Some More of PHOEBE
“He’s not being oblique at all, Ruth,” Phoebe said slowly. “Staying at Schleitheim would require the most courage.”
Thomas held up a hand in protest. “You said it, Phoebe. Don’t put words in my mouth.” But his eyes, bright blue behind bifocals, twinkled, too. “Let’s pray about it again, shall we?” So they had closed that day together as they had so many others, bowing their heads and holding hands around the lamp-lit table.
In the end, Phoebe’s decision had had little obvious effect on her relationships with family members. She still borrowed the Millers’ car to drive out to the homeplace on Sunday afternoons, and the disapproval her dad had shown for her decision to attend college and then to get her driver’s license simply extended to her seminary enrollment. While her mother never commented on any of these decisions, Dorcas’ agreement with their father about Phoebe’s waywardness was apparent.
Phoebe’s older sister had continued to live with their parents long after Phoebe and their brothers left home, first sharing housework with their mother and gradually assuming all the domestic responsibilities. After Mama died at 89 and then Dad at 92, Philemon’s oldest son bought out everyone else’s shares in the homeplace, and he and his growing family moved in. Silas and his wife, Mildred, offered Dorcas the bedroom their sons, long-grown, had shared at their place a short distance away. Once their farmhouse became the site of the Sunday evening family gatherings, Phoebe visited less regularly for a while, but now she tried to go most weeks—certainly often enough to remain a favorite among her grand-nieces and -nephews.
“’Still haven’t cut your hair?” Dorcas would ask her, sniffing, every few visits.
Until the stroke. Once the crisis abated, Dorcas went to an intensive rehabilitation facility, even though Mildred expressed willingness to keep her at home. Everybody knew that Mildred’s twin daughters and the other sisters-in-law and nieces would pitch in, but no one put up much of a fuss when Phoebe reported that an SSLC rehab bed had become available. Then Dorcas proved eligible for a subsidized room in assisted living. Phoebe stayed out of the ensuing argument among her brothers about whether to accept it, but they finally agreed, under the condition that Dorcas would eventually move back in with Silas and Mildred, probably then to rotate among each household in turn—except for Philemon’s and Phoebe’s. Philemon, whose wife Dorothy had died last year, now lived alone and usually ate supper at one of his children’s homes. And working full-time as she did, Phoebe wouldn’t be able to care for Dorcas during the day. But she paid the SSLC costs beyond the subsidy. She liked to think that having Dorcas at the SSLC was her way of taking an extended turn before the rotation began.
Phoebe arrived home as dusk was deepening. Leaving her bicycle and helmet under the outside stairs that led to the kitchen, she entered through the door at the top. Eutychus came from the living room to meet her, brushing by her calves slowly so she could scratch behind his ears. She fed him and then herself, microwaving the last of the lentil soup from a carton in the fridge and toasting a slice of sunflower seed-studded bread. A smear of cholesterol-lowering margarine made it taste almost decadent, she decided; a drizzle of Damaris’ strawberry freezer jam took it over the top. Feeling distinctly satisfied, she washed her dishes and sat again at the kitchen table, waiting. Finally, the wall telephone rang. She snatched up the receiver.
“Hello! This is Phoebe,” she said, making her way back to the table. The phone’s long cord uncoiled to reach her chair.
“Phoebe!” rang out a merry voice.
“Frances Jane!” Phoebe replied, sitting down. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty well,” her friend said. “How are you being?”
They both laughed. Their decades-long mentoring relationship, which Frances Jane had come to insist ran in both directions, featured her frequent reminders to Phoebe that she didn’t need to work her way into heaven. In return, Frances Jane had asked Phoebe to help her resist her own temptation to idle in contemplative mode. Phoebe tended to think that Frances Jane had earned her rest after teaching troubled teens for over half a century, but she knew better than to deny Frances Jane’s request for accountability.
After inquiring about their mutual friends at the children’s home and in Francis Jane’s convent, Phoebe asked for a health report. Long in remission from leukemia, Frances Jane was closing in on her ninetieth year and was the oldest sister in her community. Then they briefed each other on the events of the past week—where each felt she had participated and where she had fallen short of advancing God’s work in the world. Frances Jane requested prayer for patience, declining to offer details. Phoebe suspected that she was continuing to find Sister Mary Agnes’s open-mouthed chewing irritating. Her own request was for wisdom—whether to comply with Ron Rutt’s suggestion.
“I’m not sure it’s merely a suggestion,” Phoebe said. “It may be an order, although he’s too passive-aggressive to be clear about his expectations.” Unburdening to Frances Jane had felt like surfacing after an eternity of breath-holding at the bottom of the SSLC therapy pool.
