A Larger Table

Death came more quickly than all expected. Unfamiliar eyes turn to me, a stranger in a place where no one is at home. Expectant eyes ask me to say very few words to make meaning out of what no one wants, yet is. I am an outsider expected to be a known imparter of wisdom. I am an outsider yet one whom others hope will assure about what comes next.

I speak as one who must speak when it is really a time for to listen. I listened just enough to find the rich words that never before were appropriate for this dying person living in a strange bed. I am uneasy, yet breathe comfort for the one who wants familiar, yet hard words; words that do not come naturally. Uneasy while facing what is familiar to me, impending death.

“May my death be a Kapara, an atonement for my sins.”

These are strangers who hear these words breathed from my lips. Words to provide calm as the undesired cascades upon one in an unexpected bed. Why my discomfort? I who often see death. Am I still uncomfortable naming the messiness of living, which really is the messiness of daily dying small deaths in preparation for the big death. This is the time for few words, best to be uncomfortable words… There is peculiar wisdom in words that are uncomfortable to me.

Larry works as an oncology chaplain. A graduate of Fuller Seminary, Larry is an ordained Lutheran, and subsequently, Christian Universalist Association minister. (Larry served on the board of that organization.) He and his wide, Patty, live in Sheffield Village, Ohio.


Larry

© Larry W Spielman

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