Clouds of Mourning, Sunbreaks of Grace

My wife received the call on Monday afternoon.

It was the Monday of a busy finals week for me, but the day had gone well. My department had met for our traditional finals week lunch, sharing Mexican food and stories and laughter. The scheduled all-morning Faculty Senate meeting had mercifully been canceled, allowing me to make some additional progress on my grading. If my luck held, I thought, I might be able to get all my papers graded before my final exams. Maybe, just maybe, I could grade those finals by commencement on Saturday when I could begin enjoying my four-week break early.

Then the call that changed everything came.

It was Janet's brother. He said the staff at the assisted living facility had been concerned about their dad. Monte's speech was slurred, and he seemed listless, struggling even to sit upright in his chair. Mark had taken him to Mercy Hospital emergency room, and they began the evaluation. Hospice had been called and would be there the next morning.

I remembered the calls I had received about my parents. Though they were some years ago, I could recall clearly the circumstances and the setting when each call came. When my brother said, "we've talked to hospice and they said you should come."

When you live 2000 miles away, those calls initiate not only a flurry of activity but lots of anxiety. Will I get there on time? Will I get there, stay for a week when nothing changes, then have to return?

The next day we got the second call. We learned Monte had been sleeping a lot since entering the hospital. The hospice people were saying it could be days, it could be two weeks. This information was not very helpful, but as we talked about what to do, it became clear that Janet needed to get there ASAP.  We changed our reservations from Saturday to the next day, Wednesday. I immediately began making arrangements with work study students and colleagues to proctor my finals scheduled for the next couple of days. We started packing, rescheduling appointments.

Then the third call came. Janet was in our bedroom when she got the news from her brother that her dad had passed--peacefully, thank God--but also much more quickly than any of us had expected. He would have been 93 on his January birthday, had lived a long, full life. The last year and a half since his stroke had been hard. Janet tried to take comfort in the fact that her dad was no longer weak and struggling.

The next 24 hours brought a flurry of activity interspersed with tears and hugs. We asked our youngest son, Garrison, to go with us if he could get off work, and he said he could. Before we knew it, we were in the back of an airporter van, beginning the trip south.

In my experience, saying goodbye to a parent is one of the hardest things on earth. For me, this was the third time: first my mom, then my dad, and now, Janet's dad. No matter the age or circumstances, when it comes, it seems an event of enormous proportion. It's not an eventuality most of us prepare for because we think, contrary to reason, that our parents will always be there for us. And unlike mourning the death of a friend, when it's a parent, there's that sense of responsibility, the feeling that the mantle is being passed on to us--and we realize there's no way we are ready to take on that role.

Grief is a fickle emotion. It comes in waves and it arrives at unexpected moments. I can remember when my mom died, my dad had asked me to call several old friends who were out of town and tell them about her death and inform them about the memorial service. I was doing fine until I was on the phone with Barbara, one of Mom's good friends. In the middle of telling her about the time and date of the service, I broke down and cried, blubbering, unable to continue talking.

When I returned from Kansas and began the spring semester at the small college where I taught, I thought getting back to work would help. I would be fine, I told myself. I've had a week to grieve; now it's time to get on with life. But I was mistaken. At a college of 350, you know everyone and everyone knows you. Students are friends, as are fellow faculty members. So I couldn't walk across the courtyard to my classes without having conversations, and each conversation brought back the loss of my mom to the top of my consciousness, unearthing feelings I didn't even know existed. I realized that grief does not contain itself in a week or two week's break. It continues coming in waves and according to its own rhythms.

Yet in the midst of mourning, this trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas reminded me, there are moments of grace, moments that interrupt the grief and bring joy and healing. Some are sad moments but they carry a weight of meaning that we don't often experience in our day-to-day existence. Here's some of the moments I'll remember:

