The Summer Solstice, Lightning Bugs and Cicadas

 Yesterday an amazing astrological event occurred.  The sun traveled its longest path through the sky and reached its highest point of the year—making yesterday the longest day of 2021. In spite of our attempts to make Memorial Day Weekend the beginning of summer—the solstice is the true beginning of the season.  This astrological phenomena happens every year at about mid-year, and has, no doubt, occurred since the universe came into being.  

We are all familiar with “fireflies” or “lightning bugs”—another amazing phenomena of nature.  Lightning bugs are beetles (like the ladybug).  Neither are bugs. Lightning bugs live for only a couple of weeks as adults (about a year from egg to adult).  The flashes we see in our backyards when darkness comes is the language of love. The male of the species is looking for females.  “They flash a specific pattern while they fly, hoping for a female reply.  If a female waiting in the grass likes what she sees, she responds back with a flash of her own.  They will engage in this twinkling love-making until the male locates the female and they mate.”  Isn’t that romantic?   Isn’t it really incredible?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that there aren’t as many lightning bugs “lighting up” your backyard in recent years.  That’s because of “light pollution” which prevents the lightning bugs from seeing each other’s flashes, creating havoc in their love life.  Turn off those outdoor lights!  Like bees, the lightning bugs are also threatened by habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change. 

Everybody is talking about the cicadas this year.  The cicada is another of nature’s wonders.  They live underground for years and only come above-ground in adult form to reproduce (to love).  Some species live underground for 17 or more years.  When they do “come out” into the light it is for one purpose—and once that purpose is fulfilled—they die (usually within a month).  What kind of life is that?  Living in the darkness all those years and only experiencing the “light of day” for a few weeks doesn’t have much appeal to me.  Like the lightning bug, the cicada (only the male) sings a love song and longs for a response before his day is done.

Now what am I trying to say?  I’m trying to say that all the remaining days of this year 2021 will be shorter than yesterday.  Every new day from here on out, will be shorter than the day before.  So we must sing our love song while it is day, lighting-up our own lives and the lives of others.  “What the world needs now” is for us to become what we (like the lightning bug and the cicada) are called to be—instruments of love—while it is day.

Father's Day 2021

 My mind meanders through the yesterdays I’ve lived with so many who are no longer with me today.  I miss them. Some were “Father figures” for me. Some were “Mother figures” to me.  Each of them played an important role in my journey.  Each of them shaped my life.  Just a few days ago, listening to music, I heard Slim Whitman singing “Where Has Yesterday Gone?” The words of that song continue to sing in me.  The question “Where has yesterday gone” seems to have stuck in my mind.

I’m grateful for the yesterdays when I had my father and mother around.  I still wonder how and where they obtained the wisdom and the understanding they demonstrated as they raised me and my six siblings.  They really were extraordinary.  

I’m also grateful for the yesterdays when other men and women were there for me—my extended family—my surrogate mothers and fathers.  There are so many.  Bea Smith (a Sunday school teacher), Ken and Bonnie Mart (my boyhood pastor and his wife), Willie (who ran the garage next door), Julie (Willie’s sidekick and brother-in-law), Freda Roveda (who operated the tavern down the road), teachers and professors who took an interest in me, George, a parishioner (known as Pert to some), spiritual directors like Gordon, Mur, and Elton, who guided me through turbulent spiritual storms.  They were “Star Persons” who, like the light of Bethlehem’s star, led me and guided me along the roads of those yesterdays. Isn’t that what a father, a mother, is supposed to be and do—love us, lead us, and guide us along the path of life?

George, who was a “father” to me in so many ways through almost 40 years, wrote at the time of my father’s death:  “I think of my father everyday and sometimes many times during that day.  He will have been dead 58 years tomorrow.  He was 80 years old plus exactly six months….”

When Father took me by the hand,

Somehow the world seemed small,

The steeple’s point, the towering oak

Seemed only half so tall.

When Father took me by the hand,

Bright rainbows scanned the sky,

And hope and confidence were mine

When he was standing by.

When Father took me by the hand,

I had no thought of fear,

And even now, when trials come,

I feel his presence near.

Thank God, the Father of us all, who through those “many fathers” (and mothers)  of yesterday, took me by the hand.

Looking Up, Looking Down, Looking All Around.

