Carol of the Bells

Monday, December 14, 2009

Two events jump-started our Christmas.  It is our “off” year.  The kids will all spend Christmas day with the “in-laws.”  This is one of the adjustments to this new world of ours.  It’s a life stage thing.

The prospect of Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning without children or grandchildren at this point in our lives would otherwise be a handy excuse to leave the boxes of Christmas stuff unopened and stacked out in the garage.  It’s not like we give up altogether on the off year.  This is not the first one.  We’ve learned from experience that a quiet Christmas Eve, just us two, is nothing to be dreaded.  It is actually pretty nice.

The first event was Andrea Bocelli with David Foster in high definition and surround sound – the highly advertised PBS Christmas extravaganza.  Foster’s “Carol of the Bells” may be my all time favorite version of the traditional piece.  It’s big.  Really big.  Best enjoyed with a serious full-throated subwoofer.  My sister made us a CD of her top picks several years ago, which included this orchestral rendition.  I snatched it for our Colorado Christmas video that year.  The highly edited amateur fifteen-minute digital recording still stands as my finest achievement in home spun entertainment.  The sunset over the rocky peaks from a frozen lake with snow laden pine branches in the foreground as our kids frolicked on ice skates to Foster’s Carol of the Bells has yet to be matched.

So Foster opened the show highlighting the full orchestra and all the glitz and excess that unlimited staging budgets can allow with that same Carol, and I was hooked even before Bocelli showed up with his rich Tuscan tenor voice.   The two hours flew by and when it was over, I was ready to unload those boxes.  Put up the lights.

Then we had another date night, that second event, on the occasion of Carolyn’s birthday.  We acted our age, arriving for the late afternoon showing before five, claiming our senior discount.  The IMAX Theater must have a thousand seats.  And right up to show time, it was just us two, donning our clumsy 3D glasses.  We laughed like a couple of high school kids in the empty hall.  Maybe the projectionist heard us.  No one else.  It was OK when five or six wandered in just as the feature began.  But it was just us.  Disney’s new A Christmas Carol in IMAX 3D was a knockout.  We cherish Dickens’ lines, and they were all there.  If it was Jim Carrey, it was hard to tell.  He found a convincing miserly voice, maybe even more compelling and riveting than George C. Scott’s.  “Are there no prison houses?”   “… decrease the surplus population!”  “Bah, humbug!”  Never better.

Scrooge’s conversion always gets me.  I’ve read the book to the kids.  I’ve seen it on stage, and in a half dozen adaptations.  I know that turnabout is coming.  But it still gets me.  Maybe because at this time of year when the days grow short, and the cold settles into my chest and the coughing interrupts my sleep and the darkness closes in and the pressures mount, maybe in the dead of winter, I need to be converted, too.  Sometimes the ghosts from Christmas past, haunting the present and predicting a dark future appear in my dreams, too.  Regrets are hard to shake.  Even with eternal security.  I need a rebirth.  From the cold hard realist, cynical, spouting rules, predicting doom, noting the dire consequences of irresponsibility with precision, scoffing at the antics of public servants and other notables, counting pennies, unmoved by the plight of the rest of the world to, well, an openhearted, dancing Fezziwig.  If it can happen to Ebenezer, it can happen to me, too.

So Bocelli and Carrey, Foster and Ebenezer, both new productions got me this year.  The fly-bys over 1850 London in 3D were spectacular, with St. Paul’s on the horizon under a fresh fallen snow. Bocelli’s rendition of Silent Night; snowflakes drifting down right on stage.  Light the candles.

I worked on a script this year.  It’s the story of an uncle who donates a part of his own liver to save the life of his five-month-old nephew.  Thanks to Stephen, little Liam will be with us this Christmas.  And the doctors believe he’ll live out a full life.  It will be a video short for four Christmas Eve services this year.  The house will be packed.

I am a sentimental man.  But the layers of harsh reality get me, too.  I’m quite capable of missing it.  Missing the whole thing.  Including the Manger.

When I caught our four-year-old grandson jumping merrily on our bed this weekend, I almost scolded him; as though he was doing some sort of irreparable damage.  And then I remembered Scrooge jumping up and down on his.

So I smiled.  And let him jump.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

The Man Who Has It All

Monday, December 7, 2009

Tiger Woods takes the phrase to a new level.

What is “The American Dream” anyway? Generally, it involves a house, a car, job security, a family, a neighborhood, a good reputation, social standing and physical wellbeing. The order of priority would be a matter of personal preference, I suppose. In general, spiritual wellbeing is not even part of the equation; not, at least, in the public square.

The old quandary for gift givers (what do you buy for the man who has it all?) would certainly apply in the case of Tiger. What would you buy?

When you ponder the question of achieving the American dream, thirty-three year old Tiger Woods would certainly be a candidate.

I have gone on record as being a fan. I’ll admit once more that I am one of the myriads of viewers who checks in mid-week to see if Tiger’s name is on the tournament roster. If so, then I’ll set the DVR. An open Saturday or Sunday afternoon is just that much better in high definition when Tiger is on the prowl on one of those picturesque courses made for wide-screen. Just the way he gets himself in and out of trouble keeps me coming back for more.

