Growing up in the Plymouth Brethren, a loose confederation of “assemblies” deeply flavored by Anabaptist thought, the whole idea of war seemed remote to us. As I recall, it was considered a “worldly” thing, something the devout should be wary of and even though there were military personnel in our community, they were rare, mostly because of the draft, and I never recall a career military person among us for all the years I was one of the “Brethren.”

My father, who had actually enlisted in the Marines before he and our family joined the Brethren, made a sincere effort to keep us from the military and even forbid us from playing “war” with our friends because he didn’t want us to make a game of such things. Presumably he had seen enough and he often warned us about being “cannon fodder.” So even though there was a war going on in Viet Nam, without a TV and with a deep sense of trying to not be like the “world” the whole thing was distant from us.

Flash forward to seminary when the Evangelical Left was in an 80’s ascendancy. The Cold War was hot on our minds and the effects of things like war and hunger and global economics on the poor and disenfranchised of the world were front and center. Starting to experience an age when images of such things were not being carefully crafted by governments, the full picture started to emerge, especially of war. War is nothing like the movies, not even the graphic ones, and those who fight in them never really come back no matter how many parades we have.

One step forward to serving as a Chaplain in health care and taking care of the men who had been front and center, even in the “good” wars. I remember an older man speaking to me of how he was horribly wounded (he still had shrapnel in his body courtesy of the Nazi’s) and then had to wait for three days to get help because another soldier who came to his rescue was shot dead, fell on top of him, and he didn’t have the strength to get his decaying body off his own. Yet another sweet man, the kind you’d think of as your grandpa, breaking into tear as he recalled his buddy in the artillery spotting team here one moment and missing his head the next while they stood together. And then, my brother-in-law, a Navy corpsman who saw every bit of trauma there was to see in Viet Nam while his own government exposed him to Agent Orange.

That is war.

One last step forward to Orthodoxy where what I had seen in types and shadows before was given depth and dimension. The ancient Way is a way of peace

If I have to die, let it at least be in the pursuit of peace because I’m not sure that it would be good for me to face my Lord with another person’s blood on my hands and my only defense was “The TV told me to do it…”

when I feel the urge to hide from the whole world and my imagination creates a mythical place far from everywhere, a place of peace and immeasurable quiet. And, for a moment, that “happy place,” which for me looks like a cabin by a small river at the edge of a woods, can be at least a temporary balm for those days when the world just seems too twisted to ever heal back into shape again.

It’s short lived, of course and my 4th floor apartment, nice enough with its view of the last remaining suburban corn field, rushes back the minute I open my eyes again. All I know, sometimes, though, is that I want to go somewhere or anywhere which isn’t whatever “here” is, a place far from voices, sales pitches, political yellers, and bad music made by thoughtless people.

Such a mystery it is, how God places people and times together. Of course, there’s never been a perfect time anywhere along the path of history so why should this “now” be the exception no matter how much I wish it so? Therefore, my only thought is that this time and this moment were somehow where I’m supposed to be and have become, in the great vastness of God’s design, the arena for my life and salvation. There will be no “long ago and far away” and perhaps no “happily ever after,” just responsibility to make the best of things and the promise of God’s presence as I try.

And I can survive if I remember the secret place of joy has never been “out there” so much as in a heart resting in God.

I want things to happen too quickly. Good things, for sure, but at too fast a pace.

What difference would it make if even the very best happened but there was no love, no time to reflect, no humility and awe at things eternal? Rushed for the sake of rushed is still rushed, and incomplete, all the stress of an emergency without the actual event.

Slow down, good soul, slow down. Everything good need not happen to day. Recall that God leads but the devil stampedes and rest.

He was younger than I was, late 20’s, early 30’s. At least it seemed that way. A vivacious personality, quick with a joke, sarcastic in a funny way. Too young, though, it would seem, to be in a nursing home.

Decades ago, as a young Chaplain, I was part of the team that spearheaded a program to accept HIV positive Residents into our inner city nursing home. There was, sadly, a need in the 90’s for such services as the advanced meds that hold HIV at bay today didn’t exist. You don’t have to be old to be in a nursing home, just over 18 with a need for continual care, and our facility just south of downtown Minneapolis cared for everyone from young men paralyzed by gunfire to seniors living with mental illnesses, and Russell, our first known HIV positive.

And he brought a certain kind of life to the place. He was ambulatory, verbal, bright, witty, and more peer than Resident in many ways. Perhaps because he was living with death he wanted to make the most of the days. Perhaps it was just his personality. But I remember Russell as at least having a fairly bright public face even as he came to us for all the usual reasons people eventually live in nursing homes, being ill and being broke.

I also remember a certain sadness about him. He had the purple blotches of sarcoma, a symptom of AIDS, he tried to hide. The face is the hardest and even makeup fails to undo what has been done. I was told there were times when he would, in unguarded moments, weep as he recalled how the man who claimed he loved him, wanted him, needed him, also betrayed him, given him the illness that was taking his life. Whatever promise was to be had for the future erased and, in the quiet moments, that hurt could not be concealed.

My hope is Russell is with God now and at rest. He was a candle in the wind, but most candles in the wind are not like the lyrics of a glamorous pop song as the winds that extinguish can be very cruel and HIV was, and still can be, very bitter. There’s no judgement either, each of us has a path made up of things we do and things done to us and that synergy is our life. Every sin destroys each of us in its own particular way even as every little bit of goodness gives us life and, looking back, I’m reminded that Jesus is the only antidote for us all.

Still, I remember Russell and the others who came to us in those days. I hope we did well by them and gave them some comfort. I hope in our own way we became a kind of Jesus to them providing oil and wine for the many wounds. I hope they all, eventually, found the love they were craving, not in the passing sensual, moment but rather in the arms of God where all who seek the truest love, no matter who we may think we are, find it.