I stare into the pitch black night unable to see anything. Nothing is moving…or is it? It is so black that my mind begins to create things to see. The mind can play tricks on you at times like these. I am in bunker #5, ironically the machine gun position. I say ironic because I do not like guns and most especially ones fashioned for the sole purpose of killing human beings. So I am given the biggest gun of all, at least in my unit. It is an M60 Machine gun most usually manned by a crew of three. However, tonight as all other nights before, I am solo on this mean baby.

The date is some summer night in 1969 and our base is on red alert. There is trouble brewing and it is anyone’s guess how it will end. I wonder if I can squeeze the trigger if something really does move where my blind stare is focused. What if I panic? What if I kill an innocent man or woman? How will I live with what I am about to do? No easy questions these…no easy answers either just silence falling on the ear as empty as the pitch black night is to the eye. My hands grip the machine gun until they hurt and began to go numb from the pressure both physical and mental. Is this how my 24 years of life will end?

Never married? Never having tasted the sweet nectar of true love and of life fulfilled with family and dreams realized? Or will this monstrous moment join the sea of those already experienced and passed like in a bad dream?

As the sweat pours salt into my burning eyes all but blinding me entirely, my mind goes back to other summers. White stretches of beach and the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. Riding around a nighttime Kalamazoo, top down in my Triumph TR4 after a long day’s work and the satisfaction of knowing that this respite has been properly earned.

I realize quickly that the things we take for granted while they are happening, like my memories on this coal black night, are really precious diamonds in the collected treasury of our life. Perhaps that’s why we need to experience the darkness…so that we might appreciate the miracle of light. Perhaps that’s why we can say that grief, strange as it sounds, is really a gift. For all its pain, imagine how empty our lives would be if, when someone close to us died, and we felt nothing.

I also learn on this dark and empty night that one needs to be most careful not to judge and explain away another human beings experience. You cannot know what another has faced, say in war for instance, unless you have been in their combat boots. Too easy to sit on your couch on Monday morning pointing out what should have been done to win yesterday afternoon’s game.
Combat does not afford us the luxury of quarterbacking the day after the game is over. I have learned that this is a good dictum to follow in all important questions of life. The Native American Indians say it very well in their prayer; “Great Spirit help me to never judge another man until I have walked two moons in his moccasins.”

Jesus also uses rich imagery to teach the way of peace, compassion and mercy. He says virtually nothing about the church as an institution. That came much later.

Each of us lives in the paradox of aloneness and community. We are, each of us individually profoundly alone, and yet whatever meaning we have and acquire in life comes to us from community. This is what I learn on this ink black night with my eyes focused on what I cannot see…and my heart aching for what once was, and also for what may never be. This is the paradoxical blessing of being human, swept away by the unstoppable river of time, yet given the grace to feel the future embrace you in the only moment you really have, right now.

May your summer be a time of reflection and rest, even as we look forward to the fall season and all the busyness that will once again be ours. May the precious moments of summertime be filled with peace, joy, friendship, love and the amazing grace that is our Advent community.

Pastor Kinens, Aina and our girls.