Tora! Tora! Tora!

Those words, spoken into his radio by Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, the leader of the Japanese air fleet attacking Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941; code words telling his boss Admiral Yamamoto the attack was beginning. At our neighborhood movie theatre I watched the grainy, jerky newsreels of the battle a few days after it occurred, 70 years ago this week.

Local boys joined the Navy and came home in body bags. Tarawa, Midway, Iwo Jima, Subic Bay, Bataan Death March; the deadly details were my daily information diet.

A few years later I got a haircut at the Pearl Harbor base barber shop, where a yellowed hand-written sign on the still shattered and taped mirror bore the legend; “Courtesy of the Japanese Imperial Air Force 12/7/41”.

Captain Fuchida became a symbol of the loathsome “Japs”. Any American military man who could do him in was a shoo-in for a medal. Given the opportunity, I would have, without hesitation, done the job myself.

Ten years later I was having lunch with Mitsuo Fuchida in my hometown.

Slightly built, he was quiet, almost reserved, with the mien of a scholar rather than a fierce warrior who dealt in death. He spoke of his changed attitudes about the Pearl Harbor event and Japan’s reasons for starting World War II, and of his newfound life-changing faith.

He believed that Japan’s initiation of World War II had been a mistake. Disillusioned with his inherited religion that worshipped the emperor as God, he had converted to Christianity and was in the U.S. on the post-war evangelical speaking circuit, as I was. I met him as a colleague, a fellow believer; this man who I had hoped would be killed.

My friends were full of questions. “What did you talk about, what made the greatest impression on you? What were your feelings as you listened to what he said?”

Actually, I don’t recall that I had any particular reaction to the meeting, any emotions stirred, any profound reflections. I had met some important and impressive people; he was just another one. I was very young.

Over the years I seldom think about that meeting, except once a year. On December 7.

I think about the sad impossibility of eliminating war from the world, despite the seductive solipsism of hopeful dreamers. Everybody thinks the eradication of violence is a great idea until they are themselves violently attacked physically, economically, politically, then they become convinced they have no other recourse, that in protecting themselves they are protecting the world.

Sometimes they are correct. Fuchida’s conversion and genuine regret over the carnage carried out by his country didn’t turn him into a fuzzy-minded peacenik, nor did he adopt a no-war-no-more position. A patriotic and respected Japanese hero until his death in 1976, he believed the defeat of his country saved the world incalculable grief.

Especially in these tortured times I reflect on the shallow silliness of imputing inherent, immutable evil to be the essential nature of any race or nation, or of attributing inherent righteousness to any race or nation, including ourselves. I recall that religion is the first Horseman of The Apocalypse.

I think about the innate ability of humanity to heal. The sick madness of hate, vengeance, blood lust, the “kill-the-bastards-they-deserve-it” mentality rarely persists indefinitely, although the ongoing Israeli/ Palestinian mess seems to be an exception.

Some people call this inherent, invincible inclination to healing and peace the Spirit of God. I think they’re right.

 

AGATHA

“And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2

We adopted her when she was six months old. Her name is Agatha, named for my wife’s favorite mystery writer.

In appearance she is a perfect 10. Her beautiful face morphs into limitless subtle expressions, her personality sparkles with more facets than a gemstone. She communicates superbly by direct vocal interaction and an infinite vocabulary of body language. She is acutely aware of what’s going on in her world and sometimes tells us what’s going on in our world. She frequently comes from the kitchen to my study to fetch me to dinner. She teases me, scolds me, speaks softly, stridently, or conversationally, appropriately to the circumstances.   

She is endlessly entertaining, a joy, a comfort, a companion in happy times and sad, and she expresses her love for me a gazillion different ways many times a day. She is snuggled up against me as I write this.

I adore her!  

I’m not sure she knows she’s a cat; but she knows she is a person.

Most adults who have kids and pets have encountered childhood metaphysical curiosity in the form of “do animals have a soul?” Just reading everything written on the topic could be a lifetime career. “Will non-human creatures go to heaven when they die”? Googling that question will lead you on a mind-bending trip through the zaniest parts of religious kookdom. Most otherwise knowledgeable people don’t have a clue how to answer.   

