smells. The parson remained fixed on the leash as Charlie Brown sniffed the various corners of the rustic building. Satisfied he led the parson down the path through the soon-to-bloom blackberry bushes and then up the hill, the steep hill, toward the forest behind the parson's dwelling, all the while carefully making sure all other canines were aware this was his territory.

At the top of the hill, the steep hill, Charlie Brown rested upon his haunches as the leash retracted itself into the device in the parson's hand. As he'd been trained, the parson reached down and detached the leash from Charlie Brown's walking harness. As soon as he felt the release Charlie Brown bounded off into the woods in search of a chase, knowing the parson's age would prohibit him wandering far; it could be a chase of a wild turkey, a deer, a raccoon, a possum or any number of other creatures of the forest.

The parson wandered about the forest alone, taking in the sweet smells magnified by the recent rains. An abnormal movement of leaves caught his attention. He stopped and stared at the clump nestled in the fork of the oak. Again the leaves shook. Patiently, the parson waited, leaning against a pine. He was just visible a moment, but the baby squirrel popped his head out in a search for a tardy parent.

Next the parson studied the changes taking place in the forest as a result of a large tree having fallen. The tree's interior had rotted and caused the fall. The parson remembered the recent drought and knew this was possibly the cause. Small creatures now made use of the tree's decaying carcass to create a rich and productive life for themselves.

A hundred yards from the fallen tree a spot had suddenly blossomed with mushrooms. There was a variety of them. The parson squatted and studied them. The number of mushrooms did not surprise him. The variety of them did.

The parson started to push himself up from the squat, but, instead, he settled back down and stared up into the top of a large tree. A red-tailed hawk was studying the parson. The two watched each other for a good five minutes, interrupted only by the quick snapping around of the hawk's head to take a quick survey of the area. The parson's ancient legs were cramping, but he refused to move. The hawk continued to stare until he finally, apparently, became bored. With one quick and marvelous leap he threw himself into the air, spreading his wings and quickly soaring above the treetops.

The parson's smile of fascination continued through the strenuous struggle to raise his ancient body on fatigued legs. Standing, he looked upward again in search for the hawk. He'd gone, and, yet, the magnificence of his spread wings and tail remained.

The parson turned at a sound behind him. Charlie Brown was returning at a fast romp through the woods. He skidded to a halt less than a yard from the parson, tongue hanging out the right side of his mouth as he panted. The parson greeted him. His greeting was met by a one syllable, barely audible, bark. The parson knew this cue. He stepped to Charlie Brown, patted him on the head and fastened the leash back to the harness. Charlie Brown turned immediately and led the parson back to his abode.

Sitting on the sofa after the walk, Charlie Brown having retired to his bed on the other side of the room, the parson thought about the day so far. He lifted his exercised legs onto the coffee table, leaned his head back, closed his eyes and invited a nap to take possession of his being. Before he dozed off he did remember to turn his cell phone back on.

Life, this day, was really good.

Letter to Ms. Parson's Granddaughter

Dear Sara,

Your Mama told me it finally happened. Yesterday your tears fell in torrents because your Memo is gone. Weep, Sara, weep; your weeping is a precious gift from God.

You have been so strong, so brave, holding back your tears because you didn't want to cause your Mama to weep more. Hold them back no longer, Sara. Your Mama and I have wept our hearts out, and while we weep still, we wil be the brave ones for a while. Now, it is your turn.

You don't have to be brave about this anymore, Sara. I haven't been so. Your Mama hasn't been so. We miss your Memo so, so much. So weep Sara, weep. Weep because in your weeping God will bring you a blessing, a blessing of comfort, of fulfillment, and most of all a blessing of presence.

I remember the first time I met you. You probably have forgotten. It was three weeks after your Memo married me. The second week after that two of my grandkids came to spend the night. The next weekend you insisted you spend the night. Memo smiled about that, Sara. She smiled at your determination, even at that young age, that nothing would come between the love you and Memo had for each other. And nothing did, Sara, nothing ever did and nothing ever will.

Sara, if you're like me, you probably are having feelings that “I wish I had told her...” “I wish I had spent more time with her ...” I wish … If only ...” Oh, Sara, I wish I had said “I love you” more often. I wish I'd spoken more tender words to her when they wheeled her into surgery. For a good part of the last two months I've beaten myself up over that. So, I know how that can haunt you.

