When the weather gets warmer . . .

I haven't been on Xanga much lately.  That's a pattern I've noticed for a lot of us.  It's just been a busy time.  Some of it is the usual craziness of my two jobs and trying to juggle some kind of a social life in there, too.  Another big chunk of it has been writing.  In addition to writing the weekly devotional for the hospital website (although a couple of the other chaplains have been contributing more regularly and giving me some time off lately), I am also writing a book.  When I tell people that, they often ask me for definitive answers like, "What's it called?  What's it about?  How long is it?"  It's hard to pin down those answers.  I won't know the title or the length until I'm finished, I think.  In writers' group at church, we're reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and she says that when you're done, you just know.  I'm going to trust her on that.  And I think the title will make itself known when I can read the whole thing in its entirety and get a feel for it.  As for what it's about, that's not an easy one to answer either.  It's about me.  It's about chaplaincy.  It's about life and death and what it's like to be a minister trying to hold onto faith when the rules keep changing on you and you start wondering if there's anything you can count on.  It's about becoming a grown up, even when you don't have all the things you thought would come with that title.  It's about love and disappointment and heartbreak and anger and unfairness and struggle -- but most of all love.

The book is not about Dr. Goodman, per se, but he does end up being in it a lot.  The narrative begins two weeks before his death, when I went to the funeral of a baby who died at the hospital (and it flashes back to the past a lot), and though I started writing the book over a month ago now, it was just a few days ago that I finally wrote about the day Dr. Goodman died.  I think I was really putting it off and putting it off.  The writing will go much faster now, in a way.  But that part was so hard to write, as I knew it would be.  I have been missing him a lot lately.  There have been markers that bring him to mind, like the 13th of every month, his birthday last month, Barbara's just a few days ago, and the fact that it's now spring.  That one caught me off guard.  I didn't know the beautiful weather would make me miss him so achingly much, but it has.

Tuesday night I dreamed that I was in a church Christmas play, and at the end of the play, as we were all walking out on stage to take our final bows, Dr. Goodman was standing there.  As each member of the cast walked by him, he said, "Good job, guys! Way to go!" and held out his arms for a hug.  One after another, they ignored him and walked on by, and he made sarcastic, funny comments about their snubs.  Finally, a little girl a few people ahead of me stopped to give him a hug, and when it was my turn, so did I. 

"Great job tonight, Stacy!  I'm so proud of you," he said.  I hugged him for a long, long time, because something at the back of my mind knew that there was something wrong, told me not to let go.  But I finally did, and he smiled at me and sent me off with the rest of the cast to bow and then rejoin the congregation. 

As we walked out of the church, I saw Steph and Brandon.  "Steph!" I said breathlessly, "Dr. Goodman was here!"

"Yeah, I like to think he was," she said sadly.

"Didn't you see him?" I asked, confused.  "He was right there, on the stage.  Didn't you hear him talking to everybody?  And he hugged me.  You must have seen me hugging him up there."

"Oh, is that what you were doing?" she asked gently.  "There was nobody there.  Stace, Dr. Goodman is gone."

Then I started to get angry with her.  "No, Steph, it was real!  He was right there!  I touched him!  I could feel him!  He was really there!"  I woke up still arguing with her, still angry. 

I've dreamed of Dr. Goodman many times since he died, but they were all dreams in which he was alive and well and his death never happened.  This was the first time cold hard reality intruded on my dream world.  Just like in real life, it was Steph who had to give me the news that knocked my feet out from under me.  I cried when I woke up, thinking even my dreams are not a safe place anymore.

Later on in the day Wednesday, it occurred to me why I have been especially missing him lately.  The last time I saw Dr. Goodman, the last words he said to me were, "I love you.  Barbara and I will be in Charleston when the weather gets warmer, and we want to see you."  Now it's spring.  The weather has been consistently beautiful for days.  Some part of me was still expecting him to make good on his promise somehow.  But the warmer weather is here and he isn't.  It hit me while I was at work at my day job and I actually said out loud, "He's not coming.   He's never coming."  I can't even type it without crying. 

Maybe things would have been different if I had had physical proof of his death, if I had actually seen him in a casket.  I don't know.  But somehow the reality that he is gone, forever, didn't sink in until just the past few days.  Since I met Dr. Goodman, this is the longest I've ever gone without seeing him.  When he told me that he wanted to visit here in Charleston, I was looking forward to it as the start of a new phase in our friendship.  I imagined that I'd only get to see him a couple times a year, but he'd always be there, always be part of my life.  Even if he had lived, that might not have been the case -- as it seems it no longer is with Dr. Dickens -- but I like to imagine it would have been.  I miss him more than I probably have any right to, since he wasn't a family member and we didn't see each other all that often anymore.  But I won't try reasoning with my heart.  I just know that I miss him, a lot, and I think I will for a long, long time.

