Conversatio Divina

Part 7 of 18

Inviting Others In

Cindy Bunch

When I was in a time of crisis, Andy and Phyllis opened their home to my infant son and me. Andy is my long-time supervisor at work, and he and Phyllis have taken in so many people in various transitions that we joke that it is a rite of passage to live in their home for a while. 

Andy and Phyllis taught me a lot about hospitality in the easy way they hosted me. They have a room always at the ready. The house itself is comfortable and uncluttered. You never feel in the way in the shared living spaces, and at the same time privacy was readily available. Their teenage son, David, babysat for my son and was nonchalant when the baby threw up all over him. David, too, was offering hospitality. 

Their openness was in striking contrast to the lack of hospitality provided me by my church community during that same time. I felt that the church had forgotten me. Certainly, a few individual friends checked in with me—my small group came to pack the moving truck. My friends Mike and Beth and their boys were available for absolutely anything from babysitting to getting the house ready to sell. But I didn’t hear from the pastor, and I didn’t feel that the church was with me as a body. 

I felt abandoned by my church. 

01.  Living the Church

God redeemed this experience in 2008 through Shelly Allen. At forty-two-years-old, after a lengthy period of testing, Shelly was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Shelly was one of the founding members of Church of the Savior, which was only four years old at that time. The poem at the end titled, “The Body of Christ,” chronicles much of the work that she did in our church. She was often one of the first people a visitor to the church would meet, and she hosted many parties and dinners in her home. Shelly especially loved to provide hospitality on the holidays to the other single members of the church who didn’t have family nearby—with Easter egg hunts and more. 

The ALS progressed rapidly. Soon Shelly was in a wheelchair. She continued to go to work in the IT department at Wheaton College. After she lost strength in her legs, friends began driving her to work each day. 

Shelly felt strongly about staying in her own home—and not going into a nursing home. So she opened her home to a group of women from church so that we could care for her. There were about twenty people who served on rotation. Some helped with the morning routine that included showering Shelly and getting her dressed. Others helped out after work. And still others helped as part of an evening and bedtime team. There was quite an elaborate scheduling and reminder system that kept us all coordinated. 

I was on the evening team with Catherine. One evening a week I drove over to Shelly’s home at about 8:00 pm. The door would be left open. And Tim, Shelly’s very unhappy cat, would greet us with complaints about his owner’s situation. 

We would help Shelly slide in and out of her wheelchair using a board so that she could go to the bathroom. Then we would help her slide into bed and get dressed. She’d clearly explain each time what we needed to do to maneuver her through the process. I found this reassuring, as I had no background in offering this kind of care. 

We’d make sure everything was in position: the grabber stick next to her, the prayer blanket a group of women made, the iPod at the ready, cell phone, alarm clock, and medications on the side table. We would then adjust the lights and leave the door unlocked for the morning crew. 

It was troubling to leave her this way, as she couldn’t get out of bed on her own. But it was what she wanted. The final choice she was able to make for herself was how to live out these days. And she wanted to live them in the care of her church community rather than in the care of strangers. 

Eventually, as she got worse, she was no longer able to go to work, and she needed more constant care. Mindy opened her home to Shelly—and to the rest of us. We continued to come and go, offering the needed care in shifts. Now we had to move her from the chair to the bed using a lift. Again, Shelly was able to offer guidance through this process as we moved her up and down. 

On my last visit, Shelly was having quite a bit of abdominal pain from what was eventually thought to be a gallstone. That night we tried to work quickly. I lowered the hospital bed but it wouldn’t raise back up. It was stuck. I was upset that I had broken the bed. But Shelly calmly said that it just didn’t matter. It could get fixed the next day. 

This is hospitality—to open your living space to someone else and to forgive the messes that they make in it! 

That night was the last time I would see her. Shelly died September 26, 2008, of complications from ALS. She was in great pain but she had Marilyn, Linda and Gayle— members of our church—with her right through the end. 

One of her last wishes was to have her three cats stay together. Heather took them all in despite the fact that she already had a dog and a cat. Tim the cat is now happy again. 

Our little church held its first funeral. It was my first experience of an Anglican funeral, and I learned that some elements of the Easter day liturgy are incorporated into a funeral. The robes, altar cloths and cross drape are done in the splendid Easter white. Some of the same Scriptures and prayers are used. It was Shelly’s resurrection day.