• Phoning my pastor. Hearing the caring and compassion in her voice. The comfort I took from her prayer over the phone with me. Knowing that my family and I would be in the thoughts and prayers of many good people.
• Emails and hallway conversations with my colleagues at school. Their ready offers to proctor finals or help in other ways. The comfort of knowing we were not alone.
• Asking one of my classes to email their final papers rather than leaving a hard copy in my mailbox, which I would not be around to receive. (For some reason, I thought I would be able to grade papers on the trip. Silly me!) My students not only sent their papers but expressed their sorrow at my loss and made thoughtful comments about how they were praying for me and my family.
• In Oklahoma, being welcomed upon our late-night arrival to Janet's brother and sister-in-law's home where our beds were ready and when I went to the kitchen the next morning, I saw the Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter Beth had left for me. (It's my favorite brand of peanut butter, but it's hard to come by in Oregon.)
• Janet and Mark's first hug, sharing for the first time, in the flesh, the reality of their dad's departure. Mark's obvious relief that his sister was there.
• After the 6-hour drive to Arkansas, being welcomed into the farmhouse home of Janet's aunt and uncle. Sitting at their kitchen table as multiple grandfather clocks chimed the hours and minutes, writing down what I would say about Janet's dad at the chapel and graveside service the next day. 
• The country breakfast ready for us when we woke up Saturday: eggs, bacon, biscuits with homemade apple butter and jellies--with all the coffee and tea we could drink.
• Not long after that hearty breakfast, a potluck lunch for the family at the church building with fried chicken, ham, potatoes, green beans, pie because, as Janet said, the way you show love to people in these parts is by feeding them.
• The joyful, tearful reunions between Janet and her aunts and uncles and cousins.
• The shared stories by family and friends at the memorial service of their memories of Monte. One of his grandsons, a Navy man, had difficulty sharing through his tears but, more meaningful than his words perhaps was when he turned to Monte's casket and saluted his grandfather, a WWII veteran.
• The funny and poignant stories sent by our son from South Korea, which Janet read, including the story about when Pops was teaching him to ride a bike and Jackson wanted to ride barefoot and Pops told him if he did his toe would get stuck in the concrete, this being warning enough to ensure that he would never ride a bike barefoot again.
• Hearing stories about Monte as a child from his three surviving sisters including one about his teasing the girls in high school by hiding a mirror from them.
• At the graveside, hearing Taps blown by the military honor guard--complete with a cow in the field next to the cemetery mooing along.
• Watching Garrison and his two cousins serve as pallbearers, carrying their Pops on the last leg of his earthly journey.
• The mercy of a dry, sunny day for the graveside service after it had rained hard all day on Friday.
• At the close of the graveside service, Janet asking the family members to join hands and sing "Silent Night." With Christmas being a few days away, she thought singing together about peace and new birth an appropriate way to end this day of mourning and celebration for a good man--a loving son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather--and so we did and so it was.
• On the return trip, stopping by the Tulsa neighborhood we used to live in and seeing the house that Janet designed and had built, remembering those times when our kids were young and fed the ducks in the pond in that neighborhood.
• Back in Oklahoma, at Starbucks, having a chance meeting with some best friends from our Tulsa days. Spending an hour remembering good times with Darryl and Cathy and their four kids and our three and catching up on what all our kids were up to now. 

Each of these moments was like a sunbreak--a word I only learned when I moved from Oklahoma to the Pacific Northwest. There's not much need for the word in the Southwest where the sun shines pretty much all the time. But, in Oregon, where most any day from November to June can be cloudy and grey, it's a word that comes in handy.

When I served as academic dean at a small college in Portland, my office window looked out onto the soccer field. Most days during the spring semester, the soccer field was empty or, at best, home to a few birds. But when a sunbreak came, I could look out my window and be sure to see lots of 18-21-year-olds, throwing frisbees and footballs or just sitting on a blanket talking, reveling in the warmth of the sun.

It seems to be human nature to appreciate those events that seldom come: Like sun in winter in the Pacific Northwest. Like times when we can express our appreciation for the life of a loved one. Those times, as Shakespeare said, where we speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. Those times, like Christmas, when we can sing Silent Night and reflect on birth, and death, and love that never ends.

The Road Goes Ever On and On

Just over a week ago, my wife, Janet, and I drove from our home near Portland, OR, to Washington's Olympic National Forest where we dropped our son, Garrison, at the Bogachiel trail head. We said our goodbyes and wished him happy trails, knowing that we wouldn't see him again for about six weeks. In a few minutes he would be taking his first steps down the trail on a solo backpacking journey that would span many miles and numerous campgrounds, where he would eat lots of beef jerky and Clif bars, see incredible sights, and (his parents hoped) not have an up close and personal encounter with a bear or a cougar.

