This Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day...and while I know many folks in our world have had traumatic parental experiences, when it comes to my mom, I still marvel at all that she had done and meant to me and so many. This video (click here) is one of my favorites. This is her at 88, on the floor with her great grandaughter playing with a box. This, in so many ways, encapsulates everything about my mom. Always willing to meet you where you are at!
This Sunday I will travel to the Dakotas, Mom’s sacred land and my birthplace, to visit my mom. Normally I would be super excited about this journey. I mean, after all, my mom has always been a vivacious and hope-giving figure in my life. I always look back at her life and just marvel. Raising 8 children. Washing all those cloths and diapers in an old “ringer” washing machine. Trying to live up to the crazy expectations of being the “wife” of a pastor.
(Just a side note here. One of my favorite stories Mom tells is when we lived in White Lake, SD. It was a Saturday morning and the kids were all outside while Mom and Dad were having a good old-fashioned argument inside. I mean they were going deep and working it out the old-fashioned way...yelling at each other. And as they were arguing someone rang the doorbell. Mom went to answer it and as she opened the door, she recognized that it was a member of one of the churches Dad was serving ... by the way, at one point Dad served 5 local churches in this parish. He would preach in White Lake, the home church at 8:15 and then off he’d go to four other churches. Often, he wouldn’t get home until 2 pm. During hunting season he’d often come home with a couple of pheasants, road hunting on the way to churches!… Well anyway, Mom opened the door and recognized that it was a member of one of the churches Dad served and Mom, a little abruptly, said, “how can I help you?” And the person said, “Well I would like to visit with the pastor if I could?” And Mom smiled at him and said, “Well, you will have to come back later. Your pastor and I are having an argument, and we need to see it through.” She then promptly shut the door and went back to the task at hand...getting my dad to see things the way she saw them!)
I love that story because it shows that my mom has spunk and courage! My mom was a courageous fighter, and she was almost always on the right side of it all.
And that’s why I love visiting my mom!
So why am I so hesitant this time? What is happening to make this particular visit such a difficult journey? Well, my mom is 94 now and is currently in a senior care facility in Wessington Springs, SD. And even though I know my mom is trying to make the best of this situation, I also know that this is the one place she has tried to avoid all her life! I know, for instance, that at one time in her life she had decided to stop eating just so she wouldn’t go into a nursing home! And now here she is. Making the best of it but making the best of a scenario that she has never wanted. And on top of that, my mom has now struggled to share her greatest gift with us...her amazing mind and spirit.
Lately, when I talk with her, I often wonder if she really knows it is me. It's almost like she lives most of her life under a dense fog and can’t cut through the fog to get up to where we are all living now. Occasionally, she will pop her head up with a memory or a familiar phrase, but much of the time she spends under that fog. I find myself asking a question that has often haunted me when I visit folks in a care center, “What do I say?” As a person of hope, as I walk into a place that seems so hopeless to those living there...what do you say?
As a young pastor, I remember wrestling with this question, and as I shared this struggle, a colleague gave me a copy of an amazing book written by James Campbell called (believe it or not) “What do you say?: Learning to Listen for Grace Among Our Elders” It was a game changer for me. Below are a couple of excerpts from the opening of the book...it is so, so, good!
WHAT DO YOU SAY? What do you say? Really, What do you say? You open your Bible at the makeshift pulpit before twenty or thirty sets of eyes. You are not sure if some even comprehend where they are, let alone who you are. Some eyes are dull, tranquilized eyes, while others dart here and there like nervous tiny birds. Still others placidly wait in acceptance. You wonder how long they have been waiting in those chairs. Chairs are more than furniture here. Chairs seem to be the symbol of the place, symbols of waiting—waiting for what? Waiting to wait some more. No, be honest, waiting to die. Chairs of waiting. When you go, you leave behind an empty chair . . . for a day before someone else falls in line to wait. “Lord, what a dismal place.” As you say that under your breath, you ask yourself again, “What do you say?”...Such are the words that fill your mind as you study the eyes that face you: the eyes of those who gave in, resigned to the fact that life must go on even if it has no reason...
I remember preaching in a care facility where one fellow who had to be restrained kept interrupting my sermon by yelling, “Prove it! Prove it!” It was most disconcerting, especially since the sermon was so milquetoast that there was nothing to prove. Only later did I realize that in challenging my emptiness he was crying out against his own. What do you say? Indeed, what do you say? ...
Beside this woman sits another, a total contrast. Her hair is well groomed. Her printed silk dress bears a large brooch of a style long forgotten. She sits erect, thoughtful. She thanks you for coming and waits patiently for the less mobile to be helped to their rooms. What must this place mean to her? What must it mean to be constantly reminded of the indignity of what is ahead? Behind her on the wall is a sign that reads, “Today is Wednesday,” as if she needed to be reminded. Around her are voices of visitors speaking to residents as though addressing children. Perhaps she has accepted it. You wonder, and in the wonder you wonder all the more, what do you say?...
A friend of mine lives in a care facility now and she shared this: “I’ve seen this scene so often. Most pastors come with their own agenda. I doubt if any of them really think to whom they are speaking. It’s just another, less responsive, congregation.” Yes, some do see, and as they see the shallowness of your words, what must they think of the worship and themselves? What do you say? What do you say?
Campbell concludes this intro with this statement and a provocative question:
One thing is for sure—whatever you say is work, duty. As a pastor I state it bluntly: Speaking of hope is the hardest of ministries to those whose life’s beginnings are over. Your burden, and the burden of all who love them, is to help them cope; to cope with waiting . . . waiting to die. As you see that task, the question looms all the greater. What do you say to people with such time on their hands? Before you, the reader, answer in quick response and with the certainty of your insights of old age and your theological convictions, I ask you to think again. Are you sure it’s the right question? (Campbell, James A.. What Do You Say?: Learning to Listen for Grace Among Our Elders . Sunbury Press, Inc.. Kindle Edition.)
The good news is the rest of the book is much more hopeful. In it, Campbell, argues that the “What Do You Say?” question is indeed the wrong question. The answer to bringing hope to this community is not to see them as hopeless, but as a group of people who have a gift to share...and that gift is their past. And although some of them have lost their short-term memories, their long-term memories are still there, just waiting to be seen and heard. The task of the guest at a nursing home is not to bring in the hope, but to listen for the hope in the stories that are already there...if we are only willing to listen to them and see them for what they are: gift!
And so, with that reminder, I find myself looking forward to my visit with Mom. She will most certainly share with me gifts and stories I have not even heard before! And the way to love her is to stir the memories in her heart by holding her as the gift she is and always will be.
Your pastor and friend, learning how to love my mother again and again, Brook
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