Ralph is Dancing at Last

Our dear friend Ralph Grisham died peacefully in his sleep last week.
He was suffering from many ailments related to his spina bifida, but about a month ago he was diagnosed with bladder cancer.
He is now living large, up out of that infernal wheelchair, dancing and laughing with sheer delight with the Lord of all life.

I am sad I did not get to say goodbye to him. I am sad because I am sure I would have said many more things differently in the last weeks of his life had I known time was so short… Ralph had a lot of needs. You could say he was needy. In fact, Ralph could make you think of Bill Murry’s character in the movie “What About Bob”. “Please, please please, I need I need I need, gimme gimme, gimme, please?” Ralph was not usually shy about making his needs known. Maybe you are like me in this- I wonder if we did enough, if I did enough. When I heard the news last night, I did what comes naturally to me- I thought of myself. I cried to God, “I did all I could- the best I could do! How could I have done any more to love him?” The beautiful, bitter sweet truth is that I could have done more…I could have loved him better. Can’t we always? Of course, because our model is Jesus. We are to be like Him, so we will always, always have lots of room for improvement. This is comforting, because Jesus calls us to a high standard, something big to reach for- loving others as he loves us. And we can never reach that, so we have absolutely everything for which to strive and absolutely nothing to regret, both at the same time. And that goes for everything we do and everyone we love. There is so much pain and heartache around, the real shame would be to never see it, feel it, enter into it with each other. It would be easier not to, I think. I hurt more since I came to know and love Ralph. That hurt is a gift from God. Why choose to hurt more?

Because Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him, he calls us to enter into others’ pain. Mother Teresa, and those who still follow Jesus as she taught them, spend everything they have, all their resources, talent, energy, on behalf of the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, those who have days, hours or even minutes to live on the streets of Calcutta. Is it worth it? Or is it a waste of time? What if they get to the dying person in time for him to have some significant change of heart? In time for him to whisper confessions? In time to whisper to him, “Jesus loves you”? What if they get there a minute later, after his spirit has gone? Then is all their effort wasted? Of course not. The worth of that love has nothing at all to do with any response from the loved.

So it is with our calling. Everybody hurts, and everybody is dying. In 5 minutes or 50 years… The common moment is right now. Right now. How open are you to love others in the name of Jesus right now? To share their pain right now? What if right now is the only chance you have? What will you say? How will you love? Will you expect/demand a response? What if, while you are formulating your question, the targeted spirit slips away? You missed your moment to love without condition, to touch without reservation, to heal without payment, to give without thanks.

I think about the many moments I had with Ralph. Moments to laugh, moments to give grace, moments to say “I’m sorry”, moments to speak hard truth, moments to quietly care, moments to cajole and encourage, moments of impatience and moments of waiting… I had all of those with Ralph and many more… Yellilng “Bravo” and “Brave” at the SF Opera… Accidentally dumping him out of his wheelchair when I hit a lip in the pavement… Eating lots of things in lots of places with someone who really enjoyed good food…

Ralph was a fighter. I know, because he fought with everyone at one time or another, including me…while I was preaching. Ralph was a true extrovert- he got energy from being with people, and he craved it so much. I am sure sometimes he picked fights just so he could talk to someone. Ralph was profoundly lonely. And yet he could entertain himself… for hours…days. He got to know and be known by a lot of people, a lot of hospital staffs, a lot of churches… He lived courageously with constant pain, emotional, physical and spiritual. In his last painful year, he had been moving away from our church community, and I prayed that he would find what his restless soul was seeking. Well, he has.

He now knows. He knows what it is to be loved unconditionally, the way he always craved to be loved. He knew in part, but now he knows in full, how incredibly beautiful and loved he is. Like all of us, he believed some lies that hurt him. He believed he had to measure up to some religious standard, to earn his way into God’s good graces; he berated himself for not measuring up (don’t we all?) and he prided himself for attaining a partly imagined maturity (don’t we all?). I know that he started to see through some of these lies, and the religiosity that had him in chains was losing its power over him. He felt the love of his friends and he soaked in the gospel of God’s grace, and his mask of religious performance began to slip.

He began to awaken to the truth of the Gospel- that he was broken beyond his ability to fix, and loved beyond all his imagination, and he didn’t need to earn it. He didn’t come easily. He fought against the Gospel. (Don’t we all?) His default mode (and ours) was to compare himself to others and to argue for his rank.

He wanted so desperately to belong. To be valued. He told me he wanted to be co-pastor with me, and he would jump in and share his thoughts in the middle of my sermon, between naps… He made sure his voice was heard during singing, with or without a microphone… He wanted to lead small groups that he had rarely if ever visited… He would shove his oar in and share his strong opinion on anyone’s personal relationships or business whenever he felt like it, but he could also be extremely sensitive and insightful. Sometimes, he just knew things… you know what I mean..

Ralph was gifted. God spoke to him and used him to bless and encourage others. Ralph used his gifts well and not so well. Sometimes he believed the lie that his gifts were what made him valuable, rather than the giver, and so he at times displayed his gifts to get recognition and approval (Don’t we all?).

I know above all that is what Ralph would want for all of his friends and family to know, deep in their souls, that you, all of you, are loved by a God who made you, who knows you inside and out, who cares so much that he died so you could live, really live! Ralph was most alive when he was communing with his savior, Jesus, and praying for others to do that too. Right now Ralph is with his Jesus. Maybe they are playing hopscotch, or cooking. Ralph finally fully belongs.

My prayer is that we can all come to embrace the gospel truth that Ralph now knows perfectly- the only approval we need comes from God, apart from any action of ours, due only to Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. As we embrace that truth, God looks at us and sees the perfection of Jesus, who lived the life we should have and saved us by dying the death we deserved. So we can add nothing at all to his approval of us. We are perfectly and forever accepted because of Jesus, the one dancing with Ralph at this moment. Someday we will join the dance- won’t that be something?