Friday, March 24, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Birds on a wire
The birds sang and sang. I looked around for them. Usually they are high on the roof of our apartment house. As of Monday afternoon, it is spring. They help me celebrate. Patrick McDonnell creator of the cartoon strip Mutts, knows that.
The birds are back! ?? What? No parade?
Henri Nouwen knows that too:
In the midst of Lent I am made aware that Easter is coming again: the days are becoming longer, the snow is withdrawing, the sun is bringing new warmth, and a bird is singing. Yesterday, during the night prayers, a cat was crying! Indeed, spring announces itself. And tonight, O Lord, I heard you speak to the Samaritan woman. You said: “Anyone who drinks the water that I shall give you will never be thirsty again; the water that I shall give you will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life.” What words! They are worth many hours, days, and weeks of reflection. I will carry them with me in my preparation for Easter. The water that you give turns into a spring. Therefore, I do not have to be stingy with your gift, O Lord. I can freely let the water spring from my center and let anyone who desires drink from it. Perhaps I will even see this spring myself when others come to it to quench their thirst.
We helped each other to water over and over yesterday, during our competitive cake decorating, sitting outdoors at the Arboretum eating Cheesecake Factory pastas, walking the floors of the LBJ Museum with Chris, Melissa and Jack. What a cultural extravaganza that was. Margaret and I lived right through it. Sometimes I shivered in recognition.
My draft number in 1970 was 163. Everyone born November 17 got that number. My physical in Chicago was uneventful. I applied for conscientious objector status. My current pastor and former pastor in Lincoln wrote letters for me. Then my number was too high, and I wasn’t drafted. Many of my friends from high school went to Vietnam. I did not.
Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and delver him from the hand of his foes.
Much later I came to appreciate President Johnson’s accomplishments. But in the 60s and 70s I chanted with so many others, “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” At the museum we saw pictures of him slumped over the Cabinet conference table. “I can’t win, and I can’t get out!” Vietnam was, in a word famous at the time, a “quagmire.” So many boys were killed. It broke Johnson’s spirit. Although he didn’t resign, he also didn’t run again for president in 1968 after his landslide victory in 1964. He died five years later.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. The Lord confronts the evildoers, to destroy remembrance of them from the earth. When the just cry out, the Lord hears them, and from all their distress he rescues them.
I was so tired after the museum. Walking, walking, walking. Back at Andi’s I collapsed, ate pizza and watched Markquis Nowell not be tired and notch 19 assists in Kansas State’s win over Michigan State. Outside the air was moist and warm, breezy, beautiful. The air smelled sweet. Spring rolled over me. I did not die in Vietnam, although so many others did.
As my friend said to me today about two kids killed in a ski accident, “It is terrible and things keep happening.” My friend taught history all his life. When I was a senior in high school he offered me an alternative way of seeing US involvement in Vietnam by giving me a couple New Republics to read. Always a man of few words, he always knew what he thought was right. He taught me to look a little longer, so I too could make better decisions about what was right.
I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
(Wisdom 2, Psalm 34, Matthew 4, John 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
