There is no Present like the Time

Rev. Marisol Caballero
July 12, 2015

The dying give us many lessons and infinite wisdom about living. Rev. Marisol brings stories from film, literature, and her experience as a chaplain in reflecting on this topic.

Call to Worship
By Jane Maudlin

For our community gathered here, for the spirit that called us together and drew us to this place:

We give thanks this day.

For moments we have shared with others; for times when we have reached out across barriers of distance and fear; for times when others have reached out to us; for moments when we have discovered another along our path:

We give thanks this day.

For this community of celebration and growth, introspection and solitude, and for those moments of “that peace which passes all understanding”:

We give thanks this day.

For our gathering together out of distant places; for our weaving together out of many separate selves this hour of celebration and worship:

We give thanks this day.

Reading: A Night in the Hospital Room,
by Vanessa Rush Southern

A couple of years ago, I flew to Michigan in the midst of December snowstorms and holiday preparations to be with my aunt Nancy. I had spent almost all the summers of my life with Nancy from age nine onward, over time she became another mother to me. She was an aunt by marriage, but made room for me as if I were her own. Before long I was leaving home the day after school got out and spending the whole summer with her and my uncle and my two cousins, returning home just in time for the next year to begin.

This time, however, I was headed to see her under the worst of circumstances. She was at the end of a long struggle with cancer she would not survive. When I arrived she was in particularly rough shape. The pain management team at the hospital had not quite gotten her symptoms under control, so she was sick to her stomach and in pain. I offered to stay the night.

Nancy and I had become somewhat distant in the few years before I came to the hospital. She and my uncle had divorced, and somehow keeping me close must have felt awkward to her. Her phone calls became more infrequent, and uncertain how to convince her I could love them both, I had let the space grow between us.

However, here I was in her hospital room and there were things to be done, most of them reminiscent of so much of what she had done for me over the years when I caught a summer cold or stomach virus.

I was returning the favor. I held her hair when she got sick. I pressed cold compresses to her hot forehead. I said what soothing words I could think to say.

For the first few hours that night it was all we could do just to keep up with her discomfort. Then at some point in the night a nurse changed the dosage levels of some medication, and the worst of Nancy’s symptoms quieted. I could see her body relax and take it easy for a stretch. All of a sudden, in the darkest part of the night, the room was quiet and her spirits perked up.

Not knowing how long this would last, I took the opportunity to tell my aunt what I needed her to know.

I thanked her for all the summers together and the idyllic times we had- Parcheesi late into the night, old movies with all of us curled up like a pile of puppies on the couch. I thanked her for welcoming me with her characteristic show of delight every time I entered a room. And I said what I really needed her to know: I thanked her for loving a girl she really didn’t have to love; I let her know that who she was and how she loved me shaped who I have become.

This aunt, you should know, wasn’t given to maudlin shows of emotion. She ritually ended every summer with a kiss and turning her back with an, “I’ll see you soon.” She hated goodbyes, and she knew and I knew without saying so that this was one. I knew she didn’t want to have this conversation, but she listened. When I was finished, she said, as if she were confused by the whole exchange, “How could I not love you? I loved you the moment I first saw you.”

As a child, if you are lucky, you always know you are loved, but perhaps you wonder too if you will ever lose it. How conditional is it? Do your parents love you because they have to? How lovable are you, really? So, you try to please the adults around you, behave, look cute, clean up, read the cues.

To be loved without reason, without argument or proof or hard work; to have someone powerless not to love you is almost miraculous. What a gift to imagine that two people are bound to love each other, no matter what, irrevocably, like a body pulled and held to the ground by Earth’s gravity. A life can stand forever on the knowledge it was loved like that, even just once.

