Things I Learned From A Brother In Christ

I heard the other day that Johnny, a friend from my high school days, died 6 months ago. We haven’t lived in the same town for 35 years, and had been in touch only sporadically since I left our hometown.  But old friendships never die.

Hearing of the death of an old friend always brings back days gone by.

I have reached an age when learning of the death of a high school or college friend is not intrinsically shocking. Once you pass your three score and ten (Psalm 90:10 – “Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong;”) death may not be a boon companion, but is certainly no stranger.

My friend was a devout and devoted man, strong in prayer and open to God’s promptings. I have seen him hear of someone’s troubles and watched him immediately write a check for $1,000 to help, arranging for the money to be delivered anonymously. (That particular $1,000 was back 1983. An internet inflation calculator values that as $3,232.36 in funds today.)

Johnny taught me a lot about stewardship, in both his actions and in our conversations.

The Lord Told Me

Johnny was prone to saying “the Lord told me” in conversations. It took me years to get the courage to ask him exactly what he meant.  I did not think he meant he heard an actual voice, but I was reluctant to ask.

I think I was afraid that he might tell me he heard a voice.  If so, I would then have to deal with the possibility that a person in modern times I was close to was also close enough to God to be in actual conversation! I am not sure what was more frightening at the time – that I knew someone who was in some way akin to a prophet of old, or that I had a delusional friend.

Eventually I grew enough in maturity and courage to ask.  What he told me was a lesson worth sharing again and again.

He did not hear a voice, and he had no visions or special revelations. He had simply learned, through obedience and trust, how to discern when God was prompting him. And he trusted that if he misread some prompting, that God would move to correct or repair any mistake he made.

One important thing – he excluded any impulse to tell someone else what to do or how to respond. If someone asked him for advice or guidance he would give it – but he did not interfere with others. As he saw it, he did not have the calling to remonstrate or interfere.

Stewardship

I had only recently finished college with a degree that was less commercial than personally satisfying, so I took a job in retail.  I didn’t make a lot of money, but it was enough to live on and left enough time for me to work on my writing.

At that time I was still an Episcopalian. It was the practice in my parish to have a yearly stewardship drive, asking people to pledge their giving for the upcoming year.  This made it easier for the parish to plan its finances and budget.

I was just out of school and working an essentially unskilled clerk’s job in a retail shop during that year’s pledge drive.  My income was meager, and I didn’t think it justified a pledge.  But Johnny came by the store one evening (on a slow day at a slow hour) and brought a pledge card.

I told him I didn’t make much money and gave what I could when I could.  He said “That’s OK. How about I put you down for 50 cents a week?”

I was taken aback. It seemed to me that was such a trivial amount it was hardly worth pledging, and I confess to being a bit embarrassed to put myself on record for so little as that. It was, frankly, embarrassing.

But Johnny wasn’t embarrassed. And he wasn’t scornful or condescending at all. He said it wasn’t how much, but the fact that I was willing to back up my parish membership with a promise of support, even a small one.

I pledged $5 a week.  Given that my take home pay was (in 1975) was about $380 a month, that was not a huge amount.  But it was noticeable to me, at least in terms of my movie money, or visiting the bookstore money.

But Johnny was right. It did give me a feeling of participation and membership that I had not had before.

To my surprise, 10 or 15 years later, when I was a member of the Vestry (an Episcopal church’s local governing body) I found that $5 a week was a common pledge, and was frequently the pledge of people I had always considered much better off than I was. By that time, however, my pledge was rather higher than the $5 with which I started. I also found the idea that I was close to being a substantial contributor to the Parish both satisfying – and a little alarming!

But once again, Johnny had taught me more than I knew I needed to know.

In Grief

My mother died suddenly at the age of 55, from a complication from surgery she had 8 or 10 years earlier.  It was a surprise and a shock. She had gone to the Emergency Room and I brought her home after they discharged her.

It was a busy night there, with several trauma cases, and my mother’s case was unusual. But there is a medical proverb that says, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” Unfortunately, my mother was a zebra.

I had to take my mother back to the hospital about 8 hours after she was discharged, but it was already too late to save her. She died about 12 hours after I got her back the second time. The cause of death was mesentery thrombosis – a blockage of the mesentery artery that sends blood to the intestines.

For several days I was in deep shock. I did eat when someone put food in my hand, and drank when presented with a tumbler. But I was wrapped in guilt, grief, and self-recrimination, even though a doctor friend had attended the “M&M” (mortality and morbidity conference) meeting that week to hear about her case.  The doctor told me that she was probably past real help by the time she was sent home after her initial visit.

I was living in a fog, and sinking rapidly into a dark place.

One afternoon I was sitting in a chair in our little living room. Two of my mother’s co-workers had come by with a traditional “touched by death” casserole for the family and I was trying to listen to their words and mostly failing.

There was a gentle knock on the door, and Johnny walked in. When he entered the room the dam broke. “Oh Johnny,” I said, and I stumbled across the room and grabbed him in a huge hug, which he returned.

He just stood there, holding me up while I wept for the first time since the hospital, releasing the grief, the guilt, the sorrow, and the pain. He didn’t pat me back or say anything.  He just helped me stand upright until the storm passed and I was suddenly limp and ready to sit down.

I don’t remember what he said, or even if he said anything at all. I don’t remember much of anything, except that my friend was there, and that I knew I could count on him if there was anything I really needed. For the first time in two and a-half days, the first time since hearing the news from the doctor in the little conference room next to intensive care, my head began to clear. I realized I was thirsty.  I also realized that I needed to find the list of hymns my mother had given me years earlier – the hymns for her funeral.

Jesus had come to me in the person of my brother in Christ, and from that moment I began to heal. I was finally able to process the grief and guilt and anger at the circumstances of my mother’s death.

Sometimes, they say, you need God to have arms, and in that moment this devout and pious man loaned his own arms to the Lord, and allowed Jesus to pass His peace and comfort through to me.

Nothing good in this life is lost to us forever. A day will come when I expect to see my friend.  Together, blessed in the presence of God, we will find the fullness of being brothers in Christ that we only felt in a dim, reflected view here on Earth.

Until that day, may he rest in peace, and light perpetual shine upon him.