I wish you Christmas

I came across our 1976 Christmas letter last week, and was struck by the following Jane Merchant poem with which it ended. It’s just as appropriate as ever as my Christmas greeting to you.

 

 

How strangely, thoughtlessly unnecessary

It often seems to me that we should say,

“I wish you merry Christmas.” How can merry

or any other adjective, convey

A wish for greater gladness for our friends

More than the one word, Christmas, all alone,

The singing, shining word that comprehends

The utmost grace and glory [we] have known?

I wish you more, much more, than merriment;

All faith and hope and love and holy peace,

All quietness and radiant content

With blessings that continuously increase.

And when I say the simple words and small,

“I wish you Christmas,” I have wished you all.

Nevertheless, thanks

I have no clear memories of my family’s celebration of Thanksgiving in 1963. But I am sure our meal was eaten in an atmosphere of anxiety and concern.

President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated the previous Friday, and his funeral had been on Monday. The assassin himself had been shot to death on the Saturday between the two days. Our nation was still in a state of shock, and the future seemed more uncertain than it had seemed just a week before. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, was a very different person than Kennedy had been.

I was in the first semester of my sophomore year in college at the time. I cannot say for sure that classes were cancelled during the week before Thanksgiving Day, but they must have been. I probably went home earlier than I’d planned to.

My family, including myself at the time, were staunchly Republican. I am certain that any of us old enough to vote in 1960 had voted for Richard Nixon.

Yet I am also certain we all shared in the sense of loss and sorrow that pervaded the nation and the world: the President of the United States had been murdered in cold blood in front of thousands of well-wishers. The tragedy was a national one, affecting us all. And although I am sure political operatives somewhere quickly went to work figuring out how make the assassination work to their group’s advantage, I remember those days as ones of national lament and loss.

Sadly, such would not be the case today should our president be assassinated. Before the body turned cold, people would be publicizing their opinions on what the death meant and spinning that death to their purposes. With no filters such as the news organizations provided in the 1963, even people whose opinions are not worth a nickel would mount all the platforms they could find to tell the world what they thought. A lot of it would not be pretty. The last thing they’d want is for our nation to mourn our collective loss, to come together to grieve.

Though I cannot remember the details, I am sure our family celebrated Thanksgiving. We had a lot to be thankful for in 1963, and we knew it. How could we not be thankful?

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first official Thanksgiving Day in 1863, in the midst of our terrible Civil War. It was to be a day of remembrance for those who had died in that war and for the widows and orphans their deaths had created. Give thanks, so that you remember the price many paid to allow you to live the life you are living.

We are in a tough spot in our land and in the world in 2023. I am convinced that it is an even tougher spot than the one we were in 60 years ago. The post World War II order that benefited many and that seemed unshakeable threatens to collapse. Democracy is under attack around the world and here at home by powerful forces that would enthrone dictators in its place. We are being divided one from another by forces we cannot easily see or resist. Fear feeds distrust, hatred, racism, and sexism.

Yet, I will give thanks. Thanks for those who respect the rule of law, for those who work to make that law fair for everyone, for those who serve and advocate for the disenfranchised and marginalized, for those whose labors in a thousand fields keep us safe, fed, housed, and free. For those who are driven not by fear of the future, but by hope for it.

I will give thanks for those who have different notions than I do about how to make our democracy work better for all Americans. I am an American, and they are, too; we just see things differently. Americans are like that.

Giving thanks to a “god” or “gods” is problematical for many of us in 2023. Whether or not we can do that, I suggest we simply give thanks for one another, for all the “anothers” who are Americans with us, even if we do so just for a moment. It would be a moment of unity that might just change for the better the way we treat one another the rest of the year.

Velveeta Vandalism

Recently reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Police Blotter:

Vandalism: Bradford Lane (Avon, OH)

A resident called police at 11:55 a.m. Sept. 18 to report that an unknown person had put cheese on his mailbox overnight. There was no further information at the time of the report.

No further information! No further information? What?

Inquiring minds want to know. So many questions in search of answers…

What kind of cheese?…packaged or naked?…Velveeta (is that cheese, really?) or Pule (look it up)?…are there any likely suspects?…was there any follow-up investigation?…and of course, did the police respond at all to this call?

I came across the blotter about the time Hamas attacked Israel, so my first reaction was, How trivial!

In this world of enormous hurt, who would call the cops because they found cheese on top of their mailbox?