Maybe it’s the opulent houses, the choice of cars, the corporate jet, the picture perfect family, the access and the admiration of his peers. The rest of the guys on the tour gave up on catching him a long time ago. They all seem to have come to terms with the reality. Tiger Woods plays golf at a different level. He’s from a different planet, they’ll tell you. Our media drenched culture has rewarded him handsomely.

Sure, the opulence stirs the imagination of any one of us capitalist consumers. But my personal admiration has more to do with the game: that trademark performance under pressure. It’s hard enough for me to hit a shot when the other three guys are watching at the tee box. I can’t imagine striking a ball straight toward the pin while enveloped by a throng of eager admirers measuring every movement, just inches away. Then there are those cameras; the long lenses catching every subtle nuance, every inch traveled by a rolling white ball with the Nike logo. And on day four, when hundreds of thousands of dollars hang in the balance with every stroke of the club, every putt – the focus, the mental toughness, the eye-on-the-prize, the set up, the address and then the execution – it’s my kind of Sunday afternoon.

But now, Tiger is one more name on the long list of guys who by all appearances has it all, but doesn’t. Not really. Not anymore.

Which begs the question – what does it really mean to “have it all”? What is missing? And maybe that is a spiritual something after all.

There is lots of irony here. Who would have imagined that a one-hundred-sixty-three dollar traffic citation would mark the turning point? I have to admit it, I found myself in a state of denial as the news dripped out. “Not Tiger,” I said more than once and meant it. “No way.”

Way.

So now the one-liners are floating around like fireworks. Puns are back in vogue. With a name like Tiger, the possibilities are endless.

Maybe I just care about the guy. Not to let him off the hook or to excuse the inexcusable; but I’m just sappy enough to hope that in the crucible of this crisis, he figures some things out. Maybe it’s all those prayer meetings. Back in the day, we called this sort of thing an “unspoken” request. God knows. But we really shouldn’t talk about it. Not out loud. Not in mixed company.

Unspoken, unspecified requests are pretty well out the window anymore. Seems to me like the tabloid press has pretty well taken over the scene. Yellow journalism is print media’s last best hope. In the ratings game, Edward R. Murrow and Helen Thomas are relics of a distant, forgotten past. The media experts call for full disclosure – now. Sooner not later. We don’t have time to wait for film at eleven.

I hope that the Internet buzz has it wrong. The idea that Tiger can somehow buy silence or worse, buy back his stunningly beautiful Swedish wife, the mother of his two children, with massive bank deposits and a beefed up pre-nup misses the mark entirely. It will take considerably more than that if he wants Elin to stay with him as she has up until now.

They like to talk about Tiger as though he is a “brand.” He’s not a person in this view, he’s a publicly held corporation.

But there are some signals, however faint, that there is more. He seemed a little closer to it when he employed the ancient concept of “transgression.” Someone told me that he even used the word “sin.” I am hoping that maybe he’ll grasp other concepts like repentance. Remorse. Humility. Atonement. Rebirth. Forgiveness. Trust.

Transformation can happen. Even for the man who has everything.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp

Decade Horribilis

Monday, November 30, 2009

Queen Elizabeth addressed the Parliament in November 1992.  It was the fortieth year of her reign; a time for Kingdom celebration.  But in that formal room filled with specialists in the art of the stiff upper lip, she wearily announced to all that it had been indeed an annus horribilis. Hardly the stuff of rosy optimism or sunny royal cheer.

What prompted her rare attempt at self-disclosure?  Well, there was the fire at Windsor; but mainly it was the children.  Marital problems set the legendary British tabloid network ablaze with searing headlines and sordid photos.

Maybe she took her cue from the American President, normally self-possessed and sober.  Six years earlier, July of 1979, Jimmy Carter addressed the nation in a televised address to let us all know we had an attitude problem.  Apparently, all the bad news got to him.

“It is a crisis of confidence,” he declared.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

The following year, Ronald Reagan denied him a second term.

In another month, we will close out the first decade of the new millennium.  Good riddance, says TIME Magazine.  Andy Serwer’s cover story calls it “The Decade from Hell.”  Maybe those Y2K guys were right after all.  The calamities catalogued in TIME’s piece just about measure up to their apocalyptic predictions.  No, the computers worked all right, thanks to the upgrades most everyone had in place by December 31^st.  There was no immediate need for all that fresh water, non-perishable foodstuff and cash stashed in the safe.  But the New Year, January 1, 2009, signaled an avalanche of disaster, all rehearsed in detail in the nation’s influential weekly.

It is distinctly un-American to dwell on the negative.  Our capacity for denial matches only our resilience and aptitude for recovery.  We prefer not to dwell on calamities past.  We are the nation that escaped the injustice and tyrannies of Europe, crossed the great ocean and staked our claim in the New World.  And we’ve been building a New World ever since.

