The right to go on living an ordinary life

The largest ghetto uprising of World War II took place on April 19, 1943.

Hitler’s army had invaded Poland in the fall of 1939 and, after three weeks of resistance, Warsaw surrendered. There were about 300,000 Jews in Warsaw to begin with, but thousands more Jewish refugees soon came in from smaller towns. In October of 1940, the Nazis announced the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto.

A wall was built around a section of the city, twenty blocks by six blocks. All Jews in the city were given a month to move into the ghetto, while all non-Jews were ordered to leave. Conditions were horrible. The elderly and the children died first.

Eventually, small resistance groups began to pop up in the ghetto. In the summer of 1942, the Nazis began deporting Jews from the ghetto to the concentration camp in Treblinka. From July to September, more that 300,000 Jews were deported, leaving about 50,000 people in the ghetto. When news leaked back to the ghetto of the mass murders, the resistance groups became better organized, making grenades, bombs, and mines, and creating a chain of tunnels and bunkers for the people to hide in.

In January of 1943, ghetto fighters opened fire on German troops as they tried to round up more people for deportation. The Nazis were forced to retreat. Then on April 19, 1943, the first day of Passover, hundreds of German soldiers entered the ghetto in rows of tanks, planning to destroy the ghetto in three days. The resistance held on for almost a month, but the revolt ended on May 16 and the remaining Jews were either shot or sent off to concentration camps.

Irena Klepfisz (1941- ), author and teacher, was two years old during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Her father was killed on the second day. On the forty-fifth anniversary of the uprising, Irena Klepfisz said, “What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, . . . the right to go on living . . . an ordinary life.”

To live an ordinary life is all that most people ask. There are the tyrants and the bullies, the narcissists and the greedy who must be denied, but most of God’s children ask only the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and self-worth. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God. To have some understanding of how it works and how it feels, hold a baby in your arms.

Gary

This greater truth

Last Thursday Lucas came into this world. He lives next door. And we who have met him have come to know that even though he has done nothing to earn his keep, nor has he brought anything to this world in the way of productivity, he is cherished and valued. He is fed and held, smiled upon and touched tenderly. People gather around him and are immediately filled with joy. He has not been successful or earned wealth, he has not given a fine speech or won a race, he has not run for office or taken up a cause. Yet he is loved.

His two brothers have already welcomed Lucas into their home and into their lives; no test to pass, no initiation. “That’s our brother.”

His parents have no doubt that he is both gift and responsibility. Is he going to disrupt things? For sure. He will need almost constant attention for quite some time. He will remind his parents and his brothers that he is only concerned about his own comfort and wants, and he will need to be taught to share, to wait his turn, and to look out for the welfare of others, including his brothers.

But before all and above all, Lucas is loved. Before he showed his beautiful face to the world, he was loved. While he is wailing out his desire to be fed or changed or held, he is loved. The greatest truth about Lucas is not that he will exhibit selfishness or that he will at some time fail or that he will do things which are not good or helpful. No, the greatest truth about this child is that he is loved.

Lucas is a sinner and therefore he will sin. Someday he may hit one of his brothers. He will certainly disobey his mother and argue with his dad. He will do things that are not good or kind, but that is not his identity. His identity is not sinner; his identity is child of God. He is not, first of all, someone who commits sin, who does wrong; he is, first of all, someone who is loved. He is created in the very image of God and he is meant to reflect that image.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells of our disobedience and rebellion against God. We are reminded of our pride, our desire to be like God, our jealousy, and even our willingness to taken another life. But before that, when God first breathed into humankind the breath of life, we are told, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

The way we see Lucas and value his life is the way God looks upon each child of God. In our Lutheran tradition we are quick to acknowledge we are sinners. We press home that truth by beginning worship with a confession of our sins. That is one truth about us, and our lives bear witness. But there is this other truth, this greater truth that we are made in the image of God. We are loved, unconditionally.

Like Lucas.

Gary

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

I am in Stillwater, Minnesota on a warm day in May, inside a theological bookstore located in a building that was once a church. I am searching through row upon row of books, when I hear the sound of someone coming in through the door just off to my left. I glance up. She looks to be about thirty years old, dressed from the top of her head to the top of her shoes in white. I am sure she is a Catholic sister and I am sure she is beautiful. She greets me with a smile and a nod of her head, and as I return the greeting, she moves past me further into the store. A short time later I sense movement to my right, and look up to see her again as she is leaving. As she passes, she once again greets me with a smile and a nod of her head. Again I return the greeting. Then, as she is about to go out the door, I say to her back, “By the way, you look quite beautiful, you know.” She turns, blushes, smiles, and says, “Thank you.” Then as she goes out the door, she adds, perhaps to herself, perhaps to God, “I love wearing this habit.”

I have no lesson here. I simply like that young Catholic sister in her white habit. I like her smile, the blush on her cheeks, the fact that she likes wearing her habit and likes looking beautiful in it. I cherish those few moments in her presence and doubt I will ever forget them.

