Into the Lion’s Den

As I grew further and further away from my seminary studies, having successfully finished my master's degree in divine theology, and after having served some time working as a priest, my doubts about faith and god shifted further and further to the back of my mind. Those doubts, which had on many occasions kept me awake were like distant memories, and if I turned my focus from them they didn't exist at all.

At my parish, which I joined in the spring of 1998, a year after my ordination to the priesthood, I worked with our pastor Father Ed on a key ministry, care of the sick and dying. The parish was located in the southeastern part of city, near a major highway, and we had easy access to all the area hospitals. Our ministry, while focused in only one parish on Sundays, was city wide when it came to visiting the sick in hospital. We would drive from hospital to hospital, hospice to hospice to visit the families of our parish, their loved ones, and sometimes strangers.

I am a glutton for punishment. Well maybe not punishment, I'm not a sadist or masochist, I guess I should better describe myself as someone who loves the darkness, the sorrow of life. I listen to music written primarily in minor keys. In hero stories I am most attracted to the darkest of heroes (Batman for example). I have always preferred late night musings to those in full daylight, and I dwell in sorrow more frequently than joy. I was the perfect theologian to preach happily about the death of Christ. And increasingly, as I stood at the pulpit, at the altar, I focused my ministry almost entirely on the theological significance of the cross to Christians.

I knew I was personally unable to reconcile my own sinfulness to ministry as a priest. I wanted to be the most holy priest, a saint. I built in my house a chapel where I left the Holy Eucharist exposed in adoration so that I could prostrate myself before my God, the person of Jesus, beheld in the mystery of bread become flesh. I would stop at the chapel and kneel for hours in contemplation, trying to weave my own desire to end the suffering I experienced in my personal sin into the experience that was described by the Gospels of Jesus while he knelt in the garden the night before his crucifixion. My own desire to end this inability to reconcile my weaknesses to my priesthood translated strongly to my preaching.

I journaled while I was a priest, letters I wrote to a young man that I had wanted to help on his journey, I was hoping he would want to become a priest. Again I wanted to find that way to holiness, I wanted God to show himself to me, and I thought perhaps my doubts were the greatest test of my faith. In my journal to him I wrote, "I complain like a spoiled child sometimes in my own weaknesses and sufferings. Compared to my sweet savior, who carried his cross without complaint, with grace and dignity I cannot go a day without feeling sorry for myself in my very minor sorrows and sufferings......yet we must join our savior in carrying the cross to know salvation and the fullness of joy, life and peace."

On those days when we, Father Ed and I would travel to the hospitals, I would wrap into a silk lined satchel my pix, filled with the sacred Eucharist. I would tighten my collar, its gleaming white top shining above the rich woolen black cassock that I wore. I knew the white collar represented a glimmer of hope in the cloud of darkness that we so often find ourselves in. I would strap around my waist my silk sash. I buttoned the 33 buttons of the hand woven cassock each time, thinking of the 33 years of Christ's life on earth. I would tuck my prayer book under my arm, and always ensure in my pocket traveled with me my rosary, shiny black beads placed upon the silver chain, ready to acknowledge with my flock the mysteries of the life of Christ and his mother.

Most of the people I would visit at the hospital on a regular basis were there for a serious condition. Rarely did we get called to minister to minor ills (tonsils out, minor surgeries, etc.). We spent most of our time visiting the terminally ill, or visiting people who fought most often cancer. Several times I visited with a woman named Pat O'Hare who was dying of brain cancer. When I first started to visit with her, she was awake, alert, full of life and a powerful example of a woman determined to beat the disease that eating away her life. I struggled with seeing those people suffering so slowly, and what to me seemed in such a lonely place. Hospitals, with all their technology are so cold, and the beeping monitors and neutral colors are depressing. The more I visited Pat, the further she slide into the toxic depression her disease flung upon her, and increasingly she became less and less the vibrant joyful woman I met the first time, and more and more she became the woman afraid to die, not willing to let go of life. The last few times I visited her lying in her hospital bed she was no longer conscious and finally my visits were one sided. I would hold her hand, tell her that I was there, anoint her head with oil, pray over her. I would beg God that in that moment, looking at the shrunken cheeks of Pat that God would give me her cancer so that she might live. I hoped, I prayed that my life would be miraculous and I could lay in her place on the bed and she would jump up and be free.