Sermon

I’m not a huge fan of romantic comedies. Of all the movie genres, rom-coms are the most easily predictable, which bores me senseless. Not to mention, they are also sappy, cheesy, and super hetero-normative, for the most part. I know that fans of these movies don’t watch them for the writing or the acting, but to retreat into a simple story that doesn’t require much of them, having spent an exhausting day filled with people and obligations making all sorts of demands on them. Strange thing is, though, in real life, what happens next is usually not as predictable. On my refrigerator at home, I have a lovely magnet that was a thank-you gift from one of our recent high school grads that quotes Allen Saunders, “Life is what happens while we are making other plans.” It’s so true. That lesson smacks me in the face often and hard because if there is any truth to zodiac personality types, I am a true-to-form Virgo control freak of a life planner. I try to hide it well, but I have had an idealistic fantasy about where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing 5, 10, and even 50 years hence for as long as I can remember. Some of it has come to pass, more than I ever truly thought would, if I’m honest, but almost none of it in the way I imagined it would.

I have no idea if there is an age, please reassure me later if yes, at which hyper-planners such as myself calm down a bit and go with the flow; let go of expectation. But, my time as a chaplain taught me that those who know that they are dying, not always, but often have so much to teach the living about this sort of stuff.

Oftentimes, a chaplain becomes a sort of reverse midwife. The role of a chaplain when ministering to a person who has neared the end of their life is to hold a space for the dying to be able to speak openly and say the things that need to be said to someone who isn’t going to shut it down. Loved ones, avoiding their grief, will say things like, “Oh don’t talk like that Dad, you’re going to be alright just like you were last time.” It is a tremendous gift to be able to be the one to say, “Yes, you’re dying. What is that like for you?” Amazingly though, what I have learned is that, as cliche as it may sound, the truth is that I have often been given tremendous gifts in return. These parting gifts have come in the form of wisdom about life that the living would benefit from implementing before they find themselves in a similar place of reflection.

For those who are aware that their earthly days are numbered, it is said that there are five things that they need to say, in some way, before they die. These are: Thank you, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, and good-bye. This makes good sense. Of course, gratitude would be up at the top of such a list, as would sorrow and regret. If a stock-taking of any life is happening, every life will contain opportunities for both. An acknowledgement of both would surely help to wrap things up neatly.

Knowing that forgiveness has been extended before death, or at least making it known that forgiveness is desired is as important as assuring others that they are loved. Very few of us reach death without having known grief, ourselves, so saying a proper goodbye to loved ones becomes extremely important if the dying person is at all able to offer that closure.

I really loved Jim Burson. He was a member here longer than I’ve been alive and he died this past year. I went to see him less than a couple of weeks before he did and we had a nice, long talk. He struggled to catch his breath, but that didn’t stop him reminiscing with me about his years with this church, his theologies, or his ongoing concern for and curiosity about present-day struggles against injustice. We chatted until he was thoroughly wiped out from the strain of it all, but he made it clear he would go on talking for hours, if he could. I asked him how often he would like for me to come visit him. IfOh, about every two weeks,” he replied. “You would like a visit from me in two weeks’ time?” I clarified. He and I both knew then and there that he would not be alive in two weeks’ time. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Yes. I would like that.” He was saying goodbye. He was doing so in a way that retained his dignity and was in line with his personality. He wasn’t one for a fuss to be made on his account. Without taking no for an answer, he had me help him out of his chair so that he could give me a hug while standing. He was so exhausted, he nearly fell back into his chair if not for my help. He had the gentility, or the nerve – however you choose to see it – to apologize for not walking me to the front door.

Jim had lots left to do. He had no death wish. Even in his eighties, he expressed wanting more time, but life had other plans.

As a chaplain in San Francisco, I met a man I’ll call “Bob” on my first overnight on-call shift. I was called to bring communion to a Catholic patient. That’s all I knew: Catholic and wanted to take communion. I mentioned to the nurse that the Eucharistic ministers would make their rounds the following morning, but I was told that wouldn’t do, the patient wanted communion now. I was irritated. I shimmied out of my pajamas in the on-call room and headed upstairs. That visit changed my life and my understanding of chaplaincy.

