Like me, Dorothy met her husband in Lexington, KY. They even worshipped at Central Christian Church, where i would serve more than 60 years later\u2026 Their love story is one that would put any Nicholas Sparks kind of writer to shame. But that\u2019s not my story to tell. I only share this to say that we shared a thread of narrative before we even\u00a0knew each other, and that we\u00a0also shared a homesickness for green mountain places and people who knew their neighbors.<\/p>\n
When i came to Phoenix for my\u00a0interview weekend, i met many people in different configurations\u2026it was all a blur. But I remember, at one of those gatherings, being introduced to an elderly couple that clearly held a place of authority in the collective heart of the church. \u201cThis is Richard and Dorothy,\u201d someone said. \u201cThey won\u2019t be in church tomorrow, but they wanted to come and meet you.\u201d I\u00a0got the distinct impression\u00a0that, if i passed approval with these two, the job was mine.<\/p>\n
I could not tell you what we talked about. I only know that, after about 10\u00a0 minutes, Dorothy said, \u201cHoney. I think you\u2019re alright.\u201d They left the building, and I felt that I\u2019d just been given all the blessing I needed. For the job to come, and quite possibly, for the rest of life in general.<\/p>\n
In the years to come, I would learn just how much authority her blessing carried in this church. I would learn how she had greeted every guest, taught every child, prayed for every sick person, and showed up at every door at just <\/em>the inexplicably right moment, for as long as anyone could remember. I would learn how she and Richard sat vigil and prayed, for two hours,\u00a0as\u00a0plans were made to move the old downtown church to the suburbs, and\u00a0rename it\u00a0as Foothills.\u00a0I would learn that everyone who\u2019d ever crossed her path felt as blessed, affirmed, and beloved as i did in that first \u2018interview.\u2019<\/p>\n Several years after that first meeting, I showed up at Dorothy\u2019s door with a 3-month-old baby in-hand. At that point, Dorothy was no longer able to come to church on a regular basis.\u00a0I thought I\u00a0was making a pastoral call, bringing my baby for a visit to cheer up the elderly. But the minute I handed my daughter into Dorothy\u2019s arms, I realized what my heart had known all along\u2026I had come for a blessing.<\/p>\n Dorothy, though frail, took Harper in her lap for a moment. I am not even making this up\u2013a charge went through the room, and I felt it in the very soles of my feet. She was Anna in the temple. She was Woman Wisdom. \u00a0She was Sarai, mother of all, as she held my baby and kissed her\u00a0perfectly bald head. \u201cI approve,\u201d she said, and handed her back over. I felt my child had been blessed for the world; in fact, that she had received all the blessing she would ever need.<\/p>\n This is how Dorothy blessed her church, and every person to ever pass through its doors, however briefly. That benediction is in no way diminished by her passing. Preaching her\u00a0funeral will be a challenge. Not because there is nothing to say\u2013I mean, we could all talk for hours\u2013but because, when someone has so utterly transformed the heart of a community, we are in danger of canonizing them, worshipping them, making them an altar and trying to keep them for ourselves.<\/p>\n This is why the\u00a0word \u2018saint\u2019 sometimes bothers me.\u00a0It sets someone apart as wholly other, not entirely of this frame. Or it diminishes them to a sort of \u2018goodness\u2019 that, in literature, would make for the flattest of characters. It also excuses us from trying to be more like them. I mean, we are mere mortals, after all\u2026<\/p>\n But having known Dorothy, I now know that a saint is one who carries our story; one who blesses us in simple acts of presence; one whose life bears telling; one whose faith\u00a0 reveals something of the holy that lies within us all, but that we often have a hard time seeing within ourselves. A saint is one who sees that holiness in every single person she meets, and touches it, and blesses it, and calls it good.<\/p>\n I am not the only one remembering Dorothy right now, and certainly not the only one to receive her benediction. She was the keeper of our story, and always, she was the bearer of good news. We will not make her a mascot, or build her a shrine, or try to somehow keep her for ourselves. Hers was a light to be shared, and we will do our best to reflect it.<\/p>\n
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