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Star to Follow
Late Monday night I got some sad news. The father of one of my closest friends had died suddenly earlier that evening. You don’t need to know too many of the details, except that he was only 63, he died quickly and apparently painlessly, and the family is understandably in a state of shock, as any family would be. The visitation was scheduled for this past Thursday, in a town near Cleveland. I could have come up with many reasons not to go…too much left to do to get ready for the holidays, Christmas Eve services to prepare, a desire to avoid the airports this time of year… but none of these were as compelling as my feeling that I needed to be there…that I needed to offer my friend and her family support…that a card or phone call just wouldn’t have been enough…at least not for me…not this time.
Tuesday morning I talked it over with Susan and quickly made a plane reservation. I spent the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday trying to get things in order. I would stay with my father and his wife. I would visit with other college friends during my stay. I would keep myself open to whatever might be needed.
Wednesday night, I started feeling a little doubtful about my decision. It seemed hasty and maybe unnecessary. After all, what could I possibly do for the family? I shared with Susan my concern. “It just feels like I am being dramatic,” I told her. “Mark,” she said, “Lori just lost her father out of the blue. It’s a dramatic thing. You need to be there.” I knew Susan was right: Even if my decision wasn’t practical, it was the right thing to do.
Before sunrise on Thursday, I was in the air, heading east, thinking about the sadness I would soon encounter. I also thought about the privilege of getting to stay with my father while mourning with my friend the passing of hers.
In my quickly put together plans, I figured I would be able to prepare for tonight’s service on the plane. Actually, I had little choice: I had to prepare on the plane…one way or the other. So, in my window seat, tight against the wall of the small jet, I pulled out my laptop and I thought about what I might like to tell you tonight.
My original plan for the service was to reflect upon the star that the wise men reportedly followed to find the baby who would be king…how they were moved by what they saw…changed even…and how they went home by another way. I didn’t intend, of course, to convince you that they actually had seen a star, but rather that they may have been, metaphorically speaking, pulled by some other force all together. “What pulls any of us towards our destinations?” I had been wondering. How do we know where we should go? What star might we follow when we are desperate for direction?
Looking out the window of the plane, I could tell the sun was rising, as the landscape below was becoming more visible. Here was a star rising in the east…a star toward which I was heading. I thought about what was pulling me to follow this star.
I didn’t get much done on the first leg of the flight. The quarters were just too tight, and my mind was too muddled. I had brought a December file of readings to stir my thoughts and decided to leaf through the collection.
One reading, in particular, stood out. It’s a simple poem. Sentimental…maudlin even…but it grabbed hold of me. In the darkness cast by the loss of my friend’s family during a time of year when families should be together, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
Perhaps I should have said it just between The wine and grace, the wishing and the blessing. That was a time for words, when the scene Had just begun, before we passed the dressing. Before the knife cut deep into the breast, I might have paused, looked up and all around Into the eyes of each of them. A jest Came easier, wit tossed into the sound And lost. Between the stuffing and the pie, Was yet another quiet moment when I could have told them all. Instead, I sighed And let it pass. Just once before the end I should have cried, “Listen, before you go, I love you. I just wanted you to know.” (Peter LaForge)
I wondered if Lori and her family had the chance to express their love before the end. If they had been able to say, “Listen, before you go, I love you. I just wanted you to know.”
Soon we were on the ground in Cincinnati. I called Susan on my cell phone and told her that I loved her.
During the layover, I tried to write again. But I gave up almost as quickly as I began, chuckling to myself how foolish I had been to think that I could write in an airport…particularly during this time of the year, when the terminals are buzzing with holiday travelers, traveling to and from their loved ones. As is usually the case when I am in an airport, I found myself way too preoccupied with people-watching to do anything else. Airports, you know, are extraordinary places to people watch. And there is something truly meditative about it. Seeing people greet each other after time apart almost always has a way of opening my heart. I create all kinds of dramas around these interactions. Who cares if my imaginings are true? They could be. And that is enough.
