Penny, Clare, grand daughters June Elizabeth and Christa Marie, and I went to Louisville this past weekend for a family gathering, our first in two years.
The occasion was my mother's 90th birthday. The whole family, together with many friends gathered around tables in my sister Antoinette's lovely home on the outskirts of Cherokee Park. We enjoyed food and drink and told stories.
We looked at pictures, including ancient ones of my grandfather Michael Bodner's garage in South Louisville. Over the weekend, Mother talked about how strong her mother, Katie, was--how she managed a business and reared six children and took care of her husband following his stroke when he was still a relatively young man.
Being away from Louisville now for 25 years, I miss hearing the stories and that sense of family togetherness. I know many families are more distant, and not just geographically, than they are close and know that some families are more for feuding than deep fellowship.
But not ours. Even when my brother Ed and I are arguing politics--we called a cease-fire for this event--we still know we're bound by blood and shared history. He knows I spent a year praying for him to survive his tour of duty as a combat infantryman in Vietnam, where he was awarded both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.
I'm proud of my brother's service. And I'm glad Air Force ROTC at the University of Louisville protected me from the draft and from Vietnam until the risk of draft passed over me like that angel of death who passed over the Israelites in Egypt. I'm content to let Ed be our only war hero. And thankful he's a living one.
Happily, my mother is in great health for a woman of her many years. She still drives and does some occasional work for my sister, who owns a women's clothing business in Louisville. She still attends Mass--if not daily, then at least on Sundays. I'm a person of faith because of my mother's holy example.
How has my mother lived so long? Her faith is the first and immediate answer that comes to my mind.
Her hearty, indomitable Germanic temperament is another. Mother is a hard worker. I used to joke that cleaning was her hobby. As a boy, I hated Saturdays, which were spent cleaning the house and yard. During the fall, Mother ordered me to keep the leaves raked up. I used to think she expected me to stand beneath the maples and oaks and catch the leaves as they fell. Our yard was always perfect. Just as our house was. Her house is immaculate today.
A woman of an indomitable and positive spirit, Mother's a survivor--of two marriages to alcoholic husbands and two divorces, which put her on the outs with the Roman Church for a time. When it was uncommon, she managed being a single mother with sole responsibility for providing for her children. She got work where she could and sacrificed to make sure we had what we needed. We children never had a lot, but always had what we needed. I still remember how food was rationed; I craved more than one slice of brisket at supper.
And she made sure that my siblings and I attended Roman Catholic schools for our religious and intellectual formation. The church was important to her. And still is. It's her foundation, as it was for her Austrian and Swiss forebears. I used to lament my time at the all-boys St. Francis of DeSales High School--I longed for the freedom (and girls) of public schools--but now I'm glad for the education and the self-discipline that those Carmelites imparted to me.
I'm the person I am largely because of my mother. I'm glad she's still with me. I hope that she'll be with me for years to come and that her great grand daughters, June and Christa, will come to know and love her as much as I do.
Happy birthday, Mother.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Which way?
In Terrence Malick's new film, "The Tree of Life," the character of Mrs. O'Brien, played ethereally by Jessica Chastain, says there are two ways of living--the way of nature and the way of grace.
Mrs. O'Brien lives the way of grace--open, free, loving, accepting, even angelic--while her husband, played by Brad Pitt, lives the way of nature.
He is a driven perfectionist, frustrated that he never succeeded as a musician, but instead had to make do managing a plant in Waco, Texas. Mr. O'Brien, at times a brutal disciplinarian, takes out his frustration on his three young sons, especially on first-born Jack.
Malick's film, which earned the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is imaginative, slightly autobiographical, certainly theological, but at times disjointed. It regularly departs from the conventional Hollywood narrative style of beginning, middle, and end--a point that a woman in the theatre noted when she said, "I just want t a story."
Amid stunning images from nature that tell the story of creation and shifts in time and perspective that tell the story of the O'Brien family, "The Tree of Life" raises important ultimate questions, including: Why is there evil? Is there a God? Does God care for creation?
(Malick, a graduate of Harvard, read philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.)
And at the heart of the film is the question: Is this universe governed by something transcendental--the way of grace--or by something more elemental and natural, the human struggle for survival in a hostile world?
His mother's voice echoing in his memory, Jack recalls his mother saying of the way of grace that the only true and lasting happiness is when we love. If only Mr. O'Brien had followed that same way.
For me, the question "The Tree of Life" raises is: Am I living the way of nature or the way of grace? The way of death? Or the way of life.
