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The Second Sunday of Advent
Had she never spoken I would have assumed she was a simple variation on the bag lady wandering in off the street to sit and get warm in the ICU waiting room. Biases dies hard. I of course knew she wasn't. She was probably someone's sister, mother, aunt. The Neurologigal Sciences ICU waiting room isn't that accessible to the street people of Madison.
She was carrying a bag with her. It looked like it contained some bananas and a few sundry boxes or packages. She was sitting reading the newspaper when we returned from the ICU. We had just had a prayer together as the pastor and family. Time was uncertain, prognosis for recovery was dim. All the major decisions had been made and time was all that was left to wait with.
"Is this yours?" She spoke in a raspy, forced voice. Her eyes didn't seem to focus on us. She squinted and one eye was off center from the other. "Yes," answered one of the sons of the woman in ICU, "but we're not going to read it right now." He turned and walked out of the room, following most of his family as they paced in the hallway.
I sat with a sister of the patient. Silence was the bond, the language of the moment. Pastors sit in these places all the time, but even over twenty years does not give one the answers. Any pastor who easily has them at that point has never struggled with the pain, the uncertainty, the fears. Silence, no answers- these are not signs of lack of faith. They are signs of trust- trust that answers, if needed, will be there. This is a trust that answers may not be what we need.
But all that is standard pastoral theology. This newspaper reader in the center of the room was not. The sister and I sat. She finally broke the silence. "Even with all the faith we have, it's still impossible not to ask 'Why?' "
The raspy voice started before the head was up from the newspaper.
"I'm taking catechism right now and the Father and I had a long talk about evil just the other night."
That was not what I needed to hear. My pastoral sensitivities went into action. I glanced at the sister as the pseudo-bag lady kept talking. This isn't what someone needs to hear at a time like this. She is breaking into the sanctity of the moment- the terrible, fearful, sad sanctity of impending death. Why is she here.
She kept on talking. "Satan... Evil... Father and I disagreed..." Her eyes never looked directly at us as she rambled on in her monologue. Some inner voice directing her. Some inner compulsion leading her to say these words to two strangers in response to a non-question.
"But you know, Father said that it doesn't matter in the end. What matters is that no evil can keep God from doing good for us. Yep, that's what Father said."
She turned back to the newspaper and the crossword puzzle. Then in a twinkle she looked up, put the puzzle next to the bananas and was summoned out of the room.
Silence resumed. A holier silence now. A pastor awed into silence by the presence of a holy one. This was not deep theology. This was not some great act of pastoral care. This was a woman who couldn't help but overhearing and responded. There was no agenda. I'm not even sure she was talking to us directly. But she spoke her words and went her way.
The sister continued to sit. Family members walked in and out waiting that lonely wait of ICU. I eventually had to leave and go about other duties. But God had been there in that brief moment with a word- THE Word. Incarnate again.
