Post Number Fifty

Terry Kay Niles Gladstone

October 27, 1949-November 6, 2011

Terry died at 12:55 a.m. on Sunday, November 6, 2011. Her final day was spent surrounded by her family gathered from as far away as Germany.  Hospice was called in on Monday, October 31 and her condition worsened rapidly over the course of the week.  I have been unable to offer an entry in this journal until now.  

Terry's memorial service was held at First United Methodist Church in Port Huron on November 13.  In that service Rev. Jeff Nelson offered the following poem as a tribute to her life and ministry.  I can do no better than this poem.

It Only Takes a Spark

(for Terry Gladstone: friend, colleague, co-conspirator, fellow dreamer, arsonist)

by Jeff Nelson on Monday, November 14, 2011 at 2:23pm

one wooden stick

red topped
white tipped
ready to strike
dragged with intention
across the edge of inspiration
pushed into place where heat and heart and hope and home hover waiting for air to breathe its breath into being

until at last there is flicker
and flash and flame

she was matchstick

sent here to burn, to blaze, to heat things up to keep us warm

she walked this earth with gasoline in her fingertips searching for sparks smoldering in faint glows
of future sparkling in the corner of old church parlors

anything she touched might ignite
just combust in spontaneous explosions of chaos

shoot, ya’ll
every time she walked into a place
she threatened to burn the whole place down

My God,
is there anybody left who might burn this whole place down?

the red sash
draped from her shoulder to waist
covered a heart not a afraid to bleed
a heart broken for lost sheep and lost coins and lost kids
a heart curled up like fist protesting death
she taught us what was worth fighting for
and then turned around and taught us how to make up when the fight was over

hers was a heart that pumped with passion, pulsated with possibility pounded to an beat once lost in time
now found again in rhythm and rhyme
popping the locks off closeted doors

setting dead bone free so they might dance again
pulling one humped camels through needles’ eye
capturing rainbows in mud puddles and finding forgiveness in fallen leaves

mending broken fences with buckets of what others had left behind daring to live in the crosshairs that
the connect sanctuary to seminary to the street corner bakery

towel and basin
the tools of her trade

a brown bag lunch that might feed the world the seed of her deepest hope

the scars of a cross carried the sign of a job well done

from generation to generation
no failure of nerve
avoid triangulation through self-differentiation
bringing oneself into the presence where anxiety simply slips into nonexistence sitting in sharing circle until truth finally whispers.
“listen....”

Terry
earth-stained mother, theological animator, flaming spirit, laughing jackal, rising bird,
knowing shadow, inner light

where is your flame? I see it everywhere

I see it
in the eyes of a poet, pastor partner
for whom Kenosis is no theological abstraction
but a radical trust that even when the glass appears empty it is still completely full
even if the thing that fills it is something you cannot see

I see it
in the eyes of your children
who sing and dance
and dream and hope and live and love as if doing so will roll stones away

I see it
in the eyes of an order
deacons prepared to shut down the church in order that it might become the church

I see it the eyes of young people who spent summers feeding the hungry

and clothing the naked
and welcoming the children
because you told them it was the closet they would ever get to God

I see it in the wide eyes
of open mouthed teens
who sing as if it might be the only thing that will save the world

And I see it today
in the eyes of your church
in the spirit of a denomination that refuses to believe it best days behind it a people who wants to still want to set this world on fire

Terry
you burned
so that all might share in your light
knowing all along that is was never your light in the first place

this is your legacy
understood best in four-part harmony:

Be present at our table, Lord;
be here and everywhere adored;

thy creatures bless, and grant that we may feast in fellowship with thee.

Amen. 

It Only Takes a Spark

Comments

[Rhonda Cardwell]

This is what I hoped for - a chance to see and hear it again. What a beautiful tribute from Jeff. Thanks for posting it.