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.

Pentecost's Wings

We were just about ready to leave home for our church’s Pentecost service—wearing a bit of red so we’d fit in and stand out—when I heard that awful thud against our patio door’s glass that told me a bird had smashed into it. A soft feather was stuck to the glass, and below it, a few feet from the door and on the concrete, lay the victim. Its back was toward us. I am guessing it was a young robin.

It made a couple of pathetic moves, then lay still. I was quite certain it was dead. But it was time for us to leave home. I figured I’d have to do something with the corpse when we came back.

When we returned, the bird was gone. No sign of it. As if nothing had happened.

Had the body been carried off by another animal, a scavenger? Crows and hawks nest in the trees behind our house. Or perhaps a turkey vulture had swooped down from soaring high above to claim its meal.

Or what if, after a few still moments of repose, the robin had caught its breath again? What if it was as good as dead for a time until it was able to right itself and spread its wings and fly away on its own power?

I will never know who took wing from our patio while I was reciting a Pentecost liturgy in a church somewhere.