Of Emense Suffering, Loss, and Hope

The events of the past several weeks in Japan and Libya have focused my attention on a part of life of which I know very little, if anything.

Human suffering.

During the 1960s and 70s I grew up in a home where virtually all pain, disappointment and heartache were ignored.  My Mother in particular purposefully distracted me from the pain of others, or made tragic events seem as if they had not happened.  When people would ask my Mom how she was doing, the answer was, invariably, "fine".  It seemed as thought just about everything was always described as just "fine".  "Fine" was one of my Mom's favorite words. As I grew up, I slowly began to realize that the world around me was anything but fine.

And in the past two weeks, the level of suffering and loss we have seen in the world, yet again, staggers the imagination.  Entire villages washed away, families torn apart, lives shattered.  The stories seem endless, the images riveting, the loss more immense than words could ever convey.  There is a depth to this suffering that cannot be plumbed, or written about, or ever understood by most of us. 

And this time, so strangely, we were able to watch the tragedy unfold in almost real-time, as a helicopter hovered over the eastern coast of northern Japan, and relayed live video of the tsunami washing away vast swaths of coastland, homes, and lives.  Cars and buses which one moment were driving down coastal roads, had become in the next few moments, the final containers in which people would take their last breaths on this planet.

How can one even begin to comprehend the depth of sorrow, when you read of the couple who lost both of their children; because they were moved after the earthquake to the safe area in the playground of their elementary school, only to be carried away moments later by the waters of the tsunami?  How can you empathize, how can you cope with this news?  This is all too big, too overwhelming.  Bright and promising lives, simple seaside villages, dignified elderly Japanese, all washed away in sudden 30 foot tsunami of suffering, obliterating everything in its path.

And in the midst of this, if I am honest, I must ask myself, where is God?  Why did this happen?  To these people, in this place.  We have all read the stories of elderly Japanese who are now facing, yet again, a cataclysm of massive proportions.  After the fire bombing of Japan at the end of World War II, and the complete erasure of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the older generation of Japan is bearing a burden for the second time, that no other nation has experienced in modern history.  What is going on here?  What could be the point of this?  I confess I do not know, nor do I understand. 


And is there Hope?
Niholas Kristof of the New York Times writes of the Japanese people,

"There’s a kind of national honor code, exemplified by the way even cheap restaurants will lend you an umbrella if you’re caught in a downpour; you’re simply expected to return it in a day or two. If you lose your wallet in the subway, you expect to get it back."
 
For the better part of the past 60 years, the Japanese people have endured unbearable hardships with dignity and grace.  Watching this has brought tears to my eyes.  Had this calamity been visited upon us, we Americans would likely be busy blaming one another on cable TV for who was at fault for not being well prepared.  The tort lawyers would be lined up ready to sue.  And there would likely be looting.

But the Japanese face this all with a quiet resolution that is resolute, yet full of dignity.  There is a hiku by one of Japan’s greatest poets, Basho:

The vicissitudes of life.
Sad, to become finally
A bamboo shoot.

I think Japan will rise from this ruble, assisted by the world community, to go on teaching us about order, dignity, and hope.  They already are an example to us all.

Sing Me To Heaven

This choral piece is sweet and touching. The lyrics are below. Go here to read the stories of healing and grace associated with this song.



Sing Me to Heaven
Text by Jane Griner

In my heart's sequestered chambers lie truths stripped of poets' gloss
Words alone are vain and vacant, and my heart is mute
In response to aching silence, memory summons half-heard voices
And my soul finds primal eloquence, and wraps me in song

If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song
If you would mourn me and bring me to God,
sing me a requiem, sing me to Heaven

Touch in me all love and passion, pain and pleasure
Touch in me grief and comfort, love and passion, pain and pleasure
Sing me a lullaby, a love song, a requiem
Love me, comfort me, bring me to God

Sing me a love song, sing me to Heaven

Alleluia from "Sing a New Song" by Ronald Staheli

Chained, The Crabby Old Man Within Me, and Change

Chained
For some reason, I have had these reoccurring thoughts of late.  About people who get stuck in life.  And about how I fear one of those people might be, well, me.

