Art and I prayed together again today when Red and I went to the Mansion for our therapy work. I asked him to.
Art prayed for Bruce, who died yesterday at the Mansion. He thanked God for letting Bruce go quickly.
He prayed for me, who he called a “man of God,” and for Red, “my good dog.” He asked God to look out for me, he said I was doing a lot of good, and had brought him and others comfort.
Art and I are very different people, we have very different beliefs, and were we in the political world of the left or the right, we would probably dislike one another, rage back and forth on Facebook. We have a strong spiritual connection, yet our religious beliefs are very far apart.
I suspect Art thinks me Hell bound, I think he hopes to save my soul. His faith has much anger and judgment in it. The staff has told him more than once to be mindful of what he says to others, and I have suggested the same thing.
Yet there we are, face to face, sitting in his room several times a week, connected to one another, happy to see each other. His idea of spirituality is so much different from mine. We had a long talk about homosexuality and religion, my job is to listen not to preach or debate.
We talked about the powerful storms raging the country, and about Art’s believe that they are a punishment from God for our abandonment of the belief, and our acceptance of deviance and sin. He read to me from the Bible, it is all there, he said.
I felt a powerful spirituality when I prayed with Art, I felt close to the idea of God, even if Art and I saw the world so differently.
Art is very alone right now, his faith is intense, even extreme, and there is no one for him to share it with close at hand. He had to leave a number of churches back home, he is unyielding. He found a Mennonite Church that accepted him. Art feels his faith deeply, he says what is on his mind, he often gets into trouble for it.
in some contexts, I might have found Art offensive, but I am not at the Mansion to judge people or argue with them. He wants to do good.
In hospice, I learned the art of active listening, I am there to support and listen, not to talk or persuade. And the truth is, I am connected to Art in some ways that are not clear to me. Two men who are often ill at ease with people are at ease with one another. The world is full of crisis and mystery.
I empathize with Art. Empathy is very different from sympathy, I do not pity Art, nor would he wish me to. But I sense his isolation and great conviction, and it moves me. In a different context, it might enrage me. Yet we are both human beings, and that, to me, is a sacred connection. It binds us.
So far, I’ve brought Art an air conditioner for his warm room a boom box and some CD’s of the Bible – he has trouble seeing – and encouraged people of faith to write him so that he might have a Ministry of a kind. He has been getting your letters (The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y, 12816.) He asked me why I was helping him, and I told him, I was not a Christian, but to me, empathy was a great Christian value, if Jesus were in my town, he would be in this place, trying to help.
I asked him what he most wanted, and he said “I want to go home, but I can’t ask for that because God wants me to be here.” Art came to the Mansion to be near his brother, who was also at the Mansion and who died shortly after Art arrived. He says God wanted him to be here, not back home in his beloved Montana, and so here he will stay, quite alone except for his Bible and his God. Or until God tells him to go back home.
I asked Art if there was anything else he wanted or needed, and he said well, he would like to have a high-lift reclining chair, so he could get up more easily, he has severe back pain. I am wondering if I can do that for him, the prices range from $400 to $1,000 and I will talk with the Mansion staff tomorrow to see what kind he might need and whether or not it would fit well and safely in his room.
I have to think about this one, I think it would be a great gift for Art, who spends most of his days praying and listening to the Bible and reading the letters he gets. There are also others in the Mansion with great needs. I see how hard it is for him to stand up and sit down. A power lift chair makes getting up easier. I had one briefly after my open heart surgery three years ago.
This relationship is important to me, I want to comfort Art in so far as I can. And I look forward to sitting and praying with him sometimes. He seems very alone to me, although the staff is very kind to him. In a sense he keeps it this way. He told me he knows most people are not comfortable with him.
Our connection is real, we see past the great differences into the souls of one another, and Art has had a hard life but has great passion about his faith.
We have made a connection and we have plans to pray again with one another this week. If I find it’s a suitable thing, I will try to raise the money to buy Art his chair. That will be an interesting challenge. He is following the great storms closely, and is praying for the human beings in their path.
In our culture, it is increasingly fashionable to dislike, even shun, those we disagree with, those who make us uncomfortable. But is faith really possible or genuine if we only have compassion and empathy for those we agree with and are easy to like? Is empathy only for good people who are like us?