Frankly, some days I live the way of nature, when I let my fears and troubles dominate me, when I fail to trust Christ with my life. These are miserable days. Happily, they're becoming increasingly fewer.
In contrast, the days when I live the way of grace, as Mrs. O'Brien does, I feel like dancing in the sprinkler in the front yard. I feel like singing and laughing. I feel so light and free that I think I'll take flight and flutter off like a butterfly.
God makes humans for the way of grace, and I seek a life in which the days of grace greatly outnumber the days of nature.
When God and I dance in the sprinkler in the front yard. And neither of us cares who sees us.
Mrs. O'Brien lives the way of grace--open, free, loving, accepting, even angelic--while her husband, played by Brad Pitt, lives the way of nature.
He is a driven perfectionist, frustrated that he never succeeded as a musician, but instead had to make do managing a plant in Waco, Texas. Mr. O'Brien, at times a brutal disciplinarian, takes out his frustration on his three young sons, especially on first-born Jack.
Malick's film, which earned the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is imaginative, slightly autobiographical, certainly theological, but at times disjointed. It regularly departs from the conventional Hollywood narrative style of beginning, middle, and end--a point that a woman in the theatre noted when she said, "I just want t a story."
Amid stunning images from nature that tell the story of creation and shifts in time and perspective that tell the story of the O'Brien family, "The Tree of Life" raises important ultimate questions, including: Why is there evil? Is there a God? Does God care for creation?
(Malick, a graduate of Harvard, read philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.)
And at the heart of the film is the question: Is this universe governed by something transcendental--the way of grace--or by something more elemental and natural, the human struggle for survival in a hostile world?
His mother's voice echoing in his memory, Jack recalls his mother saying of the way of grace that the only true and lasting happiness is when we love. If only Mr. O'Brien had followed that same way.
For me, the question "The Tree of Life" raises is: Am I living the way of nature or the way of grace? The way of death? Or the way of life.
Frankly, some days I live the way of nature, when I let my fears and troubles dominate me, when I fail to trust Christ with my life. These are miserable days. Happily, they're becoming increasingly fewer.
In contrast, the days when I live the way of grace, as Mrs. O'Brien does, I feel like dancing in the sprinkler in the front yard. I feel like singing and laughing. I feel so light and free that I think I'll take flight and flutter off like a butterfly.
God makes humans for the way of grace, and I seek a life in which the days of grace greatly outnumber the days of nature.
When God and I dance in the sprinkler in the front yard. And neither of us cares who sees us.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Reflecting on the tragedy in Joplin, MO
A friend complained that people on social media were saying that God was responsible for the deadly tornadoes in Joplin, MO, and elsewhere. They say God sent the storms as judgment.
Meanwhile, others are saying that the storms present proof that God doesn't exist; if God did, why would he permit the tornadoes?
These are two common responses to tragedy. I suppose it's human to try to make sense of something bad in order to live with it. Some efforts at making sense, however, make no sense: tornadoes as God's judgment?
Moreover, in my observation, when bad things happen, those who feel that they have been wronged by God, the church, religious people regard bad things as yet more evidence for holding onto their grievances against God, the church, believers--be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, or other.
No, I don't have a satisfactory explanation for why natural disasters take place in a world that I believe is governed by a God of love and mercy. No definitive answer exists to the Why, God? question, although some tentative answers are sounder than others.
And I wonder, if we found the answer, would it really mitigate the loss, grief, suffering? No.
In the face of such tragedy, then--both on the grand scale of Joplin, MO, and on the smaller scale of the person lamenting a diagnosis of cancer or the loss of a job or a divorce--all I can do is defer the Why question for now and ask the most important question at a time like this: the What question.
What can I do to ease the suffering of my neighbors in Joplin and in many more communities across the Midwest and the South?
Here are a few suggestions:
Send a check to Episcopal Relief and Development and write "tornado response" on the memo line. Mail your check to ERD, The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y.
If you live in Springfield, bring bottled water, diapers, personal hygiene items to Christ Episcopal Church, 601 East Walnut St., Monday through Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm. We're gathering items now and will transport them to Joplin.
And if you believe in God, pray for God to help.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in the wonderful new film, "I Am," God has only you.
Meanwhile, others are saying that the storms present proof that God doesn't exist; if God did, why would he permit the tornadoes?
These are two common responses to tragedy. I suppose it's human to try to make sense of something bad in order to live with it. Some efforts at making sense, however, make no sense: tornadoes as God's judgment?
