The Rev. Tamsen Whistler
I would like each of you to look at your hands for a moment, really look at them. Look at the shape of your fingers. Look at your opposable thumbs; look at the joints and the nails, the freckles and hairs. Perhaps you can see the veins, or perhaps you have the age spots and the thickening joints that come with advancing years. Think about what you do with your hands. Remember how you learned to throw a baseball, or thread a needle, hold a book, turn a key in a lock, set a slide under a microscope, touch piano keys or tie a shoe. Look at your
calluses, if you have them; look at your scars. Remember how you acquired those marks. Consider all the motions you make and the work you do with your fingers. Have you been taking your hands for granted?
We are gathered today to celebrate the life of Audrey Joyce Steidemann Partney. We are here to share with those closest to her in their grief, and we are here to proclaim what Audrey also believed, the Resurrection to eternal life.
The lessons we have heard this morning from Holy Scripture speak to us of God’s love for human beings, God’s love for all creation. We hear in the passage from Isaiah that God gives us a garland and supports us that we might be oaks of righteousness. We see also in Isaiah what it means to be free—no longer captive to any of the things that bind us and make us less fully who God has made us and has called us to be.
In the passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, we hear the heart of the Christian hope: Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Jesus Christ, not anything of this world, not anything beyond this world, not fear of any kind, not even death—especially not death. Christ Jesus came to give us life, and no one can take that away from us.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his friends goodbye. He tells them that he goes to prepare a place for them, unique to each of them. He tells them that in his father’s house holds many rooms, many mansions, many dwelling places, for the myriad of those who’ll come to be there. Thomas asks a question for all of the disciples, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” “I am the Way,” Jesus tells him. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. That’s all you need to know.”
Psalm 121, which begins, “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills,” was Audrey’s favorite psalm. She asked that it be read at her funeral. She did not say any more than that about it, but it seems to me that its quiet strength and patient faith, its trust, and its acceptance are characteristics Audrey had. We could see them very clearly as she prepared herself for death. She wanted a service in contemporary English, except for this psalm, because the words we have read today are the words she learned long ago.
Audrey belonged to a unique group of people. She and her two older brothers, who are with us today, were born hearing children to deaf parents. Audrey lived in two worlds, the deaf world and the hearing world, and she spoke the language of each. Audrey also was a “preacher’s kid,” as her father was an Episcopal priest. A young teenage Audrey took advantage of the fact that she was able to sneak out of her parents’ house, since they couldn’t hear her leave. During World War II, she attended USO dances at Christ Church Cathedral. She also went dancing at the Casa Loma ballroom, a detail she neglected to mention to her parents. Her church behavior was not always above reproach, either. In recent times, she threatened more than once to instruct my son in some lore of the preacher’s kid he might find useful. (I declined.)
On the morning of the day that Audrey died, Doris Westfall and I had the privilege to be with her family at the hospital. I asked her grandchildren what they most appreciated about their grandmother and their relationship with her. “Her sense of humor,” said one grandchild; “I was going to say that,” said another. They and Audrey’s children also mentioned the ways she quietly tried to help people, the way she listened intently without judging, her quiet strength, and her sense of self were all characteristics Audrey had. She was in many ways a private person. What she wanted for her daughters was independence, and for her grandchildren, she encouraged individuality, originality, a sense of fun. Audrey danced—she danced with her feet and she danced with her hands.
I want you to look at your hands again. In Confirmation class recently, our young people considered the meaning of a sacrament, “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” We talked about the signs we use as the church to recognize the sacramental rites we carry out. What we noticed was that hands, our hands, the priest’s hands, the hands of the people all around us, are central to the actions we take as the people of God. To bless, we lay hands upon another; we make the sign of the cross. To share in Holy Communion, we put out our hands to receive the bread and wine. At baptism, we pour water, and to signify that we have renewed baptismal vows, we dip our fingers in the font; we get them wet. The bishop lays hands upon us for confirmation and ordination. In the sacramental rites of unction and reconciliation, the person seeking healing receives hands upon his head, upon her head. At marriage, hands are clasped and loosed and clasped again. Our hands are signs of holiness.
Audrey Partney had beautiful hands, long, straight fingers, large, capable, and strong. I rather doubt that Audrey took her hands for granted. Audrey’s hands spoke for her; they interpreted for others. Audrey’s hands spoke a language that made her part of her two worlds, made connections where few would otherwise be possible. Audrey spoke with her hands in hospitals and courtrooms, in homes, in church, and in conventions. She gave a voice to those unable to sound words, and made their meaning known to those whose need for sound limited their ability to understand. Audrey was a connector, an interpreter, and as such, she participated in the holiness of God. The key to any relationship is communication, and Audrey opened up that possibility wherever she went. Because her role was to make those clear connections, Audrey listened very closely. Because her role was to make those clear connections, Audrey seldom beat around the bush. She said what she meant, and she paid close attention to the nuances of spoken and signed speech. The importance of word and sign, as language pointing beyond itself to something more, a thing that poets understand, Audrey knew. She knew it in herself, in her hands, and she recognized the ability to interpret as a gift from God.
Audrey did not like to be the center of attention. Although she stood in front of crowds and waved her arms, she did not want us so much to look at her, but at the words she signed. At the same time, Audrey loved to dance, and her hands danced with her. She loved to catch us with a joke and take us by surprise. I would imagine that the hearing community missed much that the deaf community very clearly understood when Audrey signed. She told me once that if a sermon or a speech got really long or repetitive, she might just sign, “blah, blah, blah,” and the people who knew that sign would laugh.
One thing we do with our hands is point. One way we understand the role of Jesus as God’s Word is in the way he points us, by his actions and his speech, his life and death and resurrection, to our place, our life in God. Jesus is God’s Word, God’s love, God’s gift to us. Audrey wasn’t perfect; no one is. She had faults and shortcomings and things she might have done differently if she’d had her life to live again; but Audrey was not afraid to die. She met death as she met much of life, head-on, practically, and with very little fanfare. The patience she had learned in the course of her life, she drew on in the process of her dying. She did what she needed to do, and what she wanted when she could. The day before she died, she said goodbye to her family, not in so many words, but in her jokes, her careful looks, and in the hugs she no longer had to hold back to keep safe.
Audrey would be embarrassed to be described as one who points to God, but that’s what she did as an interpreter, and that’s what she still does for us. We give thanks for the life of Audrey Partney, for the many ways she touched the lives of many others and our own. We believe that what God creates continues in creation with God. Audrey continues to be what she has always been, a child of God, a part of God’s gift of life. She knew that hands could speak, that hands do speak, in anger, in hope, in blessing, in words. We must not take our hands for granted: The purpose of hands is to speak in love, God’s love.
Let us join in saying together the Collect for Evening, a prayer Audrey specifically requested for her funeral. You’ll find it in your bulletin.
Oh Lord, support us all the day long until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then in thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen.