That’s why Jimmy Carter got the boot.  When the Monarch admitted defeat, we Americans privately cheered.  But the Brits figured it was time for the Monarchy itself to be cut loose.  Now TIME raises the banner of malaise, a decade horribilis.

It may well be that TIME itself believes the end is near.  The print media is facing the real possibility of extinction.

While Serwer does a pretty good job of summing up the disasters – from market crash to market crash and everything in between – his attempt at a happy ending rings a little hollow.  It is tired stuff like “the market always moves in cycles” and “government regulation is sure to move in with preventative measures” and “America is still the World Leader” and “the other nations still want to be like us.”

But think it over.  I have been around long enough to remember a half dozen decades, and every one of them could have been summed up as the worst ever.  Every one.  Go back and count them.  1949.  1959.  1969.  1979.  1989.  1999.  2009.

Yes, we are all waking up to a brave new world.  Perhaps like never before, we are all in a process of reinvention.  We are adapting to new realities.  We are learning new skills.  We are thinking in new ways.

But certain realities remain; foundational things upon which we built a life.  Like last Thursday, when we held hands around a table still bountiful and drew our collective attention toward the faithful God who sustained the generations on whose shoulders we stand; the God who sustains us still.  We looked around the circle at the grandmas and grandpas and moms and dads and those giggly children.  Enveloped by the aroma of turkey and dressing and hot gravy and spiced cider we smiled in the presence of goodness and beauty and wonder and then we bowed our heads.

We expressed our thanks.

For a few moments, we let go of the dangers and toils and snares, and we felt gratitude.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

Remembering

Monday, November 23, 2009

Collective memory is powerful.  Shared experience settles somewhere in the recesses of our minds.   With that mysterious but effective mechanism, memories can be recalled and replayed especially in the company of someone else who was also there.

We marvel the ready access to mountains of information we enjoy at the simple push of a button via the electronic superhighway.  I now carry Google around with me everywhere I go.  I can even search by simply speaking my question out loud.  And I often do.  Carolyn and I wondered about Amy Grant’s age.  Within seconds, we had it.  She turns forty-nine on Wednesday.  Thanks, Google.

But as amazing as our technology is, we still have not plumbed the depths of the operation of the human mind and the software that drives it.  We are, as Ekhart Tolle says, caught in the now.  This is the only moment we possess.  But our minds are also recording devices, and we can call up the past, reminisce, rehearse and with a little imagination thrown in and a few photos as an assist, it is almost as though we relive it.

Not all those recollections edify.  I have been around long enough to wish more than a few of those memory files away; recollections tucked away in those mental subdirectories that require a password.  Would that the delete button on my failings would be as efficient as the one right here on my keyboard as I write.  I would happily dispatch those forgettable moments into cyberspace without a trace.

But then, we have the capacity to choose.  We can decide which memories we will pull up for review.  We can choose where we go.  With whom we associate.

Choice is, perhaps, one of our most basic duties as humans.  It is a duty and a privilege.  An opportunity and an obligation.  Some suggest that choice is simply an illusion; that forces from the outside control all of us, and ultimately we are helpless.  I have never subscribed to this view, though like you, I have been helpless before overwhelming circumstances before which I am powerless.  Sometimes it is hard.  But then there is serendipity, too; surprise by joy.  Like last weekend.

All these thoughts swirled around me as I sat with Carolyn on a crisp, sunny Sunday morning out in a valley on a farm near a pumpkin patch with the people who ten years ago responded to the call of a local visionary to start a church.  I resisted, at first.  Bill was likeable enough.  But I was weary of religion.  When Bill knocked on my door, I had pretty much given up on the idea that church mattered.

We were new in town.  We moved, happily, because that church situation we left behind was a mess.  Political infighting trumped joy.  Turf wars left good people broken and bleeding.  We started out with the right motives, but in time we became a sorry collection of Pharisees and Sadducees.  The factions all claimed to be in step with their hero.  Some were of Paul.  Some were of Peter.  Others, Apollos.  And that Jesus crowd was the worst.  All claimed to be biblical.  Mainly, our gatherings were occasions for debate, one-upmanship, spiritualizing, posturing and confrontation-in-love.  The forced smiles didn’t fool anyone.

Settled into our new home out in the country, I found a great big church where I reveled in my anonymity.  It was twenty-five miles away.   We could slip in any given Sunday morning and not meet anyone by name.  No one seemed to notice we were there.  I liked it that way.  On the Sundays we slept in, no one missed us.

But then, Bill, the ultimate networker, with an easy, natural way about him, began to pull us together.  We started meeting our neighbors.  We found out some of them had been praying that God would bring new neighbors who would be a source of spiritual encouragement and nourishment.

The first Bible study took place in our living room.

That was ten years ago.  We gathered to celebrate what happened since.  Hundreds of lives have been changed.  We pooled our resources and bought a fixer-upper up on the ridge.  We faced fire and rain and sunny days we thought would never end.*  And there we were, worshipping with abandon out there in the open air, celebrating God’s goodness.  In spite us.  In and through us.  Because of us.  We call it Ridgeview.

