I remember it with tears in my aging eyes.  Fifty years ago.  I was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam at the time.  Just out of the bush after many months of mud and blood.  Sitting in my bunker when the news broke.

I had known about the anti-war protests all through the 60’s.  In fact, Woodstock was making headlines as my plane took me west toward Asia.  I was committed to serving my nation in a fight for freedom against global Communism, but I knew some of my friends and family were adamantly against the war.  They still are.

Other Marines around me reacted to the Kent State shootings with hard-ass comments like, “They had it coming,” or, “It’s about time someone stood up for law and order,” or, “America, love it or leave it!”  But I didn’t react that way.  Not after I had seen the futility of our efforts and sacrifices in the rice paddies, mountains, and villages.  I had heard our Vietnamese colleagues mourning the death of Ho Chi Minh,  “Uncle Ho, the Father of Our Country.”  I had seen the brutality of our allies toward the villages they accused of aiding the Viet Cong.  I had witnessed the instability and corruption of the South Vietnamese government we were sustaining with our dollars and our casualties.  And so I was disillusioned by the body counts and the mission creep and the vacillating rationale for our involvement.  By that time, tens of thousands of young American men and women had died, leaving us to ask, “Why?”

So I understood that why our citizens were divided over the conflict.  Some chose to express their views by marching in the streets or gathering for huge festivals of defiance.  And I respected their rage.  That’s why it pierced my soul to learn that National Guardsmen had opened fire on college students in Northeast Ohio. These soldiers were doing what they were trained to do, maintain order in the midst of chaos.  The protesters were exercising their right to speak out and resist.  Lines were crossed on both sides, and then, in an instant, a bloodbath ensued.

I finished my tour of duty a few months after the horrid event and returned home, only to learn that a person as close to my heart as anyone was among the crowds that filled the streets in reaction to the massacre. I didn’t judge. I didn’t confront.  I tried to listen and learn.  And instead of tearing down the bridge of friendship, we strengthened it.  A hawk and a dove finding a way to live in peace.

I’m not sure our nation ever recovered from the war.  The Right and the Left still battle, hostility marks most dialogue, and we’re separated by widely disparate visions of what our nation should be.  All I can do is try to follow the teachings of Jesus and be a peacemaker.  And work to find common ground with those who I’m tempted to call “the enemy.”

God help me.

A friend of mine many years ago traveled to the old Soviet Union.  It was during the Cold War; the threat of nuclear annihilation hovered over the earth like a shroud.  Communism had stolen the breath of freedom from the lungs of millions. Travel in that oppressed and oppressive land was severely restricted, so my friend’s journey included only those sites that were approved by the authorities.

He returned after a two-week trip, and we met at a coffee shop to discuss his findings and his reflections.  We chatted for an hour or so, and as we were concluding I asked, “One more question, Mike.  Did you see any churches over there.”

He scoffed, his normal response to any reference to religion, and he replied, “Russ, all those buildings with their stately spires and ornate sanctuaries are now museums.  Only shadows of what they once tried to represent. The only people I saw worshiping in those cold cathedrals were little old ladies.” And we said Goodbye to each other and parted ways. I didn’t realize at the time that I would never see him again.

As I was driving out of that rain-drenched parking lot, those three short words came surging back into my mind: “little old ladies.” And I started recalling the historical accounts of how the “babushkas” in Russia had been the ones to care for the needs of the home front during World War II, when all the fighting men and women had joined the battle against the Nazi war machine.  Millions of these elderly women became the only surviving family member after the slaughter had decimated an entire generation.  The hell of that conflict had taken 20 million Soviet citizens, a number that overwhelms the senses in its horrific magnitude.

Then my mind turned to other “little old ladies” in my life who had loved and nurtured me, and prayed for me, and guided me on my journey. My quest to find something that always seemed just beyond my grasp.  I reminisced and saw the Bibles of my grandmother and mother, always frayed and tattered from frequent and devoted use.  The sacred pages were always marked by notes in the margins and underlines beneath the verses.  Often I would see cryptic stains on the pages, and I learned much later that these were tracks of tears shed by Grandma and Mom as they prayed for wayward loved ones, including me. Sometimes especially me.

As I continued  homeward bound along the freeway, pondering these memories, questions surfaced.  “Where would I be, had it not been for those godly and gracious women? Where would any of us be without the gentle yet often corrective influence of those saints?  Who have been the babushkas in my life…and the history of our nation.  Or any nation?”

Even now, many years later, these thoughts return.  I just discovered one of the Bibles my mother used during her long and lovely sojourn on earth.  And it struck me that any good I’ve done and anything I’ve managed to accomplish is due in large measure to the “little old ladies” who God placed along my path.  All the way back to the beginning.

I’m guessing the same is true for each one of us.

The morning headline struck me like shrapnel,  “U.S. FACES HARDEST, SADDEST WEEK.” I took a second look at it, then a third.  And droplets filled my eyes.  Could I handle more sadness, more grief, more sights of body bags in our cities?

Then the eyes of my heart turned to Holy Week, when Christians follow the feet of Jesus through the last week of His life on earth.  His steps led to a glorious triumph at the end, but the journey was one of agony, humiliation, and deep sorrow.  His walk to the Cross on Friday was up a stony path through Jerusalem known as the “Via Dolorosa,” which is translated as “The Way of Sorrow.”  The tears of sacrifice led to a death and then the most brilliant sunrise the world will ever know.