Moreover, in my observation, when bad things happen, those who feel that they have been wronged by God, the church, religious people regard bad things as yet more evidence for holding onto their grievances against God, the church, believers--be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, or other.
No, I don't have a satisfactory explanation for why natural disasters take place in a world that I believe is governed by a God of love and mercy. No definitive answer exists to the Why, God? question, although some tentative answers are sounder than others.
And I wonder, if we found the answer, would it really mitigate the loss, grief, suffering? No.
In the face of such tragedy, then--both on the grand scale of Joplin, MO, and on the smaller scale of the person lamenting a diagnosis of cancer or the loss of a job or a divorce--all I can do is defer the Why question for now and ask the most important question at a time like this: the What question.
What can I do to ease the suffering of my neighbors in Joplin and in many more communities across the Midwest and the South?
Here are a few suggestions:
Send a check to Episcopal Relief and Development and write "tornado response" on the memo line. Mail your check to ERD, The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y.
If you live in Springfield, bring bottled water, diapers, personal hygiene items to Christ Episcopal Church, 601 East Walnut St., Monday through Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm. We're gathering items now and will transport them to Joplin.
And if you believe in God, pray for God to help.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in the wonderful new film, "I Am," God has only you.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Grief in the light of the resurrection
A friend wrote me today about her profound sadness at the death of her parents in the last several months. My friend is grieving. What is particularly acute is the painful awareness that now the two people who had been with her at the very beginning of her life and through the decades that followed are no longer "on this planet," as she wrote. She is also the oldest of her parents' two surviving children, and she feels she is next in line for death.
I can relate to my friend's grief. My father has departed this life, but my mother, at 89 years of age, is still alert and active and a model for me of aging. As my sister told me today, my mother's doctor told her, "If you stop, you die." Like my mother, I intend to keep moving.
But I know that when my mother finally stops moving, because her body won't carry her any farther, and she joins my father in the life to come, I, too, will likely feel what my friend is feeling today: that keen loss of both my parents and the growing sense of the finality of my own earthly existence. Finality, but not futility.
Death is a staggering and sobering realization--and one few of us take note of, because we keep busy and distracted so much of the time. We don't like to think about final things, and yet final things, the certainty of them, may be just what we need to pay more attention to, for when we do note them in the right way--in faith--we live with a renewed urgency and deepened sense of appreciation for the fragility and fleetingness of this human existence.
As I ask ultimate questions--notably: What happens when my loved ones die? What happens when I die?--I face the heart of my Christian faith. I believe. I believe that when the end comes, I shall not fall into the dark empty nothingness, but shall rise from my grave in the light of God's love and in the power of the resurrection to that eternal bliss.
The end that I face, in faith, gives me the hope and joy I need to live with the tragedies, the suffering, and the losses of this earthly life.
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
I can relate to my friend's grief. My father has departed this life, but my mother, at 89 years of age, is still alert and active and a model for me of aging. As my sister told me today, my mother's doctor told her, "If you stop, you die." Like my mother, I intend to keep moving.
But I know that when my mother finally stops moving, because her body won't carry her any farther, and she joins my father in the life to come, I, too, will likely feel what my friend is feeling today: that keen loss of both my parents and the growing sense of the finality of my own earthly existence. Finality, but not futility.
Death is a staggering and sobering realization--and one few of us take note of, because we keep busy and distracted so much of the time. We don't like to think about final things, and yet final things, the certainty of them, may be just what we need to pay more attention to, for when we do note them in the right way--in faith--we live with a renewed urgency and deepened sense of appreciation for the fragility and fleetingness of this human existence.
As I ask ultimate questions--notably: What happens when my loved ones die? What happens when I die?--I face the heart of my Christian faith. I believe. I believe that when the end comes, I shall not fall into the dark empty nothingness, but shall rise from my grave in the light of God's love and in the power of the resurrection to that eternal bliss.
The end that I face, in faith, gives me the hope and joy I need to live with the tragedies, the suffering, and the losses of this earthly life.
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Life with that great cloud of witnesses
Early this morning, I was in one of those liminal states, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, when I sensed my father's presence. He didn't speak. I didn't see him. But I'm sure he was there, as if right beside me, and his presence was one of love for me.
My father, Gilbert Hurt Chumbley, Sr., died in November 1994. Although we'd had our struggles over the years, especially because of his alcoholism, we loved one another. After a long absence from one another, we'd kiss one another on the cheek. I thought nothing about it. It seemed right.