When I would return to my parish life after holding the hand of a dying woman, I was always at odds with the life I returned to. Most people don't experience this type of suffering very often and frequently when we do we forget, move on, return to life as it was, Focusing on our own needs, shopping, eating out, movies, sports. Life becomes so mundane, and as a young priest I so wanted my parishioners to spend their days contemplating the life they profess on Sunday, and more than in profession, live the life they proclaim. I felt so powerless being the only person in the parish, along with the other priest, Father Ed, to spend time with the dying. Sure we had a group of Eucharistic ministers who would take the sacrament of communion to shut-ins, and occasionally to the hospital bound, but they didn't spend their time praying over the dying, the sick. They weren't trained for such ministry. Their job was to bring the sacrament of communion, offer an "Our Father" and go to the next person. Yet in this parish of nearly 10,000 people, even those who were carrying the sacraments to the home bound and sick numbered only 10 or so. The rest of the parishioners would leave their profession of faith on Sunday and head home to catch a "game" or breakfast with the family. I knew as soon as I said the words, "the Mass is ended, go in peace", the parishioners would run out the door and leave the world of prayers and sacraments behind.

Increasingly over those months in the summer of 1998 I would focus my homilies on the connection that the Church makes between sin and suffering. I would emphasize that our own sins, while forgiven through Christ, still had an effect on pushing us further and further away from God. Our sins, no matter how minor, caused suffering in the world. Our sins were the cause, the reason for death, cancer, we were like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, each time we choose to move away from Christ, from God by not being holy, we cast ourselves, our loved ones, into the abyss and there we were going to continue to find death, suffering, pain, loss and sorrow. My preaching would remind the parishioners that Christ's time on the cross was meant as a sacrifice, but even in that sacrifice, we were still called to sin no more. We were waiting here, for the second coming of Christ, and until that day arrived we had the mission to join Jesus as the most holy of holy's, to be saints in our time. Yet increasingly, as I spent time with the faith filled people, I realized that holiness was not the primary goal of most worshipers. I discovered pettiness, bickering, mean spiritedness. There were lots of people who were good, kind people, but as I contemplated increasingly the life I was called too, that path I walked down, I realized that my emphasis on faith wasn't being returned by the very people I was ministering to. I realized that my preaching about needing to be holy, to be "Christlike" fell on deaf ears. My time spent so many days with the dying filled me with sorrow, but I had originally hoped as a young seminarian that my ministry as a priest would set the world on fire and people would flock in droves to support one another, to care for each other.

I know that many people did just that, cared for each other. Yet those wonderful volunteers were ever increasingly the minority. Of the 10's of thousands of parishioners, it was the same 100 or so people who did good work. Faith for the majority was an obligation to come and pray on Sunday in Church, then the rest of the week was left to be their own. My parishioners would return to their large homes in rich white suburbia, and the lonely dying woman with brain cancer would rest in her hospital bed alone until finally her body could take no more and ceased living. Those few volunteers were heroes in my parish, but even they would have their moments. Many of them did their holy work for recognition, to be acknowledged in the parish as leaders. Many would do their holy work simply because they felt obligated, but not one of them worked to expand this mission beyond their own work. In my proclamations of the Gospels, in my preaching, I would pound my fist on the pulpit calling these believers to take action, spread their belief, proclaim to the world without fear that they loved God, Christ. No one ever did. They would shuffle uncomfortably in their pews hoping I would wrap up my homily quickly.

That summer in 1998, I would rest for hours by the bedside of dying people. Yet I would grow angry, hurt, that on my Sunday worship services, 50% of the congregation would leave the Mass immediately after receiving communion. Here where we worshiped together, beheld what was taught to be the greatest mystery, we received and ate the flesh and drank the blood of God, yet people, more than 50%, fled the church as soon as they could. Most complained to me that my homilies were too long (10 minutes), or that traffic getting out of the parking lot was too difficult, or that the sports team that playing was too important to miss. I would preach ever increasingly that their faith was broken, that it was fake. I took to finishing my masses in the back of the Church to confront people who desired to leave early. They wrote letters to the bishop, told the pastor that I wasn't kind. The more complaints I received the more justified I felt. Yet the more time I spent with the dying the more lonely I became, clinging to a faith that I didn't truly embrace. I had hoped that as a priest the faith of the faithful would fill in the gaps of my own disbelief. Instead like dynamite it blew my disbelief apart. I discovered that people found faith only when they or someone they loved rested quietly on the bed in a hospital. Otherwise, faith was a routine event that was endured. And even in those moments of crisis, after the crisis fades, the suffering is healed, the faithful return to faithless lives.

