Rector's Blog: The Phone Call
This blog is also available as a podcast
I remember the last phone call I had with my dad. It was right around Easter of 2006, and it was on one of those old phones that was actually connected to a wire and sitting on a table. It rang and I picked up and there he was. And I was surprised because he had been dead since February.
I suppose it is helpful at this point to tell you that this happened in a dream. But also it was my dad, and not just a dream. Let me explain.
Like most people I dream nearly every night. And like most people I dream about people in my life. Both during his life and since his death I have dreamt of my dad. This was not that. The phone rang and I answered and it was him. And I said, “You’re calling me?” And he said, “Yes. Because I didn’t get to say goodbye.” Which was true. He hadn’t. He had died in my arms, but neither of us were expecting that. I had been downstairs and he had been upstairs and I heard him shout out – I assumed because he wanted something from me, and not a little irritated, I shouted back, “What?” When he didn’t respond, I walked up the stairs and found him collapsed against the sink, and he was breathing funny. His heart was giving out and these were his last breaths but I did not know that.
As I pulled him back from the sink, he fell lifelessly into my arms, and I sort of did a clumsy version of gently laying him down on the floor. I did not understand what was happening. I did not know that he was already gone. It was nearly a half-hour later, after the paramedics had been working on him for a while that one of them came to me to ask if I wanted them to “call it” there or at the hospital.
“Call it?”
Yes.
“As in this is it?”
He is not responsive and has not been since we got here.
That is what it took for me to understand that he was dead.
“Well. Call it here. No reason to take him to a hospital for that.”
So they called it. And he was dead. And he lay there on the floor for another few hours until the coroner came. And here it was a couple months later and he decided to call me in my dream.
“So you’re ok?” I asked. And he said he was but that he wasn’t going to be able to talk long, which somehow I already knew. “I love you, Papa.” I called him Papa. He usually either called me Philip or Philly. “I love you, Philly.”
When I woke up I felt peace. And then I never told anyone this happened. Because I was not interested in sounding unhinged. And I’m still not interested in that, so I still rarely share this story, and certainly am not sure how I feel about telling you here. I feel compelled to tell you that I do not normally hear voices, claim clairvoyance, or converse with the dead – though I’m not opposed to any of these things. My dad was also neither the first nor the last person I loved who died – though he’s certainly the one to whom I’m the closest. He’s the one I know and love the best.
I find it interesting that there are multiple occasions in Scriptures when mystical, divine things happen in the midst of dreams. It’s like God is deliberately leaving room for plausible deniability. Did Joseph really have those visions of himself as ruler, or was he just being cocky? Did Abraham really enter into a covenant with the Almighty, or was that just a story he told to justify his far-fetched hopes? Did Jacob really wrestle with God or was that just a metaphor for psychological struggle? Did Phil’s dad really call him on that dream phone to say goodbye, or was this just a way to cope with unspeakable grief?
Everyone outside of the dream is free to believe it is a flight of fancy. But in the sacred stories, the dreamer wakes up transformed and convicted.
As it is Easter time once again, I can’t not think about Jesus’ disciples. The story is unambiguous: They watched Jesus die. They saw his lifeless corpse, as it was clumsily, gently laid upon the ground, then carried off for burial. He was dead. And then a few days later he was just there. Alive. Not quite the way he’d been before, but still unmistakably him. Maybe they didn’t want to tell anyone. Maybe they didn’t want to seem unhinged. Maybe they wanted to seem reasonable. But they saw what they saw. The fact that it was impossible couldn’t change that.
There is a temptation in our time, and among many in our religious tradition, to turn this event into a metaphor: the idea of love conquering death is so powerful isn’t it? And this is a story we tell to symbolize that victory. Except the disciples don’t seem too interested in symbols or metaphors. They seem convicted by having seen something they didn’t ask or expect to see. And however difficult it is to admit they’ve seen it, they end up realizing they can’t not talk about the Resurrection. To the point that each of them chooses death or exile over shutting up.
I know death is real. And I know my dad died. And if you asked me is it possible for a dead person to actually show up and talk to you, everything inside me would want to say absolutely not. It’s impossible. Call it.
But I got a phonecall. And it’s Easter and I believe in Jesus. And I take seriously not only his teachings but the impossible experience of those who knew and loved him best. They saw what they saw and they talked about it, so I am trying to do that too.
So do I believe in life after death? Yes. Of course. I have to. It is unreasonable and I don’t expect you to do the same. I am not trying to persuade you. But I got a phonecall. And, as the old creed goes, I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
Tags: Rector's Blog