Upon arrival, I noticed that the skin-and-bones patient had a tracheotomy, a hole in his throat, and a big sign above the bed that read, “NPO” an abbreviation of the Latin, nil per os, meaning nothing by the mouth. How was he going to take communion, I thought? I introduced myself and found that he communicated by scribbling notes on a legal pad. We chatted some and I found out that he was a huge fan of Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, writer, and pacifist, he was a gay, hugely liberal and largely mystical Catholic, and that he had lived a life filled with progressive activism.

I was nervous. I had never given communion before and had to wing it. In the elevator I had found a passage from the gospel of Matthew to read. I asked him how he was hoping to take communion and he pointed to me and wrote, “I want YOU to take it on my behalf.” Now, I am very deliberate not to take Christian communion. I feel it is inauthentic and disrespectful for me to. After all, I was known in seminary for saying, “I love Jesus, but I just don’t want to eat him.” But, this wasn’t about me, so I ate the wafer and drank the juice and felt completely spiritually nourished. He then wrote, “I feel as if I have taken it quite bodily. Thank you.”

I got to know Bob quite well over the next twelve months. He remains one of the kindest, most compassionate souls I have ever met. In our last conversation, we spoke our good byes very openly and hugged. He wrote, “I’m dying.” I said, “I know. How does it feel?” He wrote, “I’m scared.” I said, “What scares you most about it?” “I’ve never done it before,” he wrote. “But, I’ve always wanted to be a saint.” He looked up and managed a smile at me. “I get the feeling you aren’t talking about the politics of the Roman Catholic canonization process, are you?” He mouthed a big, “NO,” and wrote, I have worked to do all I can for justice down here. I am excited to know all that I can do from up there.”

As a hospice chaplain, I had the pleasure of meeting an elderly woman I’ll call “Alice.” Alice was very elegant and joyful, despite the pain of her advancing cancer. I looked forward to our regular visits, even though I knew every story she told and re-told by heart. She would tear up when talking about the husband who had been deceased for fifty years. She spoke of her regrets and gave my amazing advice that served to boost my personal gratitude in unexpected amounts. Once, when she was speaking about the depths of depression to which she sunk in her grief, she told me about her love of quilting and attributed her healing from the brink to despair to sitting and quilting every night for at least a year. “You can just about solve all of the problems of the world with a needle and thread” she said.

I had no idea what Alice meant by that at the time, but I remember how it felt to hear. It felt like she knew that she wasn’t much longer for this world and had just imparted onto me the summation of her wisdom in one simple phrase. Of course the repetitive act of sewing didn’t take her grief away. Here she was, fifty years later, shedding tears for her love. Alice was reminding me that we are stronger beings than we know, that spending time alone with debilitating grief is the only real way to ever the other side again, and that calm and focused creativity can being about peacefulness.

I always say that I have the coolest job in the world right now – and I do, but being a chaplain is a pretty sweet gig, too. Imagine getting paid to sit and listen to amazing, sometime scandalously shocking stories and priceless nuggets of wisdom and get paid to do it! Above all, the most important gift that the dying impart on the living is not some obvious, yet true version of, “seize the day!” or “life is short,” but the notion of letting go of the best laid plans, as they say, because this life requires it of us. Yes, let’s use this precious gift of time, this life wisely, but what doing so requires of us is flexibility, fortitude, and the faith that no matter how much the reigns of our own destinies slip out of our imagined grip, all will be well. That healing, peace, and even happiness may be found in the direst of circumstances – not because of some half-baked theology that causes people to say such things as, “everything happens for a reason,” and, If God never gives you more than you can handle in a day.” The gaping holes in this thinking are apparent in the face of tragedy, stark injustice, and disease.

Not all of us get the heartbreaking-yet-glorious privilege of sitting at the bedside of the dying. Not all of us are afforded the opportunity to receive the spoken or silent wisdom that can land upon those with one foot in this world and one foot beyond that great mystery of death. But, for those of us that receive that great present of such time, let’s share their message, by living it in the time we have.

Benediction
– Kenneth Collier

I do not know where we go when we die;
And I do not know what the soul is
Or what death is or when or why.
What I know is that
The song once sung cannot be unsung,
And the life once lived cannot be unlived,
And the love once loved cannot be unloved.

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