Neither do I. I don’t even know what “Soul” is. Dictionary definitions include:

·       The immaterial aspect of personhood.

·       The self-aware essence of a particular living being.

·       Consciousness, mind, spirit, self-awareness and self-actuation.

·       The capacity to make reasoned decisions.

·       The spirit or essence of an individual human.   

·       All of the above in some kind of combination.  

To speak of “having a soul” is incorrect. Living creatures don’t have souls, they are souls. Although it is customarily used in a religious context, soul is not essentially a religious word

The bible verse from Genesis which begins this column defines “life” as “having breath,” and uses “life” as synonymous with “soul.” The words “spirit” and “soul” are used interchangeably in many biblical passages.

“Soul” is never used apart from its embodiment in a particular unique individual. A few obtuse and sometimes mutually contradictory passages obliquely refer to a body/soul dichotomy, and there is widespread confusion and disagreement among seriously religious people about soul and what happens to it after physical death.

I abhor “proof-texting” the Bible, using it to support or refute a particular idea or point-of-view. I take the Bible to be an authoritative statement about what its various authors believed, but not necessarily authoritative about what I am to believe. And since the Bible does not specifically say anything about animals being souls or going to heaven, I feel free to create my own doctrine as it specifically refers to Agatha.

Leaving aside for the moment the problems inherent in the phrase “go to heaven,” which implies heaven is a literal place in a specific geographic location, as long as there’s Agatha’s and my souls in whatever form, I don’t want to be anywhere that she is not close by.

If heaven is a place/condition/whatever, where:

·       Unconditional love is the norm.

·       Infinite varieties of beauty abound.

·       There is bonding between all creatures, great and small.

·       Happiness is a bundle of fur softly rumbling on its inside,

Agatha will be there.

NO PARADE FOR THESE VETERANS by Jack Wilson

The first parade I recall ever watching was Armistice Day 1938.

Bands playing, flags flying, lots of horses, and real live soldiers, some with stumps where hands, legs, or arms should be. A few declined the proffered vehicles and struggled valiantly on crutches; one or two rolled in wheelchairs.

The little boy in me was enormously impressed. Although I didn’t really understand what it was all about I knew I was seeing some very important people. Just how important, and what it all has to do with me, has been a growing revelation through all the years since.

The change in designation from “Armistice” to “Veterans” was appropriate. Better than saying, “Hooray, we won!” is saying “Thank you” to and for the still living men and women who did the winning at unfathomable personal cost.

I never earned the right to march in a Veterans parade. I know some who have, and there is no way our gratitude however elaborately expressed can match their gift. 

But there is one group of military veterans we will likely never see in a parade. One of them is my eldest granddaughter.  Her husband served 20 years in the Special Forces. Everything you have heard or read about what Green Berets do, he has done. Here are excerpts from one of her letters to me.

(Note: Following the 1999 release of the Academy Award film, “The Hurt Locker”, the term became part of the vocabulary of military people.)

“Army wives have their own kind of hurt locker; and we protect our husbands from it, just like they protect us from theirs.  Not because there need to be secrets, but because you love one another too much to make an already hard situation more difficult. 

It used to frustrate me that I seemed to be the only wife who didn't know all the details from her guy’s deployments; that I had to wait until they got together and had a few drinks in them before I ever learned anything that went on.  At the same time, I always knew that it was because he loved me that David didn't tell me everything. He said he couldn't see how it would have been helpful to give me the details on how horrible it all was, knowing that he would be going back into that again. He loves me.

 

In fact, he only started talking once he was retired, and even then very little.

I haven't imagined David's funeral for a couple of years, now. But I used to have a plan for it. 

Before each of David’s deployments, I had to name a civilian person to accompany the Casualty Assistance Officers to my house. Several of my friends have called me and said, "You're my person."  You say, "OK" and then you never mention it again, because you both know what it means. 

I had detailed plans for what I would do if I got notified while the kids were in school, or at home; who would take care of them for me while I was making arrangements; where we would go and what we would do afterwards. 