I know I'm painting with broad strokes, and there are a few believers in Christ, in the Catholic Church, who truly embraced the life of Christ. They want to reconcile themselves to the God they've been taught to know. Yet my broad strokes are built upon a lifetime experience. As a theologian I knew that true Christian faith, the one that so many profess to hold, means a sacrifice. The Gospels and writings of the New Testament are clear about the faith. Great saints were notable because on some level they exhibited the dedication to the God that all faithful are supposed to exhibit. Instead most people who are "Christian" move from routine to routine, ignoring each other until they're forced to do otherwise. As a priest I wanted to wake up in the faithful a life of prayer, passion for God that set them on fire. I wanted the parishioners to eat of the body of Christ with me, drink his blood with me and then be so beholden of their faith that they would have to rest in the Church for hours. Yet I found this was not the case, instead the parishioners would take of the Eucharist and most would practically run out of the Church, glad it was over. I knew that from my study of the Gospels, the teaching of the Church, that the call of Christ was an all or nothing call. The lukewarm faith that I encountered was the faith that most people professed. Saints are remarkable because they are so few and far between.

If Christians really studied and knew their gospels, sacred texts both of the Old and New Testaments, if the Catholics truly studied their doctrines, they would be surprised at how infrequently they were in good standing with their own faith. As a young priest, struggling with disbelief, I became invested fully with wanting to be a saint. I threw myself, prostrate, before the altar. I breathed upon the bread and wine during Mass with such reverence that many people would weep. Yet, I would look up from my sacramental offering, and see a distracted majority. I ever proclaimed to my parishioners that it was their own lack of holiness that contributed to suffering in the world. Their sinfulness, their disinterest, their lack of genuine passion for their god was a direct cause of evil in the world. Yet upon this preaching, most people would shift uncomfortably. People would approach me after mass and ask that my homilies focus more how nice god is and less on the need to not sin. My preaching they said made them uncomfortable. I nodded then, smug, and said good, my preaching, like the Gospel, was intended to make you uncomfortable. My preaching was a challenge for them to be the Christ in life themselves. To take literally the words of their god and live them. Yet most people did not.

It was these moments, seeing people interact with each other, with me, that helped to drive that disbelief I had in my heart further home. I realized as a priest that faith was play acting for most people. Platitude's that people could spout off, yet in their "non" faith time, they could return to being petty, bickering, judgmental, hurtful. Their faith didn't matter if saw a beggar, someone of color, a gay person. They didn't need to be like Christ all the time, just when it was convenient. I had hoped as a priest creating sacraments, acting as the person of Christ to the faithful, that I would be inspired to grow myself in faith. Instead what I discovered was a faithless world of Christians going through the motions. Those small motions were the ones that made me realize how far I was from faith myself. It was seeing the gospels in action, living faith with a parish of faithful, I realized it was a myth. A story told to make us feel better about ourselves. It was a story told to give us hope when we are lonely, dying, afraid. They are stories told to control us, make us respond to those in power so as to keep them in power. No amount of gospel reading, homilizing, or sacramental life changed these things. No amount of holding dying women's hands made me see God. It was in the heart of the lion's den I had hoped to find faith, but there was no faith to be found there, instead it was in the heart of the lion's den that I was eaten alive.

A hero's sleep

Have you ever awoken from a dream and wished in the waking you could stay in that dream? The cobwebs of memory falling away, brushed aside by numb hands, a slow mind, eyes blinking back light, and there whispering to the back of your mind, to your memories a voice that says, no just stay here a while longer, don't wake up.

I'm there now. My mind is slowing waking up, I'm struggling to come back to reality. I don't want to wake, I don't want to get up. There is the comfort of fantasy in dreams that just is so appealing. I feel my pillows of life beneath my head and I just want to lay there. I don't want to face the reality of the life before me.

You see, many years ago I folded up my hero's cape, my power to fly, my super strength, my hero's breathe into a steamer-trunk, locked those memories away, and fell asleep. I was like sleeping beauty, or maybe a bit like Odin when he slumbered in his odinsleep. The sweet lulling melodies of a dream world rocked me into slumber, and the mind in all its greatness dozed. And there while dozing, all of who I was passed and I become a sleep walker, almost a zombie. All my super powers were gone, at least those I thought I had. I walked into a dream world where I dozed, snoring softly into life.

