Over Afternoon Tea

Tea is not only a drink but a ritual over which people have been relaxing, talking, and catching up on each other's lives for centuries. This blog is intended to serve as a virtual cup of tea, helping me keep in touch with friends and family in my physical absence.

She sits quietly, waiting, in the eternal darkness of the blind, as Father opens the unlocked back door and we file into the living room. But for the greeting he calls we could be anyone, yet the door stays open. It isn't until we've been in the living room for a few minutes that I realize how quiet it is: the TV is off, no radio in sight, no computer, no books, only the air conditioner and a talking clock. The blinds are tightly shut but the light is on, and I wonder briefly why.
She greets us and begins to rattle off a list of messages for Father. Her son says hello. Her other son wanted to meet Father today, but he had to go home and paint his house. Could he have a calendar? Does Father have any icon-cards? I wait for the awkward silence of all nursing-home -type visitations to descend, but Father converses with her comfortably as he sets out his equipment. There will be no uncertain pauses; he has come here with a job to do.
"Evlogitos o Theos imon..." he begins, and we respond. I have never heard this service before, but the shape of the litanies is comfortable and familiar. Don't need books for this. And Margaret knows the service well. As Father begins the Anointing with the Holy Oil for healing, she lifts her hands and her blind face to him, waiting for the blessings that come from the darkness before her. Watching her as Father reads the prayers for healing, I wonder if she still believes, if she still hopes, that someday, one of these times, there will be healing, or if she sits in her darkness waiting for death with her hands uplifted, quietly and patiently, as she waits now for Father to rub in the Holy Oil. Perhaps both. I remember the promise of a priest: "There will always be healing. It will not always be physical, but there will always be healing."
Photi reads the prayers before the reception of Holy Communion, and Father leans forward, holding the Communion spoon carefully over the Communion cloth. She opens her mouth and as she receives the Body and Blood I fight down the lump in my throat. This is how it should be--submissive and quiet, patient and still, waiting for the hand that reaches through my spiritual blindness to bless and to strengthen and to point me in the right direction. Are we not all blind on Sunday morning as we line up in front of the Chalice? If we saw its Contents truly, would we have the courage to stand there?
As the prayers go on, Father speaks to her of things a father of toddlers could never say otherwise to a woman her age--of death and repentance and dying well. His voice reads the prayers that carry the wisdom of ages down to a shut-in in her living room, and I marvel again at the wisdom of using prayers written by others older and wiser and holier, wonder how I got along without them for twenty years.
When the service is over, Father says a few more words and then we all file out, calling goodbyes. "This is where the ministry really is," Father says again. "The hospital visits, the funerals, the nursing homes. When you stand there while someone dies, you remember what it's all about." He's said it a hundred times but I never really got it before. I am pathetically aware of how little my presence in a nursing home does for the residents, hesitant to pay an unwanted visit to the ailing or shut-ins. Margaret didn't need me there, but it was good for ME.
Maybe when Anthony's ordained, I should make his rounds with him from time to time.