Communion

I didn't make it to church today (yesterday, whatever) since I worked last night and had to work again tonight.  But last Sunday was pretty special for me.  It was the church's anniversary Sunday, and we were doing communion.  Right after the litany reading, the pastor, who was sitting directly in front of me on the platform where the ministers and choir sit, passed me a note.  At first, I was confused because it had writing on both sides and I was looking at the wrong side, a former week's attendance log.  Don gave me a very comical "Duh!" look and flipped it over to the other side, where I read, "Will you help serve?"  I nodded enthusiastically.

So a few minutes later, just before the sermon, I followed Don off the platform, took the bread he handed me, and stood beside him as the congregation lined up to receive the elements.  I felt so privileged to be doing this, the first time I had ever served communion outside of divinity school.  I don't know why Don asked me.  Maybe it was just the fact that I was sitting right behind him.  But it felt like grace.  He knows what a mess I am lately, theologically as well as personally.  I've spent hours in his office telling him all about it.  And he still chose me to offer the bread of Christ's broken body to the community.  It was so very much like what God did in choosing me to be a minister.

As each person came up and tore a piece from the loaf of bread I was holding, I whispered, "The body of Christ for you," or simply, "The body of Christ."  If I knew the person's name, I said that, too, although it's sad to realize how few names I actually knew, even after more than six months here.  I looked into the eyes of each person and was genuinely smiling, near tears.  It felt like gospel, like truly good news, what I was saying.  Christ's body, Christ's blood, for us.  It seemed amazing and wonderful like it hadn't in a long time.

Watching each one as they took the bread was great, too.  Some people smiled; some looked somber.  A few even had tears.  Some said, "Thank you," or, "Thanks be to God," in response to what I said, but most said nothing.  A lot of people took a tiny pinch of bread, but a few took a pretty big piece.  Part of me wanted to take the whole loaf, to take Christ into myself all over again, to see if I could get a fresh start with Him one more time.  But instead, after I served my pastor and said, "The body of Christ for you, Don," he took the elements to serve me, and I took just a pinch of bread.  My hands were shaking.  I don't know if he noticed.  The sermon he preached afterwards was wonderful, too.  It was all about our questions and the mystery of God.  He could have been preaching it right to me.  That day at least, the mystery seemed not so frustrating, just beautiful.

A poem about faith (sort of)

Alone.

No balm for the pain,

No salve,

No saving me from this

Darkness,

As from the bottom of a deep pit.

And who can hear my cries?

Who wants to hear?

Who tries?

Why cry when all ears are deaf,

Maybe even my own?

Who will take my hand when I reach out?

Who will not turn away?

Who hurts for me?

Hurts with me?

Hurts in me?

There is only

You.

Are You here?

Do You hear?

Ever present?

Inescapable?

If I make my bed in

Hell,

Someone said

Even there,

You are.

There You are.

Hidden.

Incomprehensible.

Infuriating.

Silent.

There.

You are.

Dear Dr. Goodman

Dear Dr. Goodman,

            Days have gone by since I heard the news, and still it doesn’t seem real.  On Tuesday, I kept repeating it to myself, trying to make it sink in.  “Dr. Goodman died.  Dr. Goodman died.  Dr. Goodman is dead.”  But everything in me kept arguing, “That’s ridiculous, impossible!”  Even after I returned home from your memorial service, I saw your picture, the one of us on graduation day, and for a second I actually thought, “Next time I see Dr. Goodman, I’ll have to tell him what a nice service it was.”  Next time I see you.  You and Barbara were going to come here to visit, remember?  That’s what you said the last time I saw you.  You hugged me goodbye and said, “I love you.  Barbara and I are going to be in Charleston in a few months, and we want to see you.”  I was so looking forward to that.

            I always looked forward to seeing you.  There were a few things I could always expect:  1. We would laugh, a lot.  2. You would update me on Barbara and the boys with that glow of pride and love that was a joy to witness.  3. You would ask how I was doing, and would want a real answer.  4. No matter how I was doing, you would say something encouraging, affirming, loving, and I would walk away feeling like a better version of myself – the version you always saw – beautiful, talented, strong, brave, intelligent, bursting with potential.  I was always amazed that you wanted to spend time with me – you were so impossibly cool – much less that you loved me.  But you did somehow.  You always made sure to tell me.  I imagine there are few things you left unsaid, and that is a gift to all of us, especially now.

