On this episode, we speak with Susan Fish, Laszlo and Elly Sarkany about their experiences with caregiving for their parents. Their pieces and our conversation weaves together stories filled with grief, joy, connection and love. We encourage you to read their stories and listen to their reflections.
Susan's piece on reading Watership Down to her father is here: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/article/view/40826
Laszlo and Elly write about caregiving for Laszlo's mom with brain cancer here:
https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/article/view/40830
On this episode, we speak with Susan Fish, Laszlo and Elly Sarkany about their experiences with caregiving for their parents. Their pieces and our conversation weaves together stories filled with grief, joy, connection and love. We encourage you to read their stories and listen to their reflections.
Susan's piece on reading Watership Down to her father is here: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/article/view/40826
Laszlo and Elly write about caregiving for Laszlo's mom with brain cancer here:
https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/article/view/40830
Am I starting or are you starting? Welcome to Mad and Crip Theology Podcast we're delighted to be with you all today notes listening or watching and we're delighted to be joined today by Susan, Laszlo and Elly,
and so we wondered if you could start us off by telling us who you are and and then we'll dive into more about your work so Susan.
Um I'm a writer and a recent theology graduate from the University of Waterloo from Conrad Grebel College but I write and I edit uh fiction and non-fiction.
And Conrad Grebel, does that mean you're Menonite? You don't have to be but (no you don't have to be). For me so while I did my degree I was not um but actually this Sunday we're in the process of joining the Mennonite church so so almost I think I've almost Mennonite congratulations! And Laszlo and Elly? Yeah so I am a worship Pastor in the Christian Reformed Church in St Catherines so at a church called Covenant um that's where I do my work and then I'm married to to Laszlo. Yeah and thank thank you so much for having us so uh um I'm Laszlo and I teach uh in the department of public science at Huron University College and at Kings University College and at the University of Waterloo in Social Development at Renaissance so a little bit to do I do a little bit of a few a few things and I just returned from Rwanda uh from a week long so eight days long engagement with students from Huron University College so glad to be here thanks so much for the invitation!
Well that sounds amazing you'll have to love to have you back on to talk all about your work in Rawanda. It will be my pleasure absolutely yes yes. Well we're so delighted that we could have the three of you on today to talk a little bit about the work that you did uh and the writing that you did for the journal so Susan I wonder if I could ask you to start and give us a just a brief summary of what your piece was about for our listeners. For sure for sure um so my dad was diagnosed with dementia I have gray hair but my parents had me young and I'm in my mid-50s my parents are in their mid 70s um my dad and most people in my family live to be in their 90s um so this is more introduction than you need but um about two years ago my dad was diagnosed with uh dementia and um it was it was yeah unexpected although maybe for a couple of months we had some idea of it and I was trying to figure out a way to connect with him and uh the way that I found that was really helpful um was through reading aloud to him and so the piece that I wrote is about that experience of reading the book Watership Down um to my dad and thinking about it theologically I think as well to say it wasn't just something to pass the time it was not the equivalent of I don't know American Idol or something like that it was it was a way to really engage him with the challenges that he was facing the new challenges that he was facing and then a way for that to sort of work on me as well.
And Susan how did your dad respond to the reading?
Um he I mean I talk about this I talk about this in the piece of writing um it was a friend who suggested it like she said you could listen to music together um and I don't like Motown and he does and I thought okay no that's never been a point of connection and and so other people could do that but I thought we have always loved reading and he gave me the book Watership Down when I was a child and I thought I think that would be a good book to read with him so we started reading it and um one of the things that comes with dementia is a fair bit of anxiety um and he also has a kind of dementia that has a Parkinson's aspect to it so what was interesting to me out of the corner of my eye I'm reading I'm drinking um because like reading aloud would loudly with voices um like doing all the different characters um for a long time was a lot and what I but out of the corner of my eye I'm also watching I watch his hands still and I watch his face settle and then when when I would pause he would ask questions or we would talk about the book and we made like this little book club almost I mean just for just for an afternoon but then again that evening and then again the next day while I was visiting um and there was enough he he had lost enough memory that he didn't know where it was going to go but he had some idea so it was like a vague memory for him it was a it was a familiar world but not one where it wasn't like re-watching the same episode that you've watched 10 times he it was fairly new but also a bit familiar to him and I think that combination as well as just hearing a voice that he knew reading an interesting story was a really calming but stimulating at the same time experience for him.