But then I wondered: Does cheese left atop a mailbox by an unknown perpetrator mean something sinister? Is it a threat of some kind that other people—more in-the-know people-than-I—understand, maybe a message from some domestic Hamas aimed at an unsuspecting Avon-er?

Turns out, cheese on the mailbox is a thing, though apparently a relatively small thing. My in-depth Google search found the earliest recorded incident to be from February of 2012 when someone posted a photo somewhere captioned, “Slice of cheese left on top of a mailbox on Broadway.” Obviously, a theatrical act.

Nothing else came up until March of 2022 when someone on Reddit complained that they had found poor quality cheese on their in-laws’ mailbox. Ten years of after the first incident, quality had become an issue, and being concerned about the quality of in-laws’ cheese does merit attention. There is hope for peace in our world.

Another possibility: placing cheese on top of a US Postal Service-approved mail box may run counter to U.S. Postal Code Regulations. I have heard that it is illegal to put anything into a mail box that hasn’t come through true U. S. mails, so cheese on top of it may fall into that category of criminal activity.

After much pondering, my grand conclusions to the matter are these:

1. It appears that finding unexpected cheese on top of your mailbox is not unheard of. But as to what it means, or signifies, I, like the police, have no further information.

2. If the unnamed Bradford Lane resident called the Avon police to report a harmless incident because they wanted to get their story on the Plain Dealer’s Police Blotter thereby jump-starting their career as an influencer, I wish them all success. But they’ll have to come clean with who they are.

3. Calling leaving cheese on someone’s mailbox an act of vandalism seems a bit extreme, but the crime had to be stuffed into some category to seem worth reporting.

4. It was good for my spirit to mull over so trivial an event in the midst of the truly awful things the news constantly puts before us to worry about. For example, just today the Plain Dealer reported that Jewish graves in an area cemetery had been desecrated with spray-painted swasticas. Clearly, that is vandalism of the worst kind. So I am grateful for police blotter notices that spread a wondering smile across my face. My need for such amusement increases by the moment.

Growing old fast

We say of children that they grow up fast. The years between birth and 18 or so rush by in awesome procession, each of them seeming to offer a new person for our consideration and relationship.

At the other end of our lives we grow old fast, even without the unwelcome invasion of some acute, life-threatening illness. Between our 60s and our 70s, the aches and pains of aging begin to show up, AFib is often diagnosed, and digestive challenges make their ugly appearance. Between 70 and 80, things that really make aging difficult—mobility and balance issues, arthritis, hearing and vision loss, and the like—begin their lasting impacts on what we can do and how we live. After 80, all that and more speed up and get worse. If we make it to 90, our chances of being alive, or even viable, at the end of the coming decade are practically nil.

As a clergy person, I’ve long been aware of the acceleration of aging after about 70. But during our three and a half years at Breckenridge Village I have felt that speeding up in my gut and have had to face my nearly total inability to control it, either in myself or in others.

Living in a retirement community like this one forces me to be aware constantly of how quickly aging takes its toll. Several people who were active and involved when we moved in have slowed down considerably, or are practically incapacitated, or have died. We are forced to watch a constant parade of personal change and diminishment that is quite different from what we experienced living “out in the world.”

For example, our next door neighbors in the Orange Village home we sold to come here were probably in their thirties when they moved in next to us, and are probably in their late 50s/early 60s now. They have gotten older of course, and their children are all grown up, but they are still working and active and seem quite able to do pretty much whatever they want. It is we, maybe a half-generation older, for whom the tolling bell seems to be ringing faster and louder with each passing year.

Another driver of our rapidly-increasing sense of aging may not be apparent to people who consider moving to facilities such as this one. We certainly did not see it coming. It is that in paying a significant entrance fee and a monthly charge so we do not have to worry about most of our housing and environmental needs, we gave up our say over how those needs are met. That heightens our sense of being old.

Yes, Breckenridge Village cares for our lawn, trims our bushes, and plows our snow. But unless and until we find and pay for someone else to do those things the way we want them done, we have relinquished much say in how and when they are done. Breckenridge will fix (or replace) our appliances and do other maintenance work at no extra cost to us, but it will decide when and how to do those things, sometimes without any advance notice to us.

Almost immediately when we moved into what’s called “independent living,” we found ourselves dependent upon people who are working for and ultimately accountable to someone else, not to mention watching a “bottom line” we cannot easily access. The experience has been disorienting, even though we freely accepted it and paid for it.

