Memorial Day

Memorial Day is an interesting day in the life of most Americans. On one hand, it is the inauguration of summer, a green light for family gatherings and BBQs. It sort of announces to many of us that we need to slow down, relax, and have a lazy weekend.

On the other hand, it is the time to remember those who have made the “supreme sacrifice” and given their lives for their country. In cemeteries, American Legion halls, and other places people gather around the flag to remember and to pray for the families who are not the same because of war. War has robbed them of their brightest and their best, with only their memories remaining.

One of the best-known poems that still touches my heart is Flanders Fields, written in 1915 by a Canadian surgeon, John McCrae. This weary doctor, having just buried someone close to the place where he was conducting surgery to save another victim of the carnage of war, wrote this:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Dr. McCrae, in twenty minutes, penned lines that gave voice to the emptiness he felt as he sat across the road from a cemetery where the poppies had blossomed in the ditches adjacent to the graves.

Today, in battlefields far away, in places with strange names foreign to our ears, the poem is relived. We pray that our Lord would beat our swords into plowshares and we hope for a day when the vision of a lamb lying down with the lion would come true.

Urgent Care & Farah Fawcett “I’m Ready for My Close-up, Mr. Demille”

Today I took my daughter, who was not feeling well, to the Urgent Care facility in Rye. There is something about a doctor’s waiting room that gives you pause. Most of the time when I am in there sick I don’t notice much. I am like everyone else; a little impatient, I want to get well.

However, today I was quite alert and noticed all kinds of people looking a bit miserable and out of sorts, wanting to be healed. In contrast to this motley group there were a lot of magazines in the office about the rich and the beautiful celebrities who seem so much healthier than these folks. So, I open up a copy of “People” magazine to discover Paul McCartney waving to a crowd with his fly open. And then I see Bill Clinton stepping in gum, discover that Lindsay Lohan feels so alone amid fears that she might hurt herself, read about Madonna experiencing heartbreak and devastation because she can’t adopt another child from Malawi, and Jennifer Aniston who cannot seem to find a husband after Brad Pitt.

Most interesting to me, though, is the picture of Farrah Fawcett of whom I used to have a poster over my bed in college. She was my favorite angel in “Charlie’s Angels”, and, I know, was the inspiration of fantasies for millions of men (and women) around the world. Now I see her in a wheelchair, down to 89 pounds, wrapped up with a wool cap over her head in Germany, trying to be treated for cancer that has spread to her liver. Could this be a bad dream, or does sickness, old age, and tragedy come to all of us, even the beautiful and famous?

What makes it all insane is that Farrah Fawcett is now being filmed on her deathbed, turning her struggle with cancer into a documentary. Maybe it’s just me, and it may sound unkind in this situation, but is this a little narcissistic or what? It reminds me of the great old movie “Sunset Boulevard”, where an over-the-hill actress refuses to let go of stardom and the camera as she says, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Demille.” ( Watch it on YouTube ).

I may be old-fashioned, but shouldn’t dying be a little bit more private? It doesn’t need to be made into reality TV, it is already real enough.

Mother’s Day Post Mortem

For years I have prayed on Mother’s Day a prayer of thanksgiving for all mothers who have diligently carried out their important vocation. I also mentioned in almost the same breath our sympathy for those who have lost their moms. This year joined that “club”. I can’t say that it’s been an easy transition because I have had some very sad and difficult moments. I found a bit of comfort, if you want to call it that, in Christopher Buckley’s article in the April 26, 2009 Sunday Times Magazine called “Mum and Pup and Me”. He writes:

I think about them every day. Orphanhood proceeds (…). It comes in waves. One moment you’re doing fine, living your life, even perhaps feeling some sort of primal sense of liberation – I can stay out as late as I want, and I don’t have to make my bed! Then in the next instant, boom, there it is. It has various ways of presenting, as doctors say of disease. Sometimes it comes in the form of a black hole inside you, sucking the rest of you into it; at other times it is a sense of disconnection, as if you had been holding your mother’s hand in a crowd and suddenly she let go.

So, this year it happened to me; she let go.

“Gremlins”

We love to point the finger at people who have fallen. For example, I was walking by a bookstore in Larchmont, and in the window was a book on Roger Clements entitled “The Rocket That Fell to Earth”. The hero and five-time Cy Young winner continues to lie about his steroid use. Another bright star, this one on the political scene, was Eliot Spitzer, “Mr. Clean” who cleaned up Wall Street as Attorney General, destroying in his wake many people’s lives. Then, of course, he was caught consorting with a call girl, humiliating himself, not to mention his wife and children. Today, when asked about the whole situation, he simply says that he is trying to deal with the “gremlins”.

The gremlins? An interesting term. What is a gremlin? A mischievous little person running around being destructive. I guess we are developing new categories today, or at least terminology, for explaining away sin. Sin seems too old-fashioned a word and demon may seem too strong. At any rate, it’s comforting to know that modern people, too, are searching for ways to explain evil in the world. I just don’t think that gremlin is good enough an explanation.

