'Cause though the truth may vary,
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.
-Of Monsters and Men
Evangelism is active listening. It is not colonialism. It is not sharing my faith. It is hearing the God-story unfold in another person's life. That's what I'm learning this semester in my required-for-the-ordination-that-I-may-or-may-not-pursue-someday Evangelism course.
Active listening, no matter how active, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.
Today, as I prepared to leave work (of the nannying variety), I talked to my employer and a colleague of hers.
"This is so funny," the colleague said, as our conversation came to a close. "In the car on the way over here this morning, I was just thinking, 'I don't know if I believe in God anymore.' And now here I am, telling you about all this."
I can't blame this one squarely on occupational hazard; our chat had been just about as far as can be from the topic of God.
But one bit of conversation had led to another, and before long, the colleague recounted for us some stories about her sister who died of cancer some time ago.
The two sisters were extraordinarily linked. Numbers Eight and Nine of nine children in the family, they were raised more like twins. They shared so much - everything from sleeping spaces to daily routines.
Our storyteller described a time that she went on vacation as a young adult. While there, she had an inexplicable urge to buy her sister a pair of socks with a silly design to them. As she and her husband wandered the store, she mused frequently about how the socks reminded her of her sister. Her husband teased her for this sudden obsession with socks - the sort of gift that she had never given to her sister before - but never tried to talk her out of the strange souvenir.
Then, when they reached the cash register, she set them aside. Her husband was shocked that, after all that, she wasn't buying them.
When they returned from the trip, her family had difficult news that they hadn't wanted to share across the distance. Her sister, Kathy, had survived a car accident but had lost both of her feet. Both of her legs had been amputated just below the knees.
The same night that Kathy had been through hours of surgery, her sister, still away and unaware, did not sleep at all. This was strange to her at the time - so uncharacteristic of her. She liked to think she could sleep on a picket fence if need be. But as Kathy struggled through the accident and the aftermath, her sister kept vigil for her without even knowing it.
It was years later that Kathy was diagnosed with cancer, which eventually took her life. One day, as her sister was driving home, she thought again of her twin-soul. She didn't know whether or not Kathy had believed in God, or whether or not that should matter in what awaited her spirit, or whether or not Kathy was at peace. It bothered her - the not-knowing.
It was then that she came to a traffic light and stopped. She glanced to the side and saw a shipyard that she often saw while on this drive, many times before and many times after this day. But this was the one and only day that she saw a particular boat's name scrawled in paint along its stern:
Kathy's Fine
She is.
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