Elijah’s smile resuscitates the child in Grandpa
“The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into [Grandpa] again, and [Grandpa] revived.” – First Kings 17:22, NRSV.
Elijah returning resuscitated child to his mother,Louis Hersent [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Centuries after the original Palm Sunday parade, the silence has been broken again.
“Some [of the critics] said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’” – Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 19:39-41.
Yesterday, the students spoke. The NRA was silenced.
Yesterday Elijah discovered himself in the mirror. He recognized the image as himself. He couldn’t be more delighted.
He shows no sense of shame. Or guilt. Or grief. He’s getting a kick out of himself. Meanwhile, Grandma is on the other side of the room recording the moment for posterity. When Elijah reaches a stage when shame, guilt, and grief threaten to sink his spirit, we’ll pull out the video to remind him of his lovable, adorable self.
Between now and that day which will surely come, we enjoy Grandma’s video, and pray the rest of us find our way to similar joy looking back at us from the mirror.
Elijah is toying around with a mirror. He sees himself as he is. But we don’t know whether he knows it’s his own reflection or wether he believes the image in the mirror is a magical friend. He can’t tell us. He doesn’t yet talk. Except with Grandpa on Views from the Edge.
Grandpa, look in my mirror! You’ll see me!
Wow, Elijah, that’s so cool that you can see yourself. But if I look in your mirror I won’t see you. I’ll see me.
Uh, uh! It’s MY mirror! I’m the only one who shows up in my mirror. I’ve never seen anyone else show up in my mirror.
I understand. Mirrors are like that. People who look in a mirror see only themselves.
Yeah, I’m adorable! Everybody says I’m cute!
You are, Elijah. You are. And we’re not making it up. We all think you’re adorable. You make people smile.
Yeah, I’m exceptional, Grandpa! Some people don’t make others smile. They make people sad. Or mad!
I know. But you’re not exceptional. Some people who think they’re exceptional start tweeting early in the morning before they look in the mirror. I think they’re not very happy and they make lots of other people unhappy, too.
Elijah and Grandpa talking about the mirror
Yeah, not like you and me, Grandpa!
Well, it’s not quite that simple, Elijah. Grandpa’s had days when he had a hard time looking in the mirror. I’ve cut myself shaving! I didn’t like what I saw after I’d made other people unhappy. Someday you’ll look in the mirror and be sorry for something you’ve done.
Uh uh! It’s MY mirror! I get to see me just the way I am. Yesterday Grandma said I could be president!
“Breaking Silence” brought requests for more from Elijah, my nine-month old grandson. Today, we’ll let Elijah “speak” for himself from his carseat. He’s enjoying a “conversation” with his Mom. Turn up the sound and enjoy Elijah and Kristin.
Elijah is named after the prophet Elijah for whom a seat is left empty at every Seder, the Jewish celebration of Passover. But it’s not just the Jewish community who leaves an empty chair for Elijah.
Thanks for coming by. Elijah rock, Shout! Shout! Keep hope alive!
Grace and Peace,