Make no mistake: we are glad we are here. We have made many good friends, we participate in a number of campus-sponsored activities, and we love our home. The health care, wellness, and therapy personnel are outstanding. Their goal is that we remain as physically independent as we can for as long as possible. But that goal sometimes feels in tension with a dependency encouraged—knowingly or unknowingly—by company people and corporate practices.

Those are external factors pushing us to grow old fast. Then there are our own health problems.

Neither Maxine nor I can do as much as we did at the beginning of 2020. In the early days of the pandemic we could walk the entire loop of the campus, from Ridge Road to Euclid and back, without assistance. Now we both use canes or walking sticks, and our range is considerably limited. I passionately (and to some, I suppose, foolishly) continue to ride a bike, doggedly proving something to myself if to no one else. I try not to think or look or dress more “elderly” than I must. It’s all vanity on my part, but it’s just me. I know that one day my years will all catch up to me, that I cannot forever outride time and aging. But I can try.

The years between 70 and our demise march on in fearsome procession, offering a new old person on every birthday, each of which approaches just way too fast.

“Yes” on Issue 1

 

I urge Ohioans to vote “yes” on Issue 1 on Tuesday, November 7 because a woman must not lose her rights regarding her body because she is pregnant.

Vets’ parade on a crowded way

Our flight from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Chicago’s O’Hare airport landed right on time. We were connecting there to a flight back home to Cleveland after being in Iowa for a couple of days for a family get-together.

The two wheelchairs we had requested were waiting on the jetway just outside the plane’s door. Friendly “pushers” helped us get into them and on our way. We were particularly glad for their assistance because we had to go from one concourse to another, always a long walk at O’Hare. They found places for us to sit at our new gate, tucked in among a crowd waiting to board a plane for somewhere other than Cleveland. We settled into our two-hour layover.

Shortly after the plane to somewhere else departed, I received a text that our flight would be slightly delayed so passengers from an incoming flight could make their connection. Not happy news, but not too bad either. For us, as for most of the people on our flight, Cleveland was our final destination. A short delay for the benefit of others was no problem.

We got a bite to eat from one of O’Hare’s over-priced vendors. We also had to change gates, fortunately just to the next one over. We waited a little longer, and began boarding—a process that always seems to take longer than it should.

From what I could tell from my seat near the front of coach, everyone was finally seated. But then the passenger for whom our plane had been delayed came on board, pushed in one of those special wheelchairs airlines use to bring handicapped passengers into the plane, first through business class, and then down the narrower coach aisle.

I felt a little sorry he had arrived so late that he had not been able to “pre-board” (as they call it) with people like us. His need was clearly visible. As he was pushed toward the back of the plane, I thought a shame he didn’t have a seat up front, closer to mine.

His attendant walked back up the aisle and out. I thought that was that. But a moment later a second person in a wheelchair was rolled in, again toward the back of the cabin. Now I realized that the two passengers were probably severely disabled. They barely moved and hardly seemed to be reacting to where they were and their situation.

About the third late-arriving passenger I noticed “Paralyzed Veterans of America” sewn into their attendant’s shirt. The procession up the aisle consisted of men and women who, I presume, had suffered paralyzing injuries in war.

Altogether around a dozen men and women were in the little parade of vets though the tight space of coach on our United 737. I am sure each of them touched people on both sides of the aisle as they came through. Each of them must have required expertise and extra time to be seated and buckled in and ready to fly to Cleveland with us.

I have no idea why there were so many paralyzed vets on our flight. I wondered what it would have taken to seat them all in first class—probably far more money than either they or the Paralyzed Veterans of America could afford. To seat them in first would have been a generous gesture on the part of United, although perhaps they did not expect or want any special treatment other than what they absolutely needed.

If those men and women had been in a real parade—say, on Veterans’ Day, under a blue sky with bands playing Sousa and Old Glory waving—I suppose they would have heard the applause and cheers of the spectators as they rode by on their specially-constructed vehicle. But coming down that narrow aisle one at a time in wheelchairs, they were celebrated by our silence, perhaps appropriately. We were not prepared for this. We dared not complain about any delay. We had to think about them and the sacrifice they had made for us and for our country, and to offer whatever prayer of gratitude welled up in our hearts.

—————-

As I reflect on the parade of vets I witnessed on our way home from a Myers family gathering, I remember that ours is not a family of warriors. That may go back to what we believe were our first Myers settlers in this country. They were of Swiss German origin, and were River Brethren Christians, one of the offshoots of the anabaptist movement that refused to recognize any earthly sovereign or to bear arms against another human being…basically, pacifists. One of my distant relatives is said to have gotten in trouble for refusing to pay taxes to support the American revolutionary cause.