I had been a priest. I was a lover of God, passionate, full of faith, inspirational, inspired; proclamation of God's words fell from my lips like the drops of water from a fountain. My eyes believed they could see The Lord - my heart thought it saw angels dancing. I placed my lips on the edge of a silver cup and whispered with the greatest reverence, "This is my blood." I lifted into heaven the unleavened bread, lowered it down to the top of the altar, and bending over it held between my fingers like the most delicate of petals, my priests' robes gently falling about my arms and shoulders like the pall of a funeral coffin, I would whisper, "This is my Body."

I was a good priest, maybe one of the best for a short time. I prayed constantly, daily, hourly. Every time I walked with audible steps on the ground, the sounds of my shoes reminded me of the sounds of Christ's steps as he carried the cross on his shoulder. Seeing a child running to his mother I thought of the Virgin Mary scooping up her Christ Child. When I held the hand of a dying man, his family wailing around me I believed I was like Christ, anointing his head with oil, asking Christ to take the illness of the dying upon himself, to carry the man and his suffering from the bounds of earth so that he might be free to rejoice with God in heaven. I would weep with the family, tears of anguish felt by them pouring from my eyes.

I held the hands of a woman going to hospital the next day asking me to pray for her, to anoint her head with oil. We prayed together, she could not let my hands go. I drew her close to my breast, and held her while she sobbed. I kissed her head and told her that God loved her, that no matter the outcome, she would be free because the Christ had released her from sin in his death. His suffering was her suffering. Her time on this earth was a memory, a shadow and that memory, shadow would pass in the light of the rising sun.

I ran my fingers though the hair of toeheaded children, seeing in their young bright eyes the future of the Church, little bears of God's word and love to the world. I held plump little Mexican babies on the harvested fields in Northern Colorado at migrant camps and believed that each one of them represented the Christ child. I was nervous when their grandmothers would bend and kiss the hem of my pants, but understood too because from the breathe of my lungs, the Words of God would spill out and the plain and ordinary could become divine, the unleavened would rise, the wine would become blood and together we would all live forever.

I believed that while I stood at the altar, with God before me in bread and wine, that I was a time traveler. That while I beheld those mysteries before me resting in silver and gold on the altar, that is bread becoming living flesh and wine becoming living blood, I was standing not only on earth, but one foot was firmly planted in God's holy court. I was a pontiff, a bridge between heaven and earth, and the angels of God walked up and down my shoulders singing holy songs of praise.

I struggled with my own humanity, writing once, "I have failed The Lord and have not answered that honorable and beautiful call to bear witness to The Lord. How easily I fall into sin myself and I look at the armor of my faith and see the tarnish and dents and marks of my own sin upon it and I nearly weep. I should rather to die than to sin, yet even in acknowledging this I still sin. I seek to be a warrior of the Light, but in my sinfulness I plunge the dagger of my own weakness into the very heart of my faith. I should rather die yet I do not."

Yet in struggling in my humanity I was proud, happy to a great priest. I remember the feeling of absolute power knowing that the faithful parishioners clung to my words, sat enraptured of my preaching the Gospels. I sought to anger the faithful, calling them lazy in their love of God so that they would confront me. There in confrontation I would act like their Jesus and flip over their tables of pride in God's house, daring them to fail to see that if they are full of faith they could not but help to abandon all they cling too and fall before God at the altar. I never lost a single argument - but I never made any friends.

I would tell the faithful that their baptisms in water and spirit pulling its wondrous power from the baptism of their Christ made them apostles, great, greater even than those first twelve. I asked a young man once to allow his spiritual power act like a saint, reminding him that his prayer while only a whisper on earth was a shout in God's ear. I begged him to whisper on earth so that God could hear his shouting, pleading to him, please, please dear son, whisper to God for me.

One day I stood at the altar of God, holding in my hands unleavened bread, breathing breathe on wine, and waited to experience a divine mystery. My gold lined robes of priesthood, weighing heavy against my shoulders. The silver cup blinding me in its brilliance. And I waited. I looked out over the rim of my eyeglasses, slipping in sweat on my nose, and spied God's holy people kneeling. Most thumbing through prayer books, some reading parish news bulletins, some asleep, some checking their watches. Then suddenly there were no angels dancing on my shoulders, there was no divine air blowing out of my lips. There was only me. I was coming awake. I placed the stale unleavened bread on its silver paten, hand trembling as I moved the cup of wine, and I knew I had been deceiving myself. There was no God on the altar before me, there was fermented grapes and flour.

