Veteran's Day 2007

It is good to be at the Cathedral of the Diocese of Pennsylvania on this Veterans' Day. I imagine the Cathedral as this stable place in the midst of flux witnessing to the fellowship of the Spirit. This Cathedral is a stable place in the midst of hostilities that envisions the healing of the nations. This Cathedral is a stable place where Christ is born. Here is a place of fellowship, healing and new birth. The Viet Nam Memorial, 25 years old on Tuesday, has a similar cathedral quality to it - a hushed place of fellowship, healing and new birth. A boy leaves a baseball card to remember his grandfather.

I am not a veteran. I sense that the experience of many veterans opens their eyes to God in the way that any of us when placed in harm's way, in situations where we are not entirely in control, look beyond ourselves toward a higher power.

I am a listener. My wife's cousin was a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. He began talking of his experiences about ten years ago. I was privileged to be a listener. He told me of a door gunner (a perilous position in a helicopter) who had gone through life trusting in his own abilities to achieve what he wanted - confiding in his own strength, as the hymn says. One day in camp being shelled by mortars, it was so clear to him that he was not in control. He was not big enough to uphold his own trust. Only God was big enough for that. It was an eye-opening experience.

I am a listener. My father on a minesweeper in the Pacific told of swimming with nothing but two miles of water between him and the bottom. He said how unnerving it was. I have always felt that to be such a powerful image of what it is to be in the presence of God, to experience such depth of trust and redemption. It is unnerving. "Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord..." the Psalm says (Ps. 130). It was an eye-opening experience.

I am a listener. Parishioners who are vets speak of God's providential hand that brought them through. I can only imagine that those who did not make it were brought through to that heavenly place where the "waters of life flow from the throne of God" (Revelation 22). A parishioner who took a shot to the head that pierced his helmet and lived, finds every day a gift. In each case, eyes are opened and God is met in that which is big eneough for our trust, in the unimaginable depth of plenteous redemption, in the gift of life. For those of you reading this who are vets, your experience of being put in harm's way, out of complete control, out of one's depth, so close to death that every day is a gift, all of this is eye-opening. We, to whatever extent we can, appreciate that, as together we seek God and scan the horizon for the promise of the Spirit's fellowship and the healing of the nations.