Some family members have served in the military and thus are veterans, but I know of no career military people on either side of my family. One of my cousins is married to a retired naval officer, but that’s about as close as we come to that kind of heritage.

We are also, I believe, a relatively healthy lot. My Myers grandparents bore 6 children, who in turn bore 16 grandchildren—my cousins and me. As far as I know, we were all healthy kids. I am, at 80, the oldest. Four of us have now died, including one of my two brothers. But chronic illness and disability are rare chapters in our family story. I am grateful for that, of course.

So, how do I understand—if I can understand it at all—people like those paralyzed vets traveling on that plane with us? I am not sure I can. Yes, I use a cane, and am now being wheeled through airports. But that’s just life.

Perhaps I can only be in awe that those paralyzed vets survive as they do, and make sure they have all the space they need to get along as best they can in life. And be grateful to them.

The thought of America beckons...

I am grateful to my friend Carl Jenks for the following, and I pray the wind is still with us so that we hold our course:

Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was not primarily a political poet, but his work is dotted with words that seem to speak very directly to us today, even when written many years ago: 

. . . Praise to this land for our power to change it,

To confess our misdoings, to mend what we can, 

To learn what we mean and to make it the law,

To become what we said we were going to be.

Praise to our peoples, who came as strangers,

Who more and more have been shaped into one

Like a great statue brought over in pieces, 

Its hammered copper bolted together,

Anchored by rods in the continent’s rock,

With a core of iron, and a torch atop it. . . . .

Not that the graves of our dead are quiet,

Nor justice done, nor our journey over.

We are immigrants still, who travel in time,

Bound where the thought of America beckons;

But we hold our course, and the wind is with us. 

From “Like a Great Statue”, Part III of “On Freedom’s Ground:
A Cantata” (premiered by composer William Schuman in 1986 on the one-hundredth anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty). 

Beware Christian Nationalism

I recently saw the following on Facebook. It is from a sermon Swiss theologian Karl Barth preached in August of 1914, three weeks into the first World War. It is an appropriate word of caution should we be tempted by any appeal to Christian nationalism.

"It is simply out of the question that God 'helps' the Germans or the French or the English. God does not even 'help' us Swiss. God helps justice and love. God helps the kingdom of heaven, and that exists across all national boundaries. 'God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth' (John 4:24). The foolish mixing of patriotism, war enthusiasm, and Christian faith could one day lead to the bitterest disappointment. 'He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision' (Ps. 2:4). We will not join in drinking this intoxicating potion. We want to look steadfastly and unwaveringly here to God, who loves everyone equally, who is above all the nations, from whom all have similarly departed, and from whose glory they have fallen short (see Rom. 3:23) -- the God who in like manner wants to draw all people to himself and gather them under the rule of his good and holy will."

Issue 1 is not about abortion!

Ohio Issue 1, the proposed constitutional amendment that would make it nearly impossible for Ohio citizens to initiate and pass new amendments, is not about abortion. It is about our rights and powers as citizens of this state.

It sounds as if it’s about abortion because our gerrymandered and therefore unrepresentative Republican-dominated legislature fears the voice of the people regarding reproductive rights. If the proposed constitutional amendment supporting such rights gets on the ballot in November, they are terrified that a majority of Ohioans will vote for it. So they make the August 8 election about abortion because they want to divert the attention of those who are opposed to abortion to the long-term and wider consequences of Issue 1’s passage.

Suppose Issue 1 passes. If next year you were part of a group of citizens that came together to propose an amendment to deny reproductive rights, you would face the same impossible hurdles our legislature and governor want you to place in front of this fall’s amendment securing those rights. The same would be true of any other matter you would ever want to bring to the voters.

What we must not forget is that this amendment came from the legislature itself, not from the people. It came from men and women who are afraid of us, the people, and of our opinions and wishes. Passing Issue 1 will make it nearly impossible for the citizens of Ohio even to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot, much less to pass it, no matter what it’s about.

Issue 1 is not really about abortion. It is about the Ohio Republican establishment’s absolute fear of the will of the majority. It is no way to run a democracy. Vote NO on Issue 1!

Not crows, but not robins either

Spring’s serenity outside our den’s window was shattered recently by the caws of crows and the sounds of struggle.

My wife and I turned to look. A crow was pinning a robin to the ground with its beak. The robin seemed to be struggling a bit, although it was hard to tell whether it was moving on its own or being shaken by the crow. Then the crow flew up, carrying its prey a few yards farther before landing again. That happened one more time, the contending pair coming down too far away to see them clearly. I assume the crow got its meal.

