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Starting
Point Unassuming
roofers and extraordinary acts
Then some men appeared, carrying on a bed a paralyzed man whom
they were trying to bring in and lay down in front of them. But as the crowd
made it impossible to find a way of getting him in, they went on to the flat
roof and lowered him and his stretcher down through the tiles into the middle
of the gathering, in front of Jesus. (Luke 5:18-19)
By GARY SMITH
I received a call on Friday night not long ago from a Los Angeles
roofer. Our friend, Wells, had died an hour before in his Spokane
residence. The slow torture of multiple sclerosis finally killed him.
This damn insidious disease began who-knows-when. Symptoms
appeared a dozen years ago, long after our college days at Santa Clara, Calif.,
his brief stint with the Jesuits, his doctoral studies and the birth of two
daughters. Once the long haul with MS commenced, he went from a few awkward
inconveniences to falling on his face; from a cane to a wheelchair. Ultimately
-- these past few years -- he was flat on his back. He used to say,
Its like being buried alive, Gar, one spoonful of dirt at a
time.
We chatted on the phone periodically, and I visited him whenever I
was in Spokane. He lived alone next to the Spokane River but was accompanied
daily by a variety of care providers.
Our visits were quality time. There were a few yuks, some tears
and the tender and mutual trust of two friends working through the raw stuff of
life, faith, relationships and the madness of MS. He always made time for me,
his gaunt and rawboned face attentive, solicitous, thoughtful.
Wells often referred to his close friends, those who came to his
aid as he became more and more sick, as the roofers -- an allusion
to those famous stretcher-bearers in Lukes gospel. Turns out they were,
for the most part, a group of former Jesuits -- 1960s vintage -- who
collectively decided three years ago to insure that his last blast of life was
taken care of financially. His pension and insurance could not cover all the
expenses of his home and the kind of care he needed. So, each month, they would
mail in the bucks to one of their point men who in turn wrote the necessary
checks.
It is a mixed group, these roofers: lawyers, physicians,
blue-collar workers, teachers, psychologists, architects, priests. They are, by
their act of roofing, extraordinary people. Yet theyre also very
ordinary, comfortable with the obscurity of their mission of love, like their
gospel counterparts who worked behind the scenes to attend to a wounded
brother.
The funeral liturgy was designed by Wells, including the gospel of
the paralytic man and his friends. The lead roofer, Tony, gently spoke to the
moment in his homily:
We were indeed the people from the gospel: packing him on
his litter, down the alleys, across the river, up the stairs, to the very roof.
We pulled off the tiles. We hardly had a choice. He was yanking on us to do so.
It really wasnt hard. He was pretty light, after all. He didnt
complain. His spirits were pretty good most of the time. Wells used to say,
My vocation, during this part of my life, is to lead people to God by
their taking care of me.
It worked. Our hearts opened. He showed us faith; he showed us
caring; he showed us forgiveness; he showed us kindness. He led the way to God.
Our job was easy. All we did was carry him.
I think that the roofers are the great clarifying metaphor for the
church. Roofers are broken open by their act of love. Their focus -- their
obsession -- is on the wounded brother or sister. The church discovers the love
and truth and compassion of its heart in the service of the broken. Driven by
love, it cannot get stuck in its selfishness, and it is dispossessed of the
temptation to seek honor and riches and power. As roofer, the church finds
Christ whether it is caring for the AIDS patient or challenging the
dehumanizing policies of a dictator.
As Tony, the lead roofer, might say, in the act of service the
church discovers what it is all about, which is to say that in service it is
gracefully captured by its true purpose and meaning: to meet and to be Christ
in the world.
After the funeral Mass, the gathering of friends walked into the
early evening, and we made our way to a pedestrian bridge that crossed the
Spokane River, a spot that Wells could see from his bedroom. We gathered around
his two daughters as they tenderly poured -- lowered -- his cremated remains
into the water. In death, in a wonderfully unyielding way, we were all roofers
once more. And looking down into the river, we knew and were known by the
Christ who called us all in the sacred ritual of saying farewell to our sacred
brother.
Jesuit Fr. Gary Smith writes from Portland, Ore.
National Catholic Reporter, October 16,
1998
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