Saturdays, when I still lived near him in Louisville we'd spend our mornings together, drinking coffee and talking. Then when I moved away--first to seminary in New York City and then to southern Kentucky and later to upstate New York--we'd talk on Saturdays by phone. We never missed a Saturday.
I knew my father loved me. He told me so. He showed me. He always told me how proud he was of me. I've tried to be that kind of father to my daughter Clare, and now, I'm trying to be that kind of grandfather to June Elizabeth and Christa Marie.
At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, I remember my dad in the prayers for the departed, my spiritual director telling me a long time ago that doing so would help me stay connected with him spiritually. It works, too.
This morning in that dream state, my dad visited me. He was alive with love for me.
And then this morning at the Holy Eucharist at the sleepy hour of 7, I read the lesson from Hebrews 9.11-15, 24-28 and heard those words outwardly and inwardly.
The writer speaks about the Communion of Saints, that great cloud of witnesses who compasses us about, to quote the Prayer Book, with their loving and strengthening presence.
Today in my dream, the heavenly and earthly communions met, and my dad and I were together again, if only for an instant, and I believe and know that we shall be together again. Only momentarily in this world. But then eternally in the world to come.
Daddy, I love you.
My father, Gilbert Hurt Chumbley, Sr., died in November 1994. Although we'd had our struggles over the years, especially because of his alcoholism, we loved one another. After a long absence from one another, we'd kiss one another on the cheek. I thought nothing about it. It seemed right.
Saturdays, when I still lived near him in Louisville we'd spend our mornings together, drinking coffee and talking. Then when I moved away--first to seminary in New York City and then to southern Kentucky and later to upstate New York--we'd talk on Saturdays by phone. We never missed a Saturday.
I knew my father loved me. He told me so. He showed me. He always told me how proud he was of me. I've tried to be that kind of father to my daughter Clare, and now, I'm trying to be that kind of grandfather to June Elizabeth and Christa Marie.
At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, I remember my dad in the prayers for the departed, my spiritual director telling me a long time ago that doing so would help me stay connected with him spiritually. It works, too.
This morning in that dream state, my dad visited me. He was alive with love for me.
And then this morning at the Holy Eucharist at the sleepy hour of 7, I read the lesson from Hebrews 9.11-15, 24-28 and heard those words outwardly and inwardly.
The writer speaks about the Communion of Saints, that great cloud of witnesses who compasses us about, to quote the Prayer Book, with their loving and strengthening presence.
Today in my dream, the heavenly and earthly communions met, and my dad and I were together again, if only for an instant, and I believe and know that we shall be together again. Only momentarily in this world. But then eternally in the world to come.
Daddy, I love you.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Standing with the Islamic community in Springfield, MO
At this week's meeting of our Interfaith Alliance, a member of the Islamic Center reported on the latest hate attack on her faith community. Someone had left an anonymous threatening letter at the center. The writer, she told us, said that Muslims don't belong in Springfield. He called for "death to Islam." And he left behind not only his odious letter, but also three partially burned Korans, the Muslim sacred scriptures. One of our constitutional rights as Americans is freedom of religion. Every person may worship the God of his or her choice or worship no God at all. This right is one for which Americans have fought and died to preserve throughout our history. Indeed, America was first settled by people who fled religious persecution in Europe. These dissenters came here for refuge from religious intolerance and for the freedom to worship as they wanted. And yet today, religious and political extremists, who are ignorant of American history and the Constitution or indifferent to them, are attacking Islam. Infamously, Representative Peter King of New York devoted congressional hearings to promoting the idea that Islam is a threat to America. Other vote-seeking politicians, along with ratings-crazed media stars of the right are using Islam to foster hate, hysteria, and division. The only antidote to fear is fact. We must learn about Islam, including from its faithful adherents. Members of the Springfield Interfaith Alliance are doing just that. We're not only learning from the local Islamic community, but we're also partnering with them in promoting a better community for all people. Hitler's rise to power was facilitated by the silence of many German Christian people. Such growth of rank evil cannot be allowed to take root and grow in our good community here. From pulpits and pews, at lunch tables and across backyard fences, people of faith and good will must speak out and to declare: There is only one God, and all people are brothers and sisters in God's one human family. The purveyors of hate and violence will neither separate us nor drive us into silence and fearfulness. We shall meet evil with love for and solidarity with the persecuted. This is our city, and it's a good community--one that we intend to maintain as a place of hospitality, not hostility.
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