Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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Remembering a Saint

The text of the eulogy that I did for my mother-in-law lay next to the computer keyboard for a very long time, waiting for me to do the final draft so that it can be sent out to family and friends. I know it had to be difficult for her to do, but Susie, my wife, had made the work easy for me. She had entered the text of the eulogy into the computer so that all I would have to do is call up the file and get to work. However, for a number of reasons, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, not for many weeks.

One of the reasons for my reluctance was probably I didn't want to admit to myself she was really gone, that she had died and made that journey to the next, better eternity. And another of the reasons was, at least for me, finishing Mother Hoar's eulogy would bring too much closure.

It's hard to describe the way I felt. It was like finishing her eulogy would be pretending that enough has been said about the quality of her life, about her "saintliness," when there is no way to really say enough. It's not that she was a flawless person. It's that she was a prayerful person, a person who took most all of the things in her life (good and bad) to God. In many ways and on many occasions, I think that my mother-in-law was like Jacob. In a time of trouble, wrestling with God in the dark (dark night of the soul?), not letting go of God until she was somehow blessed.

My mother-in-law and I did not always agree about things. I am reasonably certain that she thought that some of my leanings were way too far toward the "liberal" side of religion and politics. But we agreed about who to turn to, who to talk to, who to rely on first, last and when all else failed. That "who" was God. God was our common ground, the bridge between us. Mother Hoar's terrific cinnamon rolls and her "pasty" (a regional food, a kind of meat pie, common in Michigan's Upper Peninsula) grabbed my attention at first, but it is her faith in and her willingness to turn to God, that made the deepest, most profound impression on me.

There is no way she and I could compare faith. The heighth, width and depth of Mother Hoar's faith vastly surpassed mine. Her faith was refined in the fires that swept through her life, fires that probably would have burned up what little faith I have. Family problems, health problems, financial problems, church problems, any of which would have undermined my belief and trust in God had they happened to me, became the occasion for her faith to grow. Whatever happened to her and around her, good or bad, became another reason for her to simply seek God. In God, she found all she needed to keep going, one minute at a time, one hour at a time ... one day at a time.

Mother Hoar knew God to be the one "Who comforts us in all our troubles, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted by God." (II Cor. 1.4) She did not keep the comfort wherewith she had been comforted to herself. She told nearly everyone who would listen about the God who comforted her and she would offer comfort with a listening ear for the troubled, a pot of soup for the hungry, and a prayer for anyone who was in need of wisdom or encouragement.

Mostly, Mother Hoar stayed close to home. She did go out to California once to visit some of her children, but that was the farthest that she ever went. However she embraced the whole world with her prayers. Some folks might think that her way of looking at how the universe works was simplistic and naive. But, I think that in her wisdom, she came to a simple and deep understanding of "how things really are." On one hand, she knew the infinite goodness and love of God. On the other hand, she understood the pervasiveness of evil. And she was convinced that the real struggle between good and evil is a Cosmic and spiritual one,. She knew that what happens here on earth and in our lives is more than wrestling "... against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12)

Somehow, in the depths of her being, Mother Hoar knew that any battle or struggle she and the world might face ultimately belongs to God. She knew the way to put the battles and the struggles into God's hands (where they belong) is through prayer. She would do what she could [she was a firm believer in: "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" (Eccl 9:10) and, until she was past 80, she was an indefatigable worker], but it was her goal to put all the rest in God's care. She had a sense that there were times when she just had stop trying to take care of it all and get out of God's way, "letting go, and letting God ..." So she would pray.

Prayer, for her, was not a "cop out," not some mere token of concern, not some superficial exercise in piety. It was a way to get at the deepest root of any situation. Hers were prayers from her heart, aimed at the heart of God, that were intended to go to the heart of the matter (whatever it was she might be praying about). I can remember more than one occasion, when Susie and I were visiting Mother Hoar, I would wake up for some reason in the early hours of the morning and I would hear my mother-in-law pouring out her heart in prayer. I know that many times she would pray all night, and, I know that many times she prayed for me. It is very humbling to know that.

Especially during the last few weeks, I have had an increasing sense of how much the world has lost, how much her family has lost, how much I have lost now that Mother Hoar has gone to be with God, and how much God has gained. I lost one of my most powerful mentors and models of the Christian life. I did not learn anywhere near enough from her.

The world continues on, even though Mother Hoar is gone. There are wars and rumors of wars, there are natural disasters, government at every level seems racked with scandal, children are killing children, some saints of the church have lost loved ones to death in unexpected and bewildering ways, some saints are going through ordeals with their health, confusing and disturbing circumstances seem to be cropping up all around. Most of what is going on seems to be out of any one specific human being's ability to affect or control. Too much is happening too fast. It all can get overwhelming for just about anyone. What is a body to do?

I think Mother Hoar had the best answer. Pray and do all that you can. More often than we like (more often than I like), when we are really honest with ourselves, we discover that all we can do is pray. That discovery may make us feel as if we are terribly weak and ineffectual. However, prayer works. It works to get us out of the way so that the Creator of all that is can do what most needs to be done, the things we don't understand how to do, the things we just aren't able to do.