Tired this evening: The Final Op_Ed

 

Don't Tell Me

"And if you want the wind of change 

to blow about you 

and you're the only other person to know, don't tell me

I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band."

- The Moody Blues

How does one comprehend

the scenes of flooding,

washed out roads,

devastated homes,

tears in tired eyes.

While far away in distance,

such a disaster cannot be

far away from one's heart.

Even in the farthest reaches

of my imagination,

I cannot begin to fathom

the pain of those affected.

These thoughts

don't tell me.

Neither can my words explain

or ever know.

First Draft of My October 9 Opinion Maker Piece

 In late April 1975, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies overran Saigon.  The U.S. Embassy was hastily abandoned.  Thousands of South Vietnamese refugees fled the country.  At the time, I was a sailor serving on the USS Parsons with the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet.  It was the USS Midway, our sister ship the USS Worden, and other Navy vessels which rescued refugees from Saigon.  I certainly remember TV images of American helicopters arriving with refugees from Vietnam and after landing refugees disembarking helicopters which were pushed overboard to make room for more incoming  helicopters.

 

The Parsons remained near Japan.  We were told our duty was to protect Japan in case the North Koreans, Soviets, or Chinese took advantage of the fleet being occupied with Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of South Vietnam.

 

A few weeks later, the Parsons arrived in Guam on a cruise to Sydney, Australia for joint exercises with our Australian and New Zealand allies.  Thousands of refugees from South Vietnam had been transported to Guam.  The island was largely a tent city.  The young, the old, men and women were sheltered there.  I remember one young Vietnamese woman in particular.

 

Riding in a Navy pickup truck, a young officer and I went to get movies and videos to entertain the crew on the ship’s closed circuit TV station.  As we drove through the refugee camp, a twenty-something woman dressed in a traditional Vietnamese white dress and conical hat stopped us.  A young child was near her.  I assumed it was her child.  She held up a picture to the officer and asked us if we knew the American serviceman in the picture.  I presumed that it was her significant other and likely the father of the nearby child.

 

In the chaos of the evacuation of Saigon, she had apparently been separated from her serviceman.  She was now a refugee on a remote island hundreds of miles from her home.  Her future was very uncertain.  Over the decades, I have frequently thought about that young woman and the child and wondered if she ever found her serviceman.  I hope their later life was better than the life of refugees living in a tent at the end of the war.

 

Today, in many parts of the world, refugees are fleeing war, famine, extreme poverty, and violence.  Tens of thousands, maybe millions, are living in refugee camps.  Unlike the Vietnamese refugee camp on Guam in 1975, many of these camps do not have adequate food, shelter, or sanitation to accommodate refugees.  Some have been in their refugee camp for months, others years.  Some arrive in the United States seeking asylum or temporary protected status having escaped the turbulence of their homelands. 

 

I presume that the Vietnamese woman we encountered on Guam in spring 1975 resides to this day somewhere in the continental United States.  I wonder if she has empathy for the refugees who have arrived in the United States after fleeing violence, famine, war, or poverty in their home countries.  I wonder what she would think about politicians who are critical of refugees, calling them names, implying that they are criminals or somehow subhuman.  I wonder if she ever thinks about her childhood home in Vietnam.  I suspect that refugees here now long for a time when they felt safe in their home country.

 

My maternal grandfather died before I was born.  He left a small village in Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic to come to America in 1906.  His wife, my grandmother and an uncle, arrived six years later in 1912.  I assume it was poverty in their small, farming village which brought them to America. It may also have been the turmoil of the soon to collapse Austrian Empire.   Grandfather farmed for six years in Michigan to save enough funds for my grandmother’s and uncle’s passage to America.  My mother was their first child who survived birth in America.  Grandmother died when I was a toddler.  I am told she barely spoke English at the time of her death.  I sometimes wonder what my grandparents’ small village was like in their day and what it is like to this day.

 

I believe that most refugees just want to live in peace and have enough resources to safely raise their families just like the rest of us.  Please, can we not debate immigration policy respectfully without denigrating those who have been forced to flee troubled homelands? 

 

Sample traditional Viet dress and hat:

 

Faith without works is ...

 As if, my sermon for last Sunday:

Several years ago, maybe 18, I felt the need to attend a Bible study men's group.  While I was at St Paul's at the time, they offered no such group.  Living in Lincoln Township, I found one even closer.  The former St Luke's Lutheran ELCA had an early morning men's breakfast gathering.  It was perfect for me as I was at the time still working and thought myself a morning person. 

The gentlemen at St Luke's were kind enough to welcome me to their coffees and breakfasts.  Our discussions often strayed from the Bible passages of that week.  Still, they were very cordial and helped me set a positive mood before I went to work in my job as Chief Financial Officer at Lakeshore.

I do remember one morning session which was a little more intense. Of all the Bible passages to chat over Lutherans with, the passage that week was probably the most famous one from James:

"Faith without works is dead "

Many years before that as a younger man 

still, I was first introduced to the writing of Martin Luther, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Plato, and others in an philosophy/religion grad course at Marymount University in Northern Virginia.

Martin Luther lived at a different time that we may find difficult to comprehend.  There was no separation of church and state.  Indeed, the Catholic Church was deeply entwined in the kingdoms and fiefdoms of Europe.  The church if nothing else was good at frightening the pants off the commoners.  You know, you are going to burn in the eternal flames of hell or at least be tortured almost mercilessly in purgatory if you don't do this.

