In Memoriam

George Carlin
1937 - 2008

A counter-cultural icon. Irreverant and insightful. Everything from those awful "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" to the Hippie Dippie Weatherman and so much more.

Mortality

Tim Russert, 1950 - 2008.

Sudden deaths like his always strike home, especially when one is of the same generation and within a couple years in age. A famous person like Tim Russert makes it all the more shocking. We feel we know these people intimately. They come into our homes. We see them making news while reporting the news.

Tim Russert was the guest on the Letterman Show almost exactly two years ago when my wife and I were there.

This year's political coverage will certainly be missing a big part of what has made it so interesting so far this year. Russert's insights and personal certainty as well as insight will be sorely missed.

How poignant as well that this happened on the weekend of Father's Day with family and his own father being such big parts of Russert's life.

Thrill and Agony - An Outstanding Career

Jim McKay, 1921 - 2008. Pioneering sportscaster on ABC's Wide World of Sports. He reportedly ad-libbed what is perhaps one of the most quoted lines in sports broadcasting:

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

He was an icon in sports broadcasting, and after the massacre of the Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, a broadcasting giant as well. He always portrayed class and grace no matter what he was covering. He did it all with good humor.

I had the chance to meet him briefly one time. I was working at the ABC Radio affiliate in South Williamsport, PA. Our studios were just down the hill behind Lamade Field, home to the Little League World Series. Like many of the other local stations we broadcast all of the games and so I had the chance to hang out around the field every day. The Little League World Championship Game was always broadcast by Wide World of Sports in those days so I hung out around where the ABC trailer was as unobtrusively as possible.

Sure enough along comes Jim McKay. And like any groupie I approached him and simply put my hand out and told him how much I always enjoyed what he did. He smiled, shook my hand and said thank you. We both went our own ways. Nothing grand or out of the ordinary. I was just one more unknown face he had greeted- and would greet- in a long and distinguished career.

With the proliferation of news and sports and cable we have also had a proliferation of Big Name Stars. None will ever equal the pioneers like McKay who helped make their jobs possible.

A Remarkably Great Photographer

From the NYT, the lead of the article about the death of a truly great photographer, Cornell Capa:

Cornell Capa, who founded the International Center of Photography in New York after a long and distinguished career as a photojournalist, first on the staff of Life magazine and then as a member of Magnum Photos, died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 90.

This is one of his pictures, JFK's hands at a campaign stop in 1960. For a slide show of 9 more of Capa's pictures, follow this link to the NYT.

International Center of Photography page on Cornell Capa.

In Memoriam: Coach J.

He was my daughter's softball coach and a teacher at her high school. He and another teacher were the chaperones that took her and a bunch of students for her first trip to Europe. He was a basketball and volleyball coach.

And he was a wonderful human being.

Eleven years ago while my daughter was still in high school, Steve (Coach J. as everyone knew him) got a lymphoma that went inward. Often the worst kind of cancer. We all knew he had only months to live. Everyone but him. And God. It went into remission, disappeared.

Until a few weeks ago when they told him that it was only a matter of time. He took it with the same calm and grace that he did everything. Except maybe coaching. It didn't look very calm... he loved to yell and stomp. But there was always grace and the players loved him! When I asked my daughter about it the other day she just laughed. "That was Coach J., Dad. That was just the way he was."

What a guy.

Steve died on Tuesday, many years and a lot of life after we thought he was gone. We - as much as Steve- were given a gift.

Here's a portion of his obituary in the Watertown (WI) Daily-Times:

Steve was well-known for teaching excellence. Whether in the classroom, on the playing field or the basketball court, he had a legendary ability to inspire curiosity and passion.

Steve believed that knowledge about others creates caring and he accomplished this by leading students on innumerable trips abroad. He demonstrated consistently how learning about the world can create a hospitable, enjoyable and peaceful place. Steve easily engaged people of many ages, cultures and dispositions. Children in New Guinea, referees on the basketball floor, exchange students at Friday morning breakfasts - all Steve met were drawn into a world of action, generosity and possibility. And, his varied students learned how to earn friendships at home and abroad.

Though he ventured to the far reaches of this earth, to Steve growing at home was as important as it was overseas. In 1994, with seed money he received from the Joe Darcey Excellence in Teaching award, Steve and his students undertook a monumental task in the creation of the International Peace Garden that graces the grounds of Watertown High School campus.