St. Paul talks about the good that he would do he does not, and the evil that he would not that he does. In other places he talks about the fact that we fight not only flesh and blood, but against the powers and darkness of this world. This doesn’t sound like little gremlins running around.

Talk to people whose lives have been destroyed by alcohol. Go to an AA meeting and discover a room full of people who can express enough pain to break the world in two. Talk to people whose lives have been destroyed by cocaine and various other drugs. These people don’t talk about gremlins; they talk about a universe of pain, sadness, and struggle. Someone once wrote that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. Jesus once said that the path to wholeness is narrow, but the road to hell is wide. So, when we are looking at places like Darfur, beheadings in Pakistan and Afghanistan, suicide bombers in Baghdad, I don’t think gremlins is a good enough term.

The Box on the Curb

For years now our church has been running a tag sale to raise money for our youth program. Every year we receive calls to pick up furniture and other big items from people who are in what we would call today “life transitions”, whereas my mother would say, “they are moving”. On one of these adventures I got into a conversation with Jim Guinee who was reflecting on an experience he had with an old man bringing out boxes of personal items from his home to place on the curb for the sanitation department to pick them up. Jim noticed that the box was filled with some interesting things like trophies and fishing gear. When he asked the old man about the trophies, he replied: “They belong to my wife who was a champion swimmer.” The fishing gear was from the time when he used to take his son to Alaska every year to fish. The old man told Jim he was throwing these things out because he was moving into an assisted-living facility, but he invited Jim to help himself and take whatever he wanted out of the box. Jim said he felt like he was violating someone’s life as he reached down for some fishing items.

So, it all comes to a box on the curb after all those years of living and those great memories. Perhaps this is the end for all of us – a box on the curb. We usually end up in a box, with someone throwing dirt over us. However, the thought did come to me that many of us are living in a box right now; a box that could be labeled “Routine”, or “Depression”, or “Illness”, or just a box we call “Life” that somehow has lost its luster, its interest, its joy, and its wonder. Easter speaks of resurrection, an invitation to think outside the box, and outside the grave as well, only because life doesn’t have to be a box on the curb.

Is Anybody There? - Comments on post-resurrection

One of the interesting adventures you can embark on is going to a “Times Talk” at the Times Center in Manhattan. They have numerous personalities/celebraties/authors who are interviewed with regard to their body of work. Recently, Kathy and I attended a talk with Michael Caine, whose fan I have been for many years. The first movie of his I ever saw was “Alfie”, which I found to be brilliant. I also remember being on a Midnight Run when we were handing out food at Grand Central, and he was there, filming. I love his films such as “The Sleuth”, “Educating Rita”, “The Quiet American”, and too many others to mention.

We sat very close to him and were soon enveloped in his wonderful ability to share stories and insights on acting and on life. I found myself grinning as I listened to his warm, profound, and self-deprecating style. He is a person not caught up with himself, which has opened him up in his humility to even further greatness. He is always willing to take on parts that are not necessarily leading roles but, in fact, sometimes minor characters. His current film, “Is Anybody There?”, shows him as an old, physically frail, senile man at the end of his life, in a not very flattering light for a movie star.

“Is Anybody There?” is an interesting question on many levels. In the movie, which takes place in a nursing home, a young boy, whose parents run the home, wonders about the afterlife as the old people die. What happens to them after death? Is there an aura, a spirit, a ghost, something tangible, audible, or simply nothing? On another level, you watch old people with dementia, who begin to lose not only their memory (which is bad enough), but their mind. Eventually, I suppose, you wonder “Is anybody there?” as you look into their blank face. The subject is excruciatingly painful for those who live on a day-to-day basis as victims of this dreaded disease and those who are committed to caring for them.

As I struggle with my own mother’s death, I also ask the same question to myself: “Is anybody there to grasp her as she slips from this life to the next?” What is heartening in the film is that this old man finds community, support, and life from not only this young man, but from others in this home. Somehow he is also able to help a young boy climb up a hill to discover life and make contact with the living.

It has always been the Christian proposal that death is not the end, life is - life eternal. One of Jesus’ famous sayings is: “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” For the Christian faith, life is what we are all about. A life girded up with love, grace, and mercy. When the rich young ruler comes to ask Jesus, “What must I do to possess eternal life?”, he is roundly criticized by Jesus because eternal life is not something you can possess, it comes to you as a gift. Eternity for Jesus always begins right now, with life being a gift that you must participate in as passionately as you can.

In a strange way, this young man helps Michael Caine live the end of his days with meaning, and Michael Caine helps this boy make contact with life.

