Nouns and Adverbs

Several years ago a schoolteacher assigned to visit children in a large city hospital received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child. She took the boy's name and room number and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, "We're studying nouns and adverbs in his class now. I'd be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn't fall behind the others."

It wasn't until the visiting teacher got outside the boy's room that she realized it was located in the hospital's burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain. She felt that she couldn't just turn around and walk out, so she awkwardly stammered, "I'm the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs."

The boy was in such pain he barely responded. She stumbled through his English lesson, ashamed at putting him through such a senseless exercise. The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, "What did you do to that boy?"

Before she could finish a profusion of apologies, the nurse interrupted her: "You don't understand. We've been very worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He's fighting back, responding to treatment--it's as though he's decided to live."

The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw that teacher. It all changed when he came to a simple realization. With joyful tears, he expressed it this way: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?"

THIS STORY WAS offered in our Sunday morning worship at Sojourners Community a couple of years ago by a woman who coordinates services for patients at the hospital. It was particularly poignant because it was offered as a gift of gratitude and hope to the community as this woman and her family stood before us on their last Sunday morning in our midst. They were moving on to help in the creation of a new church.

One of the most difficult realities in the life of any community is the need at times to let go of people who have been very close, who have shared deeply in the life. At such times I always feel like I'm watching a part of myself walk out the door--even as I celebrate new beginnings and callings for people I love. Knowing that bonds grow even across the miles lessens the pain of absence only slightly.

But perhaps the gift of this letting go is that it reminds us not to take one another for granted. It puts upon us the wonderful burden of saying to each other the things we rarely otherwise get around to saying. It encourages us to remember what precious gifts we are to one another.

I think of the story every Lent. It's harder for me to muster hope during Lent than at any other time of the year. The very nature of the season calls us to look closely at our own weaknesses and sins. It's a time when I look back over the past year and count my losses.

But the story invites me, when all I seem to see around me is woundedness, to celebrate the gift of life. It shows me again that on the other side of the pain is resurrection. It reminds me of what is possible when there is hope.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.