He had been there that Sunday morning, in the wooden-walled, stained-glass sanctuary, when I was baptized as an infant over 20 years before, he’d told me – had been in his 70s then. But remembered it all, had started praying for me then and had never stopped, he’d said. In his 90s now, he was my ‘neighbor’ – the door to his apartment there at the retirement home only two doors down from my office door, on the east end of the 2nd floor. Bent and wrinkled with ever-failing eyesight, but a man with a more alive spirit I’d never met. That was Paul.

I’d hear his door open at the same time every morning, knew he’d be holding onto the handrail in the hallway shortly, doing his “morning exercises,” he called them. To me, at 23, it looked like he was mostly just checking to make sure all of his body parts still worked. He’d lift his legs up and down, bent at the knee, would reach his hands up toward the ceiling and down again, rotate his neck around in a circle, and the like. And then, when he had finished, I’d hear him coming down the hallway to my door, the sound of his walker gliding on the carpeting always preceding him. He’d pause and listen, never wanting to disturb me if I was on the phone or meeting with someone else.  But if I was available, he’d come in then and say hello. Every day I’d ask: “How are you today, Paul?” And each and every day, the same answer: “I’m thankful and hopeful.”

He’d told me once that he hadn’t always been able to say that in truthfulness, that when his wife of 50+ years had died, he’d wanted to follow her right down to the grave and had felt only darkness and sorrow for a time. Because, you see, even one who has shepherded the Body for decade upon decade is still only human. But his eyes had been lifted up, out of the valley these past few years, and now he could speak the words with all sincerity of heart – always, always thankful and hopeful, he’d said.

So after the, “I’m thankful and hopeful,” each morning came Paul’s, “May I pray for you?” My answer was always “yes.” And so Paul would pray, in his enormous baritone voice, still deep and strong much like he must’ve sounded in his prime. He would shuffle over to me behind my desk, him and his walker, lay a hand on my shoulder and go before God on my behalf, he would go for us both. And when Paul’s words came, Beauty met us there, almost tangibly. Mostly Paul prayed that we would be transformed, that our lives would be shaped into His likeness and that we would know Love. But he prayed protection too. And for Light to move about this world in.

It was always on Tuesday afternoons, just before 2:00, when Paul would ride the elevator up to the 6th floor of our building; it was where the folks who needed the most care, the weakest among us in body and/or mind, lived. I was there too, in the 6th floor lobby, there because my boss expected me to give a short Bible lesson to the people who were well enough to be wheeled in to listen. This half hour of time went by more slowly than any other of my week, each minute stretching out as gray heads bowed and gnarled hands folded, waiting in utter silence to hear my words, His words. Immensely humbling, to attempt to speak words of encouragement and wisdom and grace into lives who’d occupied these bodies here for nearly a century. And me, a mere babe in comparison. Always, I would start with prayer and then a Psalm, watching for any sign of understanding from anyone. Paul, there among the nearly-dead living, nodded and “amen-ed” throughout, wordlessly urging me to go on. I’d read another bit of Scripture then and give a short devotion of sorts after that, concluding with questions about the state of our hearts, which no one ever answered aloud, but I hoped they’d answered inside themselves, if they were able. Concluded our time with prayer, then went around to each person there to touch them and look into their eyes and try to remind them that they were still here, still human, still loved even in this, their final valley.

Paul and I – he’d always wait for me – we’d ride the elevator back down to the 2nd floor together then, him – who had prepared and given hundreds of sermons in his prime, who had shepherded so many as his vocation – shepherding me, lifting me with his words: “You spoke so clearly today, Julie. The Spirit is at work in this place, those people!,” “Yes, that phrase ‘God is love,’ I understood it in a new way as I listened just now. Thank you,” and “Isn’t He full of mercy? To give us everything we need to be in communion with Him? I pray we never forget that!” and the like. Always words to build up. Always words of Love. This was Paul.

When I heard that Paul went Home, I wept. Not for Paul – there, all Full and Complete, but for me. Because when you have to let go of one who lifts you like that, who battles for you, who intercedes for you in all faithfulness, who loves you, that loss is indeed something to grieve over mightily. In fact, as I type these words, I realize that I am grieving still, this great loss in my life. But like Paul, I am thankful and hopeful, for He is good and His love endures forever. And that is more than enough.

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