By Brett Younger
As a child of deaf parents, she was the one who made the phone call when the refrigerator stopped working. Bennie went to bed knowing she was the one who would hear if something happened during the night. Listening for her parents gave her not only a sense of responsibility, but concern for others. She loved everyone in the room, but she cared most for the one who felt left out.
Bennie gave herself to making the church a home for everyone. She pushed congregations toward the fierce love of Christ. She was a social worker without the title.
In Alexandria, Va., she saw deaf people being left out and started a deaf ministry. Bennie interpreted the sermons of her husband, Vernon Davis, into sermons for the deaf congregation. Most of the time she translated. Sometimes she edited on the fly.
When she and Vernon moved first to Midwestern Seminary and then to the Logsdon School of Theology, she continued to look after those who might be overlooked. She was around people who know how to talk about faith, but Bennie instinctively knew that our theology needs to move beyond the words we say to become the compassion with which we live.
One afternoon she and Vernon are stuck in Kansas City traffic when they see a woman who looks messed up, walking down the highway, barefoot, carrying her high heels. A car in front of them stops and a man shouts for the woman to get into the car, but she will not go near him. Bennie, of course, like almost no one, insists they offer the woman help. The woman explains that she came to Kansas City for a big party that got out of hand and she had to leave. The woman wants to go home, three hours away.
Midwestern has a few short-term apartments so Vernon offers to let her stay the night there. The woman says she has to get home. They check on public transportation, but no bus is heading that way. The woman wants to get out of the car and try her luck getting a ride. Bennie, of course, like almost no one, insists they drive her all the way home. Vernon, more like most of us, remembers his own grace being more grudgingly given because he has to get up the next morning and drive another three hours to preach a sermon.
That is enough to make it a good story, but Bennie keeps in touch with the woman. They correspond. Bennie checks in from time to time to make sure the woman is doing okay. If you were stuck on the side of the road, you hoped Bennie was in the next car.
Unlike most of us, most of the time, Bennie did not act like she was concerned for others. She was concerned. She did not act like a good person. She was a good person. She did not act like a Christian. She was a Christian.
Compassion was in the air around her. She taught her children to care for others. I live with Bennie every day. I am reminded every time my wife, Carol, makes me care for someone I do not care for or give away something I would rather keep. My life would be less Christian without Bennie.
I lost so much with her passing, but I have been given so much that I cannot lose. I feel like I have lost the 81-year-old whose days had become so hard, but I cannot lose the woman who came to Louisville to check out a prospective son-in-law and was quite direct about it. We went to dinner and, as part of the interview process, I was called on to pray. I inadvertently said the word “family.” Bennie said, “Brett, I’m glad you mentioned family. That’s what we want to talk about.” Family was often what she wanted to talk about. Bennie gave herself to the family to which God calls us.
On St. Valentine’s Day, at Bennie’s funeral at First Baptist Church in Austin, we felt invited to trust the God who gave Bennie courage as she cared for her parents, the God who led Bennie to the love of her life — her husband for 59 years, the God who took Bennie to a place where deaf people needed her help to worship, the God who shared Bennie with seminaries where she cared for students, faculty and staff, the God who filled her with compassion, and helped her teach that compassion to others. We can trust the God who through the saints calls us to a better way.