MORGAN'S MOMENT...
It was time to lower the flag…
    as the Memorial Service ended.

I had gone over to Hal’s place…
    lowering his flag to half mast.

Now in afternoon sun
    we watched the colors come down.

The flag was worn and tattered…
    faded by the sun of many summers.

Hal liked to see the flag up there
    so I raised it even in his absence.

He also had become worn and tattered…
    fading after 87 summers.

It was fitting that his flag come down
    and be honorably retired with him.

We were silent as the flag topped the pole
     for a final salute before lowering.

We gave Hal a silent salute as well
     then folded up the flag.

An empty flag pole like the empty cross
     stands for an everlasting meaning

We said goodbye to the Commander and his flag
     retiring both with full honors.

— Art Morgan 

BOOK CORNER
Some books read this summer:

Dante’s Path” Bonney and Richard Schaub
Don’t Think of an Elephant” George Lakoff
47”  Walter Mosley
The Smoke Room” Earl Emerson
Islands of the Mind” John Gillis
The Sins of the Scriptures” John Shelby Spong
Traveling while Married” Mary Lou Wersma
Radical Evolution” Joel Garreau
Pirate Coast” Richard Zachs
Gilead” Marilynn Robinson


MOMENT MINISTRIES
Oct. 4, 2005
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at a-morgan@peak.org

SUMMER REPORT
Summer is a time when we meet our growing grandchildren again for the first time as they emerge from one stage of life to another. It is a time when we actually spend quality time with friends who are present for enough meals and activities to really visit.
In Group Dynamics classes we were taught that people achieve a sense of mutual belonging by eating together, talking together, working together, thinking together, playing together, suffering together. I would add sailing together and walking together. Those in churches would add singing together, worshiping together and praying together.
Summer memories almost always highlight some kind of shared moments like that. Those who split firewood together won’t forget soon!
When life keeps us from such relational moments we begin to lose contact. Our summer life and place on Puget Sound offers a special venue.
We did try to send a “Summer e-mail Blue Sheet” to some on our list. It wasn’t too satisfactory, but we tried. We also answered dozens of e-mails from almost everywhere in the country and were able to keep track of joys, crisis situations and sorrows.
We’re back in Corvallis for now. We will be going to the annual Turner Lectures in Yakima (a 25 year habit) with brief stops in Walla Walla and Spokane on the way home.
DELETES
There is a sense of finality and sadness whenever we must delete a name from a mailing label. This time I delete the names of Hal Mitchell, our beach neighbor from Bellevue WA, and Dave Welch of Bend, Oregon, with connections to Moment Ministries of 25 years via relationship with Terry and Marlene Lorenzen.
THURSDAY NIGHT MOMENT

OCTOBER 6

Gather at 6, Potluck at 6:30
 
                                                                                     (back page)
 
ON SPEAKING AT A MEMORIAL

 
         You would think I would have it figured out by now. I’m talking about being the preacher leading a memorial service.
         My first funeral was for a still-born child, at a graveside. The mother was still in the hospital with all the hopes of motherhood still-born. They don’t teach you how to “do it right” in Seminary. At best you have the prayer book services and traditional texts. There is comfort in them, I suppose, but they speak with assurance where I’m not so sure. Maybe that’s why they have traditional ceremonies and words ─ to fill in for people like me.
         Here I am, 50 years later, putting together another memorial event. He had asked for a party with a service of my choice and style. He was a good friend with whom I had discussed almost everything over a period of decades (Sometimes with a wee sip of Scotch.)
         There were some things he didn’t want. No color guard, no 21 gun salute, no Navy hymn, no taps. He had been there and done that over his career spanning both the Second World War and Korean War. As a decorated veteran he qualified for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. But the Commander in him took charge and ordered his memorial to be held at his beach place.
         So we set it all up in front of his flag pole, facing his beloved North Bay view, and gathered beach neighbors from long years back. The content was up to me. What would I do?
         Well, he had some roots in the Episcopal Church, so we read some prayers for the grieving from the Book of Common Prayer. I thought the 23rd Psalm might span the great diversity of religious or non-religious thought in the group. I read a piece from Tom Brokow’s “The Greatest Generation.” And we spent a few minutes remembering our times with our friend.
         I knew that he would have expected me to say something of a spiritual nature. Preachers have a file full of their best efforts to speak faith in the face of death. I’ve spoken those kinds of words myself, and sat through services where preachers spoke their “assurances” about heaven and the prospects for the deceased. These “assurances” ring hollow, although some hang on to them because they have nothing else. The trite assurances of folk religion tend to prevail. I’ve never been sure whether the deceased is “looking down at us now,” or “enjoying bliss in glory.”
         As death approaches, many hold hopes for reunions “on the other side,” or as Jean’s 97 year-old aunt told us on the phone the other day, “meeting Ollie in glory.” Ollie was her lifelong friend. Who wants to cast a shadow over anyone’s hopes?
         When it comes to preaching some kind of faith the Christian preacher can draw on a number of biblical stories and texts. The texts from Jesus are frankly, of dubious historical origin. There is hardly a hint of talk about heaven. I always thought the line, “Where I am, you will be also,” is a good one. If Jesus is in some other realm of existence and we share that future, fine. If, however, Jesus goes the way of all nature and merges into the eternal stream of life, and that is also our future, that’s fine too. If it’s good enough for Jesus, why not for us?
         Anyway, when you read and think about all the “assurances,” what they boil down to is speculation. One may choose a speculation and develop a “faith” in it. I think what preachers do is present a faith based on one or another form of speculation. The fact is, nobody knows.
         I paused after a confession of my inability to grant a carte blanche assurance. I turned and looked out past the flagpole and out onto the water where we had cast the ashes of others of our beach neighbors as well as Jean’s mom, and my parents, where we would soon be spreading our friend’s ashes.
         I confessed that my theology has been more impacted by my observations of the beach over a lifetime than by all my university and seminary training. I’ve seen the cycles of life and death, the miracle of creation and re-creation, the struggle survival of the species, the turning of living creatures into whitened shells. I have pondered the gap between the oyster and myself, and marveled at the fact that my species has the wondrous capacity to be aware, know, wonder, love and know awe for the very fact of life. On clear nights I look into the stars and think of our Milky Way corner of one of multi-millions of galaxies exploding into existence more than 13 billion years ago. And I think of my brief life span. It is easy to think of us as insignificant as a single grain of sand. But something rises in my soul and says, “Wow! I’m part of something indescribably grand!”  My friend felt that way. I can honestly agree.                      
 — Art Morgan, October 4, 2005