You're still young Sara. Oh, I know you've gotten your driver's license. I know you're not that little girl who came over to protect your relationship with Memo right after we got married. You're a young woman now, a young woman of beauty and poise and on your way to accomplishment. So, Sara, I'm going to talk to you like your Memo would, seeing as how you're a young woman and not a child. Memo used to tell young adults like you to “stop focusing on the woulda and the coulda. Spend your time on what's real.”

Here's what's real, Sara. You miss your Memo. Life will never be the same without your Memo. And you can cry buckets that she'll not be sitting in the grandmother's chair at your wedding, and she won't rock your babies. But Sara as cruel as that is, as unfair as that is, no one will ever be able to take this from you: Your Memo loved you beyond measure. What's important is not what we shoulda said to her, what we would do if she were still here. What's important, Sara, is her love for you.

Memo is dead, Sara. God help you and me, your brother and your Mama, but Memo is dead. Yet nothing will ever destroy the love Memo had for you Sara, nothing. Look at these pictures, Sara. See the love in her eyes for you.

Time will diminish our pain and our feeling of loss. But time will only magnify that you knew such a depth of love. And you will continue to know it. I suspect that, with time, when you do something of worth in life you'll experience that delightful smile she flashed when she was pleased with you. I expect that when you're wondering what path to take you'll feel her presence beside you.

So, Sara, weep. Weep as much as you want. And don't wait two months to let it go this time. And if you need any help you come over to Memo's house and we'll hug and weep together. But when the tears are cried out, when the sobbing is done and we're breathing normal again, I'll look at you and I'll see Memo in you and we'll hug and laugh because we were blessed enough to know that special, special love that came from your Memo.

I love you, Sara.

________________________________

Now, about your grades ….

Hospitals Are Healing Places

Hospitals are interesting places. Big hospitals on the campuses of large universities are more so. The corridors seem to go on forever with polished floors reflecting the eerie light from the overhead florescent bulbs. Figures dart here and there, white smock coats with pockets filled with papers and medical instruments giving them an air of authority and mystery.

Hospitals are forbidding places. They are filled with strange machines, some of which blink and buzz, all of which are cold when they are pushed against the exposed flesh, many of which spew forth paper with exotic scribblings which those same figures in white smock coats study with wrinkled brows and find answers to questions the average person cannot formulate into words.

Hospitals are foreign places where languges are spoken in which patients and visitors are not fluent. “The DO is for an EEG for a neurological . . . .” said the young woman in the blue colored clothing to another similarily attired. “What is indicated,” said one of the white smock dressed men to another is “a watershed in MCA and PCS at the right parietal.” The other nodded in understanding.

Hospitals are sterile places where bottles and bottles of hand santizers sit at the ready at every doorway of every hallway that hands may be germ free upon encountering the patient or each other, where floors are washed to sparkling cleanliness and linens smell of careful cleaning and santizing.

Hospital are foreboding places where tubes and needles are inserted, monitors beep and buzz, arm cuffs pump up and then deflate, bodies are poked and cut and stitched and bandaged.

Hospitals are miraculous places where things that a generation ago were unheard of now seem commonplace such as hearts and other organs being replaced, backs being straightened, fevers soothed, limbs repaired, the workings of the mind mapped, and illness cured.

Hospitals are hopeful places, where families gather in crowded and tenseful waiting rooms, many often with tearful eyes, churning up hope against hope of a cure or successful procedure, hoping to speak once again to a loved one now out of sight in some cold room where knifes slice and clamps restrain and where those who do not own a white smock coat cannot go.

Hospitals are fearful places, places where the smell of fear is almost palatable. They are places were the worst imaginnings squeeze the heart in a dreadful grip and bring to the surface images of frailty and loss of function and death. In hospitals people wait in paralazing dread that the possible horrors described in the surgical consent forms might become reality.

But hospitals, most of all, are healing places. In hospitals the sick are made well and the lame given new limbs; broken hearts are literally made whole and deflated lungs filled with precious air. In hospitals the ravagers of productive life are defeated and people sent forth with another chance to live before they die.

A hospital can be a place of compassion. It was the day Dr. Subhashini Ramesh, a Neurologist at Emory University Hospital, didn't just tell me about my wife's condition, but sat me down beside her and held my hand as she assured me my wife would wake from the coma and though there was neurological damage she would wake and be mine again. And in that taking of my hand in her's not only my wife but I, also, was healed

Words on Healing From James Forbes

James Forbes, "You Are a Leaf from the Tree of Life" - PG 5315 from 30goodminutes on Vimeo.