I have written a couple of books about those days out there in our very own Lake Wobegone.  Before long, you’ll find links on the Internet.  Stay tuned.

Paul had it right.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

*Thank you, James Taylor.

Scripture quote from The Message, Eugene Peterson

Mighty Mouse

Monday, November 16, 2009

When the shots rang out, Sgt. Kimberly Munley was on traffic detail.

This is hardly the kind of duty she found motivational.  Her training and her experience made her an eminently overqualified traffic cop.  Mainly, the wiry compact young police officer was prepared for whatever.  At five foot three inches tall, she hardly dominates.  But what she lacks in size, she balances out with attitude and heart. It is her life.

A mom with two daughters, juggling schedules and following orders come with the territory.  She shows up on time and takes her assignment.  A regular at Fort Hood, up until that moment, it was just an ordinary day.

Most of us experience violent confrontations from the comfort of an overstuffed chair or a reclining theater seat.  We sip on something pleasant, maybe munch on handfuls from a bucket full of popcorn, and watch images on a screen.  Sound effects add to the “experience.”  We have climate control and comfortable seating.  We feel a contrived sort of emotional connection; fears and starts, gasps and the instinct to take cover.  The editors enhance the images with slow motion close-ups, replayed from several angles and surround-sound crashes and blasts.  This week, a movie was released that portrays the end of the world.  Every city, every landmark, every wonder of the world is digitally destroyed.  “It’s almost like being there,” we like to say.  But of course, we are not.  When it’s over, we go out for a burger, fries and a shake.

Munley is a police officer with plenty street experience, a firearms instructor and an award-winning marksman.  One night, while a working crime on the streets of Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina, Munley stopped a suspect along with Investigator Shaun Appler.  The detainee shouted obscenities at the two officers and then charged Appler.  Apparently, the man discounted the threat of the short, female officer standing beside her uniformed partner, and with reckless abandon tackled the larger man knocking him off his feet.  His radio and flashlight flew up into the darkness.  They rolled down a grassy embankment.  Munley spotted the assailant reaching for Appler’s holster, which twisted around his waist onto his back.  The attacker pulled loose the strap and grabbed for his pistol.

Appler remembers the scene in detail.  Kimberly Munley leapt after the two wrestlers, flying down the hill and pouncing on his assailant.  She slapped his hand loose from the pistol, ripped him off her partner by sheer strength, neutralized his assault and held him under her own drawn gun.  In those moments of shock and terror and helplessness, Appler believed he would die – until he saw the flash of an airborne officer coming to his rescue.  To this day, he claims that she saved his life.  Since that night, he calls her “Mighty Mouse.”  He’ll break out in the old theme song, “Here I come to save the day!” He’s not joking.

“She’s mentally and physically tough,” Appler said.  “I’d rather have her by my side on patrol than anyone else.”

So last week, as Sgt. Kimberly Munley waved the traffic through outside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, and she heard the shots.  Instinct from years of training and street experience sent her towards the door from where the pop-pop-pop came.  She drew her weapon.

Major Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan had already wreaked havoc on a room crowded with troops waiting idly for their inoculations.  He chased one of his victims out the door shouting and shooting, two hands each with a pistol firing as Kimberly ran full speed around the corner on a polished concrete floor.  The marksman took her aim, shouted at the shooter, and pulled her trigger.

Malik turned from his target, and aimed his two guns directly at her.  He fired.  She fired back.  He fired again.  First her hand, then both legs.  Three hits.  But she kept charging and kept firing.  She brought Malik down.  The shooting stopped.

On her way to the hospital, she pulled out her cell phone.  They controlled the bleeding.  They used a bandage for her hand, and a tourniquet for one of her wounded legs.

She called a neighbor.  “Could you pick up my little girl this afternoon?  I got delayed.”

Pause.

“Thank you so much.”

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp

Ft. Hood

Monday, November 9, 2009

These are shared national experiences.  Many of us know people or have family who are serving our country in uniform.  We track the news.  We look up locations on Internet maps.  We imagine life in Iraq or Afghanistan; out where the fighting takes place.  We think about the dangers of combat and hidden bombs triggered by remote and snipers hiding in the shadows, behind the thick brush or a crag in the rocks or concrete walls around the corner.  We pray for safety.  We pray for peace.

Many of us have attended the graduation ceremonies and watched the commissioning.  We’ve also been there when the troops come home.  It all gives us a personal sense of the sacrifice.  We get in on the camaraderie and among the troops.  We get a taste of military culture.  We see at close range the impact of hierarchy; the mutual respect among the ranks.

I always pick up on the phrase “my soldiers.”  When one of the guys talks about the battalion, the personal possessive pronoun comes into play.  It implies ownership.  Responsibility.  These are “my” people, they will say.

There is, perhaps, no other context in which American diversity is so plainly evident.  Men and women.  Every ethnicity.  All dressed the same.  All learning to work together, and see past the prejudices and biases learned somewhere on the outside, and see rather, the person in battle beside me on whom my life now depends.  The differences that seemed so significant back in civilian life melt away in the face of combat.

