I'm pretty sure I may have mentioned at least once on this blog that my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's like dementia a few years ago. I'm pretty certain that I've also noted that he was an ordained minister and the pastor of a church for nearly 50 years. Well on last night at about 12:22 a.m.—technically this morning—for reasons I'm not certain, my father began preaching a sermon in his sleep. I heard this as I sat in the guest bedroom of my parents' home working on yesterday's post, and suddenly I was inspired to write another.
The theme of my father's sermon seemed to be "Hold on, pay day is coming after a while," as those words came across quite clearly from across the hall.
Given the recent events of my own life about which I was still feeling some anxiety, the message was duly appreciated and received. For those not familiar with Pentecostal, Charismatic or Evangelical traditions, "pay day is coming after a while" was a common teaching among these branches of Christianity during my father's early years as a minister, I'm told. The idea is that if you keep the faith and continue in your good works, you will be richly rewarded someday while here on earth, or at least in the "sweet by-and-by." While my understanding of God has evolved as to no longer believe in a God who rewards and punishes us along the level of Santa Claus, which I believe speaks more to how we treat ourselves and each other, the idea of imminent blessings sounded very reassuring to me.
The entire moment lasted only about 20 minutes, which is about an eighth of the time that one of my father's sermons would have typically lasted during his peak years. I can't begin to know what prompted his midnight mini sermon. Perhaps, he was speaking out of a dream. Yet I would have to say it was a very powerfully delivered message. I heard in his voice the same force, the same strength of conviction, the same cadence that I'd come to expect on a Sunday morning. It was all so curious and strange and bittersweet.
Just six years ago, I remember thinking as I watched my father speak one Sunday that he may very well leave here like Moses—full of strength and days. Already in his mid-80s then, he preached as hard that day as I had seen him preach 20 years prior, still with handkerchief in hand to wipe the sweat dripping from his brow. And then slowly at first, and then more and more rapidly, his mind begin to deteriorate. The Bible verses that once came to him so easily, even the most obscure of passages, he struggled to recall. In fact, he fights now to hold on to the memory of the names of his children and grandchildren, the place where he grew up and where he now lives, what he ate for breakfast or dinner, or how to fasten the belt on his pants (my father was also once a licensed tailor). He fights most, with all he has in him, to hold onto to the memory of his own name—his sense of self and beingness, his "I am."
It's ironic and heartbreaking that after years of instilling in me and my siblings the absolute necessity of pursuing knowledge for it's own sake because "no one can ever take from you what you have in your mind," it is exactly that he fights to hold onto: the lifetime of knowledge in his mind of all he has experienced, learned, discovered, and accomplished.
Perhaps that is what prompted my father's mini sermon after midnight—it was a message to himself to "hold on."
Keep fighting dad! I believe that we are all stronger than we know. While you may not leave here like Moses, at the very least you'll be able to say like Paul: "I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith."
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