Mark and John

The parish I serve, and the wider world of which it is a part, lost two bright lights this week. As their pastor, I was privileged to share with them and their families those final hours of their lives here on earth. I pray that Mark and John may both rest in peace, and I pray for their widows, Jane and Gloria, and for their children and grandchildren.

It is weeks like the one I am in the midst of that make me most aware of both the costs and the joys of living out one's vocation as a pastor. For any ordained person reading this, I suspect this claim requires very little explanation, but as I imagine my readers (many of whom remain unknown to me in this media) I imagine that most of the experience you have with death and dying is that which touches you most directly. Clergy are not the only professionals who deal with death, clearly. But the role is unique and different from even that of healthcare professionals or funeral directors in that it moves through these hours of death to the planning of a funeral and to the celebration of a life and burial over the course of days or even weeks.

It is exhausting (and this is not a complaint!) because it all takes time, as anyone who has sat by a loved one's bedside knows. Mark was in a hospital over an hour away and John in a nursing home about a half-hour away. To gather family together to anoint and pray and listen, especially when two funerals come close together as these have takes a toll physically, emotionally, and spiritually. At 10 p.m. on Friday night, after attending a Shabbat service at a local synagogue with some of our confirmands, I drove to Leicester to be with John and his family. (The day had begun around 6 a.m. with a call from Jane that Mark had died about an hour earlier.) Driving through the winding country roads of Massachusetts the light in my car went on to warn me that I needed gas. I knew two things as my heart began to race a bit faster: that there was ONE gas station between me and where I was heading that MIGHT be open or MIGHT be closed, and that given the mileage I can get once that light goes on and the distance I had to cover both ways, if it was closed I MIGHT make it home or I MIGHT run out of gas. (Turned out the gas station was open.)

And I started laughing, out loud, alone in my car because I thought it was about as apt a metaphor as I could think of, or that God had given me. I was on empty myself. I was sleep deprived, I had my own grief for the loss of these two fine men, I had not eaten with my family for a couple of days, but in the worst possible way of eating drive-through food on my lap. I was out of fuel and no one knew that better than my wife, because by the time I was home and let my guard down I had nothing left to give.

And yet...

There is an amazing grace in such moments that is it's own "fuel." On empty, you know that you rely on God's grace alone, and the prayers of others. I certainly don't mean literally that God makes a gas station be open! I think God is occupied with weightier matters than that. I do mean, however, quite literally that when we are spiritually on empty, God finds a way to make up the difference. I knew as I drove to be with John and his family that I am supported by a community of prayer, a community that does "get it" that pastoral ministry takes its toll on pastors and their families. I found myself thinking about how sad it is to face death without faith. And even with strong faith, how hard it is without a communal dimension to that faith. I began to feel a sense of peace that passes all understanding even (or maybe because) all of the spiritual gauges that can measure such things were on empty.

And there is an amazing grace and privilege to watch families come together, even in the midst of pain and sorrow and some regret, to say goodbye to people whom they love. There is beauty and holiness to be invited in to the most intimate moments of life. A few times in my life (outside of the birth of my own children) I have been with families as they celebrate the birth of a child. But given the length of stays these days, those moments have actually been few and far between. Dying is another matter altogether. And I never feel more like a priest, more "called" than when I am able to offer the prayers of the Church in the midst of such moments. They are, in and of themselves, fuel that sustains me for the work I have been given to do. It is work that cannot and should not be delegated--everything else I do in a week including preparing a sermon can be rearranged, and needs to be in weeks like this. In so doing I find myself in a very thin place, where God is palpable.

Life and death. Birth and rebirth. Even at the grave we make our song - alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.