To the church, the this became indulgences.  Essentially, the more you gave to the church the less you would suffer in the afterlife.  Give a lot and it was kind of like a Monopoly get out of jail card.  Instead it was better .  It was a get out of hell card.  

Certain church men were famous for traveling the Church empire in Europe and berating and cajoling the poor souls who feared for their immortal existence.

Luther by nailing his 95 thesis on the church doors certainly set off changes in the church.  Thankfully indulgences are mostly a thing of the past.  I say mostly because some churches still sadly threaten fire and brimstone from the pulpit.

Luther went on to write extensively on grace and his notion that grace alone, not indulgences, were necessary for salvation.

Me?  Me, I like James.  He's my favorite book in the Bible.  His concept that "faith without works is dead" appeals to me. 

It is not because I am concerned about what may happen to me in the afterlife.  Do I have enough faith as Luther suggests?  Or did I do enough works to make up for my at times difficult wrestling with faith?

I honestly don't think it matters.  What happens to me after I die, unless I am able to put some details in my will, is quite out of my control.

So, to me James is not about the afterlife.  James is about what it is we can do in the here and now to make a small piece of heaven come in this life for the less fortunate, the poor, the indigent, the immigrant, the outcast, and others. 

The Jesus Seminar scholars debated all of the sayings in the gospels and even in certain apocrypha whether or not Jesus actually said words like "Blessed are the poor".   I don't honestly know.  Those scholars are more steeped in theology than I am.

But I like to think Jesus said "Blessed are the poor".  I like to think Jesus cared deeply for the poor, the immigrant, the indigent, the outcaste.

I think James did too.  Jesus may or may not have been preaching about the afterlife when he said , "Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of  heaven". 

I just think James spinned it differently.  I think James wanted to bring a little of the kingdom of heaven to the here and now for those who needed hope in the here and now.

Is faith without works really dead? You can dance on a pinhead debating that all you want.  Our brothers and sisters who are Lutheran may have a different notion than our Catholic brothers and sisters.

What I and we have control over is the here and now.  We have our talents, our generosity, our love for our brothers and sisters to give.  That is what we have that works to make the lives of some who are less fortunate than we and allowing them to see our faith. 

It is in our love for each other.

Amen.

Vietnamese Refugees on Guam at War's End

 My short reflection for a Villanova on-line course on immigrants and immigration:

In late April 1975, Saigon was overrun by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops.  Thousands of South Vietnamese fled apparently fearing the revenge of their former enemies.  Some Vietnamese on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon managed to obtain helicopter rides out to the U.S. 7th Fleet in the nearby Pacific.  Eventually, so many helicopters landed on vessels that some helicopters were pushed overboard into the ocean to make landing room for more arriving.

 

My ship, the USS Parsons, was the only one in the 7th Fleet, based in Japan, that did not steam to the South Pacific to participate in the evacuation.  We were told that we needed to stay close to Japan in case the Soviets or others took advantage of the chaos that was Vietnam.  About a month after the fall of Saigon, we went on what I like to call a “pleasure cruise”, a voyage to Sydney, Australia. It was early June when we refueled in Guam.

 

Guam had become a chaotic tent city resided by thousands of Vietnamese.   Two of us from Parsons drove a Navy pickup through the refugee camp.  A young Vietnamese woman in a traditional dress and hat stopped us.  Nearby was a young child.  She showed us a picture of an American serviceman and asked if we knew him.  I assumed he may have been her partner and the father of the nearby child.  Over the decades since, I have often wondered if she ever found the serviceman in her picture.

Untitled

Death, you bastard.

Why you didn't 

take me

instead of my child

is a cruelty 

I will never forgive of you.

On and until my death bed,

I curse you.

Again, again, and again.

Convenience Store Clerk

Something like embarrassed that I forgot

to buy milk at the supermarket 

just an hour or so earlier,

I headed to the convenience store 

for my purchase.

In the parking lot,

I park next to a lone, rusty Toyota Corolla 

which must be 25 or 30 years old.

Retrieving a milk gallon from the cooler,

I wait patiently at the counter

as the clerk is busily cleaning 

one of those hot dog roller machines

ubiquitous in such stores.

The clerk calls out

"I'll be right there."

"Take your time, 

I can see your busy."

Eventually I pay for the milk.

She thanks me for my purchase

and I wish her a Happy Labor Day.

Back in the parking lot,

I realize the rusty, old Corolla is the clerk's.

And I wonder to myself,

what would be for her a fair wage?

Why write

You may ask why I write.

Hell, why do you breathe?

If I didn't write,

I would not exist.

Words are immortal

they exist long after life itself.

Soccer Haiku

Tonight I'm rooting 

for the Chicago Red Stars

who're losing badly.

Thankfully the ref

ends my pain blows her whistle

Soccer haiku sucks.

Summer Waning

On the last Friday before his school year begins,

I sit in the shade of the park's octagonal gazebo

enjoying the shade and breezes

while watching my grandson fish

in the nearby pond;

him hoping for one more shot

at hooking a monster largemouth

and me cherishing the waning summer days.

Birds announce themselves in the woods

and a fawn timidly explores

if its safe to leave their cover

and venture for a drink.

Alas, my grandson's yell to announce the deer

has hastened its escape to the wood.

Summer wanes like that,

not lazily but

at once.