“Night Blooming Cereus”
          Jessie Nowell’s obituary said that she was a “class act with a capital C.” That was certainly true, and going to visit her was “an experience with a capital E.” That experience burned brightly in memory because you came to realize that this lady was not a human being having a spiritual experience. She was a spiritual being having a human experience. She lived that experience in confidence and hope because of the birth, life, death and resurrection of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She knew that she was only passing through, but she made the most of every moment wherever she was.
          After a first visit to Jessie’s home, I went to rinse out my communion kit, and found a big plant with abundant foliage not far from the kitchen sink. I commented on its size to Willis. He said that I had missed its moment of glory, and he handed me a photograph of Jessie with the plant, and with his daughter Willa. He said, “My mother loves this plant. It only blooms once a year, but when it does, it’s spectacular.” He pointed to the blossom on the plant in the picture. It was huge, the size of a luncheon plate, white, with abundant petals. “What you can’t see in this picture is the fragrance,” said Willis. “It has this smell of almost unearthly sweetness.”
          In the picture, there were actually three blossoms—the flower, Jessie, and Willa. It was a part of Jessie’s nature that she bloomed, and that those around her bloomed in the light of her love and interest. I began visiting Jessie when she was at Shenandoah Nursing Home, and when I sat down next to her and introduced myself, she took my hand and said, “Now, dear, tell me how you have been.” I had never met the lady before. To minister to Jessie was to be ministered to, and to be around her was to bloom more brightly. She never failed to ask how I was, to express concern for my well-being, and to make me feel that it was important to her that I came to see her.
          This was during a time of less-than-ideal conditions. Major health problems had put Jessie in the hospital, and then in a nursing home to recover, but she never lost her interest in, and concern for, those around her. The steady, bright flame that burned in her was interest in others and their lives. It made her a pleasure to visit and to know.
          In taking care of Jessie, Willis knew the hard times, the ordinary times, the moments when the blossom was not blooming. He got up in the middle of the night when the bell rang, he dealt with the daily exigencies of living with and caring for a person of advanced age and fragile health. But he also had the joy of remembering her when she was younger, vital and busy with the joys and demands of a young family. She was one of the lights of Shannondale, a place she loved passionately. Living on the mountain, sharing a community of friends, going to the club, and attending this church made her life here rich and interesting.
          Friendship shaped Jessie’s life. She had many friends, but the one she mentioned most often to me was Katharine Pagan, a companion from the years when she lived in the District of Columbia. She said to me, “We have been dear friends for so many years. Of course, she’s much younger than I am—she’s only 93!” One of the times I visited, her daughter Beth and one of her daughters were at the house on Shenandoah River Drive. It struck me, in seeing their interactions briefly, that they were not just mother and daughter and grand-daughter, but also good friends.
          What can we know about where the spiritual being who was called Jessie Bunch Nowell went, when that being left the worn-out, hundred-year-old body that had served her well while she was here among us? In various places in the Bible, Christians are promised eternal life, a glorious new home, and St. Paul even says that “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Dying is not diminishing, it is gaining new life that is not subject to an aging body, and the sorrows of life on earth.
          Having not died so far, I cannot assure you of what awaits Jessie. But I can tell you that when Jesus talked to his disciples, the ones who left daily life and work to follow him, he took them up on a mountain, and he spoke to them in the words of this morning’s Gospel reading. He told them what it took to be one of his followers—and he promised his followers eternal life.
          Jesus said that the poor in spirit are blessed, because they have a place in heaven. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have any money. It means that they don’t act like they are special and should be treated a special way. They live their lives with calm acceptance of what life on earth offers, knowing that what comes next is glorious. He told his disciples that those who mourn shall be comforted. Jessie had sorrow in her life—losing a child is a bitter experience to live through, but she did not let it make her bitter. She grieved, but she lived in faith. She was meek. That doesn’t mean she was a doormat. But as much as Jessie loved other people and reached out to them, her hope was not in people. It was in God.
          Jessie hungered and thirsted for righteousness. As I was leaving her, after taking her the Eucharist for her 100th birthday, I asked her, “When is a good time to come again?” She said, “It’s always a good time for the Eucharist.” She hungered for that taste of eternal life that the Eucharist offers. When I brought it to her, she always had a beautiful linen napkin spread over the TV table to celebrate the memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Her profound respect for what happened in that Holy Communion was always present.
          Jessie was merciful. Mercy is about generous connection, and her connections with people and God were strong and loving. She saw the best in people, and people strove to be their best around her.
          Jessie was pure in heart, and Jesus promises that the pure in heart see God.
          Jessie was a peacemaker. She did not seek to stir up trouble between people, but gently encouraged them to be peaceful and of good cheer themselves.
          I did not know Jessie long enough to know if she was ever persecuted for the sake of righteousness, but I do know that she was righteous—not self-righteous, but good in God, with the calm assurance that a heavenly home awaited her.
          Jessie lived out her life in assurance of God’s promise. She was a glorious flower that bloomed, not once a year, but all the time, and now we can be confident that because of her confidence, she is blooming in God’s nearer presence. I like to think that she is being driven in a convertible, enjoying the beauty around her, a glamorous scarf wrapped around her head. Of course, that is my imagination, and I think that life eternal is more wonderful than we can imagine. Jessie lived her life from 1964 on, consecrated to God, here on this mountain, we know her hands “Moved at the impulse of God’s love and now I believe that she is living with God, having been his faithful disciple, a loving wife, mother, and friend, and Christian. We were blessed to have her with us, and she blessed us by the way she liver her life. The praise, and our hope as Christians, goes to the Resurrected Jesus. Alleluia!
AMEN.
Rev. Georgia DuBose +