The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 7, At Last.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. You can read Part 1 here, and all the other parts follow. 

Now that she is gone I’ve discovered something shocking: I struggle to remember the stories she recited over and over again. It’s not because I didn’t hear them enough times. She kept a couple dozen old stories polished and ready to show off to all her friends, and many of us knew them so well we could finish her sentences. But thinking about those unwritten stories now is like trying to recall the details of a dream. It’s like if someone had asked me to tell about my vacation to the mountains and then added, “Please don’t use any verbs when you talk about the hiking.” All I would have left are impressions. I’m finding that so true now: it is easier, now she’s gone, to tell you I respected her than to tell about the last time she took Mary and I out for ice cream. 

Even so, here at the last of my tribute to my friend, I’d like to try to put into words a rather elusive quality about this charming old woman. 

She was happily odd everywhere she went, but you couldn’t imagine a scene without her.

She disapproved of dice playing, but still attended Ladies’ Bunco Night.

She was rigidly formal about everything, yet casual enough to go out in public wearing her pea green pajama shorts and over-sized t-shirts from ‘90’s church events.

She wouldn’t stoop to call Grant’s guitar a musical instrument, or that his worship band even played real songs, but she never missed an opportunity to join his band with her organ (often inviting herself), as though the Tortoise and the Hare got handcuffed together.

She believed in progress but resisted technology; every time I saw her use a cell phone, she would shout into it like a can on a string.

She treated the internet with the ritual and detachment of an enemy during ceasefire, like when she would call me and ask things like, “Young man, would you please ask The Internet a question for me? I would like to inquire if It knows the exact date and starting time of this year’s Christmas Cantata downtown. I’ll wait.”

She made waves everywhere she went, yet she tried her best to exude the calm of an un-rocked boat.

She was of a different substance than the world around her.

I’ve seen a phenomenon that will help me describe this. Imagine a single tree out in the country on the edge of an old hay field. Around the field is an old barbed wire fence, and the tree has grown into and absorbed the fence so that they’re stuck together for good. She was the old tree, and all the world around her was that rusty old wire. The two elements are alien to each other, but neither can escape the other ever again. Yet their union has created a new and better beauty, tragic but complete, so that they mean more together than they would ever have meant apart. Indeed, to divorce them would ruin them both. Miss Jane was like that. The entire modern world intruded her space daily, and she walked with ancient friction against anything that wasn’t doing what it should be doing. But the tension itself made her all the more alluring to those who called her friend. She was a chunk of salt, and the world became far blander when she left it.

************

The last time I saw Miss Jane was December 21, 2013, almost 6 years to the day we first ate lunch together at Big Bob’s. I drove my moving rig to her Sunset Manor Senior High-rise to sit down with her one last time before leaving Decatur. It was a tender parting: we spoke of the Church, we mused of Heaven, I told her the route I planned to take to Florida, and how long I expected to be on the road. She smiled the whole time, and said very little. And then I left. I think we both knew it would be our last sight of each other until the Resurrection.

Shortly after New Year she suffered another dose of bad health which landed her back in the hospital, and then back into the nursing home. We spoke by phone just a few times after I left, and each time we spoke she was in great pain. She would ask me, as I’m sure she asked everybody why the Lord wouldn’t just take her Home. Oh my, how she longed for Home, and she prayed for it with begging.

That prayer was finally answered March 15, 2014 while she was at the nursing home. I’m told the nurses were a little surprised it happened the day it did, because she had seemed cheery and talkative that morning, and they said she was sitting up in bed and eating breakfast with some energy. They expected she was on the rebound. Then after breakfast, she simply requested to recline for a late morning nap, and then she was gone in her sleep. Why did she pass on the day she seemed not to be in pain? Well, I’d like to offer an interpretation of her last events. She often told us that Jesus came and stood at her feet on painful nights, speaking comfort and patience to her, gently holding her socks. I suspect He may have been with her the night before, and perhaps whispered a clue that she’d be coming Home in the morning.

So I think that’s why she met her last day with repose and a little glee. That final breakfast of nursing home eggs and oatmeal was received with the appetite of a bride at her wedding banquet. She savored the toast like the sacramental Body of Christ, and she sipped the orange juice like Wine. Her hospital bed was the royal litter borne by the angels of God, and, knowing her, I think she realized all these things that morning. She was usually happiest when she felt she had a good secret. And I know she didn’t mind the ratty hospital gown, because she was already robed in the Righteousness of Christ, which was the only Garment that ever meant anything to her in the first place. Thus, ushered into the halls of Heaven, she was, at last, perfectly satisfied in Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, Miss Jane’s Lord and Savior.