Garrison had begun planning this trip months ago after deciding to leave the winery where he had been working for over two years. He left his apartment in McMinnville and moved in with us in Newberg for a few months to save money for his trip. His plan was to work at his current job until early July and then take about six weeks off before beginning a new one.

I learned from observing Garrison that a journey like this takes lots of preparation. He spent many hours researching on the Internet, learning about the trail, downloading park maps, reading the stories of other backpackers and their experiences. He learned that the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) was a rugged 1,200 mile path spanning Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Most hikers begin in Glacier National Park in Montana and hike westward to the Washington coast, ending in the Olympic National Park. But he decided to take the opposite route, beginning in Washington and ending--well, wherever he has time to get to in six weeks. He won't be able to complete the entire 1,200 miles in that time frame. It made sense to me that he chose the opposite route of most hikers. Garrison's always been his own person and frequently makes choices that the rest of the family didn't see coming. As his older brother, Jackson, once said: the one thing you can count on with Garrison is that he will surprise you.

In addition to researching the trip, Garrison spent time training to be sure he had the stamina to walk 16-22 miles per day. Almost every weekend between April and June, he found trails from near Portland to the coast where he could do practice hikes. As the date drew closer he made several trips to REI for equipment he needed--including a GPS device so he could message us from the trail, allowing his mom to  keep track of his longitudes and latitudes. Though I had moments of apprehension about his doing this trip alone, I was somewhat comforted by the extent of his preparation and training. Suffice it to say that he was much, much better prepared than Cheryl Strayed was for her Pacific Crest Trail hike recorded in her memoir Wild.

So the day finally came. Garrison packed all the possessions he would have for the next six weeks and hoisted his backpack in our living room, testing the weight.

We loaded the Outback and, after a final stop at REI, headed up I-5. Janet and I were excited about our trip as well. Though we've lived in Oregon for 24 years, we've never been to the part of Washington where we would be driving today. I was excited to see Forks, WA, where the Twilight novels were based. Though I've never read the books, as an English prof, I'm always up for a literary landmark. I got the obligatory tourist picture by the sign.

As we drove on the beautiful road leading to Port Angeles, by Sequim with its lavender farms, and into the Olympic National Forest and its dense trees, I was surprised at how much this journey of Garrion's was affecting me. It was his journey, after all. Janet and I were just his means of transportation. Yet having observed him plan so carefully for something that obviously meant a lot to him, I felt I had become, if only vicariously, part of this adventure. And it was an adventure, a challenge--far different than a weekend at the beach. He never said, but I wondered if this was his way of testing and challenging himself. I certainly admired his resolve, moreso because it was something I would never have had the courage to do. When I was his age (he'll turn 29 in October) I was trying to complete my personal challenge of getting my Ph.D. by the time I was 30.

William Butler Yeats says somewhere that our lives are like a spiral staircase. As we wind closer to the top, we can look down and mark points in our lives that feel similar to what we're currently experiencing. So a grandfather might look down and recall that turn on the staircase when he first became a father. Maybe that's what I was doing, reading my own experience into my son's. I can tell you this: if you gave me the choice of completing another doctorate or going on a solo six-week backpacking trip, I would immediately begin researching seminaries!

As we drove toward Port Angeles, my mind turned to the summer online literature and philosophy course I was teaching and to a text called Christians Among the Virtues. The authors, Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches, after discussing Aristotle's theories of happiness, suggest that it's useful to think of our lives as a journey rather than as a trip. Around the time Garrison moved in with us and told us about his plans, I had read these words in my course text:

When we go on a trip, we know well where we are going, roughly how long it will take to get there, what preparations to make, and so on. When we undertake a journey, we often have only a hazy idea of where we are going, how long it will take, or how to prepare.

The authors go on to note that virtues are required for a journey but not for a trip. Well, there was no doubt in my mind that Janet and I were on a trip (to Port Angeles and back home to Newberg) while our son was embarking on a journey--a journey that would test his virtues and his mettle and one in which there would likely be twists and turns and revisions along the way. This last point was confirmed when Garrison visited with a park ranger who looked at his trail plan and informed him that two of the campgrounds where he had planned to spend the night had been washed out and were closed. So even before he started, he had to revise the plan.  I also had no doubt that not only his plans but Garrison himself would be changed by this journey.