I have been wondering about how we can chain ourselves to the ground, restricting the arc of our lives by our own inability to see what is really going on around us.  Or by our inability to change.  And how we are unable to move from those "stuck places".  This may be the root of much of the bewilderment, confusion, and pain we experience.  I have been thinking about these things.  We make subtle choices to become stuck.  It's easier to be stuck than to get up and move, or so we think.  These things don't just happen.  It's really not meant to be like this.  This wasn't supposed to be.

Becoming "Self Aware"
There has been much talk in recent years about becoming "self-aware", particularly among those of us who have had the luxury of spending a little time and money on psychotherapy.  To be self-aware is defined as,  "awareness of yourself as an individual or of your own being and actions and thoughts".  In shorthand, this means that we might simply "get ourselves", and hopefully, most of the time, be better able to understand why we behave the way we do.  Or so we hope.  So I hope.

Not Me, I am All Better
But over the past several years, I have often found myself making the sadly self righteous comment that someone I know, he or she, this person or that, is "not very self aware".  I say this when I feel that someone is not "getting it" about how they are behaving, or what they are doing to themselves or others by their actions or their inability to change.  Why they can't deal with that character flaw they have, or that difficult relationship, or that troublesome child, or that impossibly stupid recurring situation.  Things never seem to change.  Clearly, they are stuck.  And I think I know why.

I think I have it all figured out.  Those people, they are simply not very self aware.

As if I am.  As if I really do "get it".  As if I am all put together.  When I think this through, I then wonder if I am not becoming a judgmental and crabby old man.  At 52.  What a sobering thought that is.

The Truth
I should know better.  I should know we all stumble through this life, sometimes with what seems to be just enough available light in front of us to take the next step forward.  We are not very good at this becoming adults and growing up stuff.  Life is bewildering and mysterious.  Friends come and go, a loved one becomes deathly ill, a relationship becomes irreparably broken, we loose a job, and we are confounded by the separation and pain around us.  We feel chained to the ground, as if we have become some kind of modern day Gulliver, unable to move.  Sometimes, it seems to make no sense at all.

And then, I hear, again,  this story of choices, for what seemed like the first time all over again.  A Story of Investment.  A story meant for me.  In particular, the last lines, 

"And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb."  

Wait a minute.  What is this about?  Was Jesus an entrepreneur?  Is this story really just about money?  Is that all that's here?  But wait, there is something more.

Maybe God is calling us, through the echos of history, to take risks with our lives.  To step out of the comfort zone.  To loosen our own chains.  You know the ones.  The chains of self doubt, of insecurity, of fear of change, of timidity, of doubt.  The changes that restrict us from changing.  From becoming more than we are.

I think He wants to start with that crabby old man that is trying to emerge from within me.

Of Quarks, Coldness, and Creation

Looking Up
Orion the Hunter.  Every night He guards the winter night sky over our home.  Far above the back yard, standing tall and pointing to the northern sky.  In the spring and summer, He disappears below the horizon, preparing the way for warmer summer months.

But for now, it is still winter.  Often, at this time of year, those in colder climes tend to become tired of the cold and dark, and cold.  Oldest daughter of our clan has had some brutal winter weather of late, with 18" of snow overnight some days back; the worst blizzard in Chicago in decades.

Of late, I have been thinking about this winter coldness, of constellations, and of how it all came to be.  It seems nearly beyond comprehension that nightly, hanging above my house, is this amazing constellation with blue and red giant stars, and that light takes 776 years from one star to reach my upward looking eyes.  And just below the belt of Orion, there is a stellar nursery, a place where new stars are being born.  Just the other night, I grabbed my binoculars, went out in the yard, and found, sure enough, found the M42 Nebulah, a place where new stars come to life.  Over our back yard, light years away, new stellar life taking form.  As I look up, I am seeing the night of the 13th Century.  How can this be?

Looking Around
Back down here, on earth, we bustle about our daily lives, with morning and evening, days and weeks, months and years blurring together.  We joke with one another about how "time flies" and how we do not really feel that much older.  But then, something happens that reminds us we indeed have been here quite a while, and the end is out there....perhaps close, perhaps far off.  We don't know.

