Thank You, Friend.
It’s a message so many of us need to hear right now, and it’s a message that has rung true for me over the past year and a half – God makes beautiful things show up when you least expect them. My unexpected friendship with Rev. Margaret Burnett is a powerful testament to this.
I first met Margaret a number of years back, because let’s face it, if you are a female pastor in the American South, you are a member of a pretty small club, and eventually you all meet! I saw her a few times over the years and we greeted each other in passing. It wasn’t until I (a minister in another denomination) began serving as Pastor at a Presbyterian church downtown (her denomination) that she and I started communicating more regularly, as she offered me some guidance in this novel setting. Then, in spring of last year, she sent me a text stating she had been diagnosed with cancer, but she felt that the “God-thing” in this news was that she was referred to see my husband as her oncologist, and that made her feel great comfort because we shared a connection.
After that, we found ourselves texting and meeting fairly regularly, sharing books, favorite authors and perspectives of our most-admired theologians. We bounced sermon ideas off one another. We talked about Memphis. We talked about the unpredictability of life and marveled at how we each could sense God’s presence through even the super-heavy stuff. We bonded over the delightful weirdness of being clergy, and the double weirdness of being female clergy. She never missed an opportunity to tell me how much she appreciated my spouse, his knowledge and his heart, and I would always respond about how she was once again pointing out how I had way outkicked the coverage in my marriage! Phil and I would frequently comment on how we both think Margaret was one of the best people we’ve ever met.
Through our texts, calls and meetups, she was so very careful to monitor the amount of time we talked about cancer. If we hung on the topic too long, she was quick to redirect our conversations, never wanting the spend too much time focused on her. She would frequently say, “Enough of that. Let’s talk about you!” She mostly wanted to talk about ministry and our families. As I scrolled back through our many, many texts, the majority of our conversations were about our kids. Since I spend more time on social media (which probably explains why she was always less anxious than me), I would always send her screenshots when her daughter was featured on the school’s Instagram for doing something exceptional. She thought her kid is the coolest human being, and I tended to agree! We would often marvel at how incredible our kids are and the pure joy we both found in parenting.
The gift of our friendship has been the most unexpected and incredibly significant gift, one that we both would say aloud that we never saw coming. It has been a gift that, from my perspective, I can only describe as having been sent from God. She was simultaneously a colleague and a friend. She was both a mentor and a peer. Our friendship began at a moment when I was dealing with my own “church hurt” and felt as though I was wandering. Margaret helped me to see both the church and myself more clearly, and I am not sure anyone else could have done that for me during this season.
When I got the text today letting me know that she had died, even though I knew the news was coming, I felt numb. But then, God showed up. Of all things, I had just a massage, and when I turned my phone back on, there was the text, and I began to cry. And then, in the most unexpected of experiences, my friend and massage therapist, Monique, walked into the room. As I began to apologize for my tears, telling her that I had just learned that my friend had died. She looked at me and said, “Margaret? I just read that in a text too.” Because of course Margaret knew Monique and also poured love into her life! What a gift to get the news while sitting with someone who also knew the unique and wondrous person she was and who would shed tears alongside mine. Thanks, God.
Cancer is awful. I am so proud to be married to someone dedicating the whole of his professional life to the hope of ridding the world of this dream-crushing disease. Cancer sat like a silent guest at every coffee table I shared with Margaret in the last year and a half, whether we bothered to speak its name or not. What is also true is that this most horrific and uninvited of guests really did play a part in creating the way for this life-changing friendship. And I am grateful for that. Margaret made me think more broadly about God. She made me think more intently about myself and how I listen for God’s voice. She made me laugh in the no-one-else-would-find-this-funny-and-that-makes-it-even-funnier kind of laughter. I am so grateful for the gift of her life, and grateful to God for mapping a path that brought us into relationship, even if for way too short of a time.
Her final text to me came in the days following the election, and I will forever remember her last line as a testament to who she was and how she brought out the best in folks around her. In response to me saying some line about how we will press on through hard times, she wrote, “Yes. And we shall model a healthier and kinder world for our girls.” And that is forever how I will think of her - as one who didn’t just speak knowledgeably about matters of faith, but modeled what it is to center others and care about them in the ways demonstrated by Jesus.
Thank you, God, for this too short, but life-changing, friendship. Please join me in prayers for comfort for her grieving family, friends and seemingly endless community in Memphis and beyond. And God, please draw out the “Margaret-like” wide-open heart that resides somewhere deep within all of us. This world needs it.
Thank you. And Amen.
