February 17, 2008: AT THE END OF YOUR ROPE?
Matthew 5:1-12, Isaiah 53:1-3, Psalm 32:1-7, 11
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyter

Granny's funeral was over, and now it was time for the family to gather for a reading of her Last Will and Testament, a quaint custom that has pretty much died out. But Granny had a streak of showmanship, so she'd arranged this last gathering for a final word with us. None of us expected financial surprises, because Granny had never been one to let more than two nickels rub together in her pocket, bringing meaning to the phrases, "generous to a fault" and "poor in spirit." Nor did we expect some judgment from beyond the grave, as Granny let loose with both barrels, telling us what she really thought of us. We already knew-she'd told us. Granny just liked the notion of all of us gathering in the lawyer's office over the Dew Drop Inn, taking in her last words.

She'd been taken with the "Testament" part of Last Will and Testament, this woman who had raised us up on homespun Momilies. When we were half-hearted doing our chores, we heard, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well." When we lost interest in a project, we heard, "Finish what you begin." Frustration and discouragement got, "If at first you don't succeed," which we'd heard so many times, we could chime in with "try, try again" as we buckled down again. When we wept over the loss of a pet or a friend moving away, she would comfort us with, "If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving," which somehow honored our grief as it welcomed us to what Granny called "the weeping class." She said the weeping class was practice for sticking up for the underdogs. And boy, did she live that!

So here we were, waiting to hear where Granny stood on life, the universe and everything, hearing the lawyer begin with her words, "I never needed money to be rich." We knew we were her wealth. But we continued listening as she reminded us to avoid the pitfalls of "the middle class" to remain in "the weeping class." "True wealth comes from pouring out your watered-down self-centered self, in order to fill the container of your life-your real Life-with the fine, rich wine of God's love for you and through you. "

The lawyer had obviously put the document together, so this was not news to him, and the family's eyes met in tolerant amusement. We'd heard this before. I'd just about decided to stop listening when I heard, "God does his best work when you're at the end of your rope." That was one of Granny's favorites, and I'd heard it a thousand times, when I'd come to her at the end of my personal rope, hoping for sympathy and help. I'd be admitting to my frustrations and despairs, and she would tell me a story to send me back with fresh courage to face the day. When I'd come in shame that I'd lost my job, couldn't find another, and had to move in again with my parents (as a grown up!), she had talked about being married at the end of the Great Depression and living with her folks because her husband couldn't find work. She had nursed her mother through the years of her final illness, all the while making sure her little brothers and sisters got through high school as she raised her own four little ones. When I was at the end of my rope with my husband's drinking, she talked about her brother's alcoholism and the troubles in got into with the law. When we nearly lost my toddler son to a terrible infection, she told me about losing a child to polio before the vaccines. When I was harassed at work as the first woman on a construction site, she talked about dealing with her boss at the laundry where she worked in high school, the one who kept hitting on her when they were alone, and she couldn't quit, because her 8 ½ cents an hour bought shoes for the family.

Her stories never one-upped mine. They were never told in the spirit of, "If you think that's bad, listen to this!" Granny never told the stories so that I wouldn't think I didn't have it so bad, not nearly as bad as she'd had it. Her stories were supposed to encourage me, give me an appreciation for all surviving. And give me hope for thriving. Her stories helped me to understand that it was the rough times that had made Granny the strong and generous woman she was. And they'd do the same for me, my own rough times.

Granny's underdog radar had always been finely tuned. If you wanted to get her mad, just start picking on someone littler and more vulnerable than you. We all knew to steer clear of Granny when she was at the end of her rope on behalf of someone else. The first warning sign was her re-upping her membership in the weeping class. First she'd grieve the too-muchness of the situation, the injustice. Then she was off like a dachshund on a badger. She'd go into any hole, brave any danger, hang on with her teeth and set her feet until she'd dragged out and dispatched whatever was wrong. Impatient with cruelty or insensitivity toward others, she had all the time in the world wait until things were set right. "God does his best work," she'd say, "when you're at the end of your rope," and we knew that sometimes God did that work through Granny.

Well, the reading of Granny's Last Will and Testament ended, and I went home, still thinking about "God does his best work when you're at the end of your rope." That night I had a dream. I dreamed I was hanging at the end of a rope. There were huge, soft snowflakes swirling around me and, although I couldn't see them, I knew there were jagged rocks beneath me, ready to crush me if my hands slipped off the rope and I fell. For some reason, that the snowflakes were landing on me was upsetting. I kept brushing them off, because I thought if I allowed them to accumulate, the weight would be too much, and my grip would slip and I'd fall. But I had to let go of the rope with one hand to brush the snow off, and each time I did that, I risked losing my grip on the end of my rope. It was getting harder and harder to hang on and still brush off the snow, when I heard Granny's voice. "God does his best work when you're at the end of your rope."

What kind of message was that? And then it dawned on me: those snowflakes I'd been trying to brush off, rather than causing me to fall to my death, were God's best work. They were the sky hooks Granny used to tell us about. "How do airplanes stay up in the air?" we'd asked. "Sky hooks," she'd said. The snowflakes were my very own sky hooks-God doing his best work while I was at the end of my rope. If I stopped trying to brush off those flakes and just receive and accept them, they would hold me up-connect me to God. These weren't burdens, these failures, frustrations, times filled with grief and fear and discouragement. They were that, but they were also what kept me from being crushed on the rocks. Because they connected me to God. Blessings. My own invitation to the weeping class. Granny's "poor in spirit" doesn't mean you have no wealth, it means you've acknowledged your need. You're willing to let God fill it. It's one thing to hear, "God does his best work when you're at the end of your rope." It's another to live it. But to live that means I could let go of that rope. I didn't have to hang on. Those so-called "burdens" were sky hooks, God holding on to me. God holding on to you.