Eyegal and I had the privilege Sunday night of hearing author Warren St. John (Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer–A Road Trip Into the Heart of Fan Mania) discuss his new book, Outcasts United–A Refugee Team, An American Town.

St. John’s book chronicles a season in the lives of “The Fugees,” a soccer team comprised of teenage boys from around the world who now live in the tiny southern town of Clarkston, Georgia outside Atlanta as a part of a United Nations refugee resettlement program. The central figure in the book is The Fugee’s coach, Luma Mufleh, a young Jordanian woman of privilege and Smith College graduate who, as it turns out, is something of a refugee herself (her father cut her off after she refused to return to Jordan following graduation).

Mufleh’s heart went out to the boys one day when she saw them playing pickup games in Clarkston and decided to volunteer her time as their coach. It ended up being much more than that. Soon she found herself totally intertwined in the lives of these boys and their families who have been marked so profoundly by war and tragedy.

Warren was very humble and gracious in his talk, and he spoke at length about the effects that these refugees, and the game they love, have had on the small, conservative town of Clarkston. It hasn’t been easy, he said, but they’re working it out.

He went on to say that Clarkston may serve as something of a “fast forward” sneak preview of what is already happening more slowly in other areas of the country as an influx of immigrants, along with their customs, values–and games–bump against and blend with those of their new American neighbors residing in long-established, and sometimes resistant, communities.

Afterward, Warren signed our books (I even slipped in my copy of Rammer Jammer), and we walked out into a warm and pleasant Alabama spring evening, the lights of Huntsville dancing and twinkling below our mountaintop perch. I called Number One Son in T-Town and told him about the talk, and of course, bragged a bit about my signed RJYH.

As we drove down the mountain, we talked and reflected on how the story we had just heard related to recent events in our own community. We thought it ironic that so many in our own, lily-white Southeast Huntsville suburb would react so negatively and strongly to the placement of a few public-housing families into our neighborhood when the citizens of Clarkston had faced a much more profound upheaval of their “old ways” yet worked through their differences and found new ways to make it work.

We thought about the recent anger in Huntsville toward illegal immigrants in the wake of a horrible tragedy which claimed the lives of two local teenagers and considered the gracious and genuinely Christian response of the mother of the young girl killed–and we blushed at our anemic efforts at faith.

And then we reflected on our own church, with its recent emphasis on “church growth” and becoming more “seeker friendly”–if by “seeker” you mean mostly affluent professionals “like us” who supposedly will be moving into the area soon and “seeking a church home.” If we just scoot over in the pews and smile a little more broadly, we’re told, they’ll flock to us like flies to honey and we’ll be able to tell them the “Good News.”

We compared all the words with the actions of Luma Mufleh and others in Clarkston who had reached out to true “seekers”–aliens displaced by the arbitrary evil of this life, the kind seeking shelter and safety and an opportunity to live in peace–and we said out loud, “Now that is God’s work.”

And then we blushed again.

We wondered what it would be like if what has happened in Clarkston occurred in Huntsville as well. If it was a soccer match, we thought, we knew what the final score would most likely be:

Clarkston 1, Huntsville 0.

This past Wednesday wasn’t the first time I’ve written Christine Brown’s eulogy in my head while rushing home to say goodbye. In 1999, my family and I drove all night from Huntsville to Roanoke, and I had everything all worked out in my mind by the time I pulled into the hospital parking garage. I even had the perfect quote from a man named G.K. Chesterton:

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”

I thought that fit her to a tee.

When I got to her room, I hardly recognized her since her body was so swollen from the infection, but she was awake, the TV blaring. It was the Weather Channel, of course. If there was a tornado anywhere within 50 miles of Huntsville, Alabama, my mother would know about it before I even heard the sirens go off.

I leaned over her bed, looked into her eyes and asked her, “Mom, are you going to fight this?” thinking surely not this time. She looked up at me and nodded, Um hmm. I thought Oh Boy, here we go again.

We all know how that one turned out. She lost her arm to that nasty infection, but not her will to live. With everybody except her family—who knew better—betting against her, my Mom went into a coma and became very still, like a turtle withdrawing into its protective shell, and waited for the threat to pass. Her doctors counted her out—there’s no way she will survive this, they said, and even if she did, her quality of life would be poor. And really, who could blame them? They had science and statistics on their side.

One problem—my mother didn’t believe that any of that fancy stuff applied to her. [...]

The first time I said my last words to her was just off Exit 407, I-40 East near Gatlinburg/Sevierville. Her blood pressure was plummeting, and I had told my sister to call me if it looked like she was going fast. I parked between the Russell Stover Candy Outlet and the Subway, and my sister held the phone to her ear. She was not responding by then, but they always say hearing is the last thing to go.

I told her that I loved her and that she had been a wonderful daughter, wife, mother and “Meme.” “You did a great job, Mom,” I said. I read the note that Eyegal had given me to read to her. I told her to rest well and to say hello to Dad and all the others on the other side. I fully expected her to be gone by the time I arrived at the hospital in Roanoke.

But she wasn’t. I walked into her room, leaned over her bed and called out her name. I cannot say for sure, but I think she jumped and turned her head slightly in my direction, her facial muscles contracting in something resembling a smile. At least that’s the way I saw it, and nobody will ever be able to tell me otherwise.

I spoke my “last words” to her again and read the note one more time.

Throughout the evening, I enjoyed the company of my sister, brother-in-law, niece and many friends who stopped by to comfort and console and recall old times. After everyone was gone and things were settled for the night, I read the Ministration at the Time of Death from the Book of Common Prayer and said a few of my own to boot.

I slept beside her on the pull-out bed. As I awoke off and on throughout the night, I would turn my head and watch and listen for any changes in her breathing. She pumped away like a blacksmith’s bellows (she was a helluva fighter), but when the nurse checked her blood pressure around 3:00 AM, it was 40/18. I knew she wouldn’t last much longer.

It was the break in the regular “in and out” that must have awakened me about 5:00 AM. Her breathing became more labored, shallow and infrequent. I placed my hand on her head, called out her name and said “We love you, We love you!” over and over again and finally, “Journey well, sweet mother.” She opened her eyes slightly and moved her mouth a few times as if she was trying to take in one last draw of this good life, and then she was gone.

I spoke to her the litany of love on behalf of all who those who loved her and were loved in return. I blessed her as best I could, and now, my shoes off, I sit here on this holy ground waiting for them to come and take her away.

Christine Brown, beloved daughter, wife, mother and “Meme,” 1933-2009.

When I wrote about “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” in my last post, I didn’t realize that by Lent’s end I would be covered in both.

I’m leaving in a few minutes for Virginia to be with my mother in her final days and hours on this earth. She has terminal cancer, just diagnosed (well, sort of–long story which I will get around to telling soon), and is slipping away past. My hope is that I will get there in time to talk with her and tell her that I love her and “Nice job, Mom.” I’m pretty sure she knows I feel that way, but it would still be nice to be able to say it to her before she fades to black in a morphine drip haze.

Pray for me as I drive today, and for my family as we grieve. I will be updating on Facebook and Twitter when I can.

Into the Valley of the Shadow, pocket knife in one hand, penlight in the other.