Benny Hinn on How God Healed Him with Sally Quinn

Someone emailed me recently and asked why I'm putting up these videos on the weekends. I'm putting them up to provoke some thinking. Hopefully, I'll continue to be able to find short videos that will provoke thought, and hopefully that thought will be outside my own personal box. Here's an example. I don't agree with Benny Hinn, but I have an obligation to know from where he comes. [There's a 10 second commercial on this one. Be patient, please.]

Anxiety, the Yankees, and Prayer in the Waiting Room

The parson sat in the Cardiac Waiting room with her. She was a member of the church and her husband a lay pastor of some renown in the area. With the parson was a former pastor of the church, two dear friends and two other family members. The parson and one of the friends were sharing their experiences of recovering from open heart surgery. They both laughed as they described their feeble efforts to get out of a chair once the muscles of their chest had been severed. The friend put the waiting wife into hysterical laughter as he demonstrated rolling out of the chair to the side rather than try to sit up. 

When everyone had settled down, following the laughter’s tension release, all eyes turned toward the television where the World Series was tied at one to one. Between batters the parson turned to look at a frail looking man with a walking cane sitting in a corner by himself. He had thick eye glasses, a well-worn baseball cap on which a logo was not unreadable from wear. His dress slacks were pressed to a point the crease seemed razor sharp. Above them was a cowboy shirt buttoned to the throat.

The parson slid his chair toward the man. “Are you waiting for someone to come out of surgery?”

“No, sir,” he said, sitting up straight. His pleasure at being noticed was obvious. “My wife is in ICU. She’s not having surgery, at least, not yet. She was brought up her by helicopter from our home in Alabama. It was kind of scary.”

The parson watched his body language. He invited inquiry. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, you see, we live in this double wide trailer; now, I mean, it is a trailer, but it’s really a nice one. You see, we both before we married twelve years ago were kinda down on our luck and we, .... well, ....”

He leaned forward and continued in a softer voice, “You’re that lady’s pastor; aren’t you?”

The parson acknowledged that he was.

“Well, I can tell you since you’re a pastor cause I know you’ll keep it in confidence. You see, she and me we were pretty heavy in drugs. I mean, we didn’t know each other then, but she was doing drugs with her group and I was doing drugs with my group and we didn’t know each other, you see. So, anyway, her daughter kinda had it with her about her drugs. You see, she was living with her daughter. And, well, her daughter threw her out. She just said she couldn’t put up with it anymore and plop her mother was on the front walk.”

He held up his hand and turned to retrieve a coffee cup from a side table from which he took a long sip. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“So, that’s what happened to her. And me, well, I got in a wreck one night when I was kinda stoned. Well, it wasn’t kinda; I was on another freaking planet. Pardon my language, pastor. Anyway I don’t know how it happened but I seemed to have parked my car up against an oak tree about twenty feet off the road.” He leaned forward to once again embrace the parson’s confidence. “I don’t have the foggiest idea how I got twenty feet off the road; but there was no way out of it. The hood was just hugging that tree. So the next thing I know there are these blue lights flashing everywhere. And pretty soon I’m in the county slammer.”

The phone in the waiting room rang. The parson turned to see if anyone was responding. When they did not, he held up his hand to his new friend and then went to the phone. He informed the caller the people he was asking for had gone to the cafeteria to get some supper. They thanked him. The parson turned back to the little man from Alabama who needed no cue to continue his discourse.

“The judge was a member of the church I used to go to when I was sober. So, I guess he was open to giving me a break. He told me he would probate my sentence if I would agree to go into treatment. I mean the choice was treatment or jail so I guess you can figure which one I picked. Well the counselor I went to told me I need to go to a meeting. I did. Sharon was there. She made herself go because, you see, her daughter had just shamed her into it when she threw her out on the street. So she went. And I went. And I guess it was about the, well, I guess it was about the tenth meeting when we went to get coffee afterwards, and you know what? We have been together ever since.

“So, she’s been having this horrible problem with blood pressure. Well, she had some other problems too, but the blood pressure was the worst of it. So she’s been having these fainting spells. I don’t know if she had them before we met in treatment or not, I mean, we’ve only been married ten years; but the thing is we’ve been sober all ten of those years so they have really been special. We both got jobs and we were doing really well I guess. We didn’t make a lot of money; you know, people are a little hesitant about hiring former drug addicts so we had to start at the bottom. But we hung in there and we were able to get the down payment on the double wide. You know, pastor, we’ve fixed that thing up so good you wouldn’t know it was a trailer except that I just told you. We got roses growing all over the place, and I built this kinda of lattice woodwork around the bottom and painted it a smokey blue so it would, it would, what do you call it? it would, oh yeah, it would accent the trailer color. It’s real nice.

