In the season of ADVENT - Written on November 21, 2008

For the Lectionary of November 30, 2008: Mark 13:24-37

"Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.”

THE GUY WITH THE CARD by Larry Patten

I have my official card, but I hope the time to use it never arrives.

The card? It’s business card-sized or maybe like a coupon to slice $5 off the price of a pizza. White background, black lettering, and smallish font. And there’s a distinctive red cross on the left side. Underneath Larry Patten (yes, my name) and next to the Red Cross’ red cross are the fancy words, “has completed the requirements for CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer and the Healthcare Provider.”

After an 8-hour Red Cross training session, I can perform CPR. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. And I know how to use the AED device. Automated External Defibrillator. The AED, no bigger than a waffle iron, sends an electrical shock into the body. Used properly, it can be the literal heartfelt difference between life and death.

At least, that’s what the small-fonted card claims I can accomplish. But please, I beg you, don’t tumble near me onto the recently mopped floor of the local mall, unconscious and unresponsive. Yikes. Some shoppers would gawk or scurry away. But I’m the guy with the card.

I know the drill. Check the immediate area. Is it safe? Then I’ll loudly ask you (the person sprawled between Victoria’s Secret and the Hallmark store), “Are you OK?” Since you don’t answer, I’ll make sure a fellow mall-crawler calls 9-1-1. Then, taking no more than ten seconds, I’ll assess you for breathing and movement. I’ll give you two rescue breaths to determine any airway blockage. (And don’t worry, there won’t be lip-to-lip contact because I’ll have sterile resuscitation masks in my back pocket (right pocket with child/infant mask and the left holds the adult-sized mask.)

You have a pulse! Whew. I don’t need the AED unit, though it’s tucked into my daypack. Unconscious? You still are. Now I’ll tilt your head back to clear the air passage and start breathing for you: one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand one/give a breath…one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand two/give a breath. And so on. After two minutes, I’ll re-evaluate your condition (still near Victoria’s Secret, with a pulse, not breathing). Back to work. Don’t worry, I’ll do this until the cows come home and the professional emergency people arrive.

Right.

I watched the Red Cross’ informative DVDs. I listened to the instructor. I worked with my classmates on choking and two-person CPR. I resuscitated the plastic dummy at least ten times. Never once did Mr. Dummy die. (Nor thank me.) And I was equally successful with Mr. Dummy’s stiff-joined baby. I took the 40-question test and missed only two questions. You could flub eight and still pass.

But really, I know nearly nothing. Please, I hope your time doesn’t come for a trip to the floor when I’m nearby.

Spending a day in Red Cross training nudged me to ponder the end of time according to Mark’s gospel. Though, as Mark confided, we “do not know when that time will come.” Of course Mark referred to the apocalypse when the “sun will be darkened.” According to the Red Cross, the only time I’m prepared for is a person’s lack of breathing or pulse or both. And yet, aren’t both—Creation and each and every mortal human—teetering toward the end of time?

At the end of class I told me instructor I didn’t think I was ready to really, truly use CPR or an AED. I told him I took the class in case I found a part-time job as a hospice chaplain, but to use my brief acquaintance with Mr. Dummy to actually save someone . . .?

He smiled and said, “When someone is hired—as a nurse, firefighter, police, and even chaplain—they regularly work on their skills with their team. Then you get out in the field. Then you practice more. Here, we’re just one small part of the learning.”

I learned I don’t know much.

Mark (including other apocalyptic writers like Daniel and Revelation) claimed the world would soon end. One way or the other, it will. I trust scientific theories and am confident our sun will eventually consume its gasses and become a so-called red giant. Not good for human life on Earth. But an end will come. Billions of years from now . . . no sunrise, no sunset. No sun.

And so Advent’s season begins again. As usual, it scripturally jumpstarts with a doomsday reminder like Mark 13. Urgency reigns.

What will I practice? I remember the first lesson in my CPR/AED class. Stay alert. Assess the situation.

Every single day I can help save a life. Maybe—especially if I practice my CPR again and again—it will be because of the Red Cross-sanctioned breath of life. But I don’t need to wait for someone to collapse near Victoria’s Secret. Indeed, stay alert. Assess the situation. With every person, perhaps my words of kindness or my actions of compassion will revive a literal or symbolic heart of another.

Tomorrow, maybe, the sun darkens.

Today, how can I help it shine?

in Peace,

Larry