Steve's life created joy, peace and passion that will live on in many others.

In Memoriam: Arthur C. Clarke

One of the great men of science fiction, author of books galore and short-stories to stretch the imagination, Arthur C. Clarke took us to new places and gave us new visions. For me, perhaps his greatest story which resonates to this day as I think of its powerful ending is The Nine Billion Names of God. Like many other great stories it is its understated style that grabs you at the end and you are forever shaken by it.

Add 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End, Rendezvous With Rama, well, I could go on. He had reportedly just finished reviewing the final draft of his latest novel. "The Last Theorem," co-written with Frederik Pohl, will be published later this year.

In Memoriam: Larry Norman

Christian Music Pioneer Larry Norman Dead

ASSIST News Service reports that Larry Norman died in Salem, Oregon early Sunday morning February 25 after a long battle with heart problems. With his long blond flowing hair, Norman was a true pioneer of Christian rock music with hits like "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music" and "I Wish We'd All Been Ready."
--Crosswalk.com

I had the chance to see and meet Norman a few years ago at Cornerstone Festival in Illinois. Quite an individual. He should be forever remembered for what he did for Christian music by pulling it kicking and screaming into the rock and roll world.

In Memoriam

Oscar Peterson, pianist and composer extraordinaire.
1925 - 2007

In Memory

Max McGee

The Green Bay Packer who scored the first TD in the first Super Bowl. A Green Bay legend and an engaging radio color commentator for Packer games for years.

Max died Saturday in an accident at his home here in the Twin Cities. He was 75.
--KARE 11

In Memory: Madeleine L'Engle

One of the great voices of American literature died yesterday. Madeleine L'Engle, best known for A Wrinkle in Time, was a prolific writer and a deeply spiritual memoirist. Her Crosswicks series of memoirs delve deeply into family and the life of the Spirit. Her series on Genesis turned great literature- the Genesis cycle of stories- into a literature in which we can find even more nuances and hope. Her book Walking On Water was a truly challenging reflection on faith and art. And that's only the surface!

Madeleine- thank you for your faith and your living it for us in your writing.

Rest in peace- and well done, O good and faithful servant.

In Memory-
Boots (Yakety Sax) Randolph
The old line may be that I respect a man who can play the sax (pause) and doesn't.

But that didn't apply to Boots Randolph. His song may be best known today thanks to Benny Hill, but he was quite a showman.

He was 80.

Always Disturbing
I am coming to realize that as one gets older one truly does become more aware of death. It has been happening and it has hit me again. I heard from my brother on Monday that a high school friend of mine was killed in a tragic lawnmowing accident when his lawn tractor tipped over on him on a slope at his home. I went to the local paper's website and read his obituary it was like getting hit over the head. Especially when I read his birthdate...1948...the same as mine. Of course it was. We graduated together.

I remember noticing this about older people in the past. It seemed like a morbid curiosity about deaths. "Did you see that so and so died?" they would ask each other. "Yes. Wasn't that a shame?" would be one of the possible responses. "How awful for his family" or "What a blessing after all he's been through" would usually come next.

Perhaps part of the reason for all this was that as long as you can be having the conversation, it isn't about you. It is also because you are nearer to that possibility for yourself than you might like to admit. Unless some HUGE, really HUGE medical breakthrough happens in the next few years, I know that I am far more than halfway through my life. Probably even closer to 65-70% through. I passed my mom's age at her death over ten years ago. I will pass my dad's by the end of this summer.

And that is hard to accept or even understand.

It raises lots of questions about what one has gotten out of life- and in my book- what one has given back. It brings to mind life-lists of things you haven't done yet and would like to and things that you will probably never get to do. It makes one take a look around and say, "Wow!" because such a view can have a non-morbid side to it, a non-depressing side, if one is willing to accept its reality and move on.

For I am also coming to realize that as one gets older one truly does become more aware of life. Listening to The Story on public radio last evening, I heard a doctor who herself had been afflicted by an almost fatal illness. She should not be alive. As an oncologist she faces such issues day in and day out. As a result of her own near-fatal illness she said that she has a greater awareness that death is always around. It is always in the room. But that doesn't stop her.

I guess we end up back to the adventure beginning when control ends that my poet friend Larry said. It is only when one can give up control- or the sense of control that we can truly find the adventure of life.