She was, in a word, herself. 

The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 6, Olders and Elders

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is partly about some of the events and people of her life, but more than that it is also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

Miss Jane was a magnolia blossom: bold, luminous, and fragrant. Your first encounter with her was distinct and unforgettable, yet you could never quite figure her out no matter how long you knew her. Thus I never wearied of her. She brimmed with common sense, always with the desire to nourish you. Honestly, her wholesome, coherent worldview is puzzling to my generation who approach the world by our desires instead of by its design. To her, any deviation from using things by their design was non-sensical. When Mary put that normal BBQ sauce on her chicken, she might as well have asked for a hammer to butter her bread because, to Miss Jane, sure it was possible, but it worked against the design.

That first meal paved the way to a real friendship of mutual delight. Mary and I had many more meals with her after that – at Big Bob’s and elsewhere – and every date increased our delight in her eccentricity. 

I’ve had many other friendships with many other elders. Perhaps some of you younger people will understand when I say this: I’ve often faked it with older people. Acting like I’m better-behaved than I really am, laughing at jokes that aren’t funny, keeping the answers simple lest my real opinions expose my real faults. Watching the clock, looking for an exit, and never really enjoying the other person. You’ve probably done that too; most young people do. You elders reading this probably did it when you were young.

Yet in a very short time of knowing Miss Jane, we learned the difference between someone who is an elder and someone who is an older. (I don’t at all mean a Church Elder as Paul or Peter describe, that’s something totally different; I mean elder as in elderly, as described in Leviticus 19:32, and Psalm 71:18, and Proverbs 16:31.) She was one of the amazing people who helped us distinguish between olders and elders.

An older expects to be served simply on the basis of their age. Whether it’s a 5 year old or a 15 year old or a 45 year old or a 95 year old, olders vaunt their status simply because they are older. It all just comes down to dominance. 

On the other hand, an elder leads, which, of course, means they serve. It is a manifold servanthood, because they’ve given it a life of practice. They create an environment of freedom and candor wherever they go. They prove that old wisdom tastes better than young naivety, as wine is better than a pixie stick. Therefore they have no need to condescend the young. They are unequivocally un-threatened and unimpressed by boasting of any kind. They demonstrate that being more truthful never requires you to be less respectful. They keep a single, constant, silent prayer to God all the time, often asking Him for wisdom to share with those who hunger for it. 

I think, perhaps, some people really did consider Miss Jane as nothing more than an older. Anyone who regarded her as just an older will never know what they missed, like winning a vacation in the Alps only to oversleep when the boat leaves. What a loss! To us, though, she was our beloved elder: unembarrassed of her individuality and ours; feeding us a steady flow of encouragement and rebuke as fit the need. 

She constantly served us, even when she could no longer move very well. Looking back on some of the harder times, the hospital times and the late-night times and the dying times, I had faced those hours with the assumption that she could really use someone younger by her side, getting her water, quoting Scripture, praying, fetching a needed item here and there from her apartment. I had aspired to be, you know, her servant, just like our Lord Jesus. Many of you reading this spent far more time serving her than I did.

But of course, now that she’s gone, I realize that a big reason she really kept guys like me around is because she wanted to render us the same favor.

The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 5, Elder Years (Part 2), Me and Miss Jane

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is partly about some of the events and people of her life, but more than that it is also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

I met Miss Jane 6 years and 3 months before she died, and I’d like to think I got to know her very well.

My wife and I had only been married two years when we moved from Oklahoma City to be youth pastors for a small church in Decatur, AL. On our first Sunday, we were both nervous and probably a little too shy. Miss Jane wasted no time starting the conversation with us after the worship service. (She loved to take initiative like that.) She cordially invited us to Big Bob Gibson’s Barbeque, one of the Crown Jewels of Decatur. According to Miss Jane, if we were to have a proper introduction to Southern-style-cuisine and culture, then Big Bob’s Barbeque was to be the cuisine, and Miss Jane was the culture.