“Well, Sharon was back in the back of the trailer in the bedroom this morning. Actually, I guess she could have been in the bathroom, but, anyway, I heard this God awful noise like someone had slammed something against the hood of the car and I called out to her if she knew what that was. She didn’t answer so I went down the hallway and there she was all laid out in the hallway. I just didn’t know what to do. She was breathing but she wasn’t moving and I don’t think she could hear me so I called 911.

“The next thing I knew they had her at the Emergency Room at our county hospital and then the next thing I know they have her on a helicopter and I’m standing there in the hospital yard watching that thing fly away with my Sharon and I got to tell you I was scared to death. I finally went back in the hospital and got them to explain it to me. One nurse drew me a map and showed me how to get here and so here I am and Sharon is back there in the ICU. She’s got all these tubes hanging out of her and I just don’t know how she’s doing to be. I mean when I went back there while a go there were some bruises on her. I don’t know if she got them when she fell at the trailer or whether she got them back there when she tried to get up with all them tubes hanging out of her.

“Do you know anyone here at this hospital who might be able to help me. I just don’t know what’s going on. I’ve been here all day and my Sharon is back there with all them tubes and, well, you know she’s had a hard life, my Sharon. But she’s done real good since we’ve been married and it’s just not good she’s back there. I don’t understand what’s the matter with her. But I know it ain’t good.”

The parson asked him if he could give him a minute. The parson left the room. By the time he returned the Yankees were ahead three to one. He motioned for the man to come with him. The parson punched a code into the panel; the door swung open. The parson escorted the man into a consultation room where a doctor waited and he returned to the waiting room as the doctor explained what was happening with Sharon.

The parson was in the waiting room only a few minutes when he was invited to accompany the wife back to see the lay pastor returned from surgery. Relief poured out of her in torrents. 

Returning to the waiting room the Yankees had won the game. The parson’s new friend was back in his seat. After having a prayer with the wife, the parson walked over to the man from Alabama. 

“How did things go with the doctor?”

“He explained it good. Sharon has a blood clot or something. In the morning she’s going to have some tests. The doctor told me he would come out here and get me.”

“I’m glad the doctor explained it. He’s a good doctor. He’ll take good care of Sharon.”

“Can I ask you one more thing?” said the man from Alabama. 

“Sure,” replied the parson.

“Could you have a prayer with me like you did with that lady?”

“I can,” said the parson.

He did.

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Alive

She wanted to talk. Years ago she traveled through a spiritual journey that ended with her kneeling on the floor of the church parlor, on a Sunday when a blizzard had shut down the city and only six folks showed up for worship, to be baptized. Her journey and that snowy day bounded the parson to her and she to him.

Today the parson mostly listened.

A week ago an apparently disgruntled customer walked into her and her husband’s business, pulled out a gun and murdered him. 

“I never knew how much you were hurting when your wife died,” she said.

“I know,” the parson replied quietly. “No one can know until it happens to them.”

“How do you stand it?”

“I don’t.”

“When did you get over it?”

“I haven’t?”

“But, you’re happy with Lynn now.”

“I am. And Lynn’s happy with me, but Lynn still cries for her Gary like I cry for Geri.”

“How can you two make a life for yourself when your heart is empty.”

The parson thought a moment, then replied, “My heart’s not empty. Your heart’s not empty. My heart contains the love for my children and grandchildren. It has the love I have for Lynn. But my heart has this tremendous hole in it. I don’t think anything will patch that hole; it’s the hole caused by Geri’s exit. And your heart is not empty. You have the love for those two precious girls. You’re more aware of the hole now because it’s fresh and raw. Someday, someday you’ll learn to live with it, but it’s not going away.”

“Everybody tells me it’s going to be okay.”

“Everybody has never lost a spouse. It’s not going to be okay. He’s dead. He was senselessly murdered and that’s not okay. Two children will never see their daddy again, and that’s not okay. You are a widow. That’s not okay. You’re sitting here talking to me the way you are because your life has been turned upside down and that is not okay. Your family, your friends, and I cannot make it okay. Jesus cannot make it okay. It will never, never be okay.”

She sat silently, looking out the window. After a moment she got up and walked across the hall to look in on her child playing with an aunt. She came back, sat on the sofa again, with what was almost a huff she pushed herself back into the cushions. She looked at the parson intently.

“Tell me when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“When you realized you were going to get through it.”