Attending a fallen soldier's funeral, whether you know him or not, brings it all home that you could be next.  My girlfriends and I used to go to funerals together for moral support.  Our husbands didn't work together.  If someone from one of our husband's units was killed, we'd go together so we could hold hands. Then we would pick up our kids and go to one of our houses, give them pizza and soda, plop them in front of the television, and go into the kitchen and get drunk.  We'd have one big slumber party; cry because you felt like such a dirt bag because all you could feel was happy that it wasn't your husband's boots and gun on display at the front of that church; laugh because you knew you were with people who understood that you absolutely HAVE to be able to do that so you can get up and be happy mommy for your kids the next day.

 

 When he was deployed, I used to take the telephone with me into the bathroom while I showered; and would sometimes turn off the shower in a panic because I thought I heard it ring.  Never wanted to miss a phone call from David; I never knew if it would be the last one. 

If practicing for a funeral doesn't sound bizarre enough, I had to stop going to church for a while because I would actually turn away from the altar after communion and think I saw him walking down the aisle. 

After David did come home I used to lie in bed at night and cry while he had bad dreams, never waking him, because that's the last thing you want to do.  Knowing that there's a part of him that I can never heal just by loving him feels pretty bad.  And being married to a man whom you will never fully know has its own challenges. 

I used to watch David with our babies, and try to imagine those big gentle hands in combat. I actually used to be able to picture only his hands but not his face. You know it must be really hard for him to be two completely different people at the same time, and it makes me love him even more.

I guess we all come away fractured, yet somehow better people. Husbands and wives have their own separate forms of PTSD, but I would never have missed it for the world. I would never have wanted David to be less than he was, or to be something other than a Green Beret. 

It was a full and happy life. I am strong because of the experience.  I was able to be part of a community of people who really know what it means to love this country. Military families are tested in ways that most people can't imagine; but we come through it because we know that there is something way bigger than all of us, and it's worth fighting for. I think a lot of people hear things like this and think it sounds cliché. It only sounds cliché if you've never lived it. 

I'm glad I did.” 

 GUADALUPE

My wife and I once thought of retiring in Mexico. Some of the most pleasurable, memorable moments in our lifetime occurred there, and some powerful learning experiences.

The Basilica of The Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City is the most revered, frequently visited religious site in that country. Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote that "...one may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe."

A mestiza child-woman, wearing a shabby shift, was climbing the stone stairway to the shrine on her knees, leaving bloody spots on the stone. Her shoes were yellow rubber flip-flops. 

She appeared to be talking to herself, then I realized she was praying. And weeping.

The object of her grief was a motionless gray infant cradled in the crook of her left arm. With her other hand she repetitiously made the sign of the cross, a motion that revealed two coins clutched in her right hand: two centavos, intended as an offering to accompany her prayers to the Virgin to heal her baby.

The baby was obviously dead; the mother did not appear to know it.

The throng of pilgrims and tourists swirled heedlessly around them; a perspiring portly priest passed by with a dispassionate glance.

This teenage mother with her lifeless child could be the poster girl for 18 million of her people living under the poverty line in that beautiful, benighted metropolis, 7 million of them squatters in filthy enclaves sprawling for thousands of acres on the city’s perimeter. 600,000 children sleep on the streets each night. The worst U.S. slums are comfortable in contrast.  

Many places in the world I have seen ignorance, and the poverty which it feeds and feeds upon. But why there, why then, did a burst of unaccountable emotion grip my gut?

Certainly it had something to do with the dark desperate drama playing out in the shadow of a monument to compassion, healing, and love. It had something to do with the pitiful cash offering intended as a contribution to a church which housed treasures valued at more money than her mind could ever comprehend. It had something to do with my cassock-clad clerical counterpart performing his walk-on cameo role in this video of the human condition.

My emotions included helpless pity, frustration, raging anger, a struggle for comprehension, and guilt.

Human pathos, viewed in the abstract and from a distance, produces a low level of emotional intensity, a mental murmur of “how sad”. Up close the urge to help surged, bidden by instinct and training, to the surface of my awareness.

I could help her! I had money, connections, the cojones, my gringo Spanish was passable. I moved toward her, and stopped.

I could not help her. Just three feet apart, we occupied different worlds.

A bomb of emotion exploded inside me; I grappled with the fallout for days.

Non-rational guilt that I couldn’t fix her life. Most clergy have some Superman delusions.

Anger at a world in which abject wretchedness is allowed to co-exist with so many who have enough, and more. The words of Jesus came to mind, “the poor are always with you”.