            You even said the hard things that needed to be said.  I remember being so glad that I ended up in your small group for my final semester of Integration.  You and Dr. Dickens, my two most beloved professors, would get to read and critique my final paper of divinity school.  It didn’t get any better than that in my book.  I put a lot of work into writing my theology of ministry, and you affirmed that.  When we met for our final conference in your office, before Dr. Dickens arrived late, you let me know that you were proud of me, that you could see such growth in me during the years we had known each other.  You said my paper was beautifully written, that it displayed “a refreshingly low Christology” (which kind of freaked me out at the time, but I know what you meant now, and you were right), but that you had some concerns.  In your own kind way, you pointed out my refusal to state my own theology with any kind of certainty.  It’s good to have questions, you told me, and my theology will always be a work in progress of sorts, but it is important, you said, to know what I believe right at this moment, and why, and what it means for my life as a minister.  In so many words, you told me my theology was too wishy-washy.  When Dr. Dickens arrived, he simply asked, “So, is your God just a wuss?”  You both challenged me to keep wrestling with the questions, to find some things I could say with certainty.

            I remember leaving that meeting more than a little miffed at both of you.  But what you could see was what I refused to acknowledge.  My own beliefs were severely challenged by Patsy’s sickness and death.  But instead of doing the hard work of really delving into the implications of that tragedy, I covered the gaping wound in my theology with a band-aid, pretended it was no big deal, and went on.  When those same questions of theodicy were raised again and again in CPE, I did my best to shove them back down, no matter what my group said.  Than a few weeks ago, just after Christmas, I stood and helplessly watched the death of Sam, a baby I had loved and whose mother I had pastored during their months in the hospital.  He was my symbol of hope, his survival against the odds my assurance that God still answered my prayers.  When he died, I was devastated and angry.  And before I had fully begun to sort through my grief over this tiny patient, I got that nightmarish Tuesday phone call:  “Dr. Goodman died this morning.”  In two quick pulls, the band-aid was ripped off, and my theology was hemorrhaging.

            On Wednesday morning, I went to see the pastor of the church I’ve been attending since I moved to Charleston.  In sobs of anguish and rage, I told him I didn’t know how to believe anymore, or even if I could believe anymore, that I wasn’t sure how to keep doing the whole ministry thing or the whole Christian thing for that matter.  In a world where things like this happen – where you and Patsy and Sam are not spared – how could he know that God can be trusted for anything, or even cares at all?  “I don’t know it,” he replied, “but I choose to believe it.”  I sat in frustrated silence for a moment, trying to decide if I could make the same choice.  As if he could read my mind, he said, “You don’t have to believe right now.  We’ll believe for you for a while.  That’s what the church is for.”  I think that was the moment he ceased to be the pastor and became my pastor.  You’d like Don.  There are things about him that remind me of you, and Dr. Adams, and Dr. Dickens.  I think he’s the right one to help me on this long, hard journey toward a functional faith, a resurrected theology.

            You were right, Dr. Goodman.  I still have a lot of faith work to do.  It didn’t end with graduation, of course, just like you said it wouldn’t.  I guess if we do it right, it never ends.  Here’s what I have decided I know, so far:  1. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also the God of Dan Goodman.  I can’t distance myself from God without getting further from you, too.  2. I don’t want to let you down, and I think giving up on the God you loved and the ministry you helped train me for, abandoning everything you and my other professors taught me, would be a piss poor way to honor your memory.  3. I didn’t have to know you.  There is nothing in the universe that says I had the right to that, or that it was inevitable.  I could have gone to a different school, or not gone at all.  I could have ended up at Gardner-Webb a few years earlier, before you came, or a few years later, after you died.  I could have been in another Integration class, in someone else’s small group.  I could have waited to go on the Holy Land trip another year, or not gone at all.  I could easily have missed going with you down to the beach our first night in Israel, or being one of the chosen twelve to share your Ben Yehuda adventures in Jerusalem.  I could have skipped the homecoming game, or decided not to make the drive for Deb and Stephen’s wedding, or sat at someone else’s table at the reception.  If things were just a little bit different, it would be so easy for us not to have been friends, for me to have no memories of you, or for either of us never to have existed if I really think about it!

