In this season of hope, Frank, an old friend, writes from Kalamazoo about his volunteer job one afternoon a week. The house where he works is called Kairos Dwelling, a place where poor people who are terminally ill come to be cared for free of charge.

Kairos, as my friend explains, is a Greek word used by St. Paul to indicate the fullness of time.  For the people who live their last weeks or months there, this is indeed kairos, the time when they will die.

The house is not like a hospital but more like a hospice. People are given drugs to make them comfortable and relieve pain rather than in the expectation that they will get better. These are people whose families cannot take care of them or afford to place them in an institution.

Contrary to what one might imagine, the atmosphere of the house is cheerful, my friend reports. On his first visit there, he was greeted by a large spaniel-like dog and one of the patients was sitting at the kitchen table eating a beautifully cooked meal with the volunteers and a professional staff member.

At first, Frank wondered what use he could be. After all, he calls himself a retired and sometimes miserable old professor. But he soon learned how to serve dying people in ways that he had never imagined.

Here’s the way he describes his work:

“I have learned to help turn an old one in bed, to help clean the bed and the person if she is incontinent. I have learned to sit quietly by the bedsides of our people, not speaking, just sitting there, perhaps quietly holding a hand. I have learned to give manicures and pedicures.

“I am learning how to massage the feet of our people. I am learning to talk to people who quite possibly may not be able to talk to me. Sometimes I sit in the small ecumenical chapel and pray for my people. Most importantly, I have learned that I can laugh and joke there while doing the dishes or folding laundry. I have learned that our people often want the comfort of a hand in their hand or an arm around their shoulders.”

To his surprise, Frank finds himself rested and peaceful when he returns home after his stints at Kairos. His wife has noticed the difference in him.

During his academic career my friend taught courses on the religions of the world. Not surprisingly, he finds this legacy rich as he reflects on his experiences at Kairos. Drawing on the Christian story of the Three Wise Men, he writes:

“Sometimes I feel like one of the Magi visiting a very old Messiah. I have gifts to bring; I know I am in the presence of people in need of touching and caring. And so I bring my own version of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

“And I know that I am in the presence of the one I have come to call My dear old Lord. This is my Christmas and I feel luck to have found this cave, this stable, and the bewildering array of old Messiahs who come there.”

Frank’s story has inspired me as I look for the at the approach of the New Year, 2003. War and rumors of war fill the air; human calculation makes the coming year look ominous indeed. But hope is not based on human calculation.

A friend not thinking he could be of any use but finding otherwise; taking on  disagreeable tasks such as cleaning someone incontinent; discovering the power of human touch –  –  all of these breakthroughs I find enspiriting.

My friend has also come to appreciate the power or simply being there, not saying anything but sitting by a dying person in silence. He carries that silence to the chapel where he prays for those to whom he ministers.

These approaches to people in need take courage and express the highest human values. My friend does not give mere lip service to the spirituality that he has taught in his long career as an academic. Rather,  he shows this spirituality to be more than skin deep. It has penetrated to his depths and pours out in service to people in their kairos time.

Richard Griffin