I wanna tell you a story about a saint. You won’t find any schools or hospitals named for this person. No icons. His name was Sam Dotson, and he was a saint on earth if ever there was one. Sam was born up a holler in Pound VA in 1946. He was a quadriplegic and lived with cerebral palsy. Given up by his mother, he was raised by his paternal grandmother, but once she died he entered a nursing home, where he would live for the rest of his life. I first met Sam when I was about seven or eight years old; a group of folks from my home church of All Saints in Norton, who had attended Cursillo, which is a Christian renewal weekend, decided to start up a little worship service at the nursing home where Sam lived. He had this big motorized wheelchair and spoke with the help of a computer that he typed with his index finger. I’d sit with him and sing along with the songs – his favorite was always I’ll Fly Away, he shared that with my mother.
Sam loved basketball, and as it turned out, my dad was the coach at the local college right across the street, so many nights my mom and I would wheel him over, and he’d sit there at the end of the bench with me, watching intently and always reacting to every play. The team thought so much of him that they dedicated the seat directly across from Sam’s spot in his honor.
What I remember most about Sam is his grace and attentiveness. My mom was going through some hard times in those days, and she would often go and just sit and talk with Sam because she knew he’d listen and that he cared. One time, being the dumb little kid that I was, I asked Sam if he blamed God for what happened to him. Who wouldn’t, I thought. He immediately shook his head over and over again and typed out his response on that little computer. He said he never blamed God or got mad at God because he was grateful for every single moment that God gave him. I’ve never seen someone who understood the meaning of gratitude quite like him. I can still see him, can still feel his hugs, and hear him say, in his own voice, as we’d leave his room, “Be good.” Always. Be good.
Sam died in 1997 at the age of 51. By all accounts he lived a much longer life than doctors originally expected, but it still didn’t feel at all like enough time. My family were actually the last folks to see him there in Norton Community Hospital. I think of Sam every All Saints; in fact, one year in college the church I was attending invited folks to write down the names of people who’ve been saints in their lives and told us to hang on to them. I still have mine.
I share the story of Sam Dotson because every saint has a story, and every one of them deserves to be told. I’m sure that you all have such stories; stories of family members, mentors, teachers, maybe even priests, who have gone on to glory, whose examples still resonate with you. Hold them close during this Fall Triduum of All Hallows Eve, All Saints, and All Souls, because they are very much with us right now.
I get asked sometimes how someone becomes a saint in the Episcopal Church. What qualifies someone? Do they have to be Episcopalian? No. Do they have to have some miracles attributed to them? No. Our definition of saints is more in line with how the earliest Christians thought about them. These were not perfect individuals, but merely faithful ones. They were the folks whose lives spoke out loud the grace, mercy, and love of God. Many were killed for their faith, yes, but that certainly was never a requirement. And while we do have a process for approving folks onto our official calendar of saints, it’s not as convoluted or lengthy as some others. We Episcopalians believe that while everyone might not be a saint, everyone does have the capacity to be one, because everyone is made in the image of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God. On Sunday morning, the cantors of our parish opened our All Saints Eucharist with a litany of saints, and the chapel was decorated with the pictures of all those folks we love but see no longer. Those named folks, and those known by only a few in those pictures, all have stories, and they all deserve to be told.
On Sunday I invited our folks to look around at the saints who surrounded us that day in ancient icons and modern photography. They are our legacy, not merely the legacy of the Advocate, but the legacy of our everyday lives. They are the ones who have inspired us, loved us, brought us back from the brink, and helped us discover our truest, deepest selves. That legacy is the reason why folks that day were invited to bring their pledge cards to the altar during our offertory, so that they may be blessed for next year, yes, but more than that; so that they may help ensure the legacy of the Advocate, for generations to come. Maybe one day, when we’ve all joined that great cloud of witnesses, our pictures, too, will hang in that chapel on All Saints, and our children and children’s children will point and say, “She’s the reason I’m here. They inspired me with their faithfulness. He always told me to be good.”
I've thought a lot about legacy and wondered too what some of those saints would think about the world today. Would St. Martin still give the coat on his back to the beggar? Would St. Alban give safe lodging to a Muslim imam fleeing angry authorities and die in his place, as he once did for a Christian priest? Would St. Moses the Black and St. Mary of Egypt find anyone to join them in repenting their sins and going into the wilderness to meet God? Where are the saints today? Who will speak truth to power? Who will speak up against the sin of xenophobia and demand, in the name of Jesus, that the stranger be welcomed? Who will denounce the powers and principalities that would willingly take away, especially from children, SNAP benefits and the basic human right to food and sustenance – give us today our daily bread! Who will carry on the legacy of the saints who gave everything – including their lives – for the Gospel of love proclaimed by the Prince of Peace? The saints of God are just folks like me….and I mean to be one too….right? What we do in life, someone once said, echoes in eternity. The saints remind us of that.
St. Moses the Black, who repented of a life of crime and moved into the wilderness to meet God.
Several of the saints that surrounded us on Sunday were depicted in icons, but there is a saying amongst our Orthodox siblings that one’s life is meant to be a living icon. Wherever you go, folks are meant to see Jesus, to know his love, his forgiveness, his hope in something much greater than the powers and principalities of this world. The waters of baptism, with which we were splashed once again, unite us to Jesus, to one another, and to the saints in heaven and on earth. The bread and wine are food and drink for our journey into a world that is often scary, but because we eat the Body of Christ, we can go and BE the Body of Christ. The saints were and are the people who give us the courage to face the challenges of our own times, just as they did, and thanks to the legacy they have left us, we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that love always wins, and that nothing, not even death itself, can ever separate us from the love of God that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I don’t know much; I’m just a small town bird lawyer (if you know, you know!). But as I say in most of my funeral homilies, I do know that heaven is real, it has to be because I’ve staked my life on that claim. And I know that whatever it looks like, it is not only the place where the saints feast forever in the presence of Jesus, but it’s something that Jesus himself said has come near. Thanks be to God for Sam Dotson and all the saints in this and every generation who inspire us to make Jesus’ words fully known in our day until the day we are united with them again on a far greater shore. May all the saints, who from their labors rest, pray for us.
