Midnight calls

Pastor, I'm dying!" Mrs. Carter's* voice came over the phone in a hoarse semi-whisper. She wanted me to leave the church social I was attending and come to her home right away.

Not knowing what to do, I spoke to John Palmer, a doctor. When I told him that Mrs. Carter was dying, he replied, "What! Again?"

I had become Mrs. Carter's pastor not long before this and had not yet met her. She was a widow who had joined the church a couple of years earlier but had not become active in it. She had no family and few friends.

Though it was late, I went over to her place. I knew she wasn't dying, but I wanted her to know that I cared.

Well, you know what positive reinforcement does. A few weeks later our telephone awakened my wife and me at about midnight. Mrs. Carter was dying again.

This time I tried to convince her that she would make it through the night and that I'd come and see her first thing in the morning. She asked me to put my arms around my wife and say the Lord's Prayer, and then to go into my year-old daughter's room, take her in my arms, and re peat the Ten Commandments.

I didn't follow these instructions, but I did go over to her house again. She needed attention.

The last time she called, one night at about two, I was adamant. I'd see her in the morning, but I was not about to get out of bed and go then.

Finding her dying-from-illness routine ineffective, she tried a new tack. Now the neighbors were out to get her. When I told her that I didn't think the situation was as bad as she portrayed it, she became angry. Before hanging up, she said, "Dr. Palmer just came in the door--with a knife in his back!"

These memories bring a smile--but for me it's a kind of rueful smile. I can't help feeling a little sorrow and some guilt when I think of Mrs. Carter. I tried to visit her fairly frequently, not just after one of her calls. But I didn't meet her need. Because of my youth and the demands of my work, I couldn't offer her the kind of relationship she needed.

I told her I would arrange for someone to bring her to church; she needed to get out of her house and among people. But she wasn't very interested. She felt that the church members were prejudiced against her. I realize now that she needed a personal relationship, personal attention. Simply going to a church service, even going with someone else, didn't offer much hope of fulfilling that need.

Although most of the elderly don't signal their needs so dramatically, with the aging of the population, the number of Mrs. Carters around us is increasing. First Timothy 5 says that the needs of these people are, first of all, the responsibility of their families, and that the church should care for those who have no families. While that passage speaks of their financial needs, I think their emotional needs are just as important.

As good pastors, shepherds, we can, by both word and example, encourage the younger members of our churches to be faithful to their responsibilities to their parents. We can encourage those of our members who have the needed gifts to look after those who have no families. And within our churches we can support and perhaps even initiate groups that en able our older members to care for one another.

Shepherding the flock not only means caring for the lambs and the sheep who are productive, it also means seeing that the needs of those past their prime are met. --David C. Jarnes.