Here If You Need Me

The title of this post is also the title of a book I just finished for book club. The author, Kate Braestrup, tells the story of her work as a chaplain with the Maine Game Warden service (which, as she notes, raises a lot of questions like, "What do you do? Bless the moose?" when, in fact, she works with their search-and-rescue division).

This is a very good book. I wish I could sit and have coffee with her, since I have a lot of questions both about her work and her journey to seminary. The latter is a choice she makes after her husband, whose dream it was to go to seminary when he retired as a state trooper, dies in a car accident. Normally, this would throw up all kinds of red flags for me about transference and grief-avoidance but frankly, this woman comes off as extraordinarily healthy. And you should really read the bits about her refusal to have the funeral home care for her husband's body.

At any rate, the passage which stuck with me most was from her chapter on heaven. She's Unitarian. And she doesn't believe in heaven or any sort of afterlife, which she discusses freely. She talks a bit about this. And then she shares the following conversation with her son (who is about 12 at the time, I think):

My son Zach is the child of Unitarian Universalists, so naturally he didn't know a lot about Jesus. But I heard a lot about Jesus at my Christian seminary, and a lot of it was pretty cool. So one day, I found myself telling Zach about Jesus' life and death, the stories they told about him, what he said to his disciples.

"When Jesus talked about loving," I said, "I think he meant something really radical. I think he was talking about loving as God loves; loving completely, loving with a whole self. He told his disciples to give everything they had, everything they were, to hold nothing back, not money, not time, not even life itself. Everything was to be given over in the service of love."

I went on about this for awhile, sermonizing in a motherly sort of way, and Zach listened carefully, because even as a young boy he was always a careful listener.

"So, Mom," he said at last. "Let's say I decide to become a devoted follower of Jesus Christ."

"What?" I said, startled and alarmed.

"No, but let's say I do."

"Okay," I said cautiously.

"And I die, and because I'm a Christian, I get to go to heaven instead of going to hell."

"Yeah..."

"If I really take Jesus seriously, if I really am willing to give up everything I am and everything I have in the service of love, if I am really a Christian...it seems to me I would have to give my place in heaven to someone else, someone who otherwise wouldn't get to go."

I stared at him.

"I'd have to go to hell, so this other person could be in heaven. Right, Mom?"

That right there. That is why you need to read this book.