The Grace that Leads us Home

Charles T. Hein was the younger brother of my father, and one of the exotic birds of my childhood that flew in occasionally from far away lands, and just as quickly flitted off. Two of my father’s siblings found their way into international mission work: Uncle Chuck and Aunt Gaby in Africa, and Aunt Jane and Uncle Ted in India, and so the life of extended family when I was growing up was something like a Russian novel, with pages and pages of rambling set-up punctuated by flurries of activity when one or the other, or on the oddest of occasions, BOTH were “on furlough.”

Dad was clear that I was not “named after” Uncle Chuck, and indeed was insistent that my true namesake was Charlie Priest, whom dad had met in work for the Polio Foundation, and went on to build a solid career with Goodwill Industries in Milwaukee (Mom always equally insistent that I not be called “Charlie” but “Chuck”!) Still, Uncle Chuck stood tall in my childhood imagination, always nearly hyphenated with Aunt Gaby, whose gentle manner and lilting French accent provided such a marked contrast to the rough and tumble Hein way. Uncle Chuck was a man of ideas, of vision, one who would engage as 12 year old in a serious conversation and respect what the child had to say. You saw the Hein in a patience that could be quickly tried, and a perfectionism that could be exasperating, but in Uncle Chuck it seemed always tempered by a broad acceptance and easy manner that I came to associate with “the African way.”

Uncle Chuck was strong, and active, so as news of health issues started to surface it was hard for me to take it all too seriously. It was Uncle Eugene’s Facebook post of his visit that got me to thinking seriously about the need to this time take the roll of the exotic bird, and flit my way down to Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, and light on his bedside. Shorn of excuses of my own busy-ness or professional responsibilities, I could do that most un-Hein-like thing—leave without knowing exactly when I would return, to spend time with no greater purpose than to be together with loved ones.

The Chuck I met as I came to his hospital room was a stark study in contrasts. His mind and spirit were every bit as strong as I ever remembered. His voice quivered a bit under the oxygen mask, but still carried graceful authority. But his physical frame was diminished and diminishing. In hours of conversation spread over four days we moved from branch to branch, two odd birds, sometimes talking about Africa, sometimes the perils of the church in today’s world, sometimes remembering his childhood, sometimes reflecting on basic theological doctrines from incarnation to grace.

It was in one of these conversations, as Uncle Chuck remembered a time of study at Hartford Seminary in which he was first introduced to the theology and spirituality of Orthodox Christianity that we lit on the Lord’s Table, and the sad impoverishment of Reformed theology that resulted from a diminution of the place of the Saints in the life of the community of faith. So strong on the Word, we sometimes lost track of the Sacrament—the visible sign of an invisible grace.

As I’d grabbed what I thought I needed for the journey days earlier my book of Occasional Services and my bible had nested into the front pocket of my computer bag, and I wondered if we might find a time to make that invisible grace visible. Gaby whispered the question to Chuck as we were leaving on Saturday night: “Do you think you would like to have communion?” “That would be lovely!” And just as quietly, Gaby approached her pastor after service on Sunday morning. “Charles was wondering if you might be able to come and share communion with us.” Lovely, indeed.

Monday morning was set to be a difficult moment of transition. Dan and Karen had arrived, and the doctor was to come first thing to clarify just what this move to Hospice meant. The doctor was so blessedly kind and direct. That diminished body had reached as far as it could in this world. There would be morphine patches, and Chuck would slip away. Lungs scarred by dolomite in the Masai lands of Kenya could no longer sustain him. Chuck understood, and held Gaby’s hand firmly. It was time to trust in God.

Pastor Tom came not long after the conversation was ended, and the doctor, with a hug and a tearful smile went to write the orders. Setting bread and cup neatly in order, he invited us to share just what it was that we were coming to table with and for. Chuck spoke of his ordination, and of the deep and abiding sense of God’s presence that filled him. He talked of the privilege of breaking that bread and sharing that cup himself, and leading the people in remembrance. Gaby shared of her delight in the journey, and Dan of how this table had become for him a place of reconciliation and peace. I recalled a story of my mentor, Bruce Rigdon, that for me has always made the table a place where the saints are gathered.

And we prayed. And we supped. And I cried. This exotic bird, who had come in and out of my life at such odd intervals was now to fly on ahead. The nurse came in and affixed the patch, and I went out of the room to compose myself, wash off my face, and try to find equilibrium. As I looked in the mirror, at that face that mirrored so closely the one lying in the bed a few feet away, it occurred to me. That exotic bird was now taking flight once more, but if I listened carefully, I would still hear his song. And that song, mixed, and purged, and purified by the chorus of the saints, would, indeed, lead me home.

We are blessed, aren’t we? By those who share our journey…as much by those who cut us as by those who mend us? We’re all sinners, trying to make our way home, every now and then given hints, in a morsel of bread, a sip of wine, that there is so much more to this world than it lets on to. Uncle Chuck prayed me out of that room, though right now I am afraid I cannot remember a word he said. Within 24 hours, he’d made his passing; quietly, peacefully, I am told, with words of psalms and thanksgiving on his lips.

What a gift to share the hours I did, to be so powerfully reminded of the God who holds us most firmly when He seems the furthest away. What a gift, to share bread and cup, and know that each moment dwells in eternity, and eternity in its fullness is to be found in each moment.

Was it William Blake who wrote it? “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”

Wasn’t it Jesus who said, “Well done, good and faithful servant…enter into the kingdom that has been prepared for you!”