Advent2: In Our Forgetting Is God’s Remembering

I am Zechariah . . . named after men great and small . . . men who were wise, believing they knew all and more than all, who knew nothing . . . nothing at all . . . and I am surely one with them . . . 

Zechariah, I named you for so many who came before – priests and prophets, wise and foolish, godly all.  

Your only job was to listen . . . and believe.  It was too much, I suppose, to expect . . . that a namesake of the bringer of oracles of doom and redemption might remember the ancestral call . . . might heed an angel’s voice in the night . . . might recall the wisdom of listening . . . 

For you, Zechariah, believe you were born to argue . . . debate . . . hone the finer points.

You thought it was all about you.

Oh, son, you matter, but yours is the place of setting the stage for those who come after.  It is a fine job.  Worthy of a Zechariah.  But you would not listen, could not hear.

You have forgotten even as I have remembered.  And even your own name could not call you back.

So how about this?  How about you just be quiet.  No talking.  I, your God, am putting you in the corner for a time-out.

Luke 1.5-25

Feet-guiding Lord of All, in Your most tender of mercies does Your dawn break the hold of darkness upon us. . . thanks our only worthy reply . . . a son You have given me . . . thanks my only worthy reply . . . peace the destination You have shown us . . . thanks our only worthy reply.

Now, Zechariah, now thou dost see.  Now thou dost hear.  Now thou dost understand.  Now at the last dost thou stand alongside me.

Thus it has been . . . thus it shall ever be.

Luke 1.57-79

I Remember Viet Nam

Yesterday I listened to an NPR story of recovered reel-to-reels of young men headed to, in the midst of, and

some not making it home from Viet Nam.  It is a gut punch to hear their young selves in that crucible time, especially the one who didn’t make it home.

I listen and I remember . . . being a child a teenager and the television news and Walter Cronkite’s voice bringing us the news and images of war never the likes of we had seen and heard before or since, while eating my supper. . . body bags and body counts and children and tall grasses blowing from the winds of helicopters hovering above . . . marches and protests and anger in our streets and our homes . . . I remember I was opposed to the war – Viet Nam is why I became an aspiring pacifist.

I remember my Uncle Richard being there and worrying about him and the few stories he would share when he came home – bombs in baby diapers and jeeps exploding in front of and behind him.

I remember it ending and friends like Walt being spared being sent and numbers taking on desperate meaning as the draft lottery decided who went and who stayed.

And I remember the POW/MIA bracelets

I wore mine until it broke – snapped in half.

I do not remember the man’s name on the bracelet I wore.  I kept the two broken pieces in my jewelry box for years.  I do not remember when I decided to let it go and leave it behind.  I do remember he was MIA, my soldier.  I was not a person of faith at that time, but I suppose in some way, the thoughts I kept of him formed a prayer of sorts.  I cannot know what happened to him as I cannot even remember his name.  And that troubles me greatly.  How could I have remembered so much and forgotten his name?

To My Younger Self

Some while back on FB, the question was randomly posed: using just two words, what would you say, if you could, to your younger self.

Obviously cheating by using only two words per line rather than the allotted two words, I gave thought to that younger self, so far gone she’s almost beyond reach and wondered what I could possibly say to her that would be worth the saying.

Here goes:

Beloved, love

Look out!

Fear not

Life is

Love you

Forgiven you

Didn’t know

Slow down

Speed up

Dance more

Sing loud

Lighten up

Be you

Good job

So glad

Great ride

Walk daily

IDK okay

Teeth matter

Don’t . . . 

Do . . . 

Regret not

You rock

Yeah, they’ll do, all those two-word atta-girls and admonitions.

It’s a silly exercise, isn’t it, for the very simple reason that she cannot hear me.  I can barely hear her.  Which leaves me wondering what she has to say to me.  Now that’s worth considering.  Another time.

When Heroes Die

What changed

when we relearned

that heroes die too?

That Dallas November

day 5 decades ago

when the magic couple

suddenly weren’t so

magic anymore that

we the people have

spent the time since

disbelieving that anyone

so ordinary, so damned small

as an Oswald could bring

it all to full stop

It takes a conspiracy –

the plan of legions –

it takes a giant to

bring down a giant

doesn’t it?

Apparently not

what changes 

when heroes fall?

The ground underneath

isn’t quite so solid

for if our giants

fall, who are we,

tiny we, to stand?

Where is our ground?

Remembering the Alamo

A battle.  People dead.

“Sacred”.

Why?

Why “sacred”?

This is the question which haunts me as we circle the displays, the intention behind not at all rhetorical – why is being dead “sacred”?

I am moved to ask a volunteer, who tells me that the language in the bill in the Texas legislature in the early 1900's referred to the sacred deaths of those defending the Alamo.  The reason?  Because they died for Texas.

Texas is not alone in appropriating the language of the divine for its secular cause of the hour.

Sacred is defined as “worthy of religious worship; very holy”.  Merriam Webster

Secondary definitions include the notion of something worthy of respect.  But this conflating of the sacred and the profane (shedding of blood ) – in its elevation of the profane –  actually reduces the sacred, or perhaps better, twists the sacred into something unrecognizable.

At another location within the exhibit there are a series of plaques commemorating the “heroes” of the Alamo.  Missing from the list of names are those  who actually survived the siege.  When I asked another volunteer, she handily explained that the heroes were those who died.

I understand the distinction, but not the reason for it.  Why is it, at least implicitly, more heroic to have died and thus less heroic to have lived?

To die for country is not to die for God.

To live for God is not to betray country.

To live is often the most heroic thing a person will ever do.

To die is sometimes the most cowardly.

Living is more sacred than dying.

And being dead is not sacred – not holy – at all.  Whether we rise in resurrection as my faith has it or not, dead is beyond the cares and causes of this world.  It is not holy; it simply is.

What will I remember of the Alamo?

One more effort to invest with meaning the senseless violence we human beings engage in from time to time to have our way.  The ground crying out with the spilling of blood.

Nothing sacred about it.

But that’s just me.

Note to Self

736 . . . rescue . . . the P . . . instead of 441

I have absolutely no idea what this note that I must have written to myself within the last day or two means.  I have no memory of writing it though it is unmistakably my scrawl.  I have no idea what call or comment inspired it.

I don’t know about you, but I have a myriad notes to self scattered about my desk – reminders, return calls to be made, thing I hear and mean to remember, thoughts and ideas for a later time.  Usually the act of writing itself serves to enable me to remember and act.  But every now and again, there’s a loose canon – a note that gets lost amidst the detritus that evidences my work life – and I find them later, often with a groan, sometimes with a chuckle, and sometimes, like today, with a great sense of mystery – whatever does it mean?

I imagine a mystery with rescue . . . the P . . . as the only clue.  Then I wonder over the possible theological meanings (hey, it’s not much of a stretch – that is my job, afer all).  Then I either put it to the side or toss it to the trash, hoping the remembrance it was meant to inspire wasn’t too awfully important and move to the next note to self.

Note to self:  don't forget to return this week's phone calls.  Explain that my voice isn’t great just now and it’s been an exhausting month (a good one, but a tiring one) overflowing with human interaction and this introvert (yes, really) needs to recharge a bit.  And don't forget to say thank you for the birthday wishes and songs – I really do appreciate them.  Really.

Note to others:  for those chores I may have overlooked, remind me again please.  Yours may be one of those notes floating in the suspension of time that is my desk just now.

Final note to self – don’t forget to post this.