A Wistful Affection

My daughter-in-law Becky has been planning and prepping for her high school reunion for months. It’s been ten years since the strains of Pomp and Circumstance filled the air in Jerome, Pennsylvania, as the relieved graduates claimed their hard-earned diplomas. Many have relocated in search of opportunities not available in their coal belt town, but they’ve returned this weekend with spouses and new babies in tow, for turkey at the family table and reconnection with their classmates at Saturday’s reunion. At ten years, they’ll still recognize each other, and they’ll share the old stories of their high school escapades and the new stories of their post-high school lives.

Nostalgia is defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. We all feel it from time to time, particularly at reunions or the Thanksgiving table, even when those memories carry with them a mix of happy and unhappy associations. I’ve had a week of nostalgia myself, beginning last weekend with a reunion at the Canton Salvation Army corps we pastored for nine years prior to coming to Ashland. Oh, how those old stories rolled off our tongues. How good to be together again.

Thanksgiving brought its own gift of nostalgia. Because of the demands of the Christmas kettle work of The Salvation Army, we seldom spent Thanksgiving with our extended family, opting instead to gather our own children around our table. We’d call home to talk with the grandparents – and now we’re the grandparents! This year, as our daughter-in-law’s family joined us, four generations bowed in a prayer of thanksgiving, and then proceeded to devour the turkey, mashed potatoes, and a dozen side dishes – and pie! And this year, it was our son’s turn to call home from Pennsylvania.

The news that a deeply-loved friend is seriously ill also came this week. We spent time together nearly every week in the early 80s, and although we’ve been separated by hundreds of miles for more than thirty years, our hearts are with them today. 

A final reminder came in a message from Juanita Evege Stanford, an Ashland native now serving with The Salvation Army at the Kroc Center in Philadelphia. She visited a young woman in her congregation, and as they chatted, our names came into the conversation. The woman reached for a well-used Bible, showing Juanita the inscription from 1989: presented to Gwynette by Captain and Mrs. Lawrence Shade. As I remember, our house was somewhat of a chaotic mess in those days, but she spoke of being welcomed into our home and hearts in a way that has stayed with her all these years.  

This sense of nostalgia has been accompanied by a wistfulness, a sorrow for the empty chairs, the loss of those claimed by death, and a longing for those separated by disconnection.Yetit has also come with a deepening sense of appreciation for the life I’ve been privileged to live, and for the people I’ve been blessed to know and love, who have known me and loved me in return. Parker Palmer puts it this way: “When I think back on the many people who have been so generous toward me, I never think of money or ‘things.’ Instead, I think of the way they gave me their presence, their confidence, their affirmation, support and blessing – all gifts of ‘self’ that any of us can give.” Even if the house is messy!

In 1906, William Booth, the General of The Salvation Army, wrote a letter to those serving in ministry. It began: “My Dear Comrades. You are the joy of my life today.” It goes without saying (although I must say it) that the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday are at the top of the “joy of my life” list, but there are so many others, in Ashland, Canton, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Dover, Binghamton, Tonawanda, and literally scattered around the world. You, my dear ones, and you, my faithful readers, are the joy of my life. In response, I’m embracing Wendell Berry’s challenge: “Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Grateful for the memories.

Remembering What Cannot Be Forgotten

I sat in front of a young veteran at church this past Sunday. As he and his children prepared to leave, they had quite the discussion about where they should go for dinner, as many local restaurants offered free meals on Veteran’s Day for those who served our country. 

Who are these men and women who spent time in the military, voluntarily or conscripted into service? Their images flooded my Facebook feed throughout the weekend, as family members posted photos of Great-great-uncle Otto, a fresh-faced lad in World War I, and Grandma June, one of the 11,000 women who served during the Vietnam era, 90% of them as nurses. How did their days in the military mold and mark them? 

I’ve been working with my friend Cindy to publish a shoebox full of letters her father sent home from his days in the Army, 1944-46. When she initially asked me, I was quick to agree, unaware of how close to home the letters would come. My own father left the Buffalo area when drafted at nineteen in 1943, a year before my friend’s dad took his first bus ride as a member of the military. Unlike her treasured pages, Frank Streeter’s letters home were lost or discarded at some point over the last seventy years. I’m envious of Cindy’s preserved shoebox, as I saw no letters and hesitated to ask questions, leaving me with little knowledge of my dad’s service. 