But that starlight over our yard, some of it took almost eight centuries to reach us.  Fast and slow, our busy world below, and the slow universe suspended overhead, each night.  Our little lives and this immense stellar canopy overhead.  If we just take the time to look.  And ponder it all. 

And so, I stand in the back yard, binoculars in hand in my 52nd year of life on this planet, looking upward and wondering.  And thinking.  How can you live here each day and not be struck by the depth of this creation all around us?  How can you not be affected by this?  How can one be more concerned with sports scores or celebrity lives than by what is really going on here?  By the beauty and the tragedy of it all.  The joy and the heartache in even one day, let alone over the centuries.

Do you have a few minutes to share with me in thinking about such things?  Take a look at the video below, of winter in one of the most beautiful places I know of.  It is the pure beauty, the enormous complexity, and the stunning simplicity of these images that started me thinking about all these things.  Were we created?  Is this all some giant stellar accident?

I wonder about these things.  Daily.


Winter in Yosemite National Park from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

Holocaust - A Musical Memorial Film

With or Without You

Before Older Daughter left for college this week, she made me a CD of some music she thought I would like. On the CD was a song by "Scala and Kolacny Brothers", a girls choir from Belgium.
Oh. My. Goodness.  First, I love this music, it is surely part of what Heaven will sound like someday.  Second, I just love girls of this age, I am partial, I am a Dad of two.  Third, part of this video is shot in Berlin, a city I visited many years ago, before it was free.  All this is wonderful, really.


Thankfully....

What I Know

“God is not a belief to which you give your assent. God becomes a reality whom you know intimately, meet everyday, one whose strength becomes your strength, whose love, your love. Live this life of the presence of God long enough and when someone asks you, “Do you believe there is a God?” you may find yourself answering, “No, I do not believe there is a God. I know there is a God.”

~Ernest Boyer, Jr.

Los Angeles, London and Livingstone

The weeks of December were remarkable and amazing for Older Daughter, as well as for the rest of our family. She left Los Angeles, stopped over in London, England, stopped again in Johannesburg, South Africa, and then landed in Livingstone, Zambia. All at the ripe old age of 19. When I was 19 and in college, I worked in a luggage store at the mall before Christmas. My dreams of a great journey were to go someday to Hawaii. My, how expectations and times have changed.

London, Los Angeles, Livingstone, three such distinct and different places. Yet, for this girl, three cities now connected by new adventures, memories, friends, and also now a bigger sense of this remarkable world. Definitely a different sense of the contrasts of life than her Dad possessed at 19 years old.

On her way home on December 18th, Older Daughter was caught surprised and unprepared by a massive (read: 5” in several hours) snow storm in London, grounding the final leg of her flight home to Los Angeles. Heathrow in disarray, stranded in London, without luggage, and wearing only sweats and Tom’s shoes, she spent the next 72 hours improvising a new wardrobe, worrying about getting home, but also enjoying the snowy sights of historic and beautiful city. London in the snow, at Christmastide! She made it home, via Houston, on the 21st; it was the best Christmas present of the year for our family. Her smile on our doorstep will not quickly be forgotten.

Given these events, the past several days have had me reflecting on these three places; London, Los Angeles, and Livingstone. After seeing the pictures of my daughter in England and Africa, so very far from home, and then spending time talking with her here, I have been wondering a lot. I have been thinking about these cities so distant from one another; not only in miles, but in also in time, in condition, and in need of our attention and prayer. Each city, so different, each so much in need.

Los Angeles, the city next to our home town, and by default, part of our greater home for many years. Unlimited sunshine, crowded freeways, fantasies and dreams, and hopes of fame and fortune. Millions, teaming back and forth on the freeways, isolated most of the time, one to a car, rushing forward. People come here from all around the world, hoping to find their future, to meet their imaginings. And yet the streets are not lined with gold here, but often with disappointment and frequent sorrow.

London, that foggy and snowy ancient Roman city. The city of Lords and Ladies, of Parliament and palaces, of history and gravity. Of Browning, and Dickens, Churchill and Montgomery. The cultural center of the British Isles, the center of the former British Empire.