That doesn't make someone's death any less disturbing, sad, or depressing. We miss people. But the hope is that in that awareness of ultimate powerlessness we can also find the joy of living in the days and moments and times we have.

In Memoriam: Mr. Wizard- Don Herbert

Don Herbert had a whole generation entranced with science. Low-key, personable, far from slick, real. Mr. Wizard.

Don Herbert (b. 1917) died yesterday. And just a little bit of trivia- he was born right here in Carver County Minnesota in the nearby town of Waconia.

As Time Moves By
When you are closely and even intimately involved ni people's lives through community and then move to somewhere else, it is perhaps most difficult when someone "back there" dies. As regular readers and friends already know, my wife and I spent fifteen years in our longest ministry. We built more than friendships, we became part of a community of people who, even when disagreeing, found ways to celebrate our lives.

Then we move. In this day and age it happens more than it ever did before. But in our case we moved. We left behind the community which had nourished us, helped us raise our daughter and supported me in sobriety. With a group like that you don't sever all ties. I regularly check the local newspaper on the Internet to see what's happening. Sadly, that can mean reading a name in the obituaries. That happened again yesterday with one of those special people.

She was on the board when I went to meet with them prior to accepting the call. (My wife wasn't an ordained pastor yet.) We hit it off right away. That may have had something to do with her joking around and saying that she picked me from the picture directory of ministers because I was "good-looking." She then added that I was better looking in person.

She spent many years on and off the Board and was one of those people you could always count on to be personally supportive even when she might disagree. She brings back a lot of memories.

She died Monday. I feel a deep sense of loss. I will not be there for her funeral. I will not have a chance to say "goodbye". One of the deep pains of leaving a church community is experienced at times like this. But it is also part of the power of community.

Someone once said that "Death is the price you pay for living." Saying goodbye, feelings of loss, sadness are part of the price we pay for making friends, being in community and living in God's love.

But they are worth the price many times over, now and for eternity.

Rest in Peace
Jerry Falwell, 73.

Why I Was Silent Yesterday
I know there was a lot of talk in the past week about the One Day of Silence in memory of those killed at Virginia Tech. I accept many of the criticisms of the move. These include, but are not limited to two main ones:

• First, we should not be silent in the face of such horror and violence.
• Second, with all the death and destruction from war, famine, genocide, etc. what makes these deaths any different. If we stopped every time there was a tragedy we would never speak.

I am in complete agreement with these thoughts. I have been one who has had difficulty from time to time remaining silent on these issues. They are HUGE and need to addressed. And yes, we Americans are quite self-centered about these issues. There are hundreds dying for just as ridiculous and inhumane reasons as the victims at Virgina Tech. Silence is not an answer.

I didn't remain silent yesterday thinking it was an answer. I didn't do it because the deaths at Virginia Tech were any more or less important than the deaths in Baghdad or Darfur or the streets of some inner city. I did it as a form of a "fast." A "fast" that caused me to take time to think about what was happening and what small ways I either contribute to or help work against such events no matter where they happen.

To stop blogging for a day allowed me to take the extra time I would have used writing yesterdays post to think about what was happening. That I did and this post is the result. I discovered that my being drawn over and over again to the stories coming out of VT was as much a symptom of my human participation in what was happening. Stories like this- filled with human interest and misery among people just like you and me- grab our attention.

Yet the same story is repeated in many different forms day in and day out. It sells ads on TV through ratings and newspapers and magainzed on the nearest news stand. I feel relieved that it didn't happen to me- and gortesquely drawn to the details out of curiosity? or reassurance that this is an aberration? or that I am safe ?

I also learned that too many times we seek answers where there are none because the human mind and the world we live in is often far beyond explantion. It simply is. We probe and study in the hope we will discover that kernel of evil in the killer so that we will feel that we couldn't do what he did.

And most of us can't and won't. Thank God! But I know that I am capable of banal acts of evil everyday. I participate in greater evil when I acquiesce and don't challenge it or act to overcome it.

So the silence yesterday in the end helped me confess my own participation and support of evil and war and violence. It made me just a little more aware that I can do better if I stop once in a while and "fast," taking time to truly be still and listen. od is often in that silence.

