November 11, 2002
Even in dying, Browning Ware listened and learned
___Editor's note: Buckner newswriter Russ Dilday visited Browning Ware this fall in his residence at Buckner Villas in Austin, just a few weeks before Ware died Oct. 29. The story is presented as written before Ware's death.
___By Russ Dilday
___Buckner News Service
___AUSTIN--Browning Ware's room at Buckner Villas is markedly different than other residents' rooms. Many living at the Buckner retirement community in Austin make their room their home, decorating with the familiar furniture and memorabilia of lives long lived.
___Several keep their collections, such as china dolls, stuffed animals or photographs prominently and proudly displayed. Ware's room seems a stark contrast, with only three chairs, a couple of photographs on a side table and a floral bouquet bedside. The white-walled room has the feel of transitional housing and, indeed, it may be. At 73, Ware is dying of cancer.
___But, as residents, employees and visitors have learned during the short time the pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church in Austin has lived at the Villas, he does have his own collection, a collection of people who have streamed through his door seeking an audience.
___Villas marketing director Lisa Wyatt said Ware hasreceived "about a thousand" visitors through his door.
___"I wouldn't put a number on it, but we have had a lot," he admitted, noting: "They come through looking for different things. I don't know and they don't always know."
___But they come, many seeking out Ware as the only religious voice they've heard. In addition to his 22-year pastorate at First Baptist Church, Ware also authors a weekly column in the Austin American-Statesman on faith, which continues to attract a large following. Some look for guidance. Some come to say goodbye. Others come because they don't want to.
___"They are looking for some kind of an affirmation," he said, "sort of a blessing that would help them say it is OK for me to be where I am and for them to be where they are. Some of them can use the words 'illness' and 'death' and talk about my illness. Some of them can't. And it touches people on different levels.
___"There is a psychiatrist that comes to see me," he said. "This whole thing of my being ill and dying is really tearing him up, because he is going through his own mortality.
___"When I told him that I want to be present for my living and my dying, he said, 'That terrifies me.' I said, 'What is frightening?' And he said, 'To be there, in the unknownness.'
___"I said, 'Well, I'm known. I'm not ill at ease there. I am known in the unknown.' So there's a level of intimacy there and a willingness that people have, a hunger to talk about these things."
___While he speaks, a tall, bearded man, Don, walks quietly into the room and sits by Ware's bed, saying, "I just came by to see you."
___The two talk of events happening in Don's life, and they finish with a prayer.
___"Browning and I discuss the light and the difficult problems of life together," explained Don, who makes custom furniture. "Browning has had a few ups and downs, and I have been up and down like a toilet seat most of my life. He is my friend, and friends are really at the end of what happens to you. I am 68 years old, and they are really about all you've got."
___What Ware says he gives to people like Don who come through the doors of his room is "honest answers--honest in the sense that I can tell them without much adjustment or editing how I feel about something. I am far enough down the pike that I don't need to edit the material or soften it for them."
___That honesty runs deep, even for his own needs, he said.
___"I want to be present to what is happening to me, as fully present as possible. And I am not even sure I want all of the pain relief that hospice keeps telling me I ought to have. I know there are times when I want it, and I want it really bad. But I want to be present. I don't want to go out in a fog. I want to be as available to what God can provide me during this time."
___The honesty also extends to the realities of his condition, which began as prostate cancer but moved into his bones.
___The thought of death has caused him to weep sometimes, he admitted. "I get kind of sentimentalistic. I don't mind dying, but I do regret not living a little longer."
___On the other hand, facing death "has really taken the chains off," he said. "What have I got to win or to lose? It has been a wonderful thing to watch people respond to the invitations to pray. I don't have anybody come through here now that we don't pray together."
___While terrible, the cancer has opened unimaginable doors.
___In recent months, his articles have prompted responses from the chancellor of the University of Texas system as well as a 51-year-old lesbian mother.
___Meanwhile, the hardest truth to learn may be that the minister needs ministry.
___"It's very traumatic at times," Ware said. "At times it's unnerving. At camp a few years back, there was this big old boy, twice as big as I am, and we were washing each other's feet. When I washed his, everything went along fine. I was in charge. But when he washed me, it just tore me up. It just broke me up inside."
___"This pilgrim continues to learn," he wrote in a recent column. "Often, we want our lives to be characterized as ministry--service to others. We are proud of what we do for others and busy ourselves in their behalf. That's well and good, but beyond this, there is a new and humbling lesson--sometimes others must serve us because we are in need."
___In the last months of life, as he battled cancer, Browning Ware received a steady stream of visitors, some of whom sought his ministry and others who came to turn the tables with ministry to the minister.
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