And then there is Livingstone, the former center of trade in Northwest Rhodesia from the late 1800s that is now struggling to find its way, as is so much of Africa. A continent seemingly out of time. A place of the beauty of Victoria Falls, and the sadness of tribal poverty and the ravages of AIDS. A place the world visits, to see majestic animals on luxury safaris, and yet the same place suffering from global benign neglects. But as Kelly’s photos and stories have so strikingly shown us, Livingstone is so much more than a place or its history. For her, it was personal. It was real. Dusty, barely adequate classrooms and a school yard full of children, smiling, laughing, and being given a chance at a better life; something we take for granted here in Los Angeles, or in there in London.

And this girl, for her college Christmas break, decided she wanted to go. To go from here to there, across the world. Los Angeles to Livingstone, with an unexpected snowy stop in London on the way home. What motivated her to do this? Livingstone is a place of history and discovery, connected to London in a fascinating way – in that David Livingstone’s body is interred in Westminster Abbey. But not all of his body. The African natives, to whom he had become so close, cut out his heart, leaving a note on the body that read, "You can have his body, but his heart belongs in Africa!" Livingstone’s heart remains buried in Northern Zambia, near the place where he died. I wonder, where is my heart, even today? And where do I want my heart to be hidden, both now, and someday?

These past weeks, I have been thinking about what seems to me to be the only thing, the only event, that can unite the people of these distant and disparate cities. An event that occurred in obscurity more than two hundred centuries ago, in a dusty village in the middle of, well, nowhere.

At that single birth, everything changed.  Time was carved in two.  For everyone, forever.  For countless thousands alone with their thoughts on Los Angeles freeways, for the masses riding the London tube, and for the dusty streets of Livingstone.  All these places, given a chance again. Given hope. Christmas hope, across continents, and time zones, and time itself.


While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.
Luke 2:6-7 (The Message)

The Road Home - Stephen Paulus

May 2011 be a year of new blessing, abundant life, and time to reflect on what it all means. And, above it all, may you find your way.... home.



The Road Home

Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own,
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered,
Oh when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home?


After wind, after rain,
When the dark is done,
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away,
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home.

Rise up, follow me,
Come away, is the call,
With the love in your heart
As the only song;
There is no such beauty
As where you belong;
Rise up, follow me,
I will lead you home.

A New Kind of Christmas Story

Christmas Eve 1968 - The Good Earth

When I was 10 years old, I remember sitting in the den of our house in Arcadia with my parents, on Christmas Eve, watching the astronauts of Apollo 8 conduct the first TV transmission back to Earth.  Since then, 42 years have come and gone, on this, the Good Earth:

Mary's Song

Photo information here.










Mary's Song
by Luci Shaw

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …you who have had so far to come.)

Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.

Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new.

Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Into the Darkest Hour

Into The Darkest Hour
by Madeleine L’Engle

It was a time like this,
War &  tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss-
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.

It was time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight-
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.

And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! Wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart.


Christmas Time
Originally uploaded by andywon

Norris Family Christmas 2010

And so, it’s December again, and how did we get here?  Each of us finds ourselves confronted with the Holiday reveling, rushing, purchasing, partying, and some mild forms of panic.  If you are even a bit like me, you promise yourself that, finally, this year, maybe you will slow down, take some time, and ponder the wonder and waiting of Advent.  But it rarely happens.  For me, the act of sitting down to share with you a bit of our lives is an exercise in slowing down and remembering where we have been.  This past year, together and apart as family, was marked by some significant moments, which can be sorted into some categories; Adventures, Celebrating Relationships, Losses and Gains, and Thankfulness.

Adventures.  In the Spring, Nancy, Heather and I visited Boston, to look at several colleges Heather may consider in 2012.  This summer found Heather, now almost 17, traveling to, of all places on earth, Albania – to serve young people there.  Her time was remarkable, she was moved by the depth of acceptance and love among a people with whom she could barely communicate.  Just a week ago, Heather and Dad snuck off to snowy Seattle to visit the Univ. of Washington, another possibility in less than two years.  Snow in November, what fun!  The fall found Mom and Dad helping Kelly move into her new apartment at DePaul University in Chicago.  Mom and Kelly did a great job of decorating.  Dad paid for it, thankfully.  Kelly is doing well at DePaul, and loving her sophomore year, with never a dull moment.  And to top it off, from the 4^th to 18^th of December, Kelly has chosen to travel to, wait for it….. Zambia (!) to volunteer her time in working at an orphanage.  At this writing, she is safe in Livingstone, and loving it.  Really now, what an amazing girl!