The stunning moment at Fort Hood, when in one of those crowded rooms as troops prepared for deployment, a high ranking officer in uniform stood to his feet shouting an Arabic phrase, commonly employed as the prelude to an act of violent terror, and then opened fire on an unsuspecting gathering of troops seated around tables, has us all in a state of utter bewilderment.  Sadly, stories of individuals who snap and get their hands on weapons and then engage in a killing rampage are not all that uncommon.  We are all too familiar with these episodes of senseless violence.  But when a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, trained to heal, becomes the perpetrator of such pointless aggression, it takes your breath away.

There will be plenty of commentary coming.  The talking heads will present their theories.  Experts will be called on to pars all the detail.  But because Major Nidal Malik Hasan survived, there will be a trial.  Who knows how long it will take?  There will be calls for capital punishment.  Will the defense claim mental incapacity?  Some will plead for compassion and mercy.  We will wait for the Major to say something for himself.  We will be schooled on the intricacies of military tribunals; and the possibility of the transfer of the case to a civilian criminal court.

In a surprisingly strong statement, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey said, “Our diversity not only in our military but in our country, is a strength.  As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

We can predict with a fair degree of certainty that the shooting by the doctor at Fort Hood will, for some, become the occasion for inflammatory rhetoric.  But as one soldier put it, “Adversity like this only makes us stronger.”

When victims and close range witnesses are asked, “Are you going ahead with your deployment?”  The answer is most often, “Absolutely.”

So we pray for the families who suffered loss.  We pray for the injured who now face rehabilitation, and in some cases, permanent disabilities.  Some of them severe.

And most of all, we pray for peace.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp

Hand Signals

Monday, November 2, 2009

Australian born, Mardi (pronounced Maw-di) exchanged a career as a world-class soprano for motherhood.  It was a conscious choice.  For her, the dream of performing on the big stage came true.  She traveled all over the world, recorded in studios with big orchestras, and finally landed major roles in metropolitan performing arts centers.

But home and family were more important to her than the bright lights.  More than a decade ago, she declined that last offer to make the stage her life.  Today she has, instead, a husband and three children.

So now she’s a mom.  A worship leader, too.  She didn’t identify which daughter, but as she drew the church into worship, she shared a brief parenting anecdote.   “She will remain nameless,” she said.  “Let’s just call her Precious.”  It was in anticipation of a parenting Sunday with special speakers who brought a direct message to moms and dads.

One ordinary afternoon, one of their two girls had question.  “Mom,” she asked, “what does it mean when you raise your middle finger in the air at someone?”

This generation of parents has learned that gasping in horror or breaking into uproarious laughter or changing the subject are all inappropriate responses to the innocent queries of their young, no matter how surprising.  So Mardi, calm and sure, took a deep breath, gave the best on the spot impromptu response she could.  She sat down on the couch.

“Precious,” she said, pulling the little girl up on her knee, “that hand signal represents a very bad word.  It’s so bad, I don’t even want to tell you what it is.  It is a word we don’t ever say.  And that gesture is one we never use, either.  Ever.”  Mom was firm but gentle.

“Oh,” said Precious.  “OK.”  She seemed to understand.  She jumped off her mom’s lap, ready to move on to something else.  She ran off into the playroom.  Mardi sighed in relief, glad that one was over.

Until a few days later when the phone rang.  It was the Vice Principal.  “Mrs. Cork, you need to know that today your little girl held up her middle finger in class, and the teacher sent her to my office for disciplinary action, which we are obligated to impose,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

This time, Mardi gasped, “Prescious?!  My Prescious?” was all she could say.

By the time mother and daughter would meet again face to face, the little girl was in tears, awash in guilt and shame.  Immediately, Mardi sensed that while a sharp reprimand may have been first on her list, it was not necessary.  She quickly moved to console her little girl.

“Are you sorry, honey?” she asked.

“Uh huh,” she said between sobs.

“Did you tell your teacher you were sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pray, and ask God to forgive you?”

“Uh huh.”

“OK, sweetheart.  Come here.”  And mom pulled her young daughter close and held her tight.  “You are forgiven.  It’s OK.”  And Mardi explained the intricacies of forgiveness, how God doesn’t even remember our sins anymore.  As far as the East is from the West, she added.

Precious nodded, signaling she understood.  Mommy brushed away the tears and smiled at her little girl, kissing her wet cheek.

And all of us who heard the story thought how sweet Mommy’s touch can be.  And about the times we all knew better, but did it anyway; and then needed forgiveness.

“Sing with me,” Mardi said.   And the instruments started to play.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me…

–

* * * *

And after the singing of that powerful hymn, the family life speaker bounded up to the microphone.

“Good morning!” he started with a cheerful tone.  “You know, I think I saw Precious out there on the freeway this morning on the way over here… it was when I cut her off as I merged into the lane…”

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

Amelia

Monday, October 26, 2009

I inherited my fascination with flight from my father who was a high school kid when World War II dominated the scene.  He had dreams of flying back then.  In many ways, it was an air war.  But my dad’s dreams of piloting aircraft were never realized.