I’ve often been accused of being an optimist.  An optimist is a person who tends to be hopeful and confident about the future; a person who believes that good must ultimately prevail over evil.  An optimist takes a positive event and magnifies it, often minimizing the negative.  It is true.  I am an optimist.  I’m always trying to look up.  My faith fosters optimism. I believe Love is at the heart of things.  I believe this Love is in the process of bringing about a New Age, a New World, where all people are “free to be” and where all live in harmony and peace.  To me, that’s the essence of the Gospel message and to believe it to be the truth, makes me an optimist.  

This belief, this faith of mine, has often prompted folk to suggest that I live in an “ivory tower.”  To live in an ivory tower is to exist in a place where the problems of the world and the trials and tribulations of ordinary people are not known, experienced, or recognized.  It is a great temptation for people of faith to dwell in such a tower and to look down and offer silly platitudes.  “Don’t worry, God will reward you in the end.”   I do not live in such a tower!  I am not looking “down on life,” nor do I believe God “looks down” offering impractical and escapist solutions to life’s issues.  I know,  experience, and walk with my brothers and sisters everywhere the stoney path of a real world  where “don’t worry” or “just believe” or “lean on Jesus” doesn’t cut it!  God is not watching us from a distance as the song suggests, rather God is walking with us.

When Nikos Kazantzakis was a young man, a neighbor said to his father, ”…I think your son’s going to become a dreamer and visionary,…He’s always looking at the clouds.”  His mother responded, “Don’t worry, life will come along and make him lower his gaze.”  And his father had the last word, “Forget the clouds.  Keep your eyes on the stones beneath you if you don’t want to fall and kill yourself.”  

Look up and see the clouds.  Look up and dream.  Look up in the midst of the negative and find the positive.  Look up as often as you can—but, be sure to  lower your gaze and be aware of the stones.  Look down,
and with Charles Dickens realize that “…our path in life…is stony and rugged…and it rests with us to smooth it.  We must fight our way onward.  We must be brave.  There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet them, and crush them.”  Look down and see the stones.  Look down lest you  stumble and fall.  Look down and find God.

Look up.  Look down.  Look all around.  Love is at the heart of things.

Giving Up "Doing It My Way"

 Last year on this date I wrote a blog called “My Way,” based on the song made famous by Frank Sinatra.  I always liked the song even though I know that no one really makes it in this world doing “it my way” and “my way” only.  A poll of funeral directors indicated that many people do believe they “did it” their way, because the song was named the most-played song at funerals a few years ago.

Three years ago circumstances were such that I was unable to do the annual mulching of my flowerbeds.  I hired a couple of fellows to do it for me.  Before they even began the work, one of them told me, “Now remember, we probably won’t do it the way you would do it.”  He was right—they didn’t do it my way—even though they did a decent and acceptable job.  

Last spring, in the midst of Covid and the stay-at-home requirements, I was able to do the mulching my way.  The flowerbeds were carefully edged and prepared my way, and the three loads of mulch were distributed my way.  The day I finished mulching “my way” I remembered this verse of the song:

“Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew 

When I bit off more than I could chew…

I ate it up and spit it out

I faced it all and I stood tall

And did it, I did it my way.”

This year I carefully edged and prepared the flowerbeds “my way,” and I even distributed one load of mulch in the back yard “my way.”  But I knew that I had “…bit off more than I could chew” and instead of eating it up and spitting it out as I stubbornly did last year, I asked for help from my grandson Nick.  Rather than facing it all and standing tall, I realized it didn’t have to be done my way at all—it just needed to be done.  So Nick came today.  In two hours he distributed the mulch to all my carefully edged and prepared flowerbeds.  Looking at the photo of the finished project from last year and Nick’s job today, it is evident that Nick’s way is very close to Grandad’s way.  Thank you, Nick.

April 26, 2021: Nick's Way

                                                     

         April 26, 2020:  My Way

The Road Well-Traveled, Part IV

 We all walk the same road—it is the road of life.   I call it “The Road Well-Traveled” because everybody is traveling  it!  Everybody began the trek down this road when they first entered this life and the road ends when life ends.  Every person “grows up” walking this road.  Everyone grows old walking this road.  We all walk it together—this road of life.  The road takes us through valleys and shadows, into bright sunshine and joy, through deep waters, scorched plains and bountiful plains, and up mountains that seem impossible to scale.  The road takes us through all of this and more.

