On Living by Kerry Egan

On Living by Kerry Egan

Author:Kerry Egan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-10-06T13:02:03+00:00


born, and born again, and again

You know, I’m not afraid to die,” Louise whispered as I read a psalm to her. I put the book down.

“You’re not?”

“No. I never have been. That’s not what it is.”

I waited. I could tell something was coming, because Louise had never talked like this before.

Our previous visits had been what I would call “faith sharing,” for lack of a better term. Louise had been born to Italian immigrant parents and raised Catholic, and she and her husband, now dead some thirty years, had raised their seven children Catholic. Louise lived with her son Ed, who was now the pastor of a nondenominational evangelical church, and her doting daughter-in-law Irene. One of them was usually there when I visited, and I’d listen to them talk about their faith and what it meant to them. Then they’d sing hymns, and Louise would always join in, and she’d smile when they read her favorite passages from the Bible. If Louise was feeling up to it, she might talk a little bit about the years when her children were small. Ed would chime in about the trouble he and his brothers used to get into. Then there would be more hymn singing, more talking about how very good God is, speculation about what Heaven would be like. The tone was always unremittingly cheerful.

This time, it was just Louise and me. She’d asked for her favorite psalm.

After a minute, she let out a deep, shuddering sigh and just the hint of a moan.

“Do you want—” I began, but she cut me off.

“My children aren’t saved. Five of them aren’t saved. It’s all I pray about. I can’t die until I know they’re saved. I can’t leave them. They aren’t saved. Do you understand?”

I did, because I had heard this before. I had seen this pain before, from a dozen other parents.

Louise was referring to the particular evangelical Christian belief about needing to be “born again” in order to be saved and therefore gain entrance to Heaven after death.

If you don’t share this belief, or aren’t familiar with it, put yourself, if you can, in Louise’s place for a moment. You’re dying, and you believe you’re saved—that you are going to Heaven and you are going to meet Jesus, whom you love with all your heart. But some of your children are not going to Heaven, at least as of now. You love these children with all your heart, too. You carried them in your body and nursed them with your breasts and washed their little bodies and put Band-Aids on their knees and cooked them dinner every night for almost twenty years. You cried with them when they were rejected by friends and felt your heart leap when they hit their first home run and picked out their voice in the chorus concert. You watched them grow and felt your love for them expand. You love them still as they go through, and sometimes struggle with, life. You love them more than your own life, and maybe, secretly, even more than you love Jesus.



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