02.  The Gifts of Shared Hospitality

Most of the people caring for Shelly in these days were close friends to her. They had known each other through various churches in the area for years and had come together in this new church plant. I was perhaps the one who knew her the least well—as more of a casual church acquaintance. But she let me in. And in doing so, she gave me several gifts. 

One of those gifts was that I discovered that I could do things in caring for her physically that were unfamiliar and challenging to me. I was unsure of myself as a caregiver, but she was able to coach me through how to care for her. 

And then each night after helping Shelly to bed, I would experience the most peaceful 25 minute drive home. It is hard for me to describe the quality of that time. I felt God’s presence with me and a deep sense of joy and restfulness. All this despite the fact that seeing Shelly decline week to week was painful. I think I was experiencing both God’s pleasure and the pleasure of doing good. 

I recently shared this experience of peace with another helper, Linda, and she said that she felt a similar peace in the morning and after work when she would go to Shelly’s house. It seems that this gift of peace was not unique to me. Christine Pohl writes, “We make a habit of hospitality when we remember how much Jesus is present in the practice.”Christine Pohl, Making Room. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). We were experiencing the fruit of Jesus’s presence with us. 

The women who cared for Shelly gathered a couple times after she died in order to share stories and grieve together. Linda, our deacon, gave each of us a headscarf fashioned after the scarf that Mother Teresa wore. I use it as a covering for a little altar table in my room. It is a treasured reminder of those days of caring for Shelly.  

I have always felt uncomfortable with the suggestion that what I did was anything like what Mother Teresa did, as it feels more like it was Shelly who gave the gifts to me and not the other way around. And the most important of these was the gift of trust. She opened her home so that I could come in and care for her, and she trusted me. 

Hospitality requires openness on the part of both the recipient and the giver.

03.  Shelly’s Legacy

There was another gift. And it was Shelly’s gift to our whole church community. Because of her openness in allowing us to care for her, she allowed us to function as the body of Christ—as a witness to one another and to the world around us. We were witnesses to the miracle of God’s Spirit at work among us. 

I have heard from others in the church that the medical personnel Shelly dealt with through the hospital and hospice expressed amazement at what our church community was doing for her. Many said that they had never seen or heard of anything like it. 

When I think back to the letdown I felt with my earlier church community, I realize that for my part I did not have a sense of trust in that body as a group. Perhaps now that I have seen how the church body can gather together and offer care, I will have greater trust in the future. 

In the summer of 2009, I began a program of spiritual direction at North Park Theological Seminary. The required text as we started the course was The Art of Listening by Margaret Guenther. I already had a copy of the book. It came from Shelly’s library. I felt that she was with me as I started learning the ministry of spiritual direction, which is surely a gift of hospitality as well. 

04.  The Body of Christ

Shelly serves her church.
Linda prays for healing.
Shelly meets with the vestry.
Gayle drives to the hospital.
Shelly types the bulletin.
Angel builds a step.
Shelly builds a website.
Trudy rakes the leaves.
Shelly leads a small group.
Catherine takes her to the bathroom.
Shelly orders the Easter banners.
Sandy brings her to church.
Shelly fills the communion glasses.
Heather helps with a shower.
Shelly serves communion.
Elizabeth changes the bed.
Shelly arranges the altar table.
Deb makes the schedule.
Shelly creates a Pentecost drape.
Christina puts her to bed.
Shelly greets a visitor.
Hope sews a draw sheet.
Shelly posts the sermons.
Caronina walks for ALS.
Shelly offers prayer ministry.
Bill brings the Eucharist.
Shelly hugs a child.
Mindy hosts a birthday party.
Shelly makes a joke.
Daniel makes a card.
Shelly says thank you.
Marilyn sleeps at the hospital.
Shelly helps plant a church.
We become a little more like Christ. 

 Cindy Bunch: 9/28/08 

Footnotes

Cindy Bunch is associate editorial director at InterVarsity Press and edits the Formatio line of books. She is the author of several Bible study guides including Woman of God. She is the Life Together section editor for Conversations Journal. She recently completed a certificate in spiritual direction at North Park Theological Seminary. She and her family live in Elmhurst, Illinois.