Winter and Healing
By mid-March, even our most fastidious neighbor has given up on shoveling. There is an inch of ice on every surface, like linoleum flooring that rarely gets washed, a little rough and slightly gray, still slippery but not quite as dangerous earlier in the season. When a new snowfall comes, like a couple nights ago, nobody bothers anymore even to clear their steps. Everybody walks gingerly and gets inside as soon as possible.
Last night, a man who is definitely the church's one and only welcome wagon couldn't stand up to get to the front of the church for the ashes. Over and over, I watched people pause after being marked to tell the pastor, "Be sure you don't forget about H." After church, several people offered to help his wife get him to the car.
He has always appeared perfectly healthy to me, although older. The first time I came to the church, literally a week after moving to town, when I was still living in a hotel room looking for a place to rent, I wandered into the church and he walked over to me, younger and more able then, and took my hand. He asked my name, my nationality, and then introduced to me to "the only other Greek in town." Since then, we talk every week about something related to my heritage, or my job, or, once in awhile a topic much more controversial. He has hurt me before. I have probably hurt him. We don't agree on most things. But I know I wouldn't still be at the church had he not welcomed me that first day.
I had no idea until T came into my life and started coming to church with us that he was on dialysis. He found out she was a nurse and talked to her for about an hour about his medical condition. He now ends up at our table at coffee hour a lot. He liked T; she's a much better listener than I am.
Last week our pastor asked me and a few other church members or regular churchgoers to talk to the confirmation class (two pre-teens who didn't really want to be there) about our faith journeys and what church meant to us. I talked about that first experience of welcome.
"Yes, H gives our church a great first impression," one of the other panelists said.
"Everyone could be an H," our pastor shot back, and we all settled into a silence for a few seconds, long enough to be uncomfortable.
A few years ago, when H was diagnosed with cancer, I thought about giving him an icon of St. Nektarios. In the Greek tradition, he is the saint to whom we pray for healing from cancer. Last night, I told T how that icon had sat next to my church envelopes for a few weeks, best intentions, until I finally decided not to do it after all. It would be awkward. Maybe he would even think it wasn't appropriate--protestants don't pray to saints, after all.
"He would have liked it," T said. "You could still give it to him."
"Maybe," I said. "But he doesn't have cancer anymore."
"Healing is healing, right?" she said.
Today I am thinking about H on his way to his dialysis. I'm thinking about his wife J helping him get to the car. I'm thinking about that inch of ice that is covering everything, hoping he won't have a fall, hoping he'll make it.
Last night, a man who is definitely the church's one and only welcome wagon couldn't stand up to get to the front of the church for the ashes. Over and over, I watched people pause after being marked to tell the pastor, "Be sure you don't forget about H." After church, several people offered to help his wife get him to the car.
He has always appeared perfectly healthy to me, although older. The first time I came to the church, literally a week after moving to town, when I was still living in a hotel room looking for a place to rent, I wandered into the church and he walked over to me, younger and more able then, and took my hand. He asked my name, my nationality, and then introduced to me to "the only other Greek in town." Since then, we talk every week about something related to my heritage, or my job, or, once in awhile a topic much more controversial. He has hurt me before. I have probably hurt him. We don't agree on most things. But I know I wouldn't still be at the church had he not welcomed me that first day.
I had no idea until T came into my life and started coming to church with us that he was on dialysis. He found out she was a nurse and talked to her for about an hour about his medical condition. He now ends up at our table at coffee hour a lot. He liked T; she's a much better listener than I am.
Last week our pastor asked me and a few other church members or regular churchgoers to talk to the confirmation class (two pre-teens who didn't really want to be there) about our faith journeys and what church meant to us. I talked about that first experience of welcome.
"Yes, H gives our church a great first impression," one of the other panelists said.
"Everyone could be an H," our pastor shot back, and we all settled into a silence for a few seconds, long enough to be uncomfortable.
A few years ago, when H was diagnosed with cancer, I thought about giving him an icon of St. Nektarios. In the Greek tradition, he is the saint to whom we pray for healing from cancer. Last night, I told T how that icon had sat next to my church envelopes for a few weeks, best intentions, until I finally decided not to do it after all. It would be awkward. Maybe he would even think it wasn't appropriate--protestants don't pray to saints, after all.
"He would have liked it," T said. "You could still give it to him."
"Maybe," I said. "But he doesn't have cancer anymore."
"Healing is healing, right?" she said.
Today I am thinking about H on his way to his dialysis. I'm thinking about his wife J helping him get to the car. I'm thinking about that inch of ice that is covering everything, hoping he won't have a fall, hoping he'll make it.
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