We made model airplanes together, and spent hours at the end of runways just watching the airplanes land.  Dad’s sense of wonder rose up whenever a big old airliner approached the landing site.  I can still hear him describe the sensation of take off in the new Boeing 707 on business trips; the power of four jet engines thrusting that big bird into the clouds.  Impossible, he would say, but there it is.  Take a look.  The fact that those heavy steel machines could get off the ground at all was miracle enough for my Dad.  He was a true believer.

So I read and re-read all the entries related to flight in our Compton’s Encyclopedia as a kid just in case I ever ended up in flight school.  I wanted to have head start on my classmates.  The basics of lift and drag and aerodynamics fueled my own dreams.  Ailerons and rudders and instrument panels and flaps and trim tabs.  Retractable gear.  Vector navigation.  I remember pouring over the maps with my rich-kid pal who secured a multi-engine rating just after he got his drivers license.  We would map out our journey, factoring cross winds and fuel consumption.  We’d fly his dad’s Cessna Skymaster all over Southern California.

So when I heard that there would be a movie about Amelia Earhart, I knew I’d be first in line on opening day – just like I did when the Howard Hughes movie was released (The Aviator).

Seeing the movie (starring Hilliary Swank as Amelia Earhart) is better than a trip to the museum.  You get to see these old historic birds fly.  She flew them all.  The single engine speedster.  The heavy seaplane.  The tri-motor.  And finally, the Lockheed Electra 10E.  It is all right by me when the special effects kick in, computer generated graphics and the use of models.  But then, this film, made by a purist, used real airplanes and real flight sequences.  The Lockheed Electra in polished chrome with the radial engines sparkled in the sunlight.  It called up all those memories from Compton’s Encyclopedia, complete with a musical score.

Amelia’s life was complicated.  The focus and drive to break records and inspire are now the stuff of legend.  Her personal life, too.  Was hers a marriage of convenience (to fund the flying) or was it love?  She was just a little girl when the Wright Brothers proved that it could be done.  A child of the heady roaring twenties, she became one of those models of can-do Americanism during the dark depression years when the New Deal set the pace for innovation and hard work.  After conquering the trans-Atlantic barrier, and the trans-continental, too, she set her sights on the impossible: circumnavigating the globe along the Equator.  Twenty-four thousand miles.  It had not been done before.  She would be the first.  And she nearly made it.

Except for the last great challenge.  And there, she would be lost to history.  Crossing the Atlantic was tough enough.  But the Pacific.  Wow.  It would be nearly five thousand miles over water with but two stops.  Howard Island and Hawaii.  A few years before, she made the trip from California to Hawaii: two thousand miles over water.

But the two legs that presented the greatest challenge to this day seem entirely beyond reason.   New Giunea to home in Oakland with those two unimaginable stops.

In May of 1937, she took off in Oakland, California to circle the globe.  Then she crossed the Southern states, dropping down through Florida through the Cuban Islands to South America all the way to Brazil.  There, she soared over the Atlantic to Africa, and across that Continent.  Over the endless sand dunes of Saudi Arabia and on through India to Calcutta.  From there she flew over Southeast Asia over the islands of Malaysia all the way to New Guinea.  From there, she launched that impossible mission, along with her Navigator, Fred Noonan.  (Map.)

And that’s the piece of her story that leaves me breathless.  Howard Island is but four hundred fifty acres of dry land barely above sea level two thousand five hundred miles from Lae, Papua, New Guinea.  It’s roughly half way over the open water to Hawaii.  They built a makeshift runway on the Island just for her.  The Navy vessel Itasca waited there with fuel brought in just for this momentous record-breaking project.  They set up radio communication to assist her in the middle of the vast stretch of open sea.  But make no mistake.  Given the navigational tools available to her at the time; this was mission impossible.

It would be like flying from Cleveland to Bakersfield non-stop with no GPS, no radio navigation, no Omni stations and finding the campus of Bakersfield High.  But think about it – no visual reference points, either.  None.  Twelve hours of wide-open, mind-numbing sea.  Vector navigation.  One tenth of a degree off with trade winds and air currents is all it takes and you’ll never see that little dot on the horizon.  Worse still, you can’t see it on the horizon.  It’s flat.  You must be directly over it to catch it in your sights.

So she prepared for launch.  And that’s when things went wrong.  One after the other.  Noonan the navigator slipped into his habit of drinking too much.  Radios failed.  Morse code, too.  Late in the flight, the veteran pilot seemed disoriented in the few transmissions anyone could pick up.  Radios went silent.  Primitive locators failed to pinpoint her position.  Howard Island never picked up a definitive signal.  An intense search followed.  No sign of Amelia, Fred or the Electra has been found to this day.  She was barely forty years old.

The conspiracy theories still live.  Like Elvis and John Lennon and JFK and Anastasia, post-death (in her case, [post-disappearance) sightings of Amelia abound.  But like so many aviation stories, the ending is Shakespearian level tragedy.

