Grief in Florida

Where does one begin to describe the grief in Florida, where, yet again, evil intent in a man's heart rips again the fragile vale that separates this domain of the living where we dwell and the domain of death?  Lives lost.  Grief unreconciled.  

We've seen evidence of the carnage caused by this evil, sometimes in the hearts of misguided religious fanatics, sometimes in the hearts of others some with serious mental health issues, and others whose motives remain unknown.  In all cases, the evil consumes lives:  lives ended all too soon.  

And the grief spreads.  To families, to friends, to neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances, and those who hear the news.  Are we even at a point when virtually anyone in this land can name someone who died in a mass killing?

Will these horrors go on forever?  Can they be prevented?

Some point to a failure of the FBI to act on information about this perpetrator.  Some point to the need for more security.  Some point to gun control.  In many cases, there may not be definitive actionable information beforehand.  And in most schools there is a good degree of security, but short of armed troupes, could any security stop a well-armed intruder?

Perhaps, 20 to 30 years ago, the political climate allowed politicians to propose and enact "common sense gun control."  Now, this is virtually impossible in the face of a strong anti-gun-control lobby with ties to the current national majority party.  While millions own fire arms without harming others, in the hands of a person possessed by the evil to kill, a fire arm can magnitude that hate and evil within into the consumption of multiple innocent lives.  The weapon may not be inherently evil, but it can certainly magnify the damage of that evil.

I can only speak for myself, but at times I feel frustration and anger.  At those times, I would not want access to a weapon that would magnify that anger.  Better to wait for it to pass.  Better for it to remain no more than a passing series of pulses in the neurons of my brain.

In the end, there are no easy answers.  But we know that light overcomes the darkness.  We need to reach out and reinforces our bonds with family, friends, neighbors and others we come to know.  We need to talk, with open minds, about how to protect the innocent from the hate, anger, and frustration of those who might make manifest the evil within.  We need bolder leadership to lead the way, a leadership that we don't seem to have fostered of late, but perhaps that form of leadership will arise from the grief in Florida.

Summer Time and the Living Is Easy

 "Summertime, 
And the livin' is easy ..."

This week the temperature hit the 90s (32 to 35 deg C).  While so many complain about the heat, I just love it!

The heat forces us to live differently.  We have to slow down.  We have to seek out the shade, and drinks some cool beverages.  We have to take it easy.  

The heat offers us the opportunity to get out of the run-around, over-committed lives we lead.    It offers us the opportunity to just sit there and take in the surroundings.  We can quiet our busy minds and rest our souls.  A good day in the 90s and the lyrics "and the livin' is easy" just clicked with me.

Having the week off with no travel plans, I left the air-conditioning inside and just sat out in the shade of the patio each day.  Just to enjoy the warmth and take in the surroundings, maybe do a little light reading.

Talking to my friend Gregg the other day, he echoed these thoughts, too.  Living without air-conditioning, he also finds he has to slow down in the heat.  He recommended just leaving all technology behind in the house, and just taking in the environment around me.

Then our pastor this morning, preaching on Luke 10 about sending out the 72 disciples in pairs, made not of how they were to travel simply, without excess baggage.  In the same we, he challenged us and himself to strip ourselves of the excess baggage of life, be it possessions, the ever-present technology (phones, tablets, laptops, always "con-nected" and always making demands of our attention), or the tyranny of so many demands and deadlines that often leave us with life living us instead of us living life.  (The last item describes my typical day at work, with multiple projects to manage, each with its own schedule, deadlines, and little "fire drills" that come up.)

Luckily, I have one more week before I return to work.  Another 7 days of opportunities to take the opportunity of summer, when the livin' is easy.

Happy summer!

Grief in Boston

Dusk settling on a city still in shock, as I walk home. Red and blue lights twinkle all around. Everywhere a strange hush has settled in. In the background of the quiet is the distant drone of helicopters hovering.

The feeling of the city is subdued. Conversations are hushed as though attending a wake.

In the park, spring beckons. Yet, we don’t notice the rebirth. Our minds are on the transience of life: in one moment we are here and filled with life. In a moment, we – any of us – could be gone. We are aware of that only a very thin portal separates life and death, and how easy one could pass.  And how in one blast, that portal is opened.

Today, we see again how evil work, how it embraces the specter of the netherworld.  How it consumes life.  This day, when the marathon runners remembered the horror of Newtowne and the children who were taken at too young, this day will itself come to be a memorial day.

We don’t know the how or the why of today.  But, in the end, does it even matter?  There is no “why” that is a good “why.”  There can be no good "why."  Whatever the "why" is, it can only be bad.

Once again, we all stand united. Our hearts reach out for each other. Our friends and family and colleagues and even strangers are glad we are fine. In the octave of grief, we always stand together for a while, though, in time, our politics and differences will become that wedget that so easily divides us.

We have no answers. We only have faith and prayer.

So, as I have done so many days, I go home, passing through a Public Garden about to burst into spring. But, today, even nature is restrained. All around is quiet. 

I walk in the eerie silence of the dusk, on this day when the portal of death was opened this afternoon, just a few short blocks away.

El Día de los Muertos

El Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is tomorrow, November 2nd. It is no surprise that the late autumn is a time to remember the departed. In the northern hemisphere, we witness the temperatures dropping, the sun lower in the sky as the days get shorter, and the death of annual vegetation. Here in New England, this takes the form of a vivid display of bright foliage.

Today (El Día de los Santos, or All Saints Day) was extremely beautiful, unusually warm and even sunny. I took a bike ride to the Mount Auburn Cemetery, one of the most beautifully landscaped cemeteries in the area. It was an appropriate day to take in the beauty of fall while contemplating our mortality.

One of my favorite reflections is found in Psalm 90 where one translation reads: “teach us to number our days that we may learn your wisdom.” Yes our days on earth are numbered, they are finite. But we must embrace our transitory existence and not be afraid of or obsessed with our eventual death. That is the wisdom we must learn, so that we can make the most of our lives.

The Psalm also says “for a thousand years to you……is like the passing of a single day.” This contrasts the eternal nature of God to our brief existence, with an understanding that time can be experienced differently, something that would be embraced in Einstein’s special relativity centauries later. Our lives pass in snippets of time, maybe a century at most. God spans the centuries (“por los siglos de los siglos”).

So, what becomes of us? Do we wither and fade and our life is extinguished, like the annual flowers in my garden with the killing frost? Christianity, Judism, Islam, and other faiths embrace an afterlife in heaven with God. Hinduism professes reincarnation. Others think death is the end. We don’t know the answer.

But while I was there in the cemetery, one thought came to me. I do know what will happen come April. Those same trees now displaying their brilliant foliage, after 4 months where their branches lay bear through winter winds and snowfalls, those very branches will bud forth in a glorious display of spring colors. Hope and life springs eternal.