The parson leaned forward; he took her hand, and said, “Sweetheart, I haven’t gotten through it. I never will. But one day I woke up and I looked over to the side of the bed where she used to sleep. Somehow, that morning it hit me that she was dead. She was dead and I was alive. I was alone, but I was alive. It wasn’t my choice, but that’s how it was. That morning I claimed being alive again. And somehow when I came to that realization I quit wallowing in my grief and I claimed it and wrapped my arms and my heart around it. I quit letting my grief weigh me down and made it the impetus for going on with life.”  The parson, leaned closer and whispered, “So, here we are. I’m alive and, when it’s the right time for you, you’ll be alive too.”

“But that will be tomorrow, right?”

The parson smiled at this strong, talented, and now fragile woman. “It may not be tomorrow; it could be a few months.”

Before the smile could completely form on her face, the three-year-old escaped her aunt and bounded into the room to pounce into her Mommy’s lap.

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Reflection on the Gospel ~ Proper 18 (B)

This week I was honored to blog at Lectionary Homiletics on the scripture for this Sunday. I chose to blog on the Gospel lesson. Below is that blog on Mark 7: 24-37

“Dad, you need to come to the hospital,” the voice on the phone said. “It’s Christi.”

My daughter, four months pregnant with her second child, had for no apparent reason gone into a seizure and immediately afterward fallen into a coma. I rushed to the hospital and entered into the agony of every helpless parent with a child in the hospital.

Around one in the morning my sons came to me. “Dad, the doctors say she only has about a 10% chance of making it through the night.” My life stopped. It just stopped. Everything was on hold. The world stood still. That helpless child of mine was the only reality of my universe. I would have done anything. I would have sold my soul.

She made it through the night. And then the doctor, the famous neurosurgeon that had been brought in, called us together in a family counseling room. He still did not know what was wrong. He wanted to try a drug. But the drug would kill the baby.

This Syrophoenician woman is a friend of mine. We are kindred spirits. We have both experienced that devastation that comes when the demons are at work on your child. We both have begged him to bring healing. And we both have felt abandoned, alone, without hope. And so we argued with God.

Days later my child awoke. Days after that the doctors conducted tests. They discovered the virus that had caused the tragedy. They developed a recovery program. And then the doctor gave us startling news. “The virus was in every tissue of her body,” he said, “except for her womb. And that’s impossible.”

The woman and I know the uplifting exuberance that comes from finding your child alive on the bed, the demon gone. I do not know how the woman in the lesson celebrated, but when my granddaughter was born, she was named Faith.

Five years ago I married Lynn, who, as had I, lost her spouse. Lynn was a member of my church by when I was young and handsome, fit and smart. The last time I had seen her son was in that earlier day. He was three years old then. As his pastor, I learned to get his attention at church. I would raise my foot and stomp with all my might upon the floor. Chris would then turn to me for he had felt the vibration. I never called to him for Chris is deaf.

Chris is a college graduate. He’s astute and informed. But Chris is in a prison. I cannot know what it is like in there, in that silent world that we hearing people cannot understand.

Chris is patient with me as I try to communicate with him. The problem, you see, is I learn finger spelling by looking at the back of my hand. But when I try to read his finger spelling I’m looking at the front of his hand. Truth be told, Chris thinks me a little slow.

There is a rage in Chris. It’s a rage that comes from not being able to hear and not being able to talk. To walk about a world encased in a box of silence where everyone is isolated from the other boils frustration into a rage that sometimes bursts forth.

I smile at the verse 32 in the text. “They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech ...” What deaf person does not? It is the doubled locked door of the box of silence.

I am trying to imagine the Lord looking up to heaven, sighing and saying to Chris, “Ephphatha,” that is “Be opened.” The deaf man in the story felt his ears opened and his tongue released. If Chris experienced that do you suppose he would tell anyone? If Chris experienced that do you suppose I would tell anyone?

Who does Jesus think he’s kidding.

This reading speaks to me. It speaks for I know the little girl who was healed. It speaks for I am family of the one who cannot hear nor speak.

As I read the commentaries for today’s lessons it I am taken with the efforts to explain why Jesus healed the Gentiles. The writer we are told is reaching out to show Jesus love extends beyond the Jews. The writers are no doubt right. But there’s more.

Jesus is about the business of healing. My granddaughter turns backflips and dashes through this life as one who has been healed. My daughter has given birth to another child since then. She keeps telling me to quit spoiling them.

When you get down to the nitty gritty of this lesson it’s about a little girl and a deaf man in need of healing. I give thanks every day that my child woke from her coma, healed. And I practice and practice every day to get more proficient with that sign language so that I, until Chris’ healing comes, can do everything possible to penetrate that prison cell of silence.