The Book of James

The RN said on the phone that the family was ready to see me. They’d said at first that James is Holiness minister and that he had plenty of spiritual support and did not want or need a chaplain.
When I arrived I found a vibrant, active home in dire need of paint and furnished with – whatever - including homemade shelves nailed into rickety boxes. Painted with what was handy, the shelving system in this well worn home was stuffed with everything from kitchen things to linens. It was a mish-mash home that seemed to have one rule: damn the decorating, full speed ahead. I was escorted into the very back bedroom where James was enthroned in an older model electric chair with a joystick on one arm. He was one of the darkest men I’ve ever seen with a craggy face and hands that felt like leather gloves. He offered me his left hand because the right was disabled in a stroke about 30 years ago. His daughter told me with considerable pride that daddy never would concede to the stroke but set out at once to lick it and invented ways to go on with his manual labor. I admired him as soon as soon as our skin made contact. That thick slab of a hand grasp mine and I looked into the very face of honesty and integrity. Behind James was a faded photograph of a handsome minister in the robe and sash of a holiness preacher and the walls were lined with a picture gallery made up of children, grandchildren and great -grands. James’ deceased wife had the honor of several portraits all frayed and boxed in five and dime frames. I made the rounds asking about each picture until I got to a clipping of Karlov the wrestler and I said, “And this must be a picture of you.” I peeked a look around to see if he was laughing and saw a grin sneaking around his weathered cheeks. The next item was one of those mechanical Santa Clauses with a saxophone. I suspected that back in the day he had gyrated to Jingle Bell Rock or something. I think maybe his batteries had weakened a week or so after Christmas several years ago and he had an honored place in this room because some grandchild had given the gift. James was still grinning when I pointed at Santa and said. “And that’s me.” He laughed out of his belly and the one eye that was not weeping and cloudy brightened from the deep joy the joke brought to the surface.

My first goal, as with any patient was to convey the sincere respect for life experience and the Spirit of Christ that lives within. I made a special effort with this man because he was marginalized by many more factors than his status as a dying man. First, he needed to know in his heart that I respected his faith practice. The holiness tradition is often regarded many as “low church” and the faith of the unwashed poor; not a well thought of belief system among the well-bricked main line denominations. It was also important in my mind to let him know in as gentle a way as possible that I respected his experience as a man of color. I figured that genuine respect was not something he would have often received from white men in his time. But mostly, my theology as a Quaker demands that I respect him as a bearer of the Light of Christ. We don’t demand that one receive some ritual baptism or say words of acceptance so common in the protestant church. We believe that Christ dwells in the heart of every person.

My second goal was to hear the story that I’d hoped he’d know that I treasured. A man with as many scars on his hands and arms as James has many more on his heart and I wanted to hear about them. They speak of grizzled humanity and a life full of living. I tire quickly of whining rich people whose compulsive achievements gild only their financial portfolios and who suffer in only the trendiest ways. Their accounts grow full on the backs of men like James and their eyes avert away if they must look upon his suffering. But the Kingdom belongs to this dark-skinned man according to the teaching on the Mount.