Adrift on the waves of this sea of humanity…all coming and going…I remembered a passage I had put in that December file…a quote from Thomas Merton, in which he shares a transformative experience that happened to him in a swarm of people similar to what can be found in an airport. He writes:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream….This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud….To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstakes….if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
During the second leg of my trip, I tried to write again. Still no luck. A young man in uniform was sitting next to me on the plane. I decided to engage him in conversation. Maybe he would tell me something I needed to know.
His name was Gabe. He was an 18-year-old heading home for the first time after joining the Air Force in July. He told me how much he was looking forward to going home, to seeing his mother and father…but even more his sister’s new baby. I asked him if he was hoping to get anything in particular for Christmas. “Going home is enough,” he said. I asked him what he had learned during his first six months. He told me he had learned to be more open to people…that being in the service exposed him to folks he never would have known otherwise. He also shared that the officers who yelled so much during basic training were actually not so bad once you got to know them as people. I asked him about his family and he told me a story of his mother and father getting divorced when he was eleven…moving across the country from each other (he went with his Dad, his sisters stayed with his mom)…how hard it was to be apart…and how a few years they got married again. A story of family reunited…before it was too late.
Near the end of the flight, after I had heard many stories, I asked him if he had any pictures. He pulled out a handful, including one picture of himself with someone cut out. “Who was this?” I asked. “An ex-girlfriend,” he replied. We laughed.
We said our goodbyes and as I waited for my bag, I saw him meet up with his family. Hugs shared after time apart. I teared up a little seeing this.
I loved these people. They were mine and I was theirs….even more, you see, now that we were no longer total strangers.
After landing and sharing lunch with my Dad and his wife, I made my way north to the visiting hours for Lori’s father. The line of people waiting to pay their respects looped through the various rooms of the funeral home and out the door. Lori’s dad was a man who was respected…who obviously knew how to love…and to be loved. I thought of the line from “It’s a Wonderful Life”, shared at the end, when the whole town gathers in George Bailey’s house…a house not all that unlike the old funeral home where I came to pay my respects. No man is a failure who has friends.
By the time I made it to Lori, I had an even greater appreciation for what her family had lost. We visited briefly before I needed to move on to let others talk to her. I did get a chance to visit with her one more time later that evening; still, I ended up spending only about ten minutes with her before I left…probably not that much longer than any of the visitors to see the small child in a manger had spent. But it had been enough, as I suspect it must have been for the wise men and the shepherds….enough to make me thoughtful…enough to open my heart yet again.
As I drove away, back into the cold Ohio night, I knew the trip had been worth it, for I was reminded once more of all that we share… that life is a blessed opportunity to connect and reconnect…to honor who we are and could be to one another…and to do our best to love…despite all the reasons not to.
On the way back to my dad’s, I decided to get something to eat, settling quickly on a strip-mall sushi place. The food was not so good, but the fortune that followed the meal was poignant. It read, “Place special emphasis on old friendship.”
I stared at that little strip of paper for a long time…my eyes welling up again in honor of the old friendship that had brought me to Ohio that night, and for all the relationships that sustain us as we make our way through our wretched and magnificent lives…the relationships that bring light even during our darkest nights. I knew that I had found tonight’s sermon, at least the sermon I needed to hear.
Place
special emphasis on old friendship.
If you are looking for a star to follow this night, this may be one waiting for you…indeed, it is waiting for us all. There may be other stars that attract our attention, of course. But dare I say, there are few that may mean as much, or that may lead us so well.
As we gather with family and friends this holiday, whether in person, over the phone, or in our mind’s eye, may we find reason to connect and reconnect, for when we do so with compassion, forgiveness, and love, we offer the most meaningful Christmas gift of all…far more meaningful than any frankincense, gold or myrrh might be.
One of my colleagues said it well when he wrote:
“They said the star hovered: a light to follow. We
found, reaching the place The
star shone where others were
Indeed, we are the ones who bring the light.
We are the ones walking around shining like the sun.
We are the ones.
On Christmas Eve…and on all the nights to come.
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