She picked us up the following Tuesday in her white, egg-shaped, 3-door hatchback Hyundai Accent. It was a car wholly consecrated to the work of God, which she made immediately clear. Before going to the restaurant she drove us all over Decatur like a tour guide, instructing us better than anyone else could about the oldness of Decatur, the points of interest, and the unfortunate factors that prevented it from becoming the Chicago of the South.

Finally we pulled into a crowded parking lot with a big red and green neon sign that had a picture of a pig wearing a chef’s outfit and holding a knife. The sign read, ‘ “Big Bob” Gibson Bar-B-Q.’ I was already in love. It was the kind of place that, if you’re just visiting and you ask the locals for a restaurant that gives you the feel of the town, they’ll tell you “Big Bob’s.”

We entered a packed dining room at lunchtime on a workday, yet no one seemed to be in a hurry. The tables were all too close together so that waitresses had to turn sideways to walk between chairs. There were barbecue awards and statues of pigs everywhere, just everywhere, especially decorating the front cash register. A couple of the statues were of a pig standing at a grill wearing a chef’s hat and cooking, you know, pig.

To the far left corner was an office door with a big window, closed yet conspicuous. The office was the size of a large closet. A white-haired man sat at a desk in that closet, pecking a calculator and scribbling in a book. Looking back to the right, the dining room was a big square. Across the far opposite corner of the dining room was the steamy kitchen window where the waitresses would land like bumblebees then fly away with their plates. To the right of the service window was a glass-doored fridge holding all sorts of pie ready for digestion. On the walls between the kitchen and the office were framed newspaper write-ups, plaques, trophies, and more pictures of pigs, all to prove that this dining room stays packed for a good reason. I knew right away this was how Big Bob’s was supposed to look, a small-town staple. But to be honest, Miss Jane didn’t quite fit.

She was, it seemed to me, too classy for the place. 

Our hostess chewed gum like a bored cow as she led us to our booth. Miss Jane followed bold as a mare, proud to show off her hometown’s BBQ-namesake. Miss Jane was a paradox from the start. As we chatted over our water we learned that she had seen the world, yet here she was in Smallville, AL treating Big Bob’s with the prestige of a Paris bistro. She spoke with such great elocution and propriety that I literally asked her if she was British. She humbly giggled and clarified that she was raised in Decatur but had lived for many years in (here she over-pronounced it), “AND-er-son, IN-di-AN-a.” Anderson, in her opinion, produced a more refined and elegant people than London ever could.

Then came the foundational moment of our friendship with Miss Jane, the initial event that would forever make me cherish and understand her with mirth and respect.

For the Chicken.

My wife received her chicken sandwich from the waitress, then proceeded to grab regular ol’ red BBQ sauce to pour over her food. Miss Jane stopped her as she opened the bottle and kindly offered The White Sauce, made especially for chicken. She addressed Mary with the courtesy of a diplomat who needs to help a foreigner understand an unbreakable cultural rule, explaining that The White Sauce was the only sauce made especially for chicken. Then Miss Jane apologized on behalf of the generation that grew up with Mr. Gibson’s original The White Sauce recipe because, unfortunately, they’ve never quite got it right after he passed. Those people old enough to have tasted The Original had to live with the burden of an inferior product. Even so, The White Sauce was for the chicken. She held it across the table for Mary and grinned as though she had stopped Mary from doing something regrettable. Mary looked at the bottle of The White Sauce, then back to the regular BBQ sauce in her own hand, then back to Miss Jane, and shyly declined. She stared at Mary in disbelief. Miss Jane’s smile fell, but the outstretched bottle of The White Sauce did not. It was then that Mary realized Miss Jane was not recommending, she was instructing. As a world traveler Miss Jane was familiar with awkward cultural situations, so she re-explained in case Mary didn’t understand the first time, “My dear, this is The White Sauce, which is made especially for the chicken. If you order chicken, The White Sauce is what you use.” Miss Jane blinked politely. Mary looked back at the bottle to better evaluate the gravity of the situation. Miss Jane’s gaze was fixed, and her lips parted slightly. Mary’s right hand still held the bun ready for red-BBQ-sauce application. Then Mary’s left hand proceeded to shake out sweet red BBQ sauce onto her chicken sandwich and said timidly, “Oh thanks, Miss Jane, but I’d just rather have normal BBQ sauce.” Miss Jane’s eyebrows raised and she began to blink a lot. It took her a whole 5, maybe 8 seconds to bend her elbow and replace the bottle in the condiment rack. She shrugged her shoulders a couple times and her neck twitched subtly. And as she put the bottle back she said with a surprised tone, “Well I suppose you can use any sauce you like, but The White Sauce is for the chicken.” And all I could do was grin and chuckle as my wife chewed with lowered eyes, waiting for me to change the subject.