I was also thinking of the last two books we had read in my summer online course: Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. I've always identified with the Bilbo at the beginning of the book more than the Bilbo that emerges at the end of his adventure with Gandalf and the dwarves. This tells you a lot about me, of course, that I resonate more with the comfort loving, second-breakfast eating, "Adventures make one late for dinner" Bilbo than with the spider-taming, master thief, courageous Bilbo. It also struck me how much of the narrative content of both books is basically the recounting of a long backpacking trip. Of course, the hobbits and their companions encounter extraordinary obstacles on their journey, but at least they have Gandalf watching out for them once in awhile. It's amazing how much literature involves a journey and that the external journey is always less important than the internal journey of the hero. Somehow I wasn't surprised when Garrison told me on the ride up to Olympic that one of the audio books he'd downloaded for the trail was The Lord of the Rings.

After the Forks photo op, we wound our way further into the park and located the even curvier gravel road that led to the trail head. It felt like we were leaving civilization far behind as we went deeper and deeper into the forest. I thought about the quiet and solitude that Garrison would be experiencing over the next few weeks and was grateful that he's someone who's always needed his alone time and his space. (He's not even on Facebook, for goodness sakes, which is why I have to do posts to let his friends know about what he's up to.) And I thought of the beauties of nature he would experience and was grateful that he's always loved, like his mother and older brother, the outdoors. He told me when he was graduating from college that working a 9 to 5 job in a cubicle in an office building was pretty much the worst fate he could imagine. I was grateful too, I guess, or trying my best to be grateful, that he was the type of man who would plan and execute such an adventure--though I wonder where it came from. There must be some long-lost ancestor adventurer on Janet's side of the family he takes after. Like Bilbo, whose unhobbitlike wanderlust was attributed to his Tookish blood, there has to be some explanation.

After taking a few last family photos, we said goodbye and wished our son happy trails.

Janet and I retraced our path over the winding road back to civilization. I was feeling lots of emotions: a little sadness that I wouldn't be able to drink coffee with Garrison in the mornings and talk about his plans, a little concern, hoping he wouldn't run into danger or injury on the trail, and lots of admiration and pride that my son was doing this hard thing. I realized it wouldn't really matter if he completes his original plan. If he decides to catch the train back to Oregon in two weeks, he will still have done a remarkable thing. He will have seen things in nature and in himself that he will remember for the rest of his life. As Gandalf says of Frodo, there is more to him than meets the eye; there will be still more to Garrison, when he returns, changed, from this journey.

          The Road goes ever on and on
                  Down from the door where it began.
          Now far ahead the Road has gone,
                 And I must follow, if I can,
          Pursuing it with weary feet,
                 Until it joins some larger way,
          Where many paths and errands meet.
                 And whither then? I cannot say.

C. S. Lewis on Patriotism

 In chapter two of The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis recalls a conversation with an old clergyman who was maintaining, with patriotic fervor, the superiority of England over all other countries. Lewis ventured a challenge: "But, sir, aren't we told that every people thinks its own men the bravest and its own women the fairest in the world?" The clergyman replied with total gravity (as grave, Lewis says, as if he had been saying the Creed at the altar) "Yes, but in England it's true."

This anecdote seems instructive for our time in the United States as we hear renewed calls for patriotism, demands for forced respect for the flag and an anthem, and insistence that, apparently, America has lost its place in the world as the most powerful nation and must be returned to its former glory.

In confusing, perplexing, and, frankly, scary times like these, it helps me to return to Lewis's voice. While I don't always agree with every idea expressed by Lewis, I can count on him to bring a reasoned and analytical approach to any question--and to do so from a perspective that is thoroughly Christian. One of Lewis's friends called him the most thoroughly converted man he had ever met, so it was impossible for Lewis to examine any realm of life without bringing a theological perspective to bear.

With that, here's a few gems about patriotism I learned from Lewis in my latest reading of The Four Loves.