That dream was ending, and waking so slowly, seeing the life around me I realized I had been sleep for a very long time, but I didn't want to stop dreaming. I wanted my power, my hero's cape, my power to fly, my super strength, my hero's breathe. That dream I didn't want to end and for a long time I clutched at those dreamy memories, and hoped to stay there, standing at an altar dressed in fine golden treads with old women kissing my hands and feet. But like all sleep that ends, you cannot lay in that bed forever. Sleep eluded me there, and I had to get up.

And so I pulled off, tugging them over my head, the robes of my priesthood, those holy garments setting me apart from the rest of humanity. I packed into my trunk that fine silver cup, my chalice, my vessel of God's blood. I wrapped my white collar representing eternal life in circle of black cloth representing death of sin. I closed the lid of that trunk, and turned back to my bed. I laid upon the soft covers of a life that was easy and dull. There I fell back asleep, and this time my sleep was more dreamless.

You see in my mission, my life as a priest, in my life in God, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I had purpose. While that purpose may have been false, not real, at least for me, I was guided. I had a mission, I was going to save the world, or at the very least I believed I could save me. But when looking at the bread and wine, at the faithless faithful, I knew I had been dreaming. But rather than allow myself to wake up, I went back to sleep. For nearly fourteen years I've not thought once of my life as a priest when I kissed the dying, visited the lonely, feed the hungry, clothed the naked, tended the sick, sang with the children, gave to the poor. In fourteen years I've done nothing but lived my life for me. I've given my love to one or two, but as a human on a planet that is broken, dying, lonely, hungry, naked, sick, needing song, is covered with poverty, I've only managed to tend to me. For all my altruistic up-bringing, for all my education, for all my love of service, I have slept for fourteen years caring only for myself.

But I am waking up. I don't want get up just yet, because that dream, that selfish dream of taking care of me is so tempting. That bed is so comfortable, it's too easy to say to myself, just 10 minutes more, please that's all I need. But the last time I woke up, from my dream of Gods and men, I knew I had to.  I knew that my fantasy life as a priest wasn't really rewarding, that I would cause myself to suffer. But rather than fully waking, I rolled over into a new sleep - and it has been almost as unfulfilling as pretending to be god.

In my last 14 years of sleep, I have dreamt of love. I have dreamt of happiness. I have dreamt of knowing peace and joy. I have touched it with my lips on the face of my husband. But those fleeting memories of reality, haven't sustained me. And so I have to ask myself as an atheist, who at one time believed he breathed God's breathe on to bread and wine so as to make it flesh and blood, can I again be inspired to serve? Can I be a great humanist who desires not just to rest in his own bed to dream his sweet dreams but make for this world room for us all to rest and dream? Dare I ask my lovers in life to journey with me into waking, to stumble out of our drowsy sleep and brush the cobwebs of memories away and blink back the sand in our eyes and look at the light of the world dappling our lives around us? I think I can, but I still have to wake up. I have to get past my fourteen years of not being here and rediscover what in that last dream so inspired me to give everything I had away.

My hero's cape, my power to fly, my super strength, my hero's breathe, these things aren't fantasies; my cape is a flag of equality beckoning us to recognize in each other, beckoning me to recognize in each of you, how we under heaven are equal. My power to fly is in the spreading of the words of love and justice with my brothers and sisters. My flight comes in the form of knowledge - that will leap from mind to mind, heart to heart, eye to eye. My super strength is my husband - in my ability to love, his arm to lean on when I am weak, his strength to support me when I am tired. My hero's breath is my power to speak out against injustice. To raise my voice and proclamation freedom for us all, to proclaim that love does not have gender, to proclaim that equality does not have a color or creed.

Be careful now I am waking up. I was great once, if only for a moment. I can be great again, I know it. But first I have to brush the cobwebs away. Wake my numb hands, quicken my mind, look into light, and shout at my own mind, in a voice that just says yes, get up, don't sleep here any longer.