Celebrating Relationships.  In the end, these are what make life worth living.  This summer we all were graced by the visit from Canada of Nancy’s brother Dave, his wife Pauline, and their kids, Hannah, Julia, and Tim.  Relations between our two nations were significantly enhanced.  Also this summer, Nancy headed again for a week to Lost Canyon Ranch in Arizona for Young Lives camp – an opportunity to love and care for teen moms and their babies.  Nance continues, each day, filing all our lives with order, grace, and laughter.  Earlier this year, Heather was selected for the LIFE spiritual leadership program at her school.  This is something we are very proud of, as it illustrates Heather’s care for the deeper spiritual life of her peers.  In further simple celebration, this year was graced by evenings under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl, and in the elegance of Disney Hall, experiencing the beauty and mystery of great music, shared with dear friends and family.  This fall we joyously celebrated the arrival of two new special friends, Dan & Anne Baumgartner, from Seattle.  Dan is now the new pastor of Hollywood Presbyterian Church, bringing to a close a two year search, and a massive sigh of relief and a loud Hallelujah from Nancy!

Losses and gains.  Just after I wrote you last December, we said goodbye to our dear brown chocolate Labrador, Cindy, after 12 years of companionship.  This was a hard loss for us all.  But in the Spring of this year (after some rather subversive influence from Steve), we adopted a new puppy of similar color and persuasion.  Ella is her name, and she fills our home with happiness (and, Nancy will add, annoyances) each day.  At the same time, we remember our friends who have lost loved ones this past year.  Pets can be replaced, people cannot; this life we lead together each day is such a gift.

Thankfulness.  As for me (Steve), I will not be sad to see 2010 end.  This recession has been not a ton of fun, professionally speaking.  However, by way of perspective – I remind myself daily that I am simply overwhelmed with blessing.  I cannot believe I get to work with such a dedicated and fun staff.  Further, I have been reminded to renew my commitment to use our firm to help, encourage, and nurture others who are less fortunate than us.  And so, with that thought in mind this year, a Christmas gift in the name of you all, our dearest friends, has been thankfully given to Club21 (www.clubtwentyone.org), a community service organization in Pasadena that works to support families with kids who have Down Syndrome.  Their motto is “Together Is Better”.  Truly, having you as our dear friends; Together is Better, indeed.  For many of us, this has not been an easy year.  And yet, at the core of it all, we have each other, and we still have the relentlessly abiding love of God, expressed in the gift of the Christ child.  We dwell in Christmas Hope!  And so, reflecting this, join with us in remembering the words found on the Oval Office desk of Franklin Roosevelt during the darkest years of the both the Depression and World War II:

“Let unconquerable gladness dwell” 

May this be so in your home and in your heart, always!    Merry Christmas from Steve, Nancy, Kelly, and Heather!

Nativity Carol

Nativity Carol

Born in a stable so bare,
Born so long ago;
Born neath light of star
He who loved us so.

Far away, silent He lay,
Born today, your homage pay,
Christ is born for aye,
Born on Christmas Day.

Cradled by mother so fair,
Tender her lullaby;
Over her son so dear
Angel hosts fill the sky.

Far away, silent He lay,
Born today, your homage pay,
Christ is born for aye,
Born on Christmas Day.

Wise men from distant far land,
Shepherds from starry hills
Worship this babe so rare,
Hearts with His warmth He fills.

Far away, silent He lay,
Born today, your homage pay,
Christ is born for aye,
Born on Christmas Day.

Love in that stable was born
Into our hearts to flow;
Innocent dreaming babe,
Make me Thy love to know.

Far away, silent he lay,
Born today, your homage pay,
Christ is born for aye,
Born on Christmas Day.