What a beautiful gift you could give to your father thank you Susan. And to me too because I didn't want to just sit there um and I didn't want to just feel sorry for him and forget that he had always been uh the smartest person in the room it was a way of connecting all those different pieces together so for me the gift was my friend making that suggestion because I thought I was gonna have to listen to music that's what people often say is that music is a way of connecting um and so this was something that was more like it was us it was him it was me it was it was the same as it had been too which was really nice.
Well that's amazing thank you so much for sharing and Laszlo and Ellie could you talk to us a little bit about the piece that you wrote? Oh sure yeah thank you yeah um first and foremost thank you so much again for for this wonderful opportunity um we we thought about writing the piece writing a piece and and really kind of uh and I think uh just very much along the lines of Susan as well it's a little bit it was a little quite actually it's quite therapeutic for us as well is to kind of um write things down and kind of document what was going on and what was happening because things were just happening too fast um very very fast so November November 2020 until March 2021 I'll be talking about over four months and then all in during that time everything changed um talking about description right so we went from living with mom and she was relatively healthy with some minor um issues to well "that's a terminal brain cancer and you have about three to six months to live" um and and so that was a really and I I don't I didn't have any experience with any of this sort while you know we're still dating and we're kind of navigating um covid uh we're navigating um the hospital system the healthcare system navigating an illness navigating the distance from family as well um both on the part of my wife because she's uh Elly's from Surrey um BC and the family was out there and then my family was is still in in Europe so um that was just a it was a very kind of and and so there are a number of different things that that'll happen I think this morning when we spoke about this podcast it kind of some certain ideas crystallized and I think there were two tracks simultaneously one was this notion of you really wish that we really hope that she's getting better she can get can get better um initially my thought process was such because I didn't really understand the disease because the physicians and the nurses and the health professionals kept saying listen I mean in not so many words initially but later on say you know there's no way out of here um but at the same time you still and so I bought a QB bike and we got her to bike in the hospital all the time and to exercise and to do whatever you want and then slowly the second track was this notion that you gotta let go um slowly but surely let go and and once we get got to that point or once I the cl- the closer I got to the point of letting go in some ways the clearer it became what I needed to do on a daily basis so for example to be there to speak with her on the telephone I read the Bible to her for example so she really want me to read um the New Testament so we went through three of the four books of the apostles, you know so um and so um uh but but but but but the more and and the the clearer it became that this really is terminal the clearer it became to us what we needed to do on a daily basis reconnect the family to to get her of your favorite food to to be there for her to things like I would wash her or clean her dentures for example right um so you you be I became and we became kind of um co kind of caretakers for her or of her in the hospital right so the time that we spent with her he wasn't just sitting around and talking it was more like you're taking care of her as well so we became partners with the nurses in the in the physicians and so on so this was really really uh interesting but but again I think the best way to describe it is these two tracks one track was to say well hopefully she'll get better hopefully she'll get better hopefully she'll get you get to go home on the other hand this other track where no it's not it's not gonna happen and most likely it's not gonna happen but then there's many things to do still and spending time with her um was one of them and to really hold her hand and yeah. And I think for me one of the well it was kind of a twofold thing that I recognized pretty quickly that Laszlo his main focus needed to be his mother right like that was sort of this is the relationship that is has been steady through his whole life and this is the one that is coming to a close and so how are ways that he I can be there as a support to him um through that uh so that he then can also support his mother um and then it's also through a time when we're kind of getting to know each other as well and I'm wanting to get to know my future mother-in-law because we got engaged right around the time that she had surgery her first surgery for the for the brain tumor and so um it's recognizing that this she's my family too and I wanted to get to know her before I lost her as well and so getting to meet somebody in their most vulnerable stage too is just a really profound experience for for me as well and I think that brought us very close together very quickly as well. So I think I think just a thoughtful final thought here I'm not sure if we captured everything in that piece I'm not sure if we captured uh everything that we just spoke about because I think I think that the key word uh for me was they're definitely profound it's much more there's a there's an element of and I'm going to use the word uh mystical um an element of of of beyond beyond rationality beyond emotion there's something was something were happening some things were happening that were kind of beyond us but they were happening and it was really profound yeah. Can I jump in with a question?
