Hymn #911

“Hymn #911”

November is not a very hopeful month. It just gets darker and colder. Winter is coming like an unwelcome guest. A guest that usually just stays on and on until you finally give up hope that it will ever leave. Winter means to teach us a cold hard lesson: Everything must pass. Everything eventually dies. Nothing lives forever. Shakespeare wrote about it:

That time of year thou mayest in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

upon those boughs that shake against the cold

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the West

Which by and by black night doth take away

death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

Connie was nine months pregnant. Early one Sunday morning in November, she shook her husband awake: “Honey I think it is time.” They drove in the cold darkness before dawn to Saint Francis Hospital — she knew the place. She had worked there as a Registered Nurse until taking pregnancy leave the month before.

It is not clear what happened after they arrived at the hospital. (Doctors and nurses are terrible patients. They know too much. They know what can go wrong.) Connie became fearful when she couldn’t see the baby’s heartbeat on a nearby fetal monitor. Somehow, in her fear, Connie became certain that the baby inside of her was dead. She wasn’t convinced that it was alive even when they tried to get her to listen to the baby’s heartbeat on a stethoscope. At the same time, the staff felt that her behavior was still pretty much normal — if nervous. They didn’t notice that afternoon when she put her coat on over her hospital gown and went out the door.

Everything will come to an end. Everything must past. Nothing is forever. Terrible things can and will happen. We will lose or leave everything and everybody that we ever loved. This is true. What matters, I think, is how we react to this news. What should we do? Should we be afraid? Should we give up hope?

There are persons that might lead us to do that. Some time ago, their books were quite popular. Do I have to name names? OK — the “Left Behind” people. Do you want a professional opinion? These “Left Behind” books are pure, unadulterated crap. They do not express the witness of the Bible. They express the social and political agenda of the writers.

Some of these Prophets of Doom, like the “Left Behind folks”, some of them seem almost happy when terrible things happen. Why? Because they are not very hopeful about this world of ours. They have given up on working for peace and justice. Instead, they suggest that true believers might be able to escape all the trouble and leave it behind.

Someone dialed 911 and reported that a woman had climbed a 100 foot high tower in the railroad yard one block from the hospital. As the police cars arrived, lights flashing, Connie jumped and plunged to the ground.

Minutes later, fire department personnel arrived. Anthony Savino, an EMT, and fireman Mark Luety found no signs of life in Connie’s broken body except one. A little leg was sticking out of Connie’s ruptured abdomen. The firemen delivered a 7 pound 5 ounce baby girl. She was pink and perfect.

I know a symbol when I see one. Hope always seems to be born — strangely-in the pit of despair. Faced with the end of all things — with terrible suffering, we can be afraid, despair, give up, try to escape. Or we can hope and endure.

In the face of terrible things, right thinking people find themselves driven back again and again to embrace life and hope. November is not a very hopeful month. Winter is dark and cold and it keeps coming on. So does the end of all things — everything! Everything must pass. Nothing is forever. Terrible things happen. Planes plunge from the sky. Temples and towers fall. Mines collapse and kill. Wars cheat people of justice and normal lives refugees are cast into pits of hunger and disease. Nature rears up in revenge for ways it has been violated. Big lies are told and people believe them.

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire

that on the ashes of his youth doth lie

As the death bed whereon it must expire

Consumed by that which it was nourished by

This thou perceivst which makes thy love more strong

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

To love that well, which thou must leave ere long. We cannot save the planet — but we must love the planet- the earth. We cannot save ourselves — but we must love ourselves. We cannot save others — but we must love one another and wait to be surprised by life.