A common comfort given those on this road and facing its various obstacles is, “You are not alone.”  This is true.  We are not alone, even when we feel that we are.  Why?  Because everybody is walking this same road with us.  Everybody goes the same way we go.  Every person experiences the same valleys, shadows, sunshine and joy.  Every person passes through the deep waters; every person knows the scorched plain, the bountiful plain, and the unscalable mountain.  That is where the road goes and since everybody is walking this same road we cannot ever say we are alone in our pilgrimage.  Our brothers and sisters, wherever they live in this whole wide world, whatever the color of their skin, their gender, their religious convictions, their political bent, walk with us and we with them.  There is no way any of us can claim that we are alone on this road trip.

Almost six weeks ago my wife’s journey on this road well-traveled came to an end.  I like to think that she is now traveling a new and different road, perhaps a smoother and less stressful one.  I have often referred to our leaving the road well-traveled as a graduation from one worn-out road to a new one—similar to graduating from elementary school and moving on to high school.  

I am not alone in my grief on the road well-traveled.  Many of my brothers and sisters know, or have known, this same grief.  One week and a day after losing my beloved Cher, I received a call from my older brother.  His wife had died that morning.  “Grief compounded,” my daughter-in-law said.  Think of the road you are on and those traveling it with you. Think of all those who have suffered the loss of a loved one.  Think of the “grief compounded” during the past year of the Covid pandemic—not only here in the US, but around the globe.  Brothers and sisters everywhere are walking this road with you and me. 

Remembering James Langston Hughes

 James Langston Hughes was the American Poet Laureate of Harlem.  He was born February 1, 1902 and died May 22, 1967.  

“I knew only the people I had grown up with…,” he once wrote.  Isn’t that true of all of us?  We only the know the people we grew up with, and who were they?   Did you grow up in a rural, urban, suburban area where only certain kinds of people surrounded you?  I did.  Hughes finished his sentence…”I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach.”

My favorite Hughes poem is “Harlem.”  It goes like this:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

He wrote another poem that seems appropriate for today.  “I Dream a World” speaks to our time.

I dream a world where man

No other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth

And peace its paths adorn

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet freedom’s way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul

Nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white, 

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl,

Attends the needs of all mankind-

Of such I dream, my world!

If we cannot bring into being this kind of world, if the dream is deferred (as it has always been deferred) our world will dry up like a raisin in the sun…or it will fester like a sore…and stink like rotten meat…or explode!  

A Grief Observed

 C.S. Lewis wrote a collection of reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife in 1960.  These reflections were put in a book, “A Grief Observed,” which was published in 1961.  

Here are some of my rambling reflections at this moment.  

I have found comfort in my own experience of bereavement from the many who have called, sent cards, notes, and letters expressing their love for Cher and their concern for me.  Thank you so much.

I’ve also found comfort in the words of others.  Frederick Buechner’s  words in The Sacred Journey have been a tremendous help:  

“Whenever and however else they may have come to life (since they left us), it

is beyond doubt that they live still in us.  Death can never put an end to our 

relationship with them.  Memory is more than looking back to a time that is no

longer; it is a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything

that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that

still is.”

The famous sermon by Arthur John Gossip, “When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” which I’ve read and commented on so many times through the years speaks to me now as it never spoke before. 

The hymns of the Christian faith have been helpful, too.  Cher asked that the hymn, “Abide With Me,” be played at her Celebration of Life service.  The words come alive for me in a new way as I listen to Susan Boyle sing them. You can find her rendition on YouTube.  The last nine words keep ringing in my head:  “In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

Wherever we traveled around this wonderful world, Cher would always do a little dance for the camera.  She danced in New Orleans, in Spain, Italy, Greece, and at the ancient pyramids of Egypt—almost everywhere we visited.  The photo shows her dancing in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2009.   I am comforted by the words of the hymn, “Lord of the Dance:” and its refrain:  “Dance, then, wherever you may be (France, Austria, England—wherever); I am the Lord of the Dance, said He.  And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be (in joy, in sorrow—wherever, whatever), and I’ll lead you all in the dance, said He.”  Which calls to mind another hymn that I trust speaks true: “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land…I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful hand.”