A WEEK IN THE LIFE: FRIDAY

(Due to circumstances within my control, I’m starting it up again.)

Let us not speak of Thursday. Friday began, after a tempest-tossed and nearly sleepless night, at the same time (7:20) and under the same circumstances (me alone in the house).

I had a funeral today, for a woman whom I’ve never met. But I knew who she was. She’d been a custodian and Sunday-school teacher at our church for a few decades. She’d moved away and transferred her membership, but ours was still the church she considered “home.” And with good reason; she literally knew the ups and downs of every floor tile in the building.

So as far as funerals go, this one was a hanging curveball. If you can’t preach a good funeral sermon for a saint who’s finally resting from her labors, you’d better ask your seminary for your money back. But even the simplest sermon needs to be written, and as of 8 o’clock this morning, this one wasn’t.

I was out the door, showered and dressed but uncaffeinated, at 20 after 8. I wanted to give my full attention to the poor woman whose funeral I had to perform, but instead I spent the whole drive to work (about 15 minutes) rehashing an ugly event that ruined yesterday for me. By the time I got to the office, though, I felt like I’d gained some perspective on it, and it wasn’t outside my control. So I wandered down to the church kitchen to get some coffee, then sat down, picked three Bible texts for service, and banged out the sermon in fifteen minutes.

That left me with about two hours to do a little reading, something I hadn’t done all week. I wanted to finish Robert Farrar Capon’s The Mystery of Christ . . . and Why We Don’t Get It, one of two books I simply must re-read every year in between Christmas and Lent. (The other is Jurgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God.) I finished the Capon book . . . and still had an hour and forty minutes to kill. So I called my vacationing council president to let him know of the situation which transpired yesterday, so he wasn’t blindsided by it when he came home. It made me feel better to talk to him, and to hear him say that he thought my assessment of what was going on was probably pretty accurate.

(Never underestimate the importance of the relationship between a pastor and the church council/board of elders/vestry/whatever your church calls it. No congregation will ever function better than that relationship does. And I, my friends, am blessed in that regard.)

I stepped out and made small talk with the funeral directors. Pastors and funeral directors spend a lot of time with each other, for many obvious and non-obvious reasons. I have grown to respect nearly everyone in the funeral-service profession. Theirs is not an easy job, and it’s very socially isolating as well–not unlike ministry, I guess; the difference is, I don’t wear a suit every day. Usually I’ve found them to be glad to talk to people around whom they can be themselves and make small talk. And I’ve appreciated the same thing.

Later I met the woman’s son; he was a very thoughtful guy and we had a good conversation. The funeral itself went smoothly (they usually do, although trust me, I could tell you some stories). It was too doggone windy to go to the cemetary, especially to the treeless hilltop place where she was to be buried. So we didn’t go. She was the sort of person who would have understood the decision and agreed with it.

I know I ate the funeral lunch, but I can’t remember what I had. Most churches put out a pretty good “dead spread”–no matter what the weight-loss gurus may say in their fundamentalist food theologies, there are times when a plate of hot, salty food followed by a dessert or two or six is just good therapy for the sick soul. But today my thoughts were already elsewhere, with my council member down in the hospital in Milwaukee.

So after I snorked down my food, I was back in the car for the hour-plus drive. Third time in three days, it was. Yesterday she was a little better but had a pretty bad fever. I didn’t stay too long yesterday (I couldn’t) but I was there long enough to say a prayer.

Her fever broke an hour after I left, just vanished completely. I’m not saying my prayer had anything to do with it, and I’m not saying it didn’t. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, and all that. I’ll just say that this is far from the first time this has happened to me. You draw your own conclusions.

Today she’s doing better still, down to just one life-support machine and gradually withdrawing from medications. She may come home next week, for all I know. Things continue to move in the right direction, although not at the pace we’d all hoped for.

I left the hospital and got on the freeway just as rush hour was beginning to fire up. Milwaukee traffic is usually not too bad, so long as you’re not trying to go north or west. Which would happen to be the directions I’m always going, but I digress.

By the time I got halfway home the entire week began to catch up with me. The last 15 miles of my trip, I could hardly keep my eyes open. I wondered about stopping for a soda or something, but I didn’t want to spend the money. I got home just before 4, wrote down my mileage (I am going to have one gonzo mileage check for February, what with all the driving I’ve been doing), and went straight to bed.

My wife and stepdaughter got home 20 minutes after I did, and it was obvious nobody in the house had had a good day. I scrapped my plans to fix a big breakfast-supper in favor of a Taco Bell run. It’s about 20 minutes one way to the Bell and I’ve spent more than my share of time in the car this week, but driving is easier than cooking bacon while trying to placated three troubled souls–especially when one of them is your own.

My stepdaughter ate an entire soft taco. She’s a tiny eater, and she’s never done anything like that before. Even in the midst of soul-sickness, God sends little pocket-sized miracles, and they’re enough to keep you going a few more days.