• First, Lewis thought patriotism a topic worth considering in some detail. In a 24 page chapter on the "Likings and Loves for the Sub-Human" Lewis spends 9 of those pages discussing patriotism.
• Lewis suggests that patriotism is complex and has several elements, pointing out that two very different writers--Kipling and Chesterton--expressed it vigorously.
• Lewis sees clearly both the values and dangers of patriotism. Returning to the story of the patriotic clergyman, we should note that Lewis grants that the clergyman's conviction has not made him a villain, "only an extremely lovable old ass." But he immediately warns that the same conviction (the firm belief that our own nation, in sober fact, has long been, and still is markedly superior to all others) can produce asses that kick and bite. Lewis even notes: "on the lunatic fringe it may shade off into that popular Racialism which Christianity and science equally forbid."
• Lewis notes that this dangerous patriotism is often based on a distorted view of our country's past. Lewis states: "The actual history of every country is full of shabby and even shameful doings," yet the patriot tends to ignore the shameful past, preferring heroic stories which cast the country in the best possible light--in spite of the fact that the glorious past celebrated is open to serious historical criticism. (Think of Trump's recent statement about our ancestors "taming" a continent.) To be fair, Lewis believes it is possible to be strengthened by the image of the past, but warns: "The image becomes dangerous in the precise degree to which it is mistaken, or substituted, for serious and systematic historical study."
• As he does throughout the book, Lewis constantly reminds us that love of country (like all loves) becomes a demon when it becomes a god.
• Lewis reminds us of another danger: "if our nation is really so much better than others it may be held to have either the duties or the rights of a superior being towards them." As evidence, Lewis cites the colonialism of Great Britain, noting "our habit of talking as if England's motives for acquiring an empire . . . had been mainly altruistic nauseated the world."
• In summary, Lewis takes a balanced view of patriotism. He does not reject it entirely and sees cultural and social value in it. Yet he closes the chapter with some extremely strong statements about the dangers of equating our country's cause with God's, noting "if our country's cause is the cause of God, wars must be wars of annihilation. A false transcendence is given to things which are very much of this world." 
• Finally, Lewis closes the chapter with a bold statement about what can happen when the church mingles patriotism with the transcendent claims of the church and uses them to justify abominable actions. 

If ever a book which I am not going to write is written it must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom's specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery. Large areas of 'the World' will not hear us till we have publicly disowned much of our past. Why should they? We have shouted the name of Christ and enacted the service of Moloch.

Now this is not a quote from Lewis that I've seen made into a meme and posted on Facebook! But perhaps it should be. I hope Lewis's reasoned, common sense approach and Christian worldview can help us navigate the troubled waters we find ourselves in today. Lewis, of course, is not writing about the American situation, but his definitions and warnings seem more relevant every day.

Happy Independence Day!

The Paradox of the Cross

“For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” I Corinthians 1:25^*

Before the gospel is good news, it is paradox, so when Paul describes the cross of Christ, the only way he can do so is with paradoxical statements: foolishness is greater than wisdom and weakness is better than strength. Might as well say green is yellow and down is up!

In our world, from sports to entertainment to business, we love and celebrate winners. We don’t waste our time on the losers—in fact, we ignore them. Who can recall the loser of the last year’s Super Bowl?

In King Lear, Shakespeare pictures a world is which the philosophy of winning at all costs has prevailed. The characters who seem to be winning are those like Regan and Goneril and Edmund who are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and bully to gain power. By contrast, the characters like Kent and Edgar and Cordelia who demonstrate love and loyalty and self-sacrifice appear weak and ineffectual—in short, losers. Paradoxically, the characters who appear to be weak and foolish by human standards are strong and wise when measured by divine standards. As Lear says of Cordelia’s death, “with such sacrifices the gods are pleased.”

Paul, it seems, wants to encourage his readers in Corinth not to view Jesus’s death on the cross as a loss, but rather as a victory—one that demonstrated once and for all the rejection of the values of power and violence in favor of those values that Jesus lived: welcome, acceptance, inclusion, and self-sacrificial love. It demonstrated once and for all that love conquers hate, that the foolishness of God is wiser than the world’s wisdom and that the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Loving God, grant us a clear vision so we may reject the violence and abuse of power so evident in our world and practice instead your radical welcome and self-sacrificial love. Amen.

^*Third Sunday of Lent