Who Shall Weep for me

In the summer of 1990 the ringing phone drew me out of sleep. I was working as a parish associate at St. John the Baptist in Longmont, Colorado for Father Fox. It was my first "official" job as a seminarian, me having joined the seminary only a year and half prior in January of 1989. I was entering my junior year of college, and the work I was going to be doing was ministerial, tending to the elderly, giving guest sermons and actually doing "good" in the community. I had known Father Fox off and on for some years and knew him to be a good man, dedicated, thoughtful, kind. He was a bit of an odd bird too - he had two Doberman Pinchers and a large parrot. He welcomed me to his parish and taught me much about how a local neighborhood pastor serves his parish and the parish family.

Back to the night of summer in 1990 - Father Fox was off that night, probably visiting friends in the mountains. As a result the emergency phone line was sent to my room at the rectory. It was late when the phone rang, and I knew that it was the emergency phone ringing next to my nightstand.

"Hello?" I mumbled into the receiver. "Hi yes sir this is your emergency phone service, I have the Longmont police standing by on the other line, a detective wishes to speak to you." I sat upright in my bed. "Go on."

"May I patch the detective through sir?"

"Yes of course." The line clicked for a moment then I knew another voice was on the receiver.

"Hi is this the Catholic Church?" A gruff voice intoned.

"Yes, hi this is Thomas Burkett at St. John's, how can I help you."

"Father" I didn't correct him - I wasn't a father yet but this was so intriguing, "We need you to come as one of your parishioners needs last rites."

My mind raced, I knew the lasts rites from the book of prayers for the dying, but I also knew I wasn't authorized to extend them. "Sir, my name is Thomas Burkett, I'm only the seminarian here, Father Fox has left the parish for the evening."

There was a pause on the other end for a moment, "Well that should be fine, to be honest I don't think last rites would work anyway."

I held the phone away from my face for a moment, eye brows up, "I'm sorry?"

"Look, the guy doesn't need last rites because he's dead. His niece is here at his house insisting that we call a Catholic Priest to come and give him last rites so he won't go to hell or something." He sounded nervous. "I'm not catholic but I'm pretty sure that last rites is for someone alive, this guy hasn't been alive for awhile."

Now at this point I could have refused and said I'm sorry there was no priest available at this time, but something in the cops voice told me he really wasn't sure what to do. "I can come." I said without much further adieu. The cop gave me the directions to the house where they were waiting. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my clothes and ran to the sacristy of the church. I grabbed the prayers for the rites of dead, a jar of holy water, and a small Pyx with the consecrated host. I threw on my long black cassock over my clothes and jumped into my car.

The night was quiet as I sped down the streets of Longmont. The town of Longmont was a city on the edge - it was a growing metropolis resting on the edge of beet farms and a large turkey rendering factory. The mix of the rural and the growing city of Denver created a mix of culture that was often at odds. As I drove to the house with the deceased I grew further from the upscale part of town where our parish was, and into a part of town with small post World War II ranch style homes. I looked at the scribbled notes I had as to how to find the house. It was easy once in the area, the police lights swirling on top of patrol cars were like beacons.

I pulled onto the street and exited my car. I was immediately stopped by an officer; I explained to him who I was. He turned and called for the detective I had spoken to on the phone. It was still early enough in the summer that the evening was quite cool, and the black cassock bellowed out around my legs in grand fashion. Standing there in all black, clutching against my chest the red prayer book and gold pyx I must have looked quite a site. I was only 20 years old, and no doubt the cops were thinking I was a child.

The cop greeted me somberly, "Hi Thomas. Look his niece is standing up on the front porch, she's pretty upset so I think anything you can do will help." I looked at the house again. In the pale light of the street lamps it was yellow. The short chain link fence that around the front yard was slumping in several places, broken in others. The house clearly was in disrepair - the shingle roof missing several shingles. I walked up the front path to the porch. I stepped onto the wooden steps of the porch they squeaked in protest to my weight. The yellow bulb of the porch light illuminated us in unflattering light. A small woman stood with her arms wrapped around herself a tissue hanging from her fingers.

I extended my hand, "Hi, I'm Thomas Burkett from St. John's Catholic Church, I understand you've sent for someone to do last rites?" She wiped her nose with her tissue, dried tears visible on her face. "Hi," she quickly took my hand and then as quickly pulled back from me. I looked through the door of the house and saw old wore furniture peaking out from behind the front screen. "I used to come to see him all the time, but lately I've been so busy, I haven't had the chance to come in some weeks. His neighbor called me yesterday to tell me she hadn't seen him in a long time." She look at the ground, "I should have come more often, now he's all alone." She looked up at me, her eyes wet with new tears, "Please tell me that he won't go to hell?"