I’m grateful for this glimpse of wartime life as described by the young boy from Kenmore, who grew up a few miles from my dad’s boyhood home. Themes running through his correspondence likely echoed in letters home from more than sixteen million military members who served in that terrible time, including my dad.

While I knew that many young men enlisted or were drafted during wartime, I was staggered at how young Duncan Tutton and his fellow soldiers were. When Duncan signed up for military service, he was seventeen. At nineteen, my dad was elderly in comparison, but still an adolescent. Duncan’s early letters were filled with a blend of a teen’s naiveté and bravado, which, as time went on, transitioned into boredom, uncertainty, and a longing for home not fully satisfied by a tin of his mom’s cookies. Neither Duncan nor my dad saw duty on the battlefield, but experienced the remnants of war in occupied Japan and the Philippines .

It’s tempting to glamorize the experiences of veterans, honoring them with a steak dinner or a whispered “thanks for your service,” but the stark reality is two-fold: many never return from war-time, and others are irreversibly changed by what they’ve seen, heard, and felt. The numbers alone are mind-numbing. During World War II, sixteen million men and women served in the military, 291,557 were killed in combat, with 113,842 non-theater deaths. In what remains the most tragic war of my lifetime, more than eight million people served during the Vietnam conflict, with 3,403,000 “in theater,” the rice paddies of Vietnam, not the Riviera or the Palace. The names lost to that war are inscribed on a wall in Washington; the names of those we’ve since lost to trauma and its attendant challenges are inscribed on the hearts of families across the country.

Writing home from Osaka, Japan on Christmas Eve 1945, PFC Tutton expressed wisdom beyond his years: “It sure feels funny writing ‘Christmas Eve’ on a letter home and I hope I never have to do it again. I’m about the only one here in dayroom tonight writing a letter. I guess the rest are out someplace; some getting drunk, maybe to try and forget . . . Somehow this is all I want to do tonight, that and go to church at eleven o’clock. I don’t want to forget this night, strange as it may sound. I want to remember it a long time, at least long enough to make sure it never happens again if I can help it.”

I’m grateful to those who served and to those who serve today. Yet I too resolve with young Duncan Tutton, and I believe my dad as well, to remember what cannot be forgotten. 

Anticipation

Anticipation. Carly Simon’s hit song tells of the waiting game: “We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway.” While Carly sang about a romantic relationship, the drawn-out “an-ti-ci-pa-a-tion” is a common characteristic of humanity. We wait, with excitement or dread, for something to happen.

Standing silently on my bed, staring out into the winter sky, my eyes strained in anticipation for just one sight of Santa Claus. If only my eyes hadn’t gotten so sleepy, the five-year-old would have witnessed the arrival of the jolly old elf himself. I’d been waiting so long . . . 

By November 1, 1971, when Carly’s album was released, my anxious anticipation of Christmas Eve had diminished considerably. I was beginning to understand Stephen Davis’ belief that “nobody has any idea of what’s going on or what’s going to happen.” I didn’t know the twists and turns my life would take, whether I’d ever marry or have children of my own, or how smitten a grandmother I might be one day. That was all in the future, and at sixteen, I was wasn’t yet obsessing over my life’s path.

The past week or so, almost fifty years later, Carly’s “A” word was bouncing around my head again, making me a little bit crazy. Will the Cavs finally win a game in this young season? (Yep, one win to date). Would Hue Jackson get fired by the Browns? (Yes, joining the Cavs’ Tyron Lue and now Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III). Will the rain hold off so we can rake leaves before the snow falls? (So far, so good). 

One of the worrying questions that gnaws at me as I look to the daily news is, “where will the next mass shooting occur?” On Thursday morning, the answer came again: Thousand Oaks, California, rated the third safest city in the country by Niche. Random, senseless killings crowd our newsfeeds, and I hate the sense of dread I have over the questions of tragedy. Carly Simon was right: we never know what’s going to happen, but many of us think about the days to come anyway. The other shoe is waiting to drop.