            So what do I make of that?  I can call it coincidence or luck – or I can see it as a gift, which seems much more appropriate and feels more right.  But then, gifts have to be from someone.  That would mean saying that God gave me those moments with you.  And a God who would give such gifts – who would even create people like you and Patsy and Sam and his mom and Dr. Dickens and my pastor Don and all the other incredible people in my life whom I love and who actually love me back – such a God could not be evil or cruel or even indifferent.  Such a God would have to be worth getting close to, worth loving.  I can say that much for sure.  And 4. God was there at your memorial service, present in the love you left us all, this miracle that united a sanctuary full of strangers as we laughed and cried together remembering you.  It wasn’t some warm, fuzzy feeling, just a conviction, something I knew.  I knew it like I knew the reality of God when I prayed at the Western Wall, or at Yad Vashem where a survivor of Auschwitz gave me his kiss of blessing (You loved that story.), or at dozens of other times and places in the almost 15 years I have been a Christian.  My pastor says those moments are like pitons, those things mountain climbers use to anchor themselves so that even if they lose their grip, they won’t fall any further than the last piton.  I like that image.  I think part of the work I have to do will be going back to reexamine those pitons in my life.  Some of them may not be as strong as they once seemed, but I have hope that some of them will hold fast, and give me something to hang my faith on so I won’t fall quite so far next time. 

But I will not overthink this, as hard as that will surely be for me.  John Claypool says that we have to make up our lives before we make up our minds, that we can’t just sit idly by until we have everything figured out, which is exactly what I always want to do.  I remember being so frustrated during CPE because I was making all these mistakes as I learned, and what I wanted to do was learn everything first, then go out and do it right.  But life doesn’t work like that, does it?  I think I told you that about CPE when we were at lunch one day, and I think you laughed.  You seemed to always jump in with both feet to everything you did, not worrying about practicing the techniques or getting the methodology right first.  I want to be more like that.  So I am taking my pastor’s advice.  I am going to keep doing my job, keep living my life, and learn as I go.  I have lived an unexamined life for too long, so I need to see what God has been saying through my experiences for some time now.  Claypool says he decided “that it was the nature of God to speak to us in the language of events, and that it was the nature of the Church for [people] to share with each other what they thought they had heard God say in the things that had happened to them.”  I’ve been closing my ears for a couple years now, because I was so sure that God couldn’t have good things to say in sad events, tragic, unfair, horrific events.  But if Claypool could find God speaking good things even as his daughter was dying, and Dr. Dickens could make such beautiful steps of faith even in the wake of Patsy’s death, and your loved ones could affirm God’s goodness even now, I must have been wrong.  I have a lot to learn.

            You were a wonderful teacher, Dr. Goodman.  I hope you knew that.  More than anyone else, it was you and Dr. Dickens who pushed me, challenged me.  You would never settle for less than my best, and didn’t mind a bit to give me some of the lowest grades I had ever gotten if I held back or got lazy.  Of course, the grade didn’t hurt nearly as much as reading your red notes, “Stacy, I have come to expect more from you.”  Ouch.  And so it seems you’re still pushing me.  Trying to reconstruct my theology in the wake of your death is a challenge that deserves my best.  I’ll be honest – I’m scared.  I don’t know where this journey will take me.  There are good reasons why I’ve run away from the tough questions, and why plenty of people never try to engage them.  But I owe it to you and all the other people who have invested something of themselves in me, and I owe it to God and to myself.  I will see this thing through, I promise.  You of all people would know that the Greek root of my name is anastasis, “resurrection.”  I’ll do my best to live up to it.

            I don’t know if you’re aware of what’s going on down here.  Maybe Dr. Canoy is right and the way eternity works is, before you even have to blink, the end has come and all the people you love are there with you.  I like the idea of you not having time to miss Barbara and Daniel and Dylan.  But just in case you do know what we’re up to, and in case you happen to glance my way, I still don’t want to let you down.  Barbara told me at the memorial that you loved me and were proud of me.  That’s all I ever hoped for.  And I hope you knew how much you meant to me.  I know I wrote you a letter before graduation, but I was so rushed.  Did I say everything that needed to be said?  It probably wasn’t enough, but I’m so thankful now that I at least tried to get it down on paper for you. 

            I love Winnie the Pooh, and in one of the books he tells Christopher Robin, “I’ll never not remember you.”  It makes me think of the Greek word for remembering, anamnesis.  I could always get that one, because it looks like it means the opposite of amnesia, the opposite of forgetting.  I will never forget to remember you.  You were the one who introduced me to Frederick Buechner, and I have this book of daily meditations from his writing.  Sometimes I’ll read one that you must have read to us in class, because I can hear it in your voice.  The one yesterday was about remembering.  It fit what I was feeling about you.  “When you remember me,” Buechner says, “it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are.  It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us.  It means that if we meet again, you will know me.  It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.” 

There were hundreds of people there at your memorial service, Dr. Goodman, and we will all remember you like that.  You left your mark on us, made us better.  For my part, I thank you for always seeing the best in me, for challenging me, for being my friend.  I’ll always remember you.  I miss you.  I’ll see you again.  I love you.

Stacy