Um so when I read the piece of writing that you did um Laszlo and Elly what it made me think of I really I really appreciated it was I felt like a privilege to sit in on that process but what it really reminded me of was when people share birth stories um you hear someone who's given birth and they say we have this plan and then this happened and then that happened I mean maybe any story works like that but I think because it's at that liminal moment of death it's like not and most people can't tell their own death story you witnessed that you midwifed it in a way um and that story is important like part of me wants to know what your mother's experience was but but I also think that you like that that experience was there for you um yeah being like sort of parenting your parent through her death in certain kinds of ways so I don't know whether it felt like that at all or or whether that resonates with stories you've heard? Um I think uh certainly I mean I think parenting the parent was what was key right I mean I think we mentioned that in a piece in some way in some fashion form the roles were reversed very quickly right um and it was really interesting for us or everybody can see for us because we've I mean we we we went through the whole refugee experience and asylum seeking in and she was really pivotal that always should really you know uh she paid close attention to my development and my well-being and so once forth and all of a sudden I had about four months to kind of just switch that you know like it's kind of that role reverse reversal um at the very same time I really felt that I think we mentioned this in the piece I really felt that I was both of us were on this track I didn't know where the track came from I didn't know where it was going I had a pretty good idea but I knew exactly what I needed to do there's kind of like a tunnel vision of some sort and say I like day to day it was clear yep this is uh time is key with her calling making appointments to see her um getting to know my wife's family and then getting engaged and getting married and it was all very almost I'm gonna use the word programmatic but I think I I attribute that to the fact that we accepted the circumstances as much as we could and say you know what I mean there's no and I remember praying and I'm praying uh quite intentionally intentionally I think even a uh pray to Padre Pio um a Catholic saint um of healing um uh uh Catholicism runs in the family as well um but then all of a sudden I had this jolt of No there's no like this is not about physical recovery
this is not about physical recovery interesting enough the first night that we I sent her to the hospital in the beginning was when she in November of 2020 I woke up and I had the sense of oh um this is not the end I thought you know what this so which means I thought you know maybe she's not that gravely ill but then when I prayed and then and I got this sense of no this is not but physical recovery I thought well there might have been a most likely was a spiritual kind of sense uh sensibility there right and say well this is not the end but then again right so so there are a number of these profile experiences that kind of uh took place all throughout this process on many multiple different levels but in terms of the notion of rebirth and so on for me it was really obvious that I we were on this track I was on the track I knew exactly what to do um all the way up to the funeral I think um it was you know but thanks so much for the question.
We hope that faith communities listen to this podcast or clergy or theological educators
and we wondered from each of your pieces what words of wisdom would you share to to
pastors or community members who are supporting people in in in their caregiving journeys so maybe Laszlo and Elly you can begin?
Yeah I think I mean for us one of the big things that carried us through the whole four-month experience of uh journeying through palliative care was was the faith community that surrounded us um through prayer and through uh cards and and meals and we had we had to buy a freezer a chest freezer to store the food that we were getting um which was just a wonderful problem to have and we would have people so I'm in St Catharines Laszlo was in Kitchener like we were from different communities and it's also covid so you didn't uh the the ability to be physically present in each other's spaces was limited to not not a possibility um and yet people were we felt the presence of of that support through bringing cards through these meals and also like people would send cards directly to the hospital where Laszlo's mother was staying and they'd never met her before they were from my church and just knew that this was somebody who who mattered to me and to us and that was that was all that mattered for them was that there's this person who doesn't have a lot of people surrounding them and we're going to let them know that they're loved um and that you don't have to have met them uh so I think yeah for us it was largely that uh kind of a ministry of presence of just being being available and then also being available to us when when we needed those to take a walk and to decompress about something or to um yeah and it's not about having the right thing to say I think sometimes it was even just walking in silence and just being there um that was yeah that was a huge a huge piece for us um the other part was we we got married in part of this journey in the in the hospital chapel with the hospital chaplain and just a few people in attendance but we were able to have Zoom as part of that too and just being surrounded by so many people are Zoom uh account was maxed out we we had too many attendees um and so that that part of it too that we had uh people supporting us through that journey even though it was very rushed uh we have to get this done now because we saw that the the beginning of the end was starting to happen and we wanted to make sure that my Laszlo's mother was part of of that ceremony part of that day for us. Yeah um for for me in particular um the I would and I thank them officially and I also participated in a uh in a reaccreditation program with the Grand River Hospital it was actually the the healthcare workers um my mom was a nurse um so she kind of defended a lot of people that were around her um but there and I have to I'm going to use the word honesty in brutal honesty and their honesty and honest appraisal as to what we were dealing with was the one was the one kind of thing that really kind of it was really jarring I mean it was really kind of I remember sitting in the in the palliative care unit you know at Freeport and just waiting outside in the waiting room and reading the pictures and my messages on the board they all dealt with death and I was like whoa this is this is real you know and but but but the very honest messaging in many honest discussions and and and very clear messages were really important for us and for me in particular because that again really helped with knowing exactly what I need to do and really needed to be there for her you know physically and and you know and so on so for me it was it was the the the healthcare workers and and I I just couldn't thank them enough I mean we spoke with the uh the um the the referring physician at the end so when the more morning she passed and unfortunately only five percent the people who whose family members die pass away on that unit say thank you only five percent and these and these professionals are are I mean if I mean it's kind of difficult for me to kind of uh uh recap or recall uh emotionally but these are superheroes this is not nothing short of of superhuman because one night we had six deaths on the unit and one of the nurses said you know what I can't you know I've worked I've been working here for decades and I and she wasn't able to handle it emotionally she broke down so it's a really incredible place and it's really filled with incredible professionals I mean it's unbelievable.