In Memory-
David Halberstam
Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam, a chronicler of many aspects of our world and lives was killed in an auto accident in California this afternoon. Another real loss to the world of literature and journalism. He was one of the "best and brightest" who was able to dig deeply and insightfully into many things. He will be missed.
--CNN Link

Preparing for Silence

I came across a site that is promoting a Day of Silence in the blogosphere next Monday, April 30, in memory of those killed at Virginia Tech.

Go to One Day Blog Silence for more information.

It Keeps Happening
It is all too familiar. The pictures look the same. It could be Virgina Tech or Columbine or a mall somewhere. It is the scene of ambulances, SWAT teams, police officers with rifles and guns. It is young people standing around looking shocked and out of sorts and shaking their heads in bewilderment.

The events at Virginia Tech yesterday are stunning in their sameness. They are frightening in their familiarity. Even the picture of the gunman, while a different person, is still the same. The reasons are as undecipherable as ever. The media feeding frenzy as over the top as usual.

Each one gets a little more frightening in its commonness. Each one reminds us again of our mortality. Each one says that we never really do know what's going to happen when we leave home any given morning.

Or we don't even have to leave home. An email came today that a colleague and friend I went to seminary with died suddenly at his home on Sunday. He was 60 but that doesn't make it any less unexpected or any more emotional than the students and faculty in Virgina.

In the midst of all our attempts at saving lives, a friend commented last night, this kind of massacre makes absolutely no sense. We always seem to be losing the fight for life. Someone comes along and mocks all our efforts and reminds us that in the end we all pay the same price.

The causes of the massacre can be analyzed forever- and probably will. We will pick apart the life and times and attempt to recreate the mind of the gunman. Partly to help us find ways of preventing the unpreventable and partly to prove to ourselves that we aren't like that. We wouldn't do that.

Maybe not. Probably not, since most of us are not built that way. For some reason these unexplainable ones no doubt had massive brain issues, shortcomings, neurotransmitter defects that shut down empathy and compassion and knowing right from wrong. Thank God- O THANK GOD- that most of us don't have that or this world would be a far sadder and distant place than the one I want to live in.

Perhaps it goes back to yesterday's post about Imus and racism. It is always a matter of heart- or lack of it. It goes back to what one of my professors said early in his survey course of the Old Testament. Original sin is the only provable doctrine in the Bible. And he was a confirmed Liberal. That doesn't ease the pains- personal, school-wide, or national- when something like this happens. It does however remind us that we need to always be at work on two things.

First, the personal quest to be able to have a life that is different and peace-ful and able to make the world a better place. This is the life of the spiritual quest that knows that this darkness is real and yet can also be overcome by the light of the Spirit. To delve deeply into our lives with God and to find the ways of hope that only He can lead us to is essential.

Second, the personal awareness that life is short and that the ability to live it fully is within our grasp. We don't know when or how any of us will find an end. Which means we need to find the joy and hope and life abundant each day. It means saying "I love you far more than saying mean and nasty things. It means not letting the sun go down on your anger. It means walking in other people shoes and processing understanding in life.

It also means living in the awe and wonder and hope and joy and promise that each day brings. No it isn't crazy. The world may seem crazy some days. Thus we need to show a sanity in its midst, and that means to live life to its healthiest and fullest degree.

Contemporary bluegrass genius Sam Bush sang about it in one of his neatest songs, Howlin' At the Moon.

Take a little time for sunshine
Take a whole lotta time for love
Take time to praise and thank heaven up above
You gotta make music (Gotta make music)
Raise your voice it’ll be gone soon.
Take a little time for howlin’ at the moon.

Take a little time for sunshine
Take a whole lotta time for love
Take time to praise and thank heaven up above
Take your life as it may come ‘cause boy it’ll be gone soon
Take a little time for howlin’ at the moon.
--Sam Bush

Maybe in so doing we can prevent one more Columbine or Virginia Tech from happening. At the very least, the world around us will have more opportunities to be special.

So It Goes-
In Memory of Kurt Vonnegut
Famed writer Kurt Vonnegut has died at age 84. The author of such classics as Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle was one of those very influential writers in the 60s. His unique and offbeat vision (and version) of the world was perfect for those times when the world as we saw it was surely off kilter.

Put him into today's context and we may find he is just as important to read today. Life changes, the world changes, but great literature always speaks. Billy Pilgrim, the hero of Slaughterhouse Five would be an apt name for today.

So it goes.