Walter Wink - Just Jesus: My Struggle to Become Human

Copyright 2014 by the Estate of Walter Wink

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Image, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

IMAGE is a registered trademark and the I colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wink, Walter.
Just Jesus : my struggle to become human / Walter Wink.First Edition.
pages cm
1. Wink, Walter. 2. Christian biographyUnited States. I. Title.
BR1725.W53A3 2014
270.092dc23
[B]

2013037245

ISBN 978-0-307-95581-4
eBook ISBN 978-0-307-95582-1

Cover design by Nupoor Gordon
Cover photograph courtesy of the Estate of Walter Wink

v3.1

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

T. S. ELIOT, FOUR QUARTETS

Have you told them? Walter would look at me with an intense, anxious glance, pleading that I had already said the word. Other times, he would announce it himself: Dementia. We both dreaded the word itself, having coped with the illness for several years. Afterward, he would soften and relax because whoever we met with would understand that he did not have to live up to the Walter Wink he once was.

And yet, throughout his illness Walter retained the core of himself, the man who loved and laughed. Oftentimes we wept together. His book was not finished. He could not die yet. Several times it seemed like he was ready to give up, but then, with new enthusiasm, the old scholar would rise up in him. Or perhaps the Holy Spirit moved him to renew his ever-present passion for giving his last full measure of devotion; in other words, to be an evangelist, as he liked to call himself.

Walter courageously continued to work on lectures and fulfill the invitations he had received. We moved from lecture to lecture, growing more tired but with greater determination. The last series he successfully gave were in Princeton, in Toronto, and at our local Great Barrington Quaker meeting, for the twenty-fifth anniversary of their founding. Walter felt that he needed to contribute as much as he could to the acute problem of violence, and to help people understand the Domination System and the Powers That Be.

Eventually, the Lewy Body Dementia forced him to finally stop doing workshops and lectures. He retired to his beloved garden, writing until it was no longer possible for his impoverished brain.

Each morning, we spent quiet time reading poetry, reflecting, and praying. Every spring we would reread T. S. Eliots Four Quartets. Then, we would go off on a walk down one of the beautiful Berkshire trails that runs in front of our home. This became more difficult as the disease progressed, yet he seldom refused to go. Only for the last three and a half weeks of his life, he was not able to walk or get into a car.

The mornings, up until four oclock in the afternoon, were set aside for Walters writing. It took him years to accumulate his research and thoughts. But once he focused on putting the ideas on paper, he would go to his small study overlooking the river and then bingo it was finished. Sometimes when he was stuck on an idea or a word, he would walk around the house or outdoors until the problem was solved. He would rush back to his little nest and continue the task.

It was so important to him throughout his illness that he finish this book before he died. In the past, once hed turn in a book for publication he would say, Now I can die. In an interview, Walter once remarked about death, I hope I live to be a ripe old age, but if I have to give my life for the gospel or justice, I hope I can do that. Writing always fulfilled that.

Just a month before he died, I asked him if he would please help me move his long, lanky, heavy legs toward the middle of the bed. He could not. I was exasperated and explained in a louder voice, I am really getting irritated. Cant you help at all? He could not.

Afterward, I moved to the head of the bed to tuck him in with hugs and a kiss good night, when he said in a clear voice, Open up your heart and let Gods love come in. I was shocked because he had not been able to speak at all by that time. His speech had deteriorated to a mumble. My reaction was to sing his words loud, then soft, then high, then low, over and over, until we both burst out laughing.

Even today, I still sing our little song, Open up your heart and let Gods love come in.

June Keener Wink, June 2013

After a Jesus Seminar banquet in Sonoma, California, a colleague and I decided a walk would do us good. So we headed in the direction of the motel where he was staying. As we went, we began discussing how a persons personal history affects ones scholarship. Just knowing peoples religious backgrounds, for example, helped us understand comments they make in the Seminar.

We concluded that someone ought to do a volume in which the authors of the outstanding books on Jesus are invited to write an autobiography of their interest in Jesus. Perhaps if we all knew the others stories, we would have more respect, understanding, and compassion for each other. We could be pretty caustic with each other, myself no less than others. As a test case, my colleague and I told our own stories. We arrived at the motel far too soon, so we swung around the corner and took in a prodigiously long block. Time after time, we came to the motel and again turned the corner until the night had worn down and our stories were told.

An autobiography of my interest in Jesus, perhaps that is too ambitious. What I have done here is far less grand. I have simply written down vignettes, or excerpts of my lifes story that I find interesting. These autobiographical reflections are in no way exceptional. Everyone has a life story. Some are more interesting than others, but they all deserve a hearing. My story may, at the very least, show why I theologically think the way that I do.

How does my autobiography affect my interpretation of Scripture? How has my theology come out of my experiences?

When did I first begin to want to become more human, and when did I realize that Jesus was the key to my becoming? My faith was quite simple and direct. It was just Jesus. I wanted to know who this Jesus really is. The church was my refuge; I learned about Jesus and, by his example, I saw how to live. His example of how to live opened up a new freedom that was felt, if not articulated. For those who identify themselves as Christians, as I do, Jesus is the author of our humanity, and the goal of this book is the humanization of Jesus. I feel like I am in a rhetorical fistfight to humanize religion through Jesuss pragmatism. I can offer the reader no definition of what humanizing entails. Each persons journey is unique, an act of creation.