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June 1, 2007

A Pensive Meander Over the Day

Driving home tonight in a summer thunderstorm, I stopped by the river to take some pictures. I rolled down the window, stayed in my car and shot away. There was no decent shot to speak of really. The last one before the battery died was quite remarkable, but nothing like the vision I was treated to moments later, when my camera was dead and I was forced merely to appreciate the scene for its own sake. That is a good thing for us photography loving sorts to have happen to us from time to time, to be reminded of why we take pictures in the first place, or at least why I largely do, to appreciate the amazing beauty and vitality of life itself.

The massive thunderheads were rumbling away eastward, and on their tail end you could see their white tops, contrasted against the greyness below and a deep, bright blue above. The edges of the white cloud were as sharp and crisp as if they had been cut from paper and pasted against the blue, and then varying shades of grey overlaid the white, tracing out the contours of the cloud. The picture above pales in comparison, though its a good start.

I thought to myself that I totally understand why the Greeks would have placed their gods on cloudy Olympus. Our own popular conceptions of heaven probably owe as much to the Greek vision as any biblical one, but what we have made it now is insipid fluffiness. But the clouds I saw today were nothing like that, they were glorious in the true sense, and I could totally get why someone might want to link them to deity and heaven.

I suppose I have been thinking of heaven a lot today. Earlier in the day, my brother led a service from my Uncle Vigil’s funeral. I have a friend who has laughed each time I have told her a funeral has been “good.” Admittedly, the first time I said it I may have been just mindlessly saying that it was good, because that is what I tend to mindlessly say when someone ask me how something was. No, but I can wholeheartedly say that this funeral was good. It was good to be reminded about the life of my uncle, which though not remarkable by worldly standards, was remarkable because he was a servant of Christ, serving others tirelessly, not seeking glory for himself—roto-tilling gardens, mowing lawns, hauling bread in the back of his pick-up for the food pantry. It was good for me to be reminded that even though God's grace is absolutely free, that God calls us to be sacrificial and to be servants, to be Christ to others. It was good to be reminded of these things by reflecting on the life of a beloved uncle, in a service led by a beloved brother.

It was good to be reminded over these past few days of just how much Uncle Virg meant to me in my life. We lived with him and Aunt Verdna when we came home on furloughs. Aunt Verdna raised my brother Adrian while my mom worked as a nurse. And when Aunt Verdna and Uncle Virg separated for 5+ years in their marriage, Uncle Virg came to live with Grandma and us, home on another furlough. He wasn’t all sunshine. When we boys would be watching our hundred pound black and white television, for which we used pliers to change the channels, and Grandma or Mom would call us to have supper at 4:30pm (4:30pm for heaven’s sake! which is interminably early for half Pakistani boys used to eating at 8:00) we would mumble and pay no mind, but when Uncle Virg would holler, “Now, you boys get on in here!” well, there was no hesitation. We had no doubt that he would not have considered the statute of limitation expired on the whupping privileges he had when we were younger and which he had occasionally exercised. We were at that table like a shot.

I have a father, a wonderful father, who worked hard and loved us sensitively and took us on fishing trips and outings when we grew up in Pakistan, but he himself would have no problem in me acknowledging the fatherly role that Uncle Virg also had in our lives. In fact, his gruffness and occasional crudeness were an excellent complement to my father’s raising of us. Uncle Virg taught me how to fish for Blue Gill—how to look for where they were nesting and cast the line just right. He taught me how to skin a catfish, how to scale a Blue Gill and bake a cookie sheet full of them with butter and oregano and lemon juice. There is nothing quite like freshly baked Blue Gill, even if you have to eat a couple three to get anywhere near full. There is nothing like the salty, lemony, melted butter in the corners of the cookie sheet.

Uncle Virg also found me a rabbit that was sitting still in the brush, and I got my first, and thus far only, kill, and I was finally able to understand a little of what the Native Americans mean by thanking an animal for its life. But the killing of the rabbits, the eating of them, whilst chewing carefully to watch out for lead shot, was not even the most memorable thing. That was walking along a railroad track or hedge row in the snow with Uncle Virg giving directions on safety and hunting smarts, perhaps stopping to throw sticks across a frozen pond when the rabbits were scare and seeing if we could bag a few of those logs skidding across the ice. It was watching the autumn sun set in the drab, scrubby farmland of Illinois whilst being with my brothers and Uncle.

Uncle Virg also came and helped Dad build our house and shape our property in Edwardsville, chainsawing trees and burning them, and then stopping for long lunches of simple food and laughter, where I was the chef and server while Uncle Virg and Dad rested their aging bones. And during this time, Uncle Virg taught me one of his most important lessons, to pee in the woods or your own yard or off your deck, and to do it with impunity. Alas, it is now somewhat harder to put this lesson into practice at Dad’s place, since several houses have sprung up nearby, but, well, when the angles make it cool or the light is right….

Before I bring this long ramble into a close, I must tell you one of the most meaningful things that I saw happen in Uncle Virg’s life. During their separation, which occurred for reasons that I do not know nor would make public, my Aunt Verdna and Uncle Virg still kept house and raised their children together. No, he did not live there, and their relations did not seem warm to the eye of a child, but he would still come and put long hours to plant the garden or can the vegetables or do repairs on the house and he stayed involved in his children’s lives. What happened next is all the more remarkable because more often than not just the opposite happens, and, to be absolutely honest here, I get pretty heartsick about it all and even doubt sometimes why God thought up whole idea of marriage at all as it seems to fail so often. But shortly after my mother died, though I am not claiming that was the cause of it, in 1987, Uncle Virgil and Aunt Verdna talked and he moved back home. I cannot tell you how much it means to me that they reconciled and spent the last 20 years of their life together.

And last week, Aunt Verdna, who raised him as a boy, asked my brother to preach my Uncle’s funeral, and a story came full circle.

P.S. I know we have our potlucks in the city, hey I organize half of the ones I attend, but, my friends, having been to a Southern Illinois funeral potluck today, well, by contrast we’re just playing at it.

P.P.S. Finally, finally, after spending an emotional morning and then a lovely afternoon with Adi and family and Dad and Virgil (yes, he's Uncle Virgil's namesake) and his family who came all the way from Texas and who must return home tomorrow morning :( I must confess I feel a bit like these flowers that were taken from the funeral and are drying in my car, a little dim and droopy. Yet, even so, today has been a remarkable reminder that God has been and is so very good to me. Blessed be His name.

Church Life and Theology | By jackdas | 10:24 PM

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Posted by: Laura at June 2, 2007 10:43 AM

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