Often beauty will come, unexpected and undeserved, like a gentle rain in the midst of a dry summer. Our only work is to take notice and give thanks. Still again, we make choices in life. We can choose to look for beauty, goodness, and grace, or we can close our eyes, stop our ears, and howl like some wounded creature caught in a trap, damning all, refusing all, and loving nothing. We can be so inward turned as to find no joy in another’s joy, no compassion for another’s plight, and no desire to reach out and lift up someone who has fallen. Or we can recognize our own need to be loved and figure out that perhaps such is also true for everyone else in this world. We can search out beauty, and when it is found, we can cherish the finding, give thanks to God for such a blessing as this, and hold it in our heart for all time. As John Keats (1795-1821) tells us in his epic poem Endymion, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

Gary

I saw Good Friday

I saw Good Friday

on the news last night.

I witnessed the hate

and fear.

I heard the shouts

of rage,

saw the contorted faces

of hate.

A tall blonde woman,

perhaps beautiful

in repose,

raised her arms,

folded her fingers

into a fist

and shook

until her beauty

left.

There must have been

fathers and mothers

there.

The buses came

then left.

Because these good people,

these descendants of immigrants,

had gathered and now

were shouting,

crucify.

Crucify.

Gary

When something breaks

The sign that marked an acre or more of deserted cars promised, “If it’s broke, we can fix it.”

I remember the time I bought a long florescent light bulb to replace the old one, which had burned out. I took the old bulb along to the store as something to match the new one against. Returning, I drove into the garage, got out of the car, took one bulb in each hand, turned, tripped, and dropped one of the bulbs. I would not be remembering or telling this story, had I dropped the old burned-out one. That new bulb would not be fixed, not even by the self-assured guy who made promises about old cars. Some things cannot be fixed.

I have spoken words to people in anger, and it was as if I had dropped that new florescent light bulb. Something broke and it would not be fixed.

Forgiveness is real, but not magic. It will not change the past or erase the memory. Forgiveness says, “I am sorry for what I have done, and I ask you to love me even though I know, and you know, that I have done this terrible wrong to you.” Forgiveness can heal, but there is no guarantee that either party will forget. Some things cannot be put back together again.

Forgiveness is no excuse for bad behavior. We are responsible for the words we speak, for the lives we live.

In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther’s morning prayer includes this petition: “. . . protect me today from sin and all evil, so that my life and actions may please you.”

Gary

Garage sale at the cemetery

A simple sign is posted

at the corner of the cemetery.

GARAGE SALE!

What could be for sale

at a cemetery?

What would one not want

or need anymore?

Regrets? Failures?

Who would buy such?

Won’t sell at any price.

But do you have some laughter

left over or some sweet

conversation you

no longer need?

Of course you will

hang unto the memories,

and the dreams, even

those unfulfilled.

Gary

Normal is a setting on a washing machine

Only about ten percent of the world’s population is left-handed, yet of the seven U.S. presidents since 1974, five are left-handed. Those five are: Gerald Ford (38), Ronald Reagan (40), George H. W. Bush (41), William Jefferson Clinton (42), and Barack Obama (44). The two right-handed gentlemen are Jimmy Carter (39) and George W. Bush (43).

Some other left-handed people you may have heard about: Babe Ruth, Bill Gates, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Armstrong, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Paul McCartney.

It is thought, though not proven, that left-handed people have a bit higher IQ and are more likely to excel in sports. Yet, as recently as the 1940s and 50s there have been teachers who forced left-handed students to write with their right hands by tying their left hands behind their backs. Some students were paddled on their left hand in order to convert them. To write with the left hand was considered unnatural. The left-handed person was thought to be abnormal.

When I began my studies at seminary, our national church did not allow women to be pastors. There are passages in the Bible that are pretty clear about women keeping silent in the church. But a few women joined our seminary classes anyway. At that time they were doing something women were not supposed to do, something abnormal. Later, we, the church changed our mind, in part because of those first few brave women who felt called by God. How blessed we are now to have many good pastors serving the church of Jesus Christ, who just happen to be women.

Philip Yancey, in his book Soul Survivor, writes of growing up in Georgia in the 1960s, and of a pastor who “preached blatant racism from the pulpit. Dark races are cursed by God, he said, citing an obscure passage in Genesis. They function well as servants . . . but never as leaders.” (Waterbrook Press, 2003, pp.1-2.) In other words, “They are less, they are abnormal.”

There are children in our families, in our communities, in our churches who are made to feel they are less because they are homosexual. They are considered, by some, to be abnormal. Archbishop emertius Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, in a sermon preached in Southwark Cathedral in London in 2004, said, “. . . black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about—our very skins. It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given.”

The movie Temple Grandin (2010) tells the story of a woman who is autistic, who did not learn to talk until she was four years old, who was teased in school for her “strange” behavior, and who went on to graduate from college, and to earn a Masters and a Ph.D. She has written three books and now teaches at a university. She is a celebrity, but growing up she was considered abnormal. In the film, she says her mom and her teachers along the way “knew I was different but not less.” She also says, “I know there are a lot of things I can’t understand, but I still want my life to have meaning.”

I have three sisters, so there are four siblings. We are very different from one another, yet none of us is less. We are family. God created us an infinite variety. So what’s normal? Well, normal is just a setting on a washing machine.

Gary