The two were not the only actors on the scene. Five or six of each of their species darted and flew and called through the air, apparently encouraging them the way fans at a boxing match cheer on their favorite. Did the spectators carry lingering feelings of victory or of loss home with them after it was all over?

The robin and the crow are perhaps two of the most common and universally recognized of birds. We grow up being taught to know robins when we see them, and that they are signs of spring. They make their way across our yards listening for and consuming bugs and worms we cannot see, so feel little sympathy for. We sing songs and recite poems about them, and celebrate the blue of their eggs. Robins are good, the more the merrier.

Crows, on the other hand, eat flesh we see sprawled out on our streets, and make a really ugly sound. Plus, to their ever-lasting shame, they are as black as Darth Vader, not to mention as people who are by some wrongly regarded as inferior. Crows are bad, and we’d rather not have them around.

Because we humans have loaded robins and crows with conflicting moral values, it is tempting to assign moral judgment to what Maxine and I witnessed: The bad crow killed and then ate the poor, innocent robin.

But nature, operating without human interference or judgment, is not subtle about moral good nor moral bad. The natural world’s ethical norms are no more refined than those suggested in the razor-sharp dichotomy of eat or be eaten. Extended to entire species, eat or be eaten becomes reproduce or go extinct. To the extent nature itself measures good and bad, survival, whether at the moment or in the future, sums it up.

What the crow did was good for the crow. What happened to the robin was bad for the robin.

Something fundamental to humans—something animal, if you will—is attracted by the clarity of an ethic of eat or be eaten, of reproduce or go extinct. In this ethic, living is all about me, and perhaps about people like me. If another gets hurt or exterminated in the process, that’s too bad. It’s the way things are. It’s much easier to be a crow if you do not have to consider the interests of the robin. You probably sleep better at night.

But something else in us is repelled by that kind of ethic. As appealing as it is to make ethics and morality a series of stark contrasts between what’s good and what’s bad, we know it is not enough. Consideration of the other must play an important role in our decision-making when it comes to right and wrong or we become something less than human. We become inhuman, and do and participate in deeds of inhumanity.

When we consider ourselves or those like us to embody all that’s good, and people other than ourselves or unlike us to embody all evil and therefore to have no claim upon us, our ethic is for the birds.

Memorial Day follow-up

As we usually do, last weekend Maxine and I watched the PBS-sponsored Memorial Day Remembrance. We appreciate it for the performances (even though we know few of the performers), but more for the stories of heroism and sacrifice that are told.

I was particularly moved this year by hearing again what our POWs in Vietnam went through. Surely there were times when they must have wondered if it would have been better to have been killed than to suffer as they were.

The piece about World War II reminded me that it was about preventing a racist and ruthless tyranny from overtaking human existence and history. WWII was about preserving democracy, in all its inherent messiness, as the preferred means of human governance. My life would have been very, very different than it has been if the Allies had not won.

I am deeply grateful to the men and women who gave completely of themselves so that I have been able to enjoy the one life I dare call my own.

At the same time, it seems to me that the decisive fights for human dignity and freedom are waged not on battlefields, but in the halls of government and the court rooms of justice, and usually in times of peace. Military victories that save us from others must be secured and preserved in the political work of those we elect to serve us. If they do not do that work, the war dead will have died in vain.

If I get it right, soldiers must know—deeply—that the battle is not about them. It is about a larger and more inclusive us, and they—the soldiers—are players in a larger enterprise whose goal is the survival of some still larger enterprise. That is the only way their willingness to sacrifice their lives makes sense. Otherwise, why do it? Why join the fight at all if your only concern is preserving yourself?

So if we celebrate soldiers who have sacrificed everything for us, should not we who are beneficiaries of their sacrifices be willing to sacrifice as well? They served. Should not we?

A renewed sense of service and sacrifice could help us get back to the business of being one nation of liberty and justice for all. Our elected political leaders can show us the way by their examples. What we choose them to do is not about them, or their success. It is about us and our flourishing, together.

When our public servants speak and act to call attention to themselves as if they alone could save us, or to crassly appeal only to their subsection of the populace, they encourage us all to flail about, punching at ghosts and apparitions, instead of confronting realities. It’s a fight we all will lose.

To lead us is to serve us, and to serve our nation is to serve as many of us as possible for the good of all of us. Leaders who serve and sacrifice honor those we remember on Memorial Day more than all grand parades, passionate speeches, and waving flags.