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Eulogy for Karen Campbell

The only time in my life I was certain I was dying was when I was eight years old.

I had been running up Maxwell Street when I tripped. Most of my weight landed on my knee, which landed on a corner of a stair – Larry’s stair, actually. And it was Larry’s towels that were wrapped around my knee as I was placed into the back seat of Pete’s car, but not before I had seen the damage. The cut went to the bone. I had never seen so much blood before; there was no question in my eight-year-old mind that this was the end of my life.

Pete drove; Karen insisted on coming along. In fact, she insisted on sitting with me in the back seat. She squeezed beside me and peeled back the towels to see my injury and said, “Well, shit,” and I knew it was serious because she didn’t apologize to me for swearing.

She had run out of the house without grabbing a thing, and as Pete drove around town trying to contact my parents, Karen searched her pockets for something to give me, and offered me the only thing she had on her: a peppermint.

When Pete managed to get my mom on the car phone, I heard her voice and started sobbing: this, I thought to myself, would the last time I heard my mother’s voice. As I sobbed, Karen patted my arm and told me how brave I am. As I shook, she told me how strong I am. My breathing slowed; we made it the hospital; I grew into a well-adjusted adult who realizes her life was never in danger.

I tell this story as a testament to Karen’s character. Crises, fortunately, don’t happen all that often, but when they do, they have a way of revealing our identity, of illuminating the best and the worst in each of us.

I tell this story because in the midst of my young crisis, Karen joined me, came beside me. There was no question, for her, that she would be in that car, and that she would be immediately beside the person in need. And this was always true of Karen: no matter what I was going through, I could be certain that she would be in it with me. I could trust that she would recognize and name a situation for the shittiness it is.

I tell this story because it illustrates Karen’s generosity. A woman who wasn’t happy until everyone in her home had a full, cold drink in hand – of course she offered me a found mint. Even at the time, I’m pretty certain I laughed through my tears at the absurdity and helplessness of her offering a mint to an injured child. But that’s who she was: offering comfort and hospitality in the most tangible ways.

I tell this story because Karen always had a gift of narrating my best self — back to me. That day, while I was still sobbing uncontrollably, she told me I was strong. While I was terrified and trembling, she told me I was brave. Karen had a gift of sight, a gift that enabled her to see beyond behavior and into the heart of the person. She saw each of us as our best self, and told us who we are, with such certainty that we believed her – and moved toward becoming our best selves in response.

It’s true she offered this narration to me on that day I fell, but was equally true each and every time I saw Karen. Every time she saw me, she told me I was more beautiful than when she had last seen me – even when I was a gangly child and an awkward adolescent. When I was yet uncomfortable in my own skin, she saw me as beautiful.

As a child I was shy, quiet; I easily went unnoticed. But Karen noticed me, and exclaimed that I was smart and bright and brilliant; when I was easily overlooked, she saw me as shiny.

I wonder how she saw each of you, gathered here, the people she loved. I wonder about the too-easily unnoticed people that, in her eyes, are surrounded by light. I wonder who you understand yourself to be and who she believed you to be, and I wonder if you can believe that you really are as strong, smart, brave, brilliant, and beautiful, as Karen told you are.

And I hope you continue to become that person, that you continue to become yourself. I hope we all continue to become as lovely as Karen told us we are.

Because that, I think, is perhaps the greatest gift of Karen’s love: When we were yet unlovable, she loved us, and in doing so made us lovely.

I am indebted to her, to some degree, for calling me to become who I am, but it is not a debt that can be repaid. Rather, it is a gift that can only be passed on. May we go into the world and see others through the borrowed vision of Karen’s eyes. Through Karen’s eyes, may we notice the scared and see their strength. Through Karen’s eyes, may we look behind brokenness and see beauty. Through Karen’s eyes, may we look past the unlovable and encounter someone truly lovely.

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Justice & Compassion

When my sister got to ride in the front seat twice in a row, or swiped my Halloween candy, or stayed out later than I without punishment, I would go to the Powers that Be — that is, a parent– and lament: “It’s not fair!”

And the response, predictably, repeatedly: Life isn’t fair.

In the face of this “Life isn’t fair” mantra, we often speak of the God of justice. The God who will set all things right. The God who punishes the wicked and restores — even rewards — the righteous.

In the lectionary, we read the end of the Jonah story and the parable of the workers in the vineyard together. What these readings share is this question of justice: reward and punishment; good and evil. The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard is to answer Peter’s question of how good deeds will be rewarded — specifically, of how his good deed of having “left everything” to become a disciple of Jesus, will be rewarded.

Perhaps a bit of context is helpful here. Peter is a Jew living in the Roman empire, where shrines to Roman gods could often be found with three words inscribed above them: Do ut des, which translates to something like, “I give in order that you will give.” The concept of an exchange was inherent in the act of a Roman sacrifice. People were accustomed to bargaining with God. Their prayers might begin, “O God, I’ll offer you this sacrifice if you please make me rich and powerful” or “Lord, save me from this situation and I’ll dedicate my life to you,” or perhaps, “I will worship You, God, and in exchange you take all my problems away.”

So when Peter asks how his sacrifices will be rewarded, he is entering into a bargain, rooted in a familiar mindset. Jesus gives Peter a very satisfying answer, a promise of eternal life and image of glory. To which you can see Peter nodding, yes, of course, this is the answer he expects. … But then Jesus says that the same promise stands for all who follow him. I imagine a sour moment for one who had left everything. Surely his sacrifice of family and home, surely his intimate closeness to Jesus must mean something extra is in store for him?

The teacher chooses this moment to tell the parable of the workers in the vineyard, of the landowner who hires more workers throughout the day but pays them equally at the end of the day. The parable ends with provocative questions: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

The questions offend us. The parable offends us. It offends our sense of justice, order, and fairness. This is not the way a just God should operate.

There is no good answer to the question, of course. Is the landowner allowed to do what he chooses with what belongs to him, or are we envious because he is generous? Peter’s options are either to admit his envious heart and lack of compassion, or he says no, the landowner does not get to choose what to do with his belongings  — which, of course, means that Peter then forfeits his own right to do what he chooses with his belongings; and such a confession would mean that Peter forfeits his right to feel “better than” for having left everything.

The vineyard owner is allowed to do what he chooses with his wealth, and he claims the right to pay his workers not on the basis of their merits but on the basis of his own compassion. Compassion overrules justice. Compassion, indeed, looks unjust. It is not fair.

Because justice has never been the thing. Even Jonah — after Nineveh repents and turns to God — Jonah laments that God is not a God of justice. The Ninevites do not get what they deserve, but compassion overrules justice. And Jonah laments: I knew you would do this, I knew you were a God of mercy and compassion and that you wouldn’t smite them, and that’s why I ran away from prophesying to them.

The texts confront me. Who are the ones I begrudge, who are the people from whom I withhold generosity?

What would it take for me to stop being like Jonah–a person who would die for his own righteous anger–and become a person who would die to imitate a God of compassion, generosity, and mercy?

Where have I allowed justice to overrule compassion?