Frances Jane was sympathetic. She didn’t tell Phoebe what to do, instead expressing confidence that she would discover her own best course of action. “I will pray,” she assured her. “And what about Dorcas? How are things going for the two of you this week?”
“Oh, you’re not the only one needing patience,” Phoebe told her. “It’s not reasonable of me to expect her to change at her age, but let’s just say that I don’t look forward to visiting her as she is.”
“I read something this week that shifted my thinking about pastoral visits, Phoebe. Maybe it would help you, too,” Frances Jane offered.
“Tell me!” Phoebe urged. She could use all the help she could get.
“Well, the doctor being interviewed in the article said that before she enters a hospital room, she anticipates meeting Christ there. Instead of thinking that she is bringing Christ to her patients, she expects that He is already waiting there—perhaps in the patient; perhaps in a visiting family member; perhaps present in some other way for them to discover together. What do you think of that?”
Phoebe was intrigued. “Can you send me the article?”
“Yes, I’ll scan and email it in the morning. Now you get a good night’s rest. Isn’t tomorrow your breakfast gathering?”
Phoebe marveled at Frances Jane’s recall. Yes; a group of local pastors and chaplains met at 6:30 am every third Thursday of the month. “It is indeed,” she told her. “I hope you sleep well, too. May the peace of our Lord be with you.”
“And also with you,” Frances Jane replied, ending the call.
By the time she had done her evening stretches, Phoebe had enough energy left only to bathe and brush her teeth. She barely had time to notice how loudly the crickets were praising the Creator outside her open window before she fell asleep.
The fragrance of bacon welcomed Phoebe as she entered the fellowship hall of College Mennonite Church the following morning. Miriam, the farmers’ market vendor from whom she bought soup and bread, was catering the event with her teenage daughters. They loaded a plate for Phoebe as she went through the line: grits-and-eggs casserole, baked apples, Miriam’s trademark sunflower seed bread, and oh! that crispy bacon.
“Mercy!” Phoebe declared. “I’ll never eat all that—but it sure looks good.”
“Give it your best shot, Phoebe” Miriam urged. “You need energy for all that biking you do.” She lowered her voice. “I think we’re going to have plenty left over. Stop by the kitchen before you leave, and I’ll pack you something for later.”
A bit embarrassed by Miriam’s solicitude, Phoebe nevertheless accepted the piled-high plate. She set it down at the drinks table long enough to prepare a cup of green tea and then scanned the room for a seat. Sebastine Akubeze, the assistant priest at St. Elizabeth’s downtown, beamed at her from the far side of the room, pointing in an exaggerated fashion toward the empty chair beside his own. She made her way to his table, where Sebastine’s colleague, Father Enrique (whose last name Phoebe couldn’t recall), sat on his other side. Pastors from two different Presbyterian congregations shared their table.
“Phoebe, my sister!” Sebastine said, rising to pull her chair out for her. “How are you this fine day?”
“Very well, brother; thank you! And you?” she replied. After exchanging greetings with others at the table, Phoebe sank her fork into the egg casserole. She listened as Jon Burke, from the Presbyterian Church-USA congregation downtown, kidded Henry Morgan, pastor of a smaller congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America, about having started wearing a clerical collar.
“Presbyterians don’t wear dog collars,” Jon said, shaking his head as he dumped pepper on his eggs.
“The parking options are much better for pastors wearing collars,” Sebastine observed. “You don’t have to walk so far, saving your energy for encouraging hospitalized parishioners.”
Father Enrique burst out laughing and winked at Phoebe.
“But anyone with clergy credentials gets a parking pass,” Jon pointed out.
Henry just grinned and let Sebastine make his case.
After everyone had settled into their seats and some had even finished their breakfasts, the host pastor, Dirk Landes, asked a blessing and introduced the speaker, an assistant professor of Hebrew at the University of Virginia. She presented from her scholarship on the book of Joel, and then the table groups discussed potential applications—or lack thereof—for their own preaching and pastoring. Phoebe found the presentation and ensuing discussion fascinating. After the benediction, she started to leave the table to affirm the speaker, but Sebastine touched her sleeve.
“How are our mutual friends?” he asked.
Note: I have recently combed back issues of PLOUGH for the article to which Frances Jane refers, but I haven’t yet found it. Perhaps it came from a different publication I read around the time I drafted this passage five or six years ago. If I find it, I will provide a link. Meanwhile, here is a link to the issue of PLOUGH in which I expected to find it. Frances Jane and Phoebe are longtime subscribers and surely found similar insights within its pages. 😉
https://www.plough.com/en/subscriptions/quarterly/2018/summer-2018-issue-17