We have more in common than I would have imagined, this thirty-something blogger/author with a progressive theological bent that I cannot fully embrace and this fifty-something-else-blogger-wanna-be who could have been her Mama (if I'd had her when I was a somewhat-young-un.) We are both Alabama-born, Southern-raised and church-enfolded. The congregation of her youth would have been a lot like mine. The yearning for Biblical understanding pumping in her young veins - a compelling force in my beat up old heart, as well. The adrenaline of Saturday football broadcasts out of Tuscaloosa embedded deep in the DNA.
I've spent the past couple of weeks slowly reading one of her long-ago-purchased but shuffled to the back of the Kindle lineup books. She was very ill when I started. She died somewhere about three-fourths of the way through. And her words became a liturgy. Spinning off into the ridiculous at times then winding back to hold out a little gem of grace, pressed into jewel-dom by angst and grit. She strived. She wrestled. Then she went back for more. And there is the thing of it... the going back for more. The Jacob-ness. I will not let you go until you bless me! Emerging from the fray with that blessing in clenched fists .... and a dislocated hip... and a new way of walking. That makes this generational mis-matched, theological-distanced never-met-in-person-sisterhood perfectly sensible. And the emptiness of the world without her deafening. I'd like to think we could have been friends down here. I'd like to think we will be friends up there.
Consider these words from her obituary: "But even more than writing or the Alabama Crimson Tide or dark chocolate, Rachel loved Jesus, Scripture, and her family." Y'all can write that down word for word (well, except for the name) and use it as my epitaph one day. We have more in common that I would have imagined. Matter of fact, we all have more in common than we might imagine. Us strivers and wrestlers and such. We are easy to recognize... hands stretched out for all the Jesus-blessings we can hold, stalking off with distinctive broke-bone-healed-crooked gaits. Limping back for more. Hanging on. Walk it out, friends, we are in this together. And glory is just ahead.
Rest in Peace, Rachel Held Evans. Roll Tide, Roll.
Eshet Chayil. Selah.
Comments