So what do we take from Amelia on this Monday?

The common bromide, that at least she died at the stick in the captain’s left seat she loved, doesn’t do much for me.  But her passion for flight.  Her courage as a woman.  Her instincts.  Her ambitions.  This is what we remember.

Pursuing your dreams is risky business.  The dangers are real.  Mistakes get made.  The sky beckons still.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt

Monday, October 19, 2009

When you come through the tunnel from the West towards the East, and you reach the opening, just to your left is perhaps the most stunning, the most recognizable, the least forgettable sight on Planet Earth.  There was a time when this vantage point was only accessible by trail.  Now it is a scenic outlook.  Generally speaking, only those with plenty of discretionary time and money would see it, until Mr. Ford made the automobile accessible to just about all us Americans.

It really does not matter when it is you finally emerge from the tunnel; morning, afternoon or evening.  Every variable of time of day or season or weather condition has its own distinct charm.  (The exception would be an enveloping, dense fog, which would be a monumental disappointment.)  As the scene opens up at tunnel’s end, there it is: the imposing sheer face of El Capitan on your left.  The waterfall on your right, like a bridal veil flowing over a v-shaped granite trough.  And if the sun catches it just right, you’ll see its very own rainbow glittering the complete spectrum of color against the deep velvet grays of the wet rock glistening behind.  The jagged peaks of the Three Sisters reach for the sky.  The tall pines of the forest in the foreground point to the meadow in the distance, the wide, flat valley floor.  The Merced River meanders toward you with rich grassy open spaces on either side.  The steep granite on either side of the valley looks every bit like a natural cathedral and in the distance the unmistakable granite dome, eerily cut in half, stands like an altar.  Half Dome begs a series of mysterious questions.  Where is the other half?  How did it break away?  But beyond, there is still more.  The broad granite fields stretch across the horizon from left to right, above the tree line, nearly white, reaching out towards infinity.  The fresh open air fills your lungs, you scan the scene and you don’t want to leave.  If an eagle or two or three drift by, wings spread wide, soaring the updraft, your Yosemite experience will be nearly complete.  But this is only the front door.  There is much more waiting if you will but enter.

Study the park and you will learn of the first Americans who called this magnificent valley their home.  You will also meet John Muir and Ansel Adams.  You’ll learn about the battle to preserve this irreplaceable space.  You’ll discover that there is yet another valley, equally spectacular.  But you will never see it this way.  It is under water.  The Hetch Hetchy Dam stands in the way of the river’s flow just to the north.  It is now a reservoir, a filled up gorge with fresh water stretching into the ravines and canyons like a giant basin, covering up the valley floor and half the sheer granite and shortening up the falls up and down the scene.  There was an attempt to build another dam on the Merced River blocking off  this priceless scenic outlook.   It would have made Yosemite Valley a deep man-made lake, just like Hetch Hetchy.   But the plan was voted down.

Ken Burns calls his newest high-definition series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.  I am quite sure there are those who will come up with an American idea that may arguably be better.  But as I watch his stunning sequence of images and listen to the narrative, calling up all the memories of visits to so many of the scenes, I’d be hard pressed to name one.  The first of the wide geography calling out for protection was Yosemite Valley.  And the entire national park system grew out of the commitment of the federal government’s reluctant vote; a distinctly American ideal – to make these parts of the country accessible to all.  En perpetuity.

One of the lasting heroes in the cause is the irrepressible President Teddy Roosevelt.  In 1903, Roosevelt made a train tour from Washington DC to the West, intentionally stopping by the magnificent natural attractions along the way.  Yellowstone.  The Grand Canyon.  And Yosemite.  He read John Muir.  He knew the roots of the son of a hard-line Presbyterian clergyman; Muir’s father a convinced Calvinist.  So Muir had a profound sense of the sacred.  We wrote about the valley and the cliffs and the dancing water and the wildlife and plants and towering trees as though he walked on holy ground.  He approached his subject with the meticulous eye of a scientist collecting data, systematizing like a Presbyterian; but woven into the narrative is a profound sense of mystery.  The President was impressed by the intentional manner of this gentle man and how he had so effectively convinced so many to put preservation before enterprise.  He wanted to meet him.

So one afternoon, the President’s entourage all comfortably housed in the Wawona Lodge, Roosevelt escaped alone into the Mariposa Grove with John Muir.  Teddy did not bother to tell his staff that he had no plans to return that night.  The Presidential dinner went on without their honored guests.  No secret service.  No press corps.  Just two influential men without tents by the campfire underneath the oldest living trees stretching high above into the starry night sky, talking.  Laughing.  Storytelling.  Roosevelt tested Muir’s skill in identifying birdcalls.  Muir faltered.  Roosevelt, an avid ornithologist, chided the naturalist for this deficiency.  Muir retorted with a scolding.  “When, Mr. President,” he addressed the passionate hunter, “will you set aside this infantile need to shoot and kill living things?”  Roosevelt broke into a belly laugh.  Touché!

Out of that conversation and overnight under the stars, with the scent of campfire and redwood filing the crisp night air, came the preservation of the Grove for all time.

