I feared elevators as a child. In an attempt to lessen my fears, my parents described them as “moving rooms that close on one floor and open on another.” In time, I learned to appreciate these mechanical marvels.
One of my early fascinations was hearing the crackly sounds of the waltz or bossa nova tune that played from a tiny speaker in the elevator’s cabin. Originally thought to calm the hearts of timid riders like me, this Muzak (as one brand named the recorded background sounds) acted as a distraction for trips that seemed to take forever once those doors closed.
I should have the equivalent of SkyMiles for the many elevator rides I’ve taken over the past three years. Along with the many ups and downs of the ordination process came clinical pastoral education. I chose to do my unit at, arguably, the busiest hospital and trauma center in the Southeast. Elevators were the primary means of transportation through this massive 1000-bed complex.
I was assigned to the emergency room, trauma center and palliative care floors. I caught the chaplaincy bug and served two additional years as a resident — and regularly witnessed the most incredible feats of lifesaving known to humankind. I walked with countless men and women from poor diagnoses to a greatly improved quality of life. And in those years I also witnessed more death than I ever imagined one person could.
The soundtrack of my average day went something like:
“Code blue in the stroke unit.”
“Multiple gunshot victim incoming in trauma.”
“Palliative conversation with a family in 30 minutes — can you sit in with us?”
“Motor vehicle accident case in the next bay is not looking good.”
“Daughter of the deceased of massive heart attack just arrived; she doesn’t know.”
And that was before lunch.
Over and over, and typically with very little brow sweat, I persevered with patient after patient and grieving family after grieving family. Most of the time, I sprang eagerly from my chair. But once in a while, I would be halted at the elevator. In this county hospital, the elevators were typically packed to capacity and operated less than efficiently. The wait could exceed 10 minutes. Sometimes these things triggered my childhood fears. But the thing that bothered me most was the absence of elevator music.
A few days ago, I had the occasion to return to my former stomping ground to visit a dying friend. His heart attack struck our whole community deeply and suddenly. The fact that we are the same age struck me especially.
As often as I’d visited with patients in his condition before, this visit was extremely difficult. Perhaps it was the time that I’d been away from daily visits. Perhaps it was the fact that he had become like family to me. Perhaps I was even questioning how God could take such a beautiful brother from us.
As I toiled at the elevator door about going up to see him, I was met with a certain sound. It was a symphony of shattering rocks, earthquake, wind and fire just as Elijah heard at the cave opening at Mt. Horeb. I’d heard it before. It was my elevator music. It was the voice of God saying, “If you go, I’ll go with you.”
The day after my visit, my friend died. I was glad I got a chance to feel his grip and speak with his family hours before his passing. I often think of the opportunity I would have missed had I not obeyed God’s band at the elevator. I think of the many nights God had to rock me to sleep, like Elijah, to encourage me in my dreams to finish the ordination process.
But mostly, I wonder how high I can go, how high we as a church, as a people might go, if we would simply pause to listen to the elevator music.
CARLTON JOHNSON is the operations officer for Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta and associate minister at the First Afrikan Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, Georgia.