Anger at an institutional church served by clergy who can ho-hum their way past an anguished mother and her dead baby. But whenever I get ethno-critical of religion I remember that religion reflects the culture; I cannot judge the church, or its clergy, by what I think they ought to be.

Anger at a religious system that takes money from an impoverished peasant girl and builds palaces to house its icons. But reality reminded me that she needed that icon, that palace. It was the only grand, beautiful, luxurious thing in her life, and God was there. And hope. Two centavos would buy her part ownership; who would deny her that?

 I must find my place somewhere between ho hum and useless judgmental anger.

A Very Minor Prophet: Great quote - too long for my tombstone, but it needs to be somewhere!

"The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty. Certainty misses the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns" Anne Lamott

The Waitress

10 years ago today I was in New York City.

In a city with more good places to eat than one could get to in a lifetime, Windows on the World atop the North World Trade Center tower was one of my favorites. I tried to make sure my guests who were in town for the first time got there, especially the ones from out of the country. A very nice place to eat, it had a touch of elegance and an almost surrealistic view, sometimes literally in the clouds. There was no other place like it in the world. The food was good, the service attentive and unobtrusive with just the right balance of professionalism and casual friendliness.

Our waitress was a personable, somewhat work-worn forty-something plain Jane who had obviously plied her trade for a good many years. She told us she was an abandoned single mom, working two jobs to keep two teenagers fed, housed, clothed, and in school. She liked her job, worked the breakfast-to-lunch shift, leaving her just enough time to get to her other job which ran from two till ten. A killer schedule; but for those kids she would willingly work herself to death.

My guest was Natalia Zdanovych, a young woman educator who is also the Director for Ukraine of the humanitarian foundation I headed. She had come to the U.S. to pursue a Master’s degree at NYU. I helped find her an inexpensive apartment across the river in Jersey City, helped her get settled in and showed her how to get around in the Big Apple. We had lunch at Windows on the World the day before I left. Nat and the waitress chatted, had some things in common. We dawdled over coffee, and the waitress took time to come by the table and say goodbye as she headed for her other job. She made me promise to have lunch at her table next time I was in town.

Nat’s apartment was only a ten-minute subway ride from the Twin Towers. She had only to take the elevator from the top floor restaurant to the subway station a quarter mile straight down. That same WTC subway station was also the one at which she would change trains to get to her university classes every morning.

The breaking TV news five years ago today brought me out of my uncaffeinated stupor about 7:00 am. The first plane had struck the North tower at 8:46 am., 6:46 MST.

Nat!!!

This was about the time she would be changing trains at the WTC station.

Everyone now knows the cell phone frequencies were hopelessly jammed all day. I didn’t know her classes didn’t begin till noon that day; my anxiety was out the roof. She watched, and photographed from her front porch, the historic horror unfolding about five miles away.

The first helicopter photos began coming across the networks. Struggling with gut-churning disbelief I looked through the eye of the circling camera at the ghastly rubble of the room where Nat and I had lunch a few days before, the table at which we ate, the chair I sat in. And that forty-something mother exhausting herself to take care of her kids; her body was probably down there somewhere.

I wonder who’s looking after her kids. I trust God is. After all, their mother was incinerated and crushed to pulp in His name.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” -- Blasé Pascal

A modified version of this blog was previously published in Jack Wilson’s syndicated column in 2006 and in “Views if a Village Idiot”.

You Gotta Start Somewhere

After resisting the Blog addiction for several years I'm doing it now in response to a groundswell of demand from friends and readers of my columns that I make a way to let them know what I'm up to. (Is ten persons a groundswell?)

When I say "blog" I've said everything I know about the subject. Computers intimidate me and the www. scrambles my brain.

Creator and manager of the enterprise is my Arizona friend, former secretary and trusted colleague, pun-junkie Linda Ryan, who is possessed of a sharp mind, a generous spirit, and a touch of masochism.

Items will be posted here as time and inclination come together for me; I have spent enough all-nighters writing on deadline for long-suffering editors to ever again embrace regularity and punctuality.

I think there's a way to send each new post directly to the email inbox of those who request it; a reply note to this post will get you on the list.