"No, NO NOOOOO!!!!" she continues from the apartment next door.
I smile.
"Where is it? Where is it?" she asks, rummaging around the chair I know she's sitting in, picking up the books from her desk and then throwing something against the wall.
Sitting on the sofa in my apartment, I hear everything through walls as thin as toilet paper, on the top floor of the Inner City complex we call home.
Shifting my position on couch, I wait and giggle when she pounds on my door.
"Come in," I sweetly call. "It's unlocked."
It's unlocked because there are three apartments on the third floor of the Church building we live in, and there are three heavy steel locked doors to unlock before reaching our paradise.
Kicking the door open, she rushes in huffing and puffing ... red faced with shoulder length red hair, the angry look of a serial killer ... which is hard with the smattering of freckles on her face ... she's barefoot, wearing a blouse as white as an Angel's robe and skin tight blue jeans that'd make Satan proud.
"What have you done with it?" she demands.
"What?" I innocently ask.
"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" she hisses.
"That's no way for a Seminary student to ..."
"Shut the Hell Up!" she snaps. "Where is it?"
"You can't just storm in here accusing me of something I have no idea about," I calmly offer.
She angrily huffs but finds no words.
In silence I explain, "I'm literally sitting her studying my Sunday School lesson," holding up the monthly pamphlet I've taken from the unused thousands the Baptists send us every month ... except for five ... studied by the five little old ladies who actually attend class.
"Don't give me that shit," she yells knocking the religious indoctrination from my hand.
Standing, I place a hand on her shoulder, saying, "You want to have prayer or something?"
"I was finished!" she stammers, "but the last page of the book I'm reading ... that I have to read ... AND FINISH ... is missing."
"Really?" I ask full of pastoral concern. "I don't know anything about that."
"It was you!" she snaps, sticking a pointed finger in my chest.
"I swear on a Bible," I say with a grin, "I didn't ..."
"I HATE YOU!" she screams leaving and slamming the door behind her.
Tossing the Sunday School book in the trash, I collapse on the sofa laughing.
Of course it was me.
Knowing how important the assignment is to first year Seminarian, it means the Second Coming occurs if she doesn't complete the assignment, I'd sneak into her apartment and ripped the last page out of her book.
Later she tells me it's one of those books where you learn everything on the last page.
Who knew?
A couple of days later, when I can't take the sound of her crying any longer, I stroll inside her apartment, retrieve her Bible, flip through the pages until I find what she's looking for ... where I'd stuck it for safe keeping ... figuring she'd never look for it there ... and hand her the last page.
Tremendous relief flushes her face but she composes herself before hissing, "I will get you back."
Cindy goes on to complete the assignment on time, gets an "A" and moves into another apartment as soon as possible.
Seminary will test you in lots more ways than spiritually.
The last page ...
Over coffee the other morning, I'm scanning the news on my laptop while Che eats a bowl of colored rainbows, hearts, stars and clovers from her Mom's box of "Lucky Charms" and find a story about a man I admire, who's shocked many by suddenly retiring.
He wasn't expecting it.
I like this guy and am surprised by the decision to end his career.
He's younger than me and am surprised at his explanation.
"This isn't how I thought it'd end. I would have another ending but we don't get to write the last page."
My mind races through all the endings I didn't write.
High School threw me out before I was done so I certainly didn't write that ending.
My parents took a cue from my former teachers and followed suit so I went to College where after five years they threw me out too ... along with my wife and son.
That's when God calls me to go to Seminary where it took the far longer for them to write my ending and I got a Masters of Divinity, a Masters of Social Work and a court order to not return.
My marriage ended poorly followed by another that ended worse and when a Judge is the author of the last page it's never a good finale.
I had a killer career until it almost killed me and, though I'd have never written that ending, thank God it's over.
There's more but you get the gist, we're not the authors of the end of much anything.
It's funny really because we're the author of most everything about how we live.
The other day I visited a dying lady and this is what happened.
The sun's setting in her brown eyes as the the green oxygen tank hisses and puffs air through the tube into her nose.
Holding her hand I ask if we can pray.
Light flashes in her eyes from the setting sun as she moves her mouth but no word escapes so, ever so slightly, she nods.
On her behalf, I thank God for the gift of her life, her joys and sorrows, good times and bad, everything that went right and for surviving the things that didn't.
Opening my eyes, the brown setting sun is focused on mine and she nods, cracking a crooked smile as her eyes close.
The green tank hisses pushing air inside her lungs offering the gift of tidying up any unresolved issues as she lets go of this life and embraces God's next gift."
I was the one who said the words of her last prayer uttered as she lay in bed with the Hospice Nurse hovering near and her significant other having a beer in the kitchen with a friend.
I'm pretty sure it's not the way she would have written her end.
I know that's not how I want the last page of my life written.
But here's the thing ... as certainly as life has an end, death marks a new beginning.
None of us know what's next but a lot of us sure as Hell believe there's more.
"For God so loves the world," Sunday School books teach us, 'that if you believe" ... there's more! ... is how I'd translate it.
As the sun was setting in the dying woman's eyes, as I opened mine from saying her prayer, she was laser focused as though I'd said something that didn't need saying or that she couldn't believe I'd said it for her.
Then she closed her eyes and with the hissing help of the green tank she lives on.
Those of you who know me know Frederick Buencher is my favorite author and has written thirty-six books.
I proudly own first editions of each.
Not long ago I was working on something and dug out one the wise old Saint wrote in 1970 and, to my horror, the last page was ripped out and missing.
"WHAT?" I exclaim!
Flipping through it I find an inscription on the inside cover, apparently penned on my 25th birthday.
To Mike
Happy 1/4 of a Century! If the next 25 years enlighten you as much as the past 25 years has, I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you all over again at 50 --- "a grey bearded caring pastor who ... you finish it!"
Love in Christ,
Cindy
"Well, I'll be damned," I laugh holding the book.
The book remains and life goes on way after the next 25 years in Cindy's inscription.
If anything, it's just getting started with Sarah, Che, the girls and the kids and this marvelous collection of crazy people making up Bar Church!
And just as Benny had killed Bar Church a couple of weeks ago, let here we are! ... still worshiping in a Bar ... and one with far more love.
And come to think of it, I really can't tell if the sun was setting, or is rising, in the dying woman's eyes.
