of welcome and farewell

the other day i mentioned that i had received an interesting message on facebook which explored this whole business of pursuing the restoration of shalom in our place of employment. the note led both to and from conversations on this topic and resulted in a deeply challenging and insightful interview on sunday morning in the big room with my friend, a nurse on the oncology ward in one of our local hospitals.

here is the entire facebook note...
***

“But I am among you as one who serves” Luke 22:27. These are the words of Jesus when he challenges how we usually think about who is greater and who is lesser.

As one who serves, the first and the only thing that I can offer is a greeting “Shalom“. A greeting to receive the guest, as a host to welcome them in. By welcoming the stranger, I am given the opportunity to receive them as a gift from the Divine. We are told that saying farewell is hard, but for me the welcome is much more difficult.

The difficulty is in knowing that in receiving this gift from the divine I am also welcoming the suffering in which we both must sit.

My work is the work of loss. Loss of control, loss of certainty, loss of routine, loss of life here on earth, loss of family, loss of dreams, loss of hope. Strangers given to me as a gift from The Divine, to help redeem pain, to help redeem loss and to help redeem suffering. And here I am, feeling, seeing, touching, holding the gift. The gift holding me.

Redeem-to obtain the release or restoration of, to off-set, to free, to liberate, reclaim.

I weep for the stranger that I welcome. I weep for the sorrow that we will endure. They welcome me into their pain and suffering, I am a guest in their life. Participating in their sorrow and suffering.

“when Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said “where have ye laid him?” They said unto him, lord come and see. Jesus wept.” John 11:33-35

My work is the work of hope. Hope of this moment, hope of showing mercy into this moment, hope of bringing shalom into this moment. The lives of strangers become part of me and I of them. We become intertwined like vines, with memories, tears shed, stories told, obstacles overcome, fear relieved, pain redeemed, hope exchanged.

As much as I would like it to be, this is not the hope of tomorrow or the hope of things to come. My prayers for a tomorrow to offer have been answered with a resounding no and so here I am, left with what often seems so little, only a small, impoverished hope to offer. The hope I have access too is a short-sighted hope, the hope of a caress or a kind word that is perhaps all-to-soon forgotten. If I could offer a tomorrow I would, but it is impossible, impossible for so many reasons.

Tomorrows are a luxury that feels out of place between us, tomorrows would be a dishonest hope, a barbed hope that causes more damage then it can soothe. And so I am left without a future to point too, without deliverance and salvation from the sorrow.

With no future all I am left with is the unexpected greeting and the farewell that always comes too soon, the farewell that is there even in the welcome. The immediacy of my hope leaves me with only shalom, the welcome and the “go in peace” of parting.