I glanced away from her, back into the house, "I'm sure he won't go to hell." I shuffled the holy book to my other arm, "I'm here to pray from him and for you if you want."

She sniffled again, "I can't go back in the house, it's too awful. Please promise me that you'll do last rites for him so he is sure to go to heaven." The new tears dripped down her chin. "I can't go back in, it's too awful." Repeating the sentence again she seemed even smaller.

I looked into her lonely eyes and promised. Of course I couldn't do last rites, even if I had been a priest as last rites are reserved for the living. I didn't tell her that though. I felt the cop standing behind me. He pulled my arm and lead me into the house.

Immediately the putrid smell struck my nostrils. I had smelled death before, but never like this. The small house reeked of it and my eyes immediately teared up. The cop shook his head. "I guess the neighbor called the the niece when they couldn't see him moving around anymore. I'm sure they noticed the smell too. Sad thing is that they haven' checked on him in a long time." The cop lead me further into the house. "He's laying in the bedroom, it's a pretty troubling scene, are you sure you can do this?"

I wasn't sure, but here I was for the first time in my newly started life as a minister ready to try. I had never been in this type of position where everyone was expecting me to do something - help - pray - make a difference. This was a thrill for me. I nodded my head, comfort being found in the prayer book in my hand. "Okay then Thomas, he's back this way." The cop lead me down the very narrow hall, the smell growing worse as we went. "Have you ever seen a dead body?" I had, at funerals. I nodded. The cop grimaced, "Not like this you haven't."

We arrived at the bedroom door, another cop was just exiting. They exchanged confirmations that the investigation was complete and I could go in. The detective who called me stepped back and I saw into an unadorned room with a body laying on a twin bed. The smell was strong enough to water my eyes. The room was illuminated by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting horrible light throughout the tiny room. The bed was unmade, the sheet pulled back around the body.

I stepped in trepidatiously and walked to the side of the bed. There laying before me was an old man, his arms were crossed on his chest. The flesh was tight across his cheeks, grey whiskers indicated he hadn't shaved in some time. He was very small, he looked very dry. His eyes slightly open were milky white, no color could be seen there. I looked at this old man, in his bed, forgotten for a couple of weeks, dead for days. I didn't know what to do, and for a few long moments I just stared at death.

This man, whose name today I cannot remember had died alone, forgotten, in his small run down house. He died on a single bed, surrounded by people who didn't know he had gone until they thought they noticed a smell, until they noticed that mail and papers were piling up. This old man who had no family other than a niece who was too busy to call and check. This old man who didn't know a soul except his own. I remember looking around the room he had died in, there were no images of family scattered about, the room looked more like a hotel room. There was a simple cross on the night stand, a small 13 inch tv at the bed's foot. This man died and there was no weeping or wailing. I offered the prayer of committal:

May choirs of angels welcome you
and lead you to the bosom of Abraham;
and where Lazarus is poor no longer
may you find eternal rest.

The niece crying on the front porch was crying because she hadn't been a good family member. Her concern wasn't for the living, it was for the dead. The life of the man in this small room was gone and there waiting outside for a young seminarian to cast some sort of magical prayer to promise eternity to a dead man stood a woman who didn't know the meaning of her own faith or that of her uncle. For a minute in that small room looking down at the drying husk of a man that I would never know I was profoundly alone. All the prayers in the little book I held next to me didn't carry me away, they didn't offer comfort to the dying. The niece who maybe could have been ministered to was so guilt ridden she could not be comforted by someone like me.

In someway I could hear death whispering into my ear - reminding me that he was coming for me too, not there maybe, but for sure somewhere else. This event has shaped much of life since. A reminder of the gift we have today to live in the moment. I looked down at the dead man alone and knew that I would want to ensure when I died someone would weep for me.

I wrote the below poem several years later.

Something reached around my neck,

it was Death's Sweet embrace.

Icy Fingers touching, holding,

smoothing my face.

I turned my head away -

held my arm out

as if to say

No not you!

I have nothing to give of

not my life for sure

just simply my love.

Death withdrew,

his black cape to hide,

he would stop and wait

he could bide.