I do think this story is funny, but please don’t take it as unflattering. You should not hear it as a cheap kind of sitcom-funny. This was just the first of many stories pointing to the deeper, more godly humor that tells you something good and satisfying about reality. It is not because Miss Jane was wrong about The White Sauce, but because she never felt the need to shield anyone from her quirks. From the beginning, Miss Jane showed us that truth is always packaged in a personality. She was abruptly eccentric, which made it impossible for Mary to hide her own subtle eccentricities and particular tastes. Nobody had anywhere to hide with Miss Jane because she would not hide herself from anybody.

Thus, even in that first unforgettable luncheon, she removed from us any temptation to pretend, as so many of us often do. Her simple lesson that day: love can flourish where personality is nourished.

The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 5, Elder Years (Part 1), Ken and Jane

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is partly about some of the events and people of her life, but more than that it is also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

I met Miss Jane when she was elderly, already in her late 70’s. I think meeting someone when they’re old may be one of the best times to get to know them, mainly because, in a person’s final decade, the mass of their beliefs and actions have gathered and pooled into their mouths. Their mouths must supplement what their arms and hands and legs can no longer do. So for many older people, you have to sit still and listen if you really want anything to do with them. If you get the privilege of listening to elders in whom the Spirit and Word of God dwell, their speaking is equally helpful to the Body of Christ as their doing. This type of speaking is called wisdom, and it’s from God. If you have some then you’re obligated to share it with the rest of us.

Another benefit of getting to know a person after they’re already aged is that you get to see them go through a sort of proofing stage of life. By proofing stage I mean that elders discover (if they didn’t already know) whether all their choices were really worth what they paid for them. Their successes and regrets hang on their shoulders like a shawl they knit through the decades and no longer have the strength to remove. If they didn’t spend their young strength well, then at the end they’ll have time to ponder what they could have done better. This is a special brand of wisdom we call experience. If you meet an elder willing to tell their experiences, then listen closely; their regret could very well ensure your success. 

If you meet an elder willing to teach you their wisdom and experiences with the Holy Scriptures, then take this person to lunch as often as possible.

The benefit of getting to know Miss Jane when she was already an elder is that she was ripe with all three of these: wisdom, experience, and Scripture. She would gladly go out of her way to speak generously about her experiences, and God’s wisdom, and the Scriptures. More than generously – profusely for anyone who would listen (and even to some people who would never listen).

It was in this way – the listening way – that those of us privileged enough to belong to 6^th Avenue Church of God during Miss Jane’s last years became endeared to her, and got to know her very well. Her last few years folded her body like a paper bag, but her tongue kept its wits. She loved her church with the neatness of a mother wiping her child’s face with a licked handkerchief. She also loved her church with the grim strength of a Secret Service agent guarding the President. Except for a couple lapses of sickness which made her forget herself temporarily, her mind stayed sharp enough to stand her ground with a sword if she felt anyone tampering with her church. She absolutely loved to stand her ground! She was brave like that.

In the last few years of her best health, she stood her ground alongside a young pastor who was also very brave. Like Miss Jane, Ken was also full of wisdom, experience, and Scripture. He wasn’t afraid to grow his hair long and even less afraid of old churches and old people. Pastor Ken Oldham was a servant-shepherd to the elderly of his church. He always walked in the same tender, patient stride forward, always forward, like Moses on his way to Canaan. Ken was one of those happy pastors who seemed to enjoy the Church in full view of her flaws, rather than merely tolerating the Church despite her flaws. And he really enjoyed Miss Jane. His compassion was the perfect foil to some of her orneriness. He got to know her very well because his ears stayed wide to her wisdom, experiences, and knowledge of the Scripture.

