Our small group was scheduled to meet one last time, in the afternoon, but I wanted that time off. Time alone. A little peace and quiet if I could find it. After breakfast I tried to survey the group, which continued to thin. I told, Val, the cheery, country woman, that I wasn’t sure I could be there and would love it if she could lead. She didn’t seem too keen on the idea. My aunt had already told me that she was going to skip the group; I suppose she felt she could get whatever I had to offer in terms of spiritual growth in her own private sessions. Michael and Rasmus and Hele (Opting for Joy 1,2 & Alistair the Barister) said they would definitely be there. Definitely. But none would be able to lead. Alistair was non-committal.
Why did I care? Why couldn’t I just say I wasn’t going to be there and if the group failed to gather, or if they gathered clumsily, or if someone rose to the occasion and new heights in small group discussions were reached— any of these things would be fine, and of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. But for me it was a personal matter between me and God. I consider one of my jobs as a Christian to be aware of my spiritual gifts, the ones that have been given to me for the enhancing of His kingdom. Leadership is one of those gifts. If God called me to Taize and I ended up in charge of this little group— however straggly we might appear— then it was not for me to withdraw. But boy did I want to. All through lunch I wavered, still holding out for the possibility that someone else would step up, that I would be free. And then I thought of Michael, chained to his wheelchair, and the possibility that he would make the trek up to our gathering spot and there would be no group to greet him. Maybe even more than God, I could not bring myself to disappoint him.
At 3:00 I was still contemplating making a run for it. But where? There were people everywhere and, in truth, I didn’t have anything I really need to do, to read, to pray on. I knew that if I bailed I would feel too guilty to find peace. And so I made my way up to the grassy areas where the groups— big, healthy circles of eight or ten or twelve now bonded over a full week— gathered and there, in the little metal folding chair, waiting for me, was Val. Just Val. “Have you seen Michael and his helpers?” I asked.
“No” she said brightly. “But they said they were coming.”
Val and I made small talk for a good fifteen minutes before finally Alistair arrived. “Are we meeting?” he asked.
“We’re just waiting for Michael and the others.”
“Ah,” he said and took a reluctant seat. I tried to find some safe, pleasant topic to occupy us as we waited for the other three, a challenge given that these were the two people with the very least in common and the most obvious discomfort with one another. Another fifteen minutes passed. Michael, it seemed, was not going to make it after all. I hoped that he was alright.
“Well, it’s 4:00, and the three of us are here, so I think we should go ahead and get started.”
We scooted our chairs closer together and began to tackle the assigned reading on Forgiveness. There was a passage by Suzanne de Dietrich, a Protestant theologian who had encouraged Brother Roger in his vision:
“A Christian is someone who lives in forgiveness, who knows that every day he transgresses the commandments of God, but who also returns to God every day and who knows, with invincible certainty, that God will have the last word in his life….His assurance is based not on what he already is, but on what God is, on the faithfulness and the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.”
We discussed this and other passages. We stayed together. We endeavored to find meaning in our collective time. And we forgave each other silently for all the ways our little group was imperfect. When we’d done all we could with what we had to work with, we closed in prayer and disbanded. Just as we were walking away, I saw Michael and Rasmus and Hele heading up the path.
“Where were you guys?” I shouted playfully.
Hele put her arms around me in confession. “We decided to go back to Cluny for lunch. We’ve been drinking wine all afternoon. It was wonderful!!!”
Michael and Rasmus were flushed and beaming and made their small apologies. Michael, whose body never likely felt a moment’s ease, and Rasmus, the young drummer who spent four days a week caring for a severely handicapped man, and Hele, the woman who did the job the other three and had never been out of her village in Denmark, now giddy on fois gras and snails and the finest the Burgundy region had to offer. Their mirth was contagious. With tongue firmly in cheek, I informed them that they’d missed the best small group ever. “New heights in discussion were reached, isn’t that right, Alistair?”
“Indeed,” he deadpanned, the slightest curve rising up from his lips. “New heights.”
Heather Choate Davis 