Someone once said that "no one dies in general." Death is very specific.
And so Anne and I found ourselves in Preston, Wash., a small town just east of Issaquah. Abbie Berry's mom, Adra, had died, and folks were gathering in the local Baptist church to sing and laugh and cry and remember together. We didn't know Adra, but we do know Abbie and so we gathered, too.
The church was plain and simple, big enough to hold everyone who came but small enough to be an intimate venue. And it was intimate: longtime friends, family, locals, neighbors, people who had worked at the foodbank with Adra. Community. A good picture of what we often miss in the city.
When the time came in the service for people to share memories, there was no shortage of volunteers. Adra was a remarkable woman. One by one, people rose from wooden pews in the little church to tell their stories. Visits at the mailbox, work chatter at the foodbank, a kind word, the good-natured herding of children, gardening. Everyday activities took on the sacramental holiness of a life well-lived.
The sharing time was coming to a close when a young man in his early teens stood up, obviously uncertain if he should be doing so but apparently resigned to the necessity. He was a big, solid kid with a crew cut and fresh-scrubbed cheeks that showed no sign of any beard he might sprout a few years down the road, and his crisp white shirt buttoned tight around the neck.
When the microphone was handed to him, he stammered, turned a bit red and muttered something about how he didn't know if it was right to talk about what he was going to, but he felt he should. Lucky for us he did.
I didn't write down his exact words, so I can't actually quote him, but the gist of it was something like this: "I live next door to Ms. Berry and I'm the one who destroyed some of her property a while back."
The small room grew smaller and quieter and an awkward wonderment settled in-what were we witnessing? "I was playing with some friends, and one thing led to another. I wish I hadn't done it."
Good Lord, was this a confession time or a memorial service? Well, it was both, and why shouldn't the two go together? The unmistakable sound of fresh Gospel wind poured into that little church like someone had left a window wide open.
"I ended up telling Ms. Berry that it was me, and she wasn't so happy but she didn't yell at me or anything and I did some work for her and we figured it out. And you know, she never, ever treated me any different than if I hadn't done that stupid thing. She made it so that we went right on being friends as though it had never happened."
There was an abundance of poignant sounds in the air at Preston Baptist that afternoon: earnest piano notes, revival hymns, sermon words, scripture readings, prayers.
But the Gospel rang out most clearly when one uncomfortable middle schooler reminded us what grace sounds like. "Neither do I condemn you...go and sin no more." Jesus said it. Adra lived it. The teen received it. And we were changed by it.[[In-content Ad]]