As with most churches, 6^th Avenue naturally adopted the posture of their pastor. When Ken cherished the old saints, some of the young members of the church showed up for the Seniors Club. When Ken embraced the poor, the church began to serve more outside its own four walls. When Ken played games with the youth, the whole church became more jovial. And when Ken made space for drums and guitars for worship, Miss Jane stood her ground by the organ. But Ken had offered something far more resonant and irresistible to Miss Jane than all the organs and guitars and drums of the world: Faithfulness.

Thus he earned Miss Jane’s trust and got to know her very well. Naturally, 6^th Avenue followed warmly.

The wonder of it all was the unity between Ken and Jane. In some ways they were total opposites; their differences were obvious and not surprising. But it is very surprising and marvelous that they both embodied God’s indivisible wisdom. Ken’s wisdom was often in his ears, Miss Jane’s was often in her mouth, but they each had it firmly by the hand. They would disagree, but they would never disavow one another. This mutual faithfulness proved them wiser because of their differences. They were two acute angles who, while individually very sharp, together formed a sturdy right angle that could support a shaky wall. In this way, they both built up – and sometimes held up – their dear church. 

Think of that carefully with me for just a moment. The church thrived when Ken and Miss Jane were unlike each other. They were as different as the ox from the plow, whose differences are the very guarantee of good things to come. Better still, their differences showcased the unbreakable unity of the paradoxes of God’s wisdom. Consider the wisdom God revealed in creating the world. Every grain of sand numbered. Every drop of water in its place. Every tree’s seed according to its kind. Yet as inimitable as He made our Earth, God surpassed the display of His own wisdom in Creation when He displayed His glory in the Church, because in the Church He forged together more extreme opposites than in Creation.

Creation is universally beautiful because it is made of extremely unlike things – say, water and rock and air and light – which are all brought together into the breathtaking landscape of a sunset over a mountain lake. It is unspeakably and undeniably gorgeous. The only proper response is glad worship. Yet even more undeniably beautiful is the Body Christ formed of such opposites as Jew and Gentile, black and white, eye and ear, Ken and Jane. It is more beautiful because their union is more unlikely than the union of water and rock and air and light on a sunset over a mountain lake. 

Therefore, the union of the Church is more inexplicable than the union of Earth’s elements; in other words, the only explanation for their friendship is that God brought them together to make His glory obvious. Therefore the Church – from every tribe and language and nation and people – is more miraculous than our own planet. Therefore, it reflects its creator God with better precision. Therefore, highest of all, God ordained the Church to inspire richer worship than do all the other glories of Creation. Therefore, lowest of all, the enemies of God are more zealous to destroy the Church’s unity than they are to destroy the other glories of Creation. Therefore we who knew them well know the twisted minds that tried to tempt Miss Jane to undermine her pastor and leave the Church. 

Therefore, no less than our Lord Jesus Himself prayed for Pastor Ken and Miss Jane to be one, even as He was One with His Father. To the glory of our Lord Jesus, that prayer was answered in Ken and Jane. And it is answered gloriously for everyone who yearns for the holy purity of His Church.

Not surprising then that both Pastor Ken and Miss Jane were essential in teaching me how to worship the One True God. These two people symbolized and displayed for me the miracle of reconciliation that God has done in Christ. Under the cross, millions of people who would have otherwise been enemies gather to praise the crucified and risen Lamb of God. His beauty is far too brilliant to be represented by one individual’s gifts. He makes His glory obvious and sweet because of – not in spite of or in addition to – the paradoxical qualities of all His servants.

Therefore, Miss Jane wisely taught me to pity and pray for those Christians who would be owned by Christ but who disown His Church. They have shunned the Lamb’s beautiful Bride. It carries the same disgrace of turning your back as the bride walks the aisle. How much greater the disgrace when we turn our backs to the Bride of Christ? It is like water without moisture; it is like beauty without due praise. It is claiming to love Jesus while tearing down His Church, and it is insufferable nonsense. 

But just think now with me how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity, when Christians unify in truth! It is the very oil of the Priest’s anointing; it is the very moisture of the mountains. For there, the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore (Ps 133).

It is the benefit of a young person sitting at the feet of a talkative elder.

*******

“And now, O sons, listen to me:

blessed are those who keep my ways.

Hear instruction and be wise,

and do not neglect it.

Blessed is the one who listens to me,

watching daily at my gates,

waiting beside my doors.

For whoever finds me finds life

and obtains favor from the LORD,

but he who fails to find me

injures himself;

all who hate me love death.”

Proverbs 8:32-36