{"id":2848,"date":"2012-09-30T02:40:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T02:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=2848"},"modified":"2018-07-20T18:41:10","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T18:41:10","slug":"a-dangerous-communion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/09\/a-dangerous-communion.html","title":{"rendered":"A Dangerous Communion"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Note: “Flora” and “Sue” are aliases.)<\/em><\/p>\n

“Flora” is lying in a dark room, the blinds drawn much like her pale face.\u00a0 Two tired eyes wander in the direction of the voice at the door before coming to rest on the visitor: a chaplain,\u00a0here because the nursing staff has asked her to pay Flora a visit.<\/p>\n

The staff is concerned that Flora is not eating.\u00a0 They\u2019re afraid Flora, having lived on this sad, old earth 90 years now, is finally giving up on life.\u00a0 They\u2019re afraid that Flora, at 90, might be dying<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(And maybe they in their fear of death are not unlike a whole lot of us, whether or not we believe in some future resurrection.)<\/p>\n

And this same Flora has a daughter, “Sue,” who lives in the same facility now because she is unable to care for herself.\u00a0 For all these years, Flora has steadfastly, and at times maybe indignantly, cared for her daughter, who has spent most of her life in a wheelchair- until this last year, when the inevitable decay of old age has finally obliged Flora to entrust herself and her daughter into the care of others.<\/p>\n

And so the chaplain now finds herself here in this quiet, dark room with a tiny lady, shrouded in sheets, her weary, prune-like face barely poking its way out from beneath the rumpled covers of a hospital bed.<\/p>\n

The chaplain finds herself here knowing full well that she is probably here more because of the fears of Flora\u2019s well-meaning caregivers than by Flora\u2019s own request.<\/p>\n

But, the chaplain is here, anyway. \u00a0Because this is her job, of course.\u00a0And, because these sorts of \u201cend-of-life\u201d conversations that most people prefer to avoid are ones she can by now approach with a kind of distanced, clinical \u201cprofessionalism\u201d of sorts.<\/p>\n

It has only partially occurred to this chaplain that she might be here because of the mysterious providence of a God who can use even our fears to lead us to the very center of this crucifix-shaped world and break us open so that love spills out.<\/p>\n

And so, dutifully then, having settled herself into a chair at Flora\u2019s bedside, after indulging in a bit of small talk, the chaplain asks the question she has learned to ask in various ways in these sorts of conversations:\u00a0 \u201cFlora, I\u2019ve heard you\u2019re not eating these days.\u00a0 Have you stopped eating because you want to die?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, without answering the question, Flora instead begins to talk about her life.\u00a0 She begins to tell this chaplain about her daughter, the one in the wheelchair with the sweet smile who, whenever I visit, nods gently and demurely when I touch her hand and shows me with childlike happiness the colorful bracelets dangling on her wrists, the ones she has been making since she was a small girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, how Sue loved to make those bracelets,\u201d her mother is saying to me now, her mind returning, I imagine, to her mental pictures of the little girl she loved and cried over and worried about and poured her life into so sacrificially all these years- the daughter she still loves and cries over and worries about even now in a nursing facility.<\/p>\n

And as she tells me about her daughter, this woman in the twilight of her life speaks matter-of-factly.\u00a0 There is no hint of quaint sentimentality- only the honest, descriptive realism of a mother who has watched her daughter grow up in a hard world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSue was diagnosed with quadripelegiac cerebral palsy shortly after her birth,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And at the sound of \u201ccerebral palsy\u201d the professional chaplain in her chair begins to crumple internally just a bit.<\/p>\n

Flora goes on.\u00a0 \u201cThe doctors said it was something she developed after she was born.\u00a0 She had to wear a full body brace for a time, and after that leg braces.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now the chaplain is remembering the little plastic ankle braces with the pastel-colored flowers- the ones her daughter wore when learning how to walk over the course of frequent sessions with a physical therapist.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow she had a hard time of it, and how I felt so much for my dear daughter and all she had to go through,\u201d Flora is saying.<\/p>\n

The \u201cprofessional pastor\u201d in the room is feeling something well up within her. A tear<\/em>, then tears.\u00a0 \u201cHoly sadness,\u201d as the nineteen-century theologian, Friedrich Schleiermacher, is the closest name I can give for it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, This isn\u2019t professional of me<\/em>, she is thinking.\u00a0 I can\u2019t cry.\u00a0 I\u2019m the minister here.\u00a0 Boundaries, people, please!<\/em><\/p>\n

But the recollections of the beloved, blonde-headed, little girl with the bob who says, \u201cCheese,\u201d when she means, \u201cPlease,\u201d who at three still takes her time going up stairs with the slow deliberation of a novice painter etching her first still life, who lights up every room with a smile, are too hard to repress now.\u00a0 And, she is remembering the moment when a doctor, marveling in wonder and with great delight at the rhythmic, wave-like patterns on a sonogram, exclaimed that the child she was carrying in her last month of pregnancy was the happiest child he had ever seen.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s like your daughter is dancing!\u201d he had exclaimed joyfully.<\/p>\n

Later, she had known something was different when Samantha (\u201cSamantha\u201d which in Aramaic means \u201cGod listener\u201d) hadn\u2019t begun to walk at almost two years of age.\u00a0 That is when the visits to the physical therapist began.\u00a0 Then the speech therapist.\u00a0 A round of medical and DNA tests, none of which could really detect the source of the problem.\u00a0 Until one day in a neurologist\u2019s office, this mother had heard the terrifying words, \u201ccerebral palsy.\u201d\u00a0 A mild case, but cerebral palsy all the same.\u00a0 A simple scar on my daughter\u2019s head which could have been caused by almost anything really, and which, with therapy, could be treated and remedied if not cured.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0<\/em>I had wondered. \u00a0To bring God glory?<\/em>, not without some hint of bitterness. \u00a0But, how?<\/em><\/p>\n

And now Florence is telling me about her quadripilegiac daughter whose life-long calling has been to make colorful bracelets and smile sweetly back at the world and let others care for her, and in so doing make the world a more beautiful place.<\/p>\n

And between the tears running down my cheeks now, \u201cMy daughter has cerebral palsy, too,\u201d I manage to stammer.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a mild case,\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cBut I can begin to imagine what you and your daughter must have endured together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time Flora is looking into<\/em> me now: \u201cYou understand then,\u201d she says. \u00a0The connection lights up her face, if only momentarily.<\/p>\n

And now I\u2019m holding her hand and the tears are silently streaming down my face as I try to wipe them away- as if somehow Flora might not somehow notice.<\/p>\n

The professional chaplain is crying like a baby<\/em>, I\u2019m thinking.\u00a0 Get yourself together<\/em>, I\u2019m telling myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cChrist\u2019s body broken for you,\u201d I hear it sometimes said when I receive the bread and the wine. But here it is again, only embodied differently this time.<\/p>\n

An aperture of light in a dark room.<\/p>\n

An exchange of shared broken things.<\/p>\n

Feeding one another.<\/p>\n

Broken bodies.<\/p>\n

Broken hearts.<\/p>\n

Broken spirits.<\/p>\n

And at the center, in the space between us, a cross with God on it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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