Perhaps that is what our faith is telling us. We need to be about life and making contact with other lives and community, supporting others in times of need. As we move farther away from Easter we see Jesus’ disciples struggling with the meaning of their lives and rediscovering the message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

This struggle is the same today. How do we deal with loss, with life that changes in so many strange and difficult directions? How do we understand the sadness we sometimes feel, or even the emptiness that inhabits our hearts in times of pain and difficulty? How do we cope with getting older, with our children moving on, with our parents becoming frail? The answer does not always present itself clearly. This film is an example of two people in community, helping each other find a light switch in the dark that will make sense of this thing we call life.
Part of the recipe in the whole mix can be one’s faith. It is not something that comes at you, like a note with an answer from heaven, but rather becomes evident in the faithful living of your days as we struggle to do what is right, given whatever challenge we are faced with.

As the Easter season continues, the first experience of the disciples after the resurrection could be summed up in the question: “Is anybody there?”. They meet in locked rooms, they share their sadness on the road to Emmaus, and generally are disillusioned. Somehow in death I envision us opening a door and asking: “Is anybody there?” At the end of our life, it is a question everyone will have to ask.

The Christian proposal is that God is there to grasp us with a love that will never let us go.

In Search of Higher Ground - Van Morrison and Easter

In the back of my mind every once in a while I think about visiting the poorest country in the world, Haiti. Then I think again. I was reminded of Haiti again in a recent article I read entitled, “Living in a Sea of Mud and Drowning in Dread”. The article chronicles what life is like as you live in central Haiti with no time to recover from the Hurricane season. Residents in shacks on mud streets. These streets have holes dug for drainage systems where many people have drowned. They constantly live in fear of the next storm. When danger seems to approach, everyone wants to run for higher ground.

Higher ground is an interesting concept. The Old City of Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains that allow enemies who encroached upon the residents to look down and observe and attack. Cities on higher ground are much safer.

Revelation is often thought of as climbing a mountain. The higher you get, the better your perspective or view. You get a larger picture. When you are at the bottom, you have no idea of the experience you are about to have as you begin the ascent.

I have had the privilege of seeing the rock singer Van Morrison in concert many times. I will always remember my first experience when this little gnome of a guy walks on the stage with a big hat. I am not sure what he looks like, but he certainly doesn’t resemble any rock singer I’ve seen. However, when he walks up to the microphone and begins to sing, a booming voice comes out of that little man that rocks the auditorium. I guess you could say, I am a fan. His younger pictures betray how very Irish he is. Irish music, to me, is always moody, sad, and sort of bluesy, with a bit of sarcasm thrown in. You feel sad when you listen and, at the same time, as you are touched by the melancholy, you feel a paradoxical sense of humor, too. Van Morrison wretches it up a notch with a big-beat, stream-of-consciousness, poetic verse that touches your soul or, at the very least, makes you reflect on life.

Whenever God shines his light on me
Open up my eyes, so I can see
When I look up in the darkest night
Then I know everything is gonna be alright
In deep confusion,in great despair
When I reach out for Him,He is there
When I am lonely as I can be
Then I know that God shines His light on me
Reach out for Him, He'll be there
With Him your troubles,you can share
If you live the life you love
You get the blessing from above
Heals the sick and heals the lame
Says you can, too, in Jesus' name
And He lifts you up,and He turns you around
And He puts your feet back on higher ground...

This song, which is not well-known and which I have never heard him sing in concert, proclaims the gospel as I see it. After all, aren’t we all looking for higher ground?

Put differently, as we move towards Easter but continue in Lent, I find that the season is here to help us look at the wrong directions we too often take that are harmful not only to others but to ourselves. In Lent we try to shine a light on the dark, dank, and unconverted areas of our life that make us less than what we are meant to be and can even lead to self-destruction. Lent simply points us to the constant battle of trying to do what is right, shoulder our responsibilities with positive energy, and maintain an attitude filled with grace and compassion. Too often, we find ourselves pulled down, as if by gravity, and acting in ways that diminish us, whether we are losing our temper or our patience with others, avoiding the hard things that need to be done, or trudging through life without a sense of humor or purpose. The living of our days gets “nickel and dimed away” to where we are just getting by without living nobly. Before you know it, all of your good intentions for leading a noble life have dissipated and you find yourself sinking and have lost sight of higher ground.

Van Morrison’s song and its reference to light shining in the darkness reminds me of Easter. The good news of the gospel is that light has come into the world and darkness will not win. The good news of Easter is that we are about life, and even life eternal. The hope that we all have is that somehow the One who created us will pick us up, turn us around, and help us see life in a different way, on higher ground.

In the end, Easter is that higher ground. It announces the resurrection of our Lord, it calls us to hope in the midst of despair, and through faith it lifts us up to live life nobly and with thanksgiving. Easter is about redemption, the power to reverse the cycle of evil, announcing that love is stronger than hate. Therefore, we are given a new perspective, or even a different vantage point from which we can look at life and understand it in a more profound way, from higher ground.