You'll Never Walk Alone

There is a quote from Tony Campolo, pastor and author, that I've had in my files for years. I've kept it because it jarred me when I first read it, and has challenged my thinking about life since. Here's what he said:

"I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

I've never been able to argue with his assertion; I've only been able to ask myself why I think he's right, and on that score, I've come up empty.

There's another quote I came across recently that's helped me begin to answer my question. It comes from Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon:

"Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own and humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that."

Or, as Tom Robbins asked about the TV set in Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates:

“Does it not posses the power of a totem pole and the heart of a rat?”

Is television to blame for the fact so many of us have become so numb and disconnected from the violence and suffering that whirls around us like a doomsday machine? I think so; at least in part.

A case in point. I was up late reading and watching TV when the first reports of the February 13, 2009, plane crash at the Buffalo, NY airport started coming in. For a few minutes, I gave my full attention to the TV, but soon I was back to reading and glancing up every now and then to see if anything new was happening. I fell asleep before long, and slept peacefully through the night. In the morning, I turned the TV back on and found out that 50 people had died in the crash. At that point, I did what I think many of us did that morning: I acknowledged that some people I didn't know died in a plane crash in a city far away, and went about my business. After all, we see stuff like this on TV all the time.

Then ... I got a wake-up call. I had wandered back to the family room. The TV was still tuned to a cable news channel. I watched - mindlessly at first. I noticed that a young man was being interviewed. I figured the reporter would be asking the same banal questions reporters always ask in similar situations, and that the young man would answer in pretty much the same way others I've seen standing in his shoes did. The reporter didn't disappoint, to be sure, but the young man's answers stunned me. All of a sudden I was awake, and personally involved. In a nutshell, here's what happened. The young man told the reporter he had planned to stop by the airport on his way home from soccer practice to meet his sister's plane. He told him he had learned she was on the ill-fated flight, and no one had made it out alive. The reporter asked the first banal question: "What has been going through your mind the last few minutes?" The young man said he just talked to his Father - who was vacationing with his Mother in Florida - to relay the bad news, and said he was really worried about his Mother. The reporter then asked him another banal question: - "How are they taking it?" His answer was anything but banal:

"To tell you the truth, I heard my mother make a noise on the phone that I've never heard before."

All of a sudden I was there with him. I conjured up a vivid picture of his parents dealing with their grief in a small motel somewhere in Florida. I thought back to the time in my life when I had to pass the news to my future wife - we had been dating for about six months at the time - that her 14 year old brother had died in a freak accident. I remember trying to come up with the words to comfort her. I couldn't so I just held her. She cried herself to sleep. I thought about the struggle our family has been going through to help one of my sons deal with a serious substance abuse problem, and the nights I've stayed awake waiting for him to come home, and hoping the phone didn't ring first. This is hard stuff, and you pretty much end up dealing with it by yourself. Even those of us who thought twice about the 50 folks who died in the dark of night in Buffalo, were able to quickly put it our of our minds and go back to our daily routines. For those closest to the victims, however, life will never be the same.

In the future, I hope to remember that there are real people - with real families and friends that love them - behind the pictures we see and the sound bites we hear on TV. And, if I can do that, maybe I can also remember to stop to say a prayer asking God to walk with them in their time of great need.


Conversation:

• What is your reaction to the Tony Campolo Quote?
• Have you experienced the sudden loss of a close friend or family member?
  
• If so, how did you cope? Did you walk through your pain or deny it?
  
• If not, have you ever helped someone deal with a tragic loss? Explain.
  

Afterwords:

"You cannot put a cheap band-aid on a sacred wound; there is no way through pain but to walk through it." - Dr. Robin Smith

"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, 'Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.' " - John Steinbeck

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." - Henri Nouwen

Video:

The interview discussed above.

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You'll Never Walk Alone, Celtic & Liverpool Fans

A Sacred Mission

On September 7, 2002, Navy Secretary Gordon England announced the decision to name the fifth amphibious transport dock ship of the San Antonio class U.S.S. New York (LPD 21). He said:

"This new class of ships will project American power to the far corners of the Earth and support the cause of freedom well into the 21st century. From the war for independence through the war on terrorism, which we wage today, the courage and heroism of the people of New York has been an inspiration. U.S.S. New York will play an important rule in our Navy's future and will be a fitting tribute to the people of the Empire State."

In response, New York Governor George Pataki, who had requested the the Navy revive the name U.S.S. New York in honor of the 9/11 victims, said:

"The U.S.S. New York will ensure that all New Yorkers and the world will never forget the evil attacks of September 11, 2001, and the courage and compassion New Yorkers showed in response to terror."

The ship's motto is Strength forged through sacrifice. Never Forget.

The ship is not only special because of its name; it is also special because 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship's bow-stem section, which is the foremost section of the hull on the water line that slices through the water. When the steel was poured into the molds on September 9, 2003, Navy Captain Kevin Wensing who was there said:

"Those big, rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence. It was a spiritual moment for everyone there."

It wasn't too many months later that Hurricane Katrina disrupted construction on the ship when it pounded the Gulf Coast, but the 684-foot vessel escaped serious damage and within two weeks thousands of workers - including hundreds who lost their homes in the storm - were back at work. Some who lost their homes lived at the shipyard. Others lived on a Navy barge. Still others in bunk-style housing. Why this great devotion to duty? Philip Teel, a vice president for Northrup Grumman and head of its ship systems division, shared his opinion at a Navy League dinner in New York City on March 22, 2006:

"It sounds trite, but I saw it in their eyes. These are very patriotic people, and the fact the ship has steel from the World Trade Center is a source of great pride. They view it as something incredibly special. They're building it for their country."

Our highest calling is to make a contribution to something outside ourselves and our own. As a result, we are most committed to our work when we feel that we are dutifully and loyally serving a group of others too large for us to know everyone in it. Examples abound: soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, firefighters, police officers, EMTs, members of the FBI, CIA, DEA, INS, and others risking their lives for their country; research scientists dedicating their lives to eradicate deadly and debilitating diseases; teachers working long hours for minimal pay to prepare our kids to go out and make the world a better place; employees who work for companies or organizations that not only provide important products or services, but are also serving and supporting the communities that surround them; etc.

Author Robert Heinlein viewed moral behavior as that which contributes to survival: first for ourselves; second for our families; third for our group; fourth for all of mankind. His notion of moral behavior at the third level - which he called patriotism - was women and children first. He told a story to illustrate this in an address at the U.S. Naval Academy in April, 1973:

I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.

In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut right through it.

One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.

But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck —

Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them.

The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed — and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.

The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.

This is how a man dies. This is how a man ... lives!

Conversation:

• How do you go about learning from your successes, your failures, or significant events that impact your life?
• How do you make sure any lessons you learn are integrated into your current approach to work and life?
• How have you dealt with any sacred wounds you've received? Is there a better way?
  
• What is your reaction to Robert Heinlein's notion of moral behavior and his story of the tragedy in his hometown?
  
• What is your life's mission? How does it bring out the best in you?
  
• How does your company's mission and/or that of your job bring out the best in you?

Afterwords:

"You live and learn. Or you don't live long." - Robert Heinlein

"You cannot put a cheap band-aid on a sacred wound; there is no way through pain but to walk through it." - Dr. Robin Smith

"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all his life in the grey, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then - the glory - so that cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories" - John Steinbeck, East of Eden