host:
Pastor Lauren Bennett, 35, leads a St. Louis church that serves the LGBTQ+ community.
She is also one of the few people to serve in Missouri’s death chamber…
So 82-year-old Father Jerry Kleba [KLEE-buh] …A Catholic priest…was preparing to visit a man named Johnny on death row…he asked Bennett for advice.
Jerry Kleba (GK) and Lauren Bennett (LB)
GK: I met you because I was going to be a spiritual advisor to a death row inmate.
And when we sat in your office, I said, “I want to know everything you wish you knew when you first went to death row. Because it’s scary…” And I was going to ask you a question. A lot.
lb: You are a great listener, so I knew right away that you would be a great fit.I I knew that Johnny was having a really hard time understanding reality, and I thought that if anyone could relate to someone like that, it would be someone like you. .
GK: He kept to himself a lot and didn’t talk to me much. But I said to him, “I am going to be your servant for 12 visits here, including the last one in the death chamber.”
He was already in bed when it happened. He raised his head and big blue eyes, my big blue eyes caught each other and smiled, then he lowered his head again, and he did not raise his head again.
I used to go to the hospital and get sick and almost die, but this is completely different.
lb: We say that all the time and I think you preach about it too. We are all created in the image of God, and no one’s life can be reduced to their worst actions. It’s one thing to think you believe it, and quite another to face it.
GK: That’s why you and I can speak to each other so well. Because we were there. Really, it doesn’t matter that we know each other. Our age difference, our religion difference. But there was magic between us.
You know, miraculously I’m here. Because I was told I was going to die. And when they demoted me to the hospice program, I found out I was misdiagnosed. But it got me ready to go see Johnny. Because I knew more about preparing for death than most.
And today, God breathed into my nostrils to tell me a story of love lived deeply in an unexpected place.
And I think that really helped me understand that God doesn’t have disposable children.