Perhaps we can find hope here.  Our world leaders are assuring us that COVID-19 will peak and then it will pass.  They point to the well-intended but trite “light at the end of the tunnel,” and try to lift our eyes past the current waves of dread and depression to see a horizon filled with promise. And we lift our heads, if ever so slightly, to catch a glimpse of that beacon in the distance.

The human spirit needs something to anticipate, to dream, to envision, to long for.  In the absence of this aspiration, we fall into a despair that can kill the soul.  The scriptures tell us that “faith, hope, and love abide, and the greatest of these is love.”  But sometimes I wonder if it should be hope that is supreme.  In my seven decades on earth, I’ve seen men and women survive without love.  But I’ve never known one to make it without hope.

Yes, we need the promise of a sunrise, but we also have to face the darkness, if we’re to be honest with ourselves, and with God.  Dr. Carl Jung urged us to face and assimilate our “shadow,” the unpleasant and rejected parts of ourselves.  Jesus walked into the presence of evil and commanded the demons to name themselves.  The One we call the Light of the World entered the pitch blackness of the sordid world and triumphed over it.  The Cross is our towering symbol of that triumph.  But it came only after the deadly encounter with the worst.

A week ago I posted on Facebook my thoughts regarding a recent trip to the grocery store.  It was a dismal morning, and I saw human beings bent over, cautiously peering over their makeshift masks.  I wrote of the terror and fear in the eyes I saw.  I wish I could have reported a ray of sunlight, a smile, a nod.  Anything positive.  But on that particular day in that particular place, I saw nothing but doom. And so I wrote what I witnessed.

The responses went something like, “Russ, surely you saw something positive.  You used to be so upbeat, lifting the spirits of so many of us.  What happened to you?”  And my answer to them was that I don’t have to be Pollyanna any more.  I’ll find a silver lining wherever I can.  I’ll look for the helpers in times of disaster.  But if I can’t see any light, then I’ll be honest and write the truth.  This most likely is upsetting to those who’ve known me for the last half-century, but it’s where God has brought me. No more “power of positive thinking” or “possibility thinking” unless I can substantiate it with the evidence before my eyes.

Again back to this sacred week.  The “Way of Sorrow” is real.  It hurts like Hell.  In fact, it sometimes resembles Hell in its fiery torment, its bloodletting, its isolation, and its hopelessness.  Christians believe our Savior endured all of this to secure the greatest victory ever…for time and for eternity.  But Good Friday had to occur before Easter.  Blood had to be shed.  Dying had to take place in order for resurrection to emerge.

Our Jewish friends and neighbors will begin the observance of Passover at sundown on Wednesday, April 8th.  The narrative is similar to the one Protestants and Catholics tell.  The sorrow of bondage in Egypt. The Exodus, the journey of freedom to the Promised Land coming only after the sacrifice of the lamb and the blood around the door.  The Angel of Death “passing over” the homes of the Hebrews who were protected by the blood.  The deaths of the firstborn of Egypt.  Weeping and wailing piercing the night sky above many dwellings as the muted songs of liberation wafted upward from simple hovels.

Sorrow before joy.  Or finding joy in the midst of sadness, knowing that a kind, merciful, benevolent God will always be faithful to those who trust.  To those who persevere.  To those who hold onto hope in the midst of death and bereavement.

Yes, we’ll get through this awful time.  We trust that the right leaders will rise to the occasion and rally the nations of the world to join in facing a common foe.  Perhaps it’s too naive to expect Germany, China, Russia, and America to work together, but I’m not going to let go of that vision.  At least not yet.

The poet of Psalm 30 sang  these notes of promise to us all, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”  So let’s walk together the Way of Sorrow, encouraging one another, embracing the message and the assurance of Holy Week and Passover. And let us boldly and honestly confront this dark void…without losing the hope of the dawning.

For the first time in many years, I embarrassed myself last evening while speaking to a small group.  I’ve been playing the scene over and over again in my mind, and I’ve come up with some lessons that I’ll share.  Perhaps my chagrin will keep some of you from being trapped in a similar setting.

First of all, I was asked to address a difficult topic without time for research, study, and preparation. That in itself is an invitation to disaster.

Second, I found the assigned topic to be obscure, complex, and quite frankly not worthy of much conversation.  I couldn’t present a convincing case because there was little high ground, or any other ground, that I could find. I didn’t have any footing, and so of course I was “flying by the seat of my pants.”

Third, the lesson others seemed to derive from the text was replete with moral flaws.  Dishonesty was praised.  The cheats were rewarded.  The heroes resembled nothing that I considered worthy of adulation.

I suppose some of this was unavoidable.  The setting didn’t allow time for careful and prayerful deliberation and discussion.  And most in the group were in a similar vice, cramped and cloistered without opportunity for the deep thought required for such a perplexing moral, ethical, and spiritual conundrum.

So I share this with you and pray it will be helpful.

By the way, the topic was “The Parable of the Crooked and Conniving Manager,” found in Luke 16: 1-9.