A candle for
Janice
American Janice of our acquaintance formerly taught in the
Philippines, then married a Filipino who worked for Eastman Kodak in Rochester,
New York. They acted as guardians (an
organizational and functional category) to a social movemental force I was an
active member of in the 70s and the first half of the 80s, operating out of
Chicago, Illinois. We performed as a
global servant (word used intentionally rather than the neutral “service”)
force in human (economic, political, and social) community development.
The group labored under a high intensity of social engagement for
almost three decades, then organizational inertia and entropy set in, but the
group had enough selfhood that when it realized its meeting its own body needs
replaced its passion for its mission, it intentionally dissipated out of being
with the same lucidity as it did in its own analysis of the rise and decline of
other organizations that preceded it. It
was called Order: Ecumenical, for those of us who thought it was revolutionary
to be oikumene when others were
parochial in their religious orientations.
Of course, being ecumenical grew old and irrelevant so fast that it
is just as well the group disbanded.
I’ve used the word “intentional” in two paragraphs now. A global network of "those who
care" (nebulous but real) intentionally remained in touch while each
expended one’s self in one’s own burst of light – into “a thousand light”, in
elder George Bush’s imagery. The group’s
program arm was actually referred to by the GOP of Orange County in US
congressional record as “communist”, so the group’s dissipation into numerous
lights in essentially GOP terminology, is more descriptive rather than
ideological.
Janice and I exchange messages in a common listserv we are a part of
once in a while, on the state of our being as well as our vocation. Slightly older than I am, she has just joined
a few of my colleagues in bouts with chemotherapy. As has become customary in the last three
years, I light a candle on my ledge to lift up the facticity of those in my
circle of acquaintances continuing to be treasured and celebrative presence on
the planet even in the midst of battling the onerous challenge of cancerous
cells.
I lit a candle for the late Ruth Tighe of Saipan, the honored maven
of local commentators, until she gloriously downed her last swig of
Scotch. She once commented that I
eulogized her exit too early. She
outlasted her Doctor’s prognosis a few years longer. She once bought me lunch at a new health food
restaurant, driving to the place with her oxygen tank in tow. In her retinue, imminent death had no dominion.
Our current five now includes Janice of New York joining four others
from Seattle, Maui, Sydney, and Saipan.
Specific as to who the candles represent, taken as a whole, they manifest our relationship to those considered by society to be
“differently-abled” (including the "handicapped").
Being father to two autistic children, the act of regularly lighting
candles are personally of deep significance.
Janice’s forte is music and the arts, and a colleague offered for her
the lyrics to Cris Williamson’s Song of
the Soul, metaphors of the heart in a song.
It turns out to be a song sung by an intentional community out of
Seattle that was a result of my group’s thousand light bursting. Part of the lyrics are:
Love of my life I
am crying
I am not dying, I
am dancing
Dancing along in
the madness
There is no
sadness
Only the song of
the soul
Chorus:
And we'll sing
this song
Why don't you
sing along
Then we can sing
for a long, long time
Why don't you
sing this song
Then we can sing
along
Then we can sing
for a long, long time
For those who follow our reflections, they would not be surprised to
see us latch into Williamson’s imagery (which, we gather, may have been derived
from a Walt Whitman poem). I am not dying, I am dancing, fits the
sentiment of one of our candle persons who went through chemo for nine months
and is prone to say, “why are folks afraid to talk about dying?” That, and a small dynamo we know down Sydney
way two-steps us to the great dance that is life!
As a former Methodist clergy, one could say that we have had our
share of sending off personages into the great unknown. While grief is a legitimate response to the
reality of death, I used to conduct funeral services not for the dead but for
the living. I did not hesitate to remind
my audiences that the reason we grieve is not primarily for the departed as
that the parting reminds us too vividly of our mortality. It is the affirmation of our finitude that is
celebrated in the completion of a life!
The song for Janice is also a song for all our lives.
Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!