No Greater Love

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

-John 15: 13

Now the summer beckons to us with its, we trust, gentle breezes. Whether the old world is better or worse than it was a year ago I leave to your judgement. I’m not sure that we are ever in a position to judge, being so close to the action. It is too easy to be discouraged, and yet even a realist can point to some positive changes. Good news is never as newsworthy as the bad. I want to believe that the human race has made some progress along the way, and, in my better moments, I believe that it has. I also believe that it may get worse before it gets better.

But our faith is that the good fight is still worth fighting. Our faith is in the improvability, if not the perfectability, of humankind. Our faith is that we human beings do occasionally rise above our worst natures. Our faith is that our faith is ultimately justified, though in the short term it may seem to be disappointed. Two steps forward and one step back, and all that.

When I despair for the world as it is I try to remember that other times have seemed as hopeless as these times sometimes seem. I try to remember that even in the worst of times there have been those who demonstrated nobility of spirit, even true heroism. I take solace in the fact that good people continue to do good things in this mixed-up, crazy world of ours. There is still much for us to be hopeful for, and about.

And that is the business we are in, as religious people, after all: we are in the hope business, and in the love business, and in the faith business which, as I am fond of reminding you, really means the "trust" business. It is hard to be trusting when the world seems to be turning against everything you believe to be right and true and just. But that is what we are asked to do. This is not only a passive trust I am talking about, though some of us could use a bit more of that. It is also an active trust, a trust that considers that we are God’s true agents in the world, a trust that knows we have work to do if we expect constructive change to come and the world to become a kinder, gentler place.

We do what we can, knowing it is never enough. That is our frustration and our faith.

When the world is at its worst, when the great mass of people is blinded by passion or self-interest or false patriotism, we are reminded that individuals sometimes still do the right thing, or, at least, they still do the inspiring thing. They do the thing that transcends politics or creed or selfishness. They do the good thing, even when it is sometimes also the heartbreaking thing. Or they do the loving thing, even if it is sometimes the foolish thing.

This reality should give us the courage to continue fighting the good fight! It should give us the courage, if need be, to stand or go alone.

Today is Father’s Day, and on Father’s Day I often think of the story told by the morning’s readings ["A Father and Two Sons" and "Robert Russell Ames," found in For Those New to Sorrow: An Anthology, by Margaret G. Ames.]. I thought of it especially this year when I realized that the events they recounted [the death of a father and his two sons in a yachting accident] took place exactly 70 years ago today. I grew up with that story, with both its inspiration and its sadness.

Is it a story of heroism, or foolhardiness? A story of sacrifice, or waste? Why, once the father was overboard, did those two young men have to sacrifice themselves? They had everything to live for. They were young and he was not. Why didn’t the other crew member, the unnamed one who would sail the boat home, the one who would live to tell the tale, stop them? Wasn’t it clear, after the first son had jumped in, that rescue was a desperate act of futility? Couldn’t one of them, at least, have been spared? Couldn’t the story have had a different ending?

I suppose that every father of a son might wish for such loyalty and love, if that is what it was, though God knows I would hope that my sons would have the good sense to not compound my bad luck or stupidity. God knows I would want them to live for me, not to die for me! Why wasn’t the father tied on to his boat in such a gale?

But then again, I suspect that every son would wish to love his father so much that he would do the same. And some of us wonder if we would?

Obviously, I did not know the central characters in the story. But I knew one of the main characters. I knew the woman who was left behind by the aftermath of that story. I knew the wife of that father and the mother of those two young men. She was part of my life growing up in Castine, Maine. And, knowing that story, even as a young boy, I wondered how she had stood it, how she could continue to smile, how she could continue to live on with her memories. I still wonder. Her’s was truly a "profile in courage."

How does one go on when all is lost? How does one come to terms with the loss of so much promise? There must have been anger, there must have been despair. But she went on.

One result of her will to live and go on with her life is the remarkable little book which she compiled in 1962, almost thirty years after those awful events, entitled For Those New to Sorrow. It is one of the best collections of readings and meditations about grief and loss that I have ever found. It contains the elegiac pieces about her husband and sons that I read this morning, but mostly it is a selection of poetry and prayers and readings. It was compiled, as the author writes, in response to a friend who counseled her "to write down the things that helped me most," and to pass them along.

It is arranged into six sections: "A Father and Two Sons," "Acceptance of Sorrow," "Prayer," "Faith," "Courage," and "Peace." The movement is toward the sense of acceptance and peace. There are some biblical selections, but mostly not. It is both Unitarian and Episcopalian, reflecting the two faiths which the author practiced. Like only a few other such books with which I am familiar, it bears the imprint of legitimacy and truth, having been born out of so much suffering.

I love many of the readings it contains. Like this, by an unknown author:

Infinite pity is needed for the pathos of human life. And one cannot touch her neighbor’s heart with anything less than her own.

Life is short, and we never have too much time for gladdening the hearts of those traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love and make haste to be kind.

In hours of depression, in times of black moods when we seem to stand alone and the darkness hems us in, and there is none to deliver us; open a window in our souls and flood us with Thy light.

Mortal though I be, yea ephemeral, if but a moment
I gaze up to the night’s starry domain of heaven
Then no longer on earth I stand; I touch the Creator
And my lively spirit drinketh immortality.

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
always in every prayer of mine for you
because I have you in my heart.

We have reason to think upon these things, as St. Paul says. We should think upon them always, of course, but summer perhaps more than any other season gives us the opportunity to reflect on where we have come from and where we are going. It is a strange and sometimes a terribly sad world, but it is also a beautiful world which offers us ample opportunities to be grateful for life. If we can turn tragedy to inspiration and despair to hope, that is something. If we can weather all the inevitable changes of our lives, that is something, too. If we can make something out of our losses, that is the greatest gain.

It has been a good year, and it has been a hard year. It could certainly have been worse for many of us, undoubtedly better for a few. What have we learned along the way? What has been lost, and what have we gained? Have we come closer to those three enduring values of faith, hope, and love, or have we not? Do we understand a few things more than we understood last year at this time?

I hope that you will have time over the summer to pause and reflect on these questions. I know that I plan to, and I know from past experience that as tired and empty as I feel today, I will return from the next few weeks refreshed and renewed and ready and refilled for another year in our journey together. As I look forward to reconnecting with old friends and to traveling to new and old familiar places in the days ahead, my prayer is that we will all be safely kept until we meet again. May the memory of old and even of forgotten losses remind us to be grateful for all that we are and all that we have, on this day, and in all the days yet to come. May you truly be blessed by gentle summer breezes, and may they carry you safely home in the end. God bless! Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock