<\/p>\n
Last spring, the Sunday following Easter Sunday, my beloved
\nmother died. The church was celebrating victory; I was living in defeat, in
\ndespair, in death<\/i>. The minister who
\nhad come to the hospital prayed repeatedly that she would be restored to life,
\nthat the cancer would be broken and beaten, that victory would be ours. What we
\ndid not hear in the prayers was who God would be for us in the face of defeat.
\nI heard nothing of God’s fidelity to us even in death. The prayers spoke of the
\nstrong, kingly God, of the God who breaks and beats, not of the crucified One
\nwho was broken and beaten. The church, like the rest of our society, likes to
\nwin. We need to win so badly that we come up with comforting aphorisms about
\nhow losing is good, but only so you can be better suited to win next time. It’s
\ngood to be knocked down, but only so you can find your boot-straps while you’re
\non your backside and raise yourself up. What happens here is that we do not
\nknow what to do with defeat and with its most final version, death. We learn
\nfrom our defeats but only so we can discard them and put them at arm’s length.
\nYet the truth of all our lives, whether we are Christian or not, is that we
\nwill all die. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
\n
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
I have a friend named Johnny. No one has made me laugh as
\nmuch in my life as Johnny has, and we only lived in the same house together for
\none year. He is a fun-loving man who uses his humor to draw people together,
\nnot to push them apart. When my mother and father came to visit us and our
\nhousemates shortly before she was diagnosed with cancer, Johnny jumped at the
\nopportunity to give them a tour of the house. Johnny prayed for my parents no
\nless than three times during that tour. The Cuban native he is, Johnny often
\ncarries his Spanish Bible around wherever he goes, less in order to read it,
\nmore in order to lend a little extra authority to his own words uttered with
\nthe good book open in front of him. Johnny is also an artist. He makes most of
\nhis money by selling his paintings, and before my parents departed that
\nevening, he demanded that they take one of his paintings. Johnny lives a
\nvibrant life, and this offering of one of his precious gifts was just one of
\nhis many gestures of self-giving love.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
I saw Johnny three months after my mother made her passage
\nfrom life to death. In our phone conversations while my mom was sick, he would
\nanswer the phone and immediately ask how she was. And after she died, his first
\nwords on the phone were always “How is your dad?” Johnny carried my family with
\nhim at all times. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
I have wonderful friends. I really do, but most of them were
\nscared. When you talk with someone about their mother dying, they are likely to
\ncry. And when you talk about someone else’s mother dying, you realize that your
\nmother could die–that she will die. You then remember that you, too, like all
\nof the people who have ever lived before you, will die. When we have spent so
\nmuch of our lives putting defeat and death at a safe distance, at least an
\narm’s length away, it nearly kills us to embrace it. A few of my friends did
\nhug me, and a few of them asked me about how I was doing. For that, I am
\ngrateful.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
Then there was Johnny. Though Johnny is a joyful man, he has
\nhis hardships. He has lived most of his life close to death’s quarters. This
\nman who loves to pray for others has never been able to be a priest. That dream
\nhad to die. This man who secondarily would want to be a doctor or a police
\nofficer–anything to heal or protect other people–has seen those dreams die as
\nwell. As a person with Fragile X and Cerebral Palsy, Johnny’s dreams have been
\nshattered and his bones, though they have not been battered, broken, or beaten,
\ndo become more brittle with each passing day. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
That day, three months after my mom’s death, as I walked
\ninto Johnny’s room, he greeted me with an exuberant, “Wow, it’s Mateo!” After a
\nmoment’s pause, he motioned with his painting hand for me to come closer. He
\nput his left arm around my shoulder, as is customary before he prays for
\nsomeone dear to him, and then looked up momentarily as he does when he begins
\nspeaking with God. But then he didn’t begin his usual long-winded, though
\nalways heart-felt prayer. After glimpsing above, he moved his face within
\ninches of mine, so close I could smell his afternoon snack of coffee and graham
\ncrackers. “Mateo,” he said, “I’m sorry about your mom.” <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
And we wept. We wept as Jesus did when his good friend
\nLazarus had died. We wept as good friends are supposed to weep when someone
\nthey both love has died. We wept because God seemed to be weeping that this
\nsaint of a woman had left us so soon. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
Why was Johnny able to speak so directly and weep so openly
\nwith me? He was giving me the gift that only someone who has lived so close to
\ndeath can give. He was giving me the gift that Jesus has given us all but was
\nshowing me through this man. No doubt Johnny has shown me how to live well and
\nstill does. But the most important gift he has ever given me is how to die
\nwell–that before Easter Sunday, and sometimes after it as well, we must be
\nhonest that we live in that awful Saturday, between the cross and the
\nresurrection. And that day is a day for crying.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
Two months later I was playing golf with my dad. We paused
\non the 13th<\/sup> tee-box to talk briefly about Mom. We stood there for
\nprobably five minutes crying, speaking occasionally, remaining silent for the
\nmost part. Before we went back to playing golf, Dad told me, “Above all, she
\nknew how to die well.” We hugged through the tears and hit our tee-shots. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
Last time I went home, I saw that Johnny’s painting still
\nstands in our living room. There is no better room for that painting to
\nreside–in that room where we live. It might remind Dad–and I know it reminds
\nme–that we, like Johnny, like Mom, are called to die well. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
**For an explanation of the title “Perfectly Human,” and to read the first entry in this series, click here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\nTo read all the entries in the series, type “Perfectly Human” into the search box in the upper right.
<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matt Rhodes is a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. He lived in a L’Arche Community for one year before beginning his studies. Last spring, the Sunday following Easter Sunday, my beloved mother died. The church was celebrating victory; I was living in defeat, in despair, in death. The minister who had come to the hospital…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-perfectly-human"],"yoast_head":"\n
Perfectly Human**: My Friend Johnny by Matt Rhodes - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/perfectly-human-my-friend-johnny-by-matt-rhodes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Perfectly Human**: My Friend Johnny by Matt Rhodes - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Matt Rhodes is a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. He lived in a L’Arche Community for one year before beginning his studies. Last spring, the Sunday following Easter Sunday, my beloved mother died. The church was celebrating victory; I was living in defeat, in despair, in death. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Matt](\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/Matt%20and%20Johnny%20wedding.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n