One moment in the life of Moses was made memorable in today’s generation by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Mountaintop” speech, spoken in Memphis to striking sanitation workers on the day before he was assassinated.  After referring to the constant dangers he faced, Dr. King famously said, “But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop … I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

The Hebrew Bible describes the mountaintop moment this way (in Deut. 34): “Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land … Then the LORD said to him, ‘This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants.” I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.’ And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab ….”

Throughout her life, Connie was galled by injustices to women — injustices she read about, encountered throughout the world and felt in her own life.  Much of this frustration was channeled into useful and loving service, promoting the causes of women and their families — by educating her students about patterns of injustice, by tirelessly supporting fair trade, and by traveling to meet and encourage women from the Americas to East and Central Asia. 

Yet, these injustices, and her own struggle for respect and full employment, remained a recurrent source of pain and bitterness — contributing to the depression she battled for most of her adult life and to the conflict that brought us home from Central Asia two years ago, taking our marriage near to a breaking point. 

Through two years of counseling there was a sweet healing of trust in our relationship, enabling us to enter our final days with love and peace.  Once we knew her cancer had returned, we figured we were in for a battle that we might ultimately lose but would face together, and with friends and family.  But without warning, before the battle had even begun (as we were still waiting for genetic typing of her biopsy), her liver began to fail and she entered a fog of mental confusion from which she never recovered.  The time for meeting with loved ones, reflecting together on her life, saying words that needed to be said and treasured — had already passed before we knew it had come.  She knew her name and birthdate, but not where she was.  We could look into her eyes and smile and convey simple messages of love.  She recognized friends and lit up with joy, and she happily chatted up the medical staff, but her sentences were unfinished and filled with non sequiturs.  She could share love but little else. 

And then the moment came when we realized that God had faithfully taken her to her own mountaintop.  On the last day of her life, just a few hours before she would enter sleep and be transferred to hospice, a doctor came in to speak to her.  This was a female doctor from India, and we had probably just reminded Connie that this doctor’s mom was raised in the same city (Kodaikanal) where Connie’s mother was born and raised.  When the doctor asked how she was doing, Connie looked at her and said, “Well, I think that God has given me a chance to step back and see what he is doing with women in the world.”  Daughters Emily and Adrienne and I stared at one another – did you just hear that?  Someone write it down!  

Those were her last fully coherent words.  It seems that, while outwardly disoriented, she was communing with God and being shown bigger truths which, after years of struggle and disappointment, would allow her, like Moses and Dr. King, to die in peace.  Thankfully, if only for a moment, a curtain was drawn back enabling us to see it too.

I’m struck by how these writings describe her closing reality:

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call out to him in truth.” (Psalm 145:18)

 “Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write this: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”  ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.’” (Rev. 14:13)