I’ve also been anticipating November 6 with relief, worry and hope. While I enjoyed seeing Franklin in a commercial with his owner, Senator Sherrod Brown (and my favorite columnist, Connie Schultz), and am glad I don’t have to worry about poisonous Chinese dog treats on the shelves of local pet stores, the political ads were making me yell out loud at the television. When you long for the return of commercials suggesting a cure for erectile dysfunction, you know it’s been a lengthy political season. 

Lengthy or not, it was a hugely important election, and I was thrilled to see the highest midterm voter turnout by percentage since 1966. At 49%, it is still too low, but it topped one hundred million votes, a midterm record. Waiting for results was difficult, and as the numbers began to trickle in, I thought of the candidates and their teams as they watched the screens. I’m grateful for their willingness to run for office, and (with a few notable exceptions), for the graciousness of their reactions on election night, win or lose. It was difficult to see one common message across the country, but Bob Dylan’s prophetic voice did echo for me this week: “The times, they are a-changin.’”

But back to anticipation. A sense of expectancy was “keepin’ me waiting” on a personal level this week, as our family experienced our first gender reveal party. Would the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday have a “brudder” or a sister in March? They had the ultrasound on Friday, with the answer sealed in an envelope until Sunday night. I would have cheated and steamed open the envelope! But with the smash of a blue-tinted raw egg on their daddy’s head, we had our answer. 

Albert Camus suggested “we need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.” After these many days brimming with anticipation, today I’m content to “stay right here” in the moment, grateful to be fully alive. 

Be Brave

I’ve been an avid reader ever since I can remember, but one author I’ve stayed away from is Stephen King. I know he’s sold millions and millions of books, consistently won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writer’s Association, and has a best-selling book on how to write. But, as Bill Thompson, his editor at Doubleday, feared might happen after King wrote “Carrie” and “Salem’s Lot,” King has gotten “typed” as a horror writer. Thompson thought that a detriment, but King considered his words a compliment.

I read fiction and non-fiction, mysteries and biographies, science fiction and cereal boxes, but I draw the line at books filled with horror. I watched a clip of Margaret Hamilton’s conversation with Mr. Rogers, as she told about her experience of being cast as the Wicked Witch of the West. Mr. Rogers asked her to put on her costume, piece by piece, and I shivered as she transformed into the scariest character of my childhood. I still cover my eyes and ears when she appears on the route to Oz. Given that sensitivity, I certainly don’t need to be scared out of my wits by King’s characters, especially on a dark and stormy night.

“The Shining” is a perfect example of why I don’t read King. He describes his motivation to write the book that came during a night in the Stanley Hotel shortly before it closed for the season. He and his wife were the only guests in the place, and after some bizarre experiences, he went to bed. “That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed.” That was his inspiration – the novel is far scarier!

I saw the master of fear’s tweet regarding the current political campaign that will end this Tuesday (finally!). King tweeted: “Donald Trump’s campaign message in two words: Be afraid.My campaign message in two words: Be brave.” 

Here’s a writer who has become wealthy by scaring the bejesus out of millions of people. Stephen King is the expert on what draws out fear in humans. Regardless of his political leaning, I find his words credible. He knows fear when he sees it, smells it.

Fear comes in an assortment of sizes and shapes. Small children, with limited life experience, can be afraid of many things. The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, intrepid explorer that she is, shakes with fear when someone uses those new-fangled hand driers at the mall. Mr. Rogers sang about another bathroom fear, when he reassured his viewers, “you can never go down the drain – you’re bigger than the water, and bigger than the soap.” 

In adulthood, common fears of public speaking, heights, bugs and snakes top most surveys, with zombies, clowns, ghosts, and an invasion of Honduran refugees at the bottom of the list. As we age, we fear losing our hair and hearing, and more seriously, our health, our minds, our resources, and our lives. We can choose to live in fear of what may or may not happen, irrational or rational as our fear may be. Or we can, as King suggests, be brave.

Because ultimately, Stephen King’s tweet stretches far beyond phobias and politics. In choosing between fear and courage, we decide every day, every hour, who we will be as individuals, and who we will be as a community, a nation. Can we bravely stand with the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower? “This world of ours . . . must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” 

When we wake up in the morning, when our children climb the steps of the school bus, when we enter the synagogue or sanctuary, and yes, even when we pull the curtain on the voting booth (which I urge you to do), we decide whether fear or courage will be in the driver’s seat of our lives. Can we trust that we are bigger than the water, bigger than the soap?