Thank you both for sharing. Of course. And Susan
Um I was taking notes while you were talking um and I think the temptation is to compare two stories and I think I think one of the things that came to my mind is the experience with my dad is a marathon not a sprint um what you went through um with your mom Laszlo was was just like such a shocking experience my dad is like a really slow goodbye that's what that's what dementia often is but I think I think one of the things that I think I think about people who I have a couple of friends who are struggling with long covid now um and I think some of it that I would say the question I think Miriam originally was about what you would say to people who provide ministry and I think it's don't forget about the people who aren't visible um like that sometimes things drag on and so it's easy to respond in a crisis um I think when it's not a crisis but it's just a slow decline or a slow burn or a lifelong thing it's easy to think well we did the thing we we brought the meal um and even checking in with those people I think is really big um the other thing that I would say is I'm not the pro like I'm not cleaning dentures I'm not doing that my mom is doing that so I am already that next level out um and I think one of the things I think about is the model of circles of support um where you like it's like concentric circles and you provide support inward so you you support that person and you support the person who's closer and you dump your concerns outward you you find somebody more outward I think um that's been helpful for me but it's also for me it's been helpful to remember even though I think of myself as not at the center on this to remember that I'm pretty close to the center so I might think oh I'm supporting my mom I should just do whatever and I've had to recognize along the way that I have limits it's my dad like it um yeah and I think my mom has leaned on me a fair bit in the midst of this and I'm happy to but I also have had to remember my limits and where this has been hard for me um and places where I have had like I've had to say to her at times I can't hear about I can't hear about certain things um you need to actually have some professional support because um yeah like there's places that it's beyond my ability to do something and um I think my mom is it's it's it's tough to be the caregiver it is really tough to be that person and so she's getting good support now but there have been like a drowning person will take other people down with them um like they just do it's not out of any kind of um malice or meanness or any anything but there's been times where without the support my mom has been drowning and um so right now things are good decent today actually isn't great for my dad but um mostly it is um and so yeah figuring out who needs what support at what point and but I think for the person like for whoever it is toward the center for those in m inistry not not to get not to get weary of doing good like not to get not to forget about people to to be praying to be saying hey I'm praying to and and not always to be saying are you better I think that's the other thing are things better today is it a good day um but to find creative ways of just asking about the day asking about that I think those are ways of providing um meaningful support. May I ask a quick question Susan? We're taking over so yeah go ahead.
Um a question occurred to me, especially given the fact that that this is a marathon for for you so if you could ask yourself or tell yourself something uh caring um or ask yourself um something about this whole experience what would that be?
Uh if you could ask yourself the most compassionate question how would that be or if you tell if you could tell yourself that most compassionate thing would that be? Um I I'm not positive I understand the question but I still have answers uh so if I'm wrong let's ask it again um I think in some ways the thing that I feel like with my dad that um makes me feel really it feels meaningful within this is that I think I remember who he is he may not remember who he is that's my job for him right now that's my caregiving is is um to remember to treat him as like not in a way that says oh he should remember he should know but that I know the things that he likes I know who he's been his whole life and that feels like it feels like actually a pretty noble task actually to be someone else's memory for them um so that part feels good when I can do that and and I think also for me um another stance that I take that I that has been really helpful and not even when I've tried to do neither of these are ones I've really had to try for um but is to be curious because dementia is is fascinating in that it's like the weather that there there's every once in a while especially when my dad is um exercising the clouds clear and he's there and so that helps I think in that memory for him is that it's not who he was it's somehow somehow I think is part of who he is and the dementia is also part of who he is so it's not like oh his real self doesn't have dementia he does he has dementia but um I'm intrigued like the things that reach him without putting pressure on either of us I think the other place where I need to bring compassion to myself is um I'm afraid this is um something that could be inherited um it looks like the kind of dementia he has isn't but like it's it's that fear of contagion I think of saying like oh shoot is this my future and and in some ways for me because my family is a long-lived family typically I've sort of thought well we can all be hit by a bus we can all catch we can all get cancer anything can happen we have a stroke anything can happen but I but I was sort of thinking that I was just over halfway through my life um and this has changed my sense of life expectancy for myself to say what if I do only have this many years of being able to think clearly and that that has been a really hard one for me that so I don't know how I think differently about it but it's a work in progress to to figure out how to think about that and to not let that like today is today I'm fine I think so but but to say like that's not that's not a present issue that I have to deal with and it can distract me from what is present and yeah I have my dad right now and I have my mom right now and so um to approach it with gratitude I think thank you no you interrupted the questions [laughter]
Well the next question we wanted to ask is for Laszlo and Elly so we were wondering um you you talk in your piece about how your relationship started with during such an intense time with all these these things going on um with your mom's health so what role did your faith play in your caregiving for Maria and for each other?
Um that's a good question um
I think yeah for so for us we uh we met for the first time in person the day that Ontario announced that everything was shutting down and so Laszlo working for a school that uh universities were Monday was going to be a different kind of day and I'm working for a church where Sunday was going to be a very different day um yeah we kind of stepped into our relationship in a world that was surrounded with turbulence and then we actually ended up spending three months like the next three months of just not seeing each other in person um and so for us what that meant was well because we were in different health units and he was living with his mom who's in her 70s and it was just yeah we didn't know what to expect but for us that meant that our relationship um became on a I think we connected on an emotional level very quickly because all we had was talking right we couldn't just go and do fun things it was we just spoke to each other every day on the on video chats and so then you really I do feel like we got to a deep point that by the time that this uh this news hit for us we were already in like a pretty pretty solid spot um to support each other well um I think one of the the faith things that uh well for both of us too is when we met each other we had we'd both like prayed about meeting somebody we both have had negative past experiences in relationships and and so entered into this one with okay God what do you have for us here and so I think like that was really a foundation of of our beginning was to find somebody who yeah who shared our our faith into um that would journey with us through that um and so then I think when we got the news of of Laszlo's mother it was we have we have this belief that I we do believe that God has the capacity to heal her right that there is sort of that that peace that's there and yet there's also this well nobody has ever survived from this right and so you want to live into the well what if what if praying for healing means that she gets eternal rest with Christ with God right like what if um what if what I want is not necessarily within within God's eternal plan and how does our relationship within this fit within that plan um and I think when we look back like even if I look at something as as mundane as timing for things um when churches were shut down in Ontario were exactly pretty much exactly the dates that Laszlo's mother was in palliative care which freed up my weekends that I didn't need to be somewhere physically because we recorded services and so that allowed me every single weekend I could be in Kitchener and not have to think about oh I need to be at church on Sunday it was uh we've recorded this and so even just something as simple as that was we could see that uh yeah that God's hand was working through shutdowns of all things so yeah. Yeah I think I I think I mean that's an incredible question I think it will take us probably the better part of our lives to kind of unpack this because there are too many um things that happened um in a way speaking about timing I mean we we met on the again on the day that the world shut down in Ontario uh unbeknownst to me at that time actually that's that was the day of the death of my father um in in Europe um and then we kind of had went through that kind of because my father well we're being estranged since I was five years old so I didn't really have a relationship with him but then he passed away that day and then we kind of fast forward a year um we got married and we tried to rekindle some sort of relationship with with his family and that didn't work out and so on and so forth and and then of course us meeting and being able to do the man being able to get married in a hospital chapel with five people you know there are too many um kind of too many things have happened um that were way beyond our plans and I think going back to Susan's first question about you know birth and births and and you know when you when you know when things don't go as you planned well I don't think anything went as we would imagine ever so that but but then that really compelled I mean I never would have thought that I would get married in this way or to you know not nothing at all I mean the playbook was way out the window I mean just you know um but at the same time you are led I felt being led certainly by faith I also changed churches that was the other thing so I went from a from a Catholic Church to Mennonite Church actually while in North and then um yeah um and then and I made a Dutch CRC a person so now bunch of Dutch people um
but but um but but but that but that itself I mean I I keep I'm trying to convince the congregation here to here to take this seriously because again I've done a huge um testament of faith I mean they embraced my mom and me without knowing who we are who who we were I mean that that's the I think more is the one that's the true mark of a Christian community when you they didn't know who who my whom my mom was at all and they prayed for her they sent gifts and uh sorry uh meals and cards and the support and they didn't know who I was either and we they embraced us without any question and unconditionally so there way too many and so a number of things happened during this journey that that really spark of of of of of faith and of of of of love and and of of Divine love for us.
Yeah and I think in a lot of ways too just to kind of carry off of that was that the feeling of being carried um throughout the whole thing that yeah when we look back it's like I don't I don't know how. No right. How did we navigate no all those challenges and the things that we faced and really the only thing would be to say that yeah I think we were carried by by the prayers and by the support around us as well. No I mean that was that was way beyond human I think it was not I I would have not been able to no I'm sorry emotionally mentally and I was still teaching and I was still I was teaching my master's student in the master's class I'm a master's course at the University of Waterloo too and it was just no it wasn't um so I think uh uh Divine intervention and Divine care was all over this thing. Yeah I am so glad you felt cared for and carried by community and by God so I pray you still feel carried by God and others do too.
Um thank you. Susan
we we wanted as your're a story teller we wanted to have you talk about how theology and storytelling and meaning-making all work together and how you see them as really inseparable.
I think that's an essay question isn't it yeah it's a long answer. Yeah so just...
I'll try I'll try on this I think um I think one of the the things I'll just tell a little story since since we're talking about storytelling um my dad's diagnosis came while he was on my parents were on holidays um on the east coast and um I got a text while I was in a theology class and it was a Tuesday night and then my dad was hospitalized um because they weren't sure it was sort of an acute episode um and every week on Tuesday in the month of October in 2021 I'm sitting in class and I'm getting a message from my mom even if the rest of the week had been calm he was hospitalized there for three or four weeks and then flown home and um so so it was it really juxtaposed with my theology class but I was also at the same time doing a reading course that I had put together um about how we can do theology through stories and so it seems like an obvious thing that I then read to my dad but it wasn't obvious and one of the things that I have thought about is um the fastest growing group of people the fastest growing religious group in the world are the "nones" but not the Catholic nuns the other nuns n-o-n-e-s the people who say yeah no I I I'm not connecting with faith at all I'm not and and people after covid like numbers have declined people who are even just they may be people of faith but not attending church and and I think one of the things that I have found um I think that in the same way that at one point people would um would take the Bible and go somewhere else and translate it into the language there of those people I think there's a huge um task for people who know theology who know God who are people of faith to figure out how to translate into other contexts um and so that could be with the people who are not people of faith and my dad is not a person of of faith um I wasn't going my dad did not want me to read the Bible to him I didn't go through the gospels with him um but the story that I read I feel like for me as a person of faith for me as someone who's doing theology um those kinds of like stories when I write them or when I'm reading them and using them with other people um I lead a book I've led a book club for people who are like all over the map in terms of faith and it's a place for people to engage with those big questions like we it doesn't it's not to say that I'm not prioritizing actual sacred texts um but for people who don't for people who would never open a Bible wouldn't walk into a church they can find access through a story and I think the job of the person who um the person who does theology the person who cares about that and wants in the same way that I might want to introduce two friends together um I I think that's the job of a storyteller um whether there's a writer or a reader um a theologian can take those two things and use it as a place making activity that translates theology um to people who because even though those people may not be attending church might never open a Bible might be afraid they're going to be struck by lightning by God whatever it is that they feel like um feel those people still have questions in life those people have all been through the pandemic like we have they've had people in their lives they've had experiences they are doing that meaning making and I think sometimes the kinds of tools they're open to um are tools that speak to all of us and their stories so for me that's that's why I think stories do the thing um well. That's my essay there I answered you (a long answer to the question). Thank you.
Such a wise answer in such a short time um and and Amy I know the power of stories and theological reflection and that's that's part of our work with the journal and the podcast, where can we learn from each other by sharing pieces of our stories and our relationship with God and with people.
So thank you Susan and Laszlo and Elly for joining us today and I know the weather's beautiful today so I hope you get to enjoy enjoy some of it