Part Two:
Note:
Click here to read part one.
God love me, I was so young and ignorant. My
awareness of myself and of the world was almost completely limited to the sphere
of words. I was good with words, and words mattered to me more than anything
else. God bless Mrs. Davis for putting up with me and the people at Baylor
Medical Center for letting me stumble through my internship like a bull in a
china closet.
The good news is that there is a certain grace
to ministry that happens when the humanity of the minister collides with the
humanity of the bereaved. It’s a comfort to know that God can work both with us
and in spite of us. Sometimes God makes use of even our rawest materials.
After Mrs. Davis was finished,
I began my much quieter prayer in a calm voice that sounded something like Mr.
Rogers. I carefully countered each of her theological points with words that I
addressed to God but were meant to teach her a thing or two.
“There is no need to be afraid for
Billy, for he is in the hands of his maker.”
“Of course we KNOW, dear Heavenly
Father, that death is no longer our enemy.”
“Not our will but yours, not our desire,
but your kingdom.”
You know what I’m talking about. Highfalutin,
seminary-boy words. Very theologically correct and, in my case, very flat. Very
much without passion.
After my prayer I opened my eyes, expecting to
find her greatly relieved and comforted, and perhaps happy to have learned
something in this hard time. After all, one never knows when the Lord
has a thing or two to teach us.
Instead I found her staring at me with her
mouth open.
“So he’s died? He’s dead?” she asked.
“No, he’s still alive, as far as I know. We
have to wait for the doctor to come and give us the news about that.”
Mrs. Davis seemed confused, as if she didn’t
know what to make of me or my prayer.
“So he’s not dead?”
“No.”
“You were praying like he was already dead.”
I had no response for this. Not even a somber
nod. I just looked back at her. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Her brow furrowed as if she was trying to
figure out what kind of a chaplain she was dealing with here. Unable to
comprehend me, she bowed her head and commenced her passionate pleas that God
save Billy from the hounds of hell and the demonic hosts of the nether regions. This time she never stopped to give me a chance
to pray. She kept going right up until the moment the doctor came in and gave
her the bad news. Billy fought hard, but he was dead.
I braced myself for what was coming. In her
mind and according to her stated theology, the hounds of hell had won the day.
The devil and his demons were even now dragging Billy away. I wondered what she
would do now that the battle was lost.
To my surprise she clasped her hands together
just under her chin, raised her eyes to heaven and said, “Thank you, Jesus.” She
gave me a hug and told me again what a wonderful man he had been. “We will miss
him dearly,” said she, “but he’s in a better place. He’s gone to his reward.” She quietly signed the necessary forms to start
the funeral process and went on her way, leaving me completely befuddled and
unable to comprehend what I had just seen.
She made a complete and very sudden 180
degree turnaround. Suddenly his death was a victory and a reward. I puzzled over
this for weeks, wondering what caused the change.
Some years later I finally figured it out. Here
is the answer to the riddle of Mrs. Davis’ prayer:
Sometimes people don’t mean what they say. They
mean what they mean. And never so much as in the prayers we blurt out in times
of grief. Prayer is not simply a communication of words. It is a full-bodied
expression of the soul. People weave their history, their theology, their
brokenness, their buzz words, their ignorance, and what wisdom they have into a
very private and intimate conversation with God.
Perhaps grieving is a kind of speaking in
tongues. How can you know what people are talking about? They might not even
know themselves.
Young ministers would do well to let people
have their say and not worry too much about exactly what they say
when the chips are down, the awful moment has come, and they are staring into
the great unknown. It may be that the only one who can make sense
of our grief is the one to whom we speak in those dreaded times.
When last I heard, Mrs. Davis was still alive,
in her 80s, and running a cowboy camp meeting named after her husband.
Dear Mrs. Davis, thank you for letting me bear
witness to your intimate conversation with your beloved Creator. God understood you
just fine, even if I didn’t. And I must say that it was an honor to be there
when the littlest cowboy preacher exited stage left.
I think of you and Billy sometimes. And I
always smile.
rlp
note: The names in this essay have been
changed