When we are cut off from our own history, our present is hollow and our future unsure.

The Great Isaiah Scroll was unveiled in Orange County on Saturday night.  It is in words what Yosemite Valley is in wonder.  The scribes who preserved this text, and then hid the parchment in the caves nearly two thousand years ago did for us what Muir and Roosevelt did under the great Sequoia trees.

In that ancient Hebrew text, preserved on the scroll, Isaiah wrote -

But those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2009

The Dead Sea comes to Orange County

Monday, October 12, 2009

I suppose it could well be called the most significant archeological find in history.  But then, such judgments betray certain presuppositions about the world.  For those of us who consider the Bible a sacred book with profound implications and eternal consequence, then the discovery (just over sixty years ago) of two thousand year old scrolls containing significant remnants of just about every book we Christians call the “Old Testament,” ranks right up there as a breakthrough for all time.  The treasure sat for two millennia, untouched in the caves of Qumran.

The story of the find itself near the Dead Sea is enough to fill a couple of good books (and it has).  Scholars debate some of the assumptions related to the ruins located nearby.  While the New Testament does not mention the “Essenes,” Josephus (the first century historian) does.  They appear to be a sect of Judaism, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  But they were a particularly separatist group, purist, ultra-conservatives, who believed that the mainstream denominations were hopelessly watered down, polluted by the world.   In their attempts to accommodate modern culture, religious leaders who ranked high on the social scale had abandoned the true faith, according to the sect.  The Essenes were vocal in their critique, and built little enclaves designed to cut themselves off from the contaminating influences of pluralism.

One of the most remote of those enclaves they located near the barren Dead Sea.  The harsh climate and intense heat and relentless sun allowed for the kind of isolation that heightened spiritual sensitivities.  They held to strict rules requiring steadfast obedience, and they revered the holy texts.  The members with the most honored skill were scribes.  They believed that the words they put on the parchment had eternal value.  They believed that calamity – a great and terrible cataclysm – was eminent.  They were determined to preserve these precious words and phrases for future generations, and protect them from a ruthless and pagan attack, sure to come.

So, they created a scriptorium in the desert heat.  They spent their days carefully copying the sacred texts.  They prepared parchment and papyrus.  Quills with tips as nibs.  Ink that would last.  They fired clay pots, jars to protect and contain the scrolls.  They dug great spaces in caves as cool, protected storage places.  Their work went unnoticed in the bustling city of Jerusalem just over the mountain.

When the Romans marched into the desert region with their legions slaughtering everyone associated with Judaism in their path, they leveled the little community of Qumran.  The fate of the occupants is unknown, though it can be assumed that those who did not escape into the desert were cut down in 70CE as the army passed through.  The troops kept only the rich cisterns as a fresh water supply.  The massive army focused on Masada, further south, where some of the most notable rebels from Jerusalem had taken control of the Roman outpost situated high on a natural and well-protected plateau.  The ten year long resistance of this brave band of insurgents would become the stuff of Israeli legend.

Remarkably, the Romans, who were determined to pillage whatever wealth they could find and destroy whatever vestiges of religious life left behind, never stumbled across those caves.  And then, even more remarkably, for the full twenty centuries that followed, as treasure-hunters of every sort from every age combed through the ancient desert hills and cliffs like the California Gold Rush, the treasures of the scrolls in clay jars tucked away in the caves built the by the Essenes were never found.

Until 1947 when a Bedouin shepherd boy tossed a stone through an opening in the ground and heard the shatter of a clay pot echo inside.  The discovery coincided with the United Nations vote that made Israel an independent nation state.

That was over sixty years ago.  That small find on the desert led to more than two hundred other scrolls.  The sheer volume of ancient scroll material is staggering.  At first, the scrolls were managed by a hand-full of hardened, unscrupulous dealers in ancient artifacts.  Soon, credible archeologists and university researches realized the enormous treasure that had been unearthed.  The best dating technologies were employed to certify the age of the scrolls.  Scholars agreed.  The scrolls were made between 150 BCE and 50 CE, putting them smack dab at the time of Jesus and the tumultuous first century in and around Jerusalem.

The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is filled with drama and intrigue.  Perhaps for us, the greatest significance is they way in which it confirms the preservation and accuracy of the text of the Bible for thousands of years.

Dr. George Giacumakis, with more than a little help from his friends, will be unveiling a state-of-the-art facsimile, the fourth of its kind world-wide, painstakingly crafted in London by the world’s foremost technicians and scholars, the twenty-three foot long Great Isaiah Scroll.  Thanks to the high-quality images of photographs taken shortly after this treasure was removed from its container over fifty years ago, the scroll looks just as it did as the scholars got their first look.  The genuine papyrus, carefully stitched just as the artisans sewed them together two thousand years ago, is clear and readable.  It contains the entire book of Isaiah.

The event will be held this Saturday night at the Great Park Neighborhood in Irvine, near the site of the proposed Museum of Biblical and Sacred Writings.

Come join us.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

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