Musings from the
shores of Galilee

The first two weeks of my sabbatical, I woke each morning and sat in a daze for several hours trying to figure out what to do next. I would gradually move into a series of small, ordinary household tasks that have been put off far too long. I had not mowed our grass for over a month. I pulled the hurricane generator out and fired it up and serviced it, saying a short prayer that I would not have to deal with it again for a couple of years.

Last week, I trekked up to Crawfordville, FL, for a brief visit with my son and his family. Then it was on to Selma for a couple of days with my mom. At 92, she is making an amazing adjustment from life on her own in her home for the last 50 years to a downsized life in a lovely assisted facility. After Selma, I drove back to Southeast Alabama to attend my first reunion with those I flew helicopters with in Vietnam 40 years ago.

I didn’t know what to expect from this reunion. After all, I had spent those four decades mostly forgetting. There were stories, lots of stories. The stories were memories of events darkly funny, hair raisingly terrifying, and deeply sad as we remembered those who died. In the end, I found a powerful recognition of the amazing feats of skill and courage that I and these others achieved together as we put into action the first concepts of airmobile warfare and the tactical deployment of armed helicopters.

As I pulled back into the driveway here at home, I was washed over by the intense bonding that I, and the others, had experienced in the intensity of our life as combat helicopter pilots. No one had to reassure the other, ‘I will give my life for yours’. That was understood to be the ground of our relationships and did not need to be said. Instead, that value was lived out each day of that time together. We did not take such risks for flag or freedom, or for that matter because we were ordered to. We did it because we had a commitment to live together, or die together. Which ever it was to be, it would be together.

Little since has matched that commitment, but it is unfair to judge the rest of life by that experience. Thankfully, the rest of my life has not been lived in a war, and I am deeply humbled to have been a witness to the potential we humans have to care, sacrificially, for the well being of one another.

In these first four weeks away from the clutter and chaos of daily ministry that have consumed the last eleven years, I have already begun to gain a clearer, calmer view of life. The fire is not so hot, the wind not so strong, the nights not so dark, the threats not so immanent, the grind not so abrasive as it seemed after days and weeks of constant engagement with the critical challenges of ministry.

It is not that the challenges have been diminished in the perspective. Rather, from this distance, the storms appear to even more threatening than when my face was pressed against them. But something else has begun to change in the brief (thus far) time I have been given to rest. As I step back, momentarily, to the sidelines, I see along besides me, standing against the storms, the forgiving, reconciling, hopeful, mysterious love of God, and a grand, courageous, comedic, eccentric community of faithful people who stand along with me who put flesh on that mystery.

Next week, Rosa, Maria, and I will travel to Alligator Point, FL, for two weeks at the beach. Alligator Point is one of the last places in Florida where there are no condos, no t-shirt shops, no restaurants, only an isolated stretch of sand with little houses built up on stilts. If all works well, we will spend a few of those days with my adult children and all our five grand kids, together for more than just a few hours for the first time ever. I look forward to that.

Peace to you and yours,

Sherod+