The Wisdom of a Saint

On the day of Brogan’s wedding (this past Saturday), several of my family members spent some brief time going to the nursing home to visit my Grandma & Grandpa Bahler since we were all in town together for once in what may be a long time. Our grandparents moved to a nursing home in Lafayette early in 2008 because of my grandpa’s failing health (he, for example, couldn’t even remember who Amber was over Thanksgiving) while my grandma is now more healthy than she has been in years. It was a difficult move, as is so often the case with going to a nursing home. When Grandpa got pneumonia and was in the hospital, they headed right to the nursing home afterwards without ever going back to the place where they lived for decades. Grandpa’s car keys were taken away. There’s no kitchen for them to cook their own food. On the plus side, there is a cafeteria so they don’t have to cook their own food.

Grandma has always been one to write letters to us and the rest of the family with brief words of encouragement, a poem she has written, general questions asking us how we’re doing, and a check close to Christmastime. And with 92 members of the Bahler clan – including children and their spouses, grandchildren and their spouses, and now grandchildren – and another five grandchildren on the way, that is a pretty big job in itself. The fact of her letters came up in our brief visit with all of my brothers expressing thanks to her for her vigilant letter-writing. I made a summary comment saying, “Yeah, Grandma we all really appreciate your letters.” To that she said, “I appreciate them too; without them I’d be lost.”

I’ve pondered that statement a lot over the past couple days. It’s a very revealing comment, one that expresses a sense of purpose and a desire for significance. Through writing these letters, my grandma finds sustenance, support, and stability amidst this new, frail stage of life comprised of a whole new set of fears and responsibilities and problems. Those letters are her connection to the “outside world,” to the people she loves, perhaps even to sanity.

But I was told when I was in Christian school that one should only find his significance and purpose in Christ. At Cedarville, we sang an old hymn called, “Christ is all I need.” It was hammered into my mind that nothing could satisfy me, that I would always be searching, until that “God-shaped hole” was filled, until this sheep who was lost was found by the Shepherd. But here before me was an eighty-(some odd)-year old saint reminding me that we are made for community, for interaction with one another, for sharing our souls and dreams and hopes and feelings with humanity. Here was a dear woman, who has walked closer to the Lord than I ever will and has gone through more trials and hardships than I probably ever will, who freely admitted that at least some aspect of her significance and identity in life comes from what she does, what encouragement she can offer, what redemptive work she bring about. And the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

I also told my grandparents about my experience of finding my great-great-grandfather, Christian Bahler, in the online directory at Ellis Island. At this, my grandma shared a story about her own experience at Ellis Island: “Oh, I remember going there years ago. Now, you know my maiden name was Frey, so we looked up all our ancestors by the name ‘Frey’ that came through Ellis Island while we were there. Well, it just so happened that I had one relative who came over from Switzerland that we simply could not find. We searched and searched, but we couldn’t find his name there anywhere. And I know he came through that way because he didn’t have a dime in his pocket when he left home and never went back. So, the people at Ellis Island looked through a secondary source to try to find some information on him, and they still came up with nothing. And the only thing we can figure out is, because he was known for being a good swimmer, that he jumped ship and swam to shore.”

I come from a line including illegal immigrants (which isn’t so bad I guess. Jesus came from a line involving incest, fratricide, and womanizing and composed of liars, thieves, and prostitutes). Makes you wonder how many of us are children of illegal immigrants, how many of us “didn’t come here the ‘right’ way.” Besides we are all to be as “aliens and strangers in the world” (2 Pet. 2:11) anyway. So it ought to give us some empathy to those who find themselves demeaned, mistreated, and dehumanized for being labeled as such today. “When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34). To that I must ask myself, why aren’t Evangelicals trying to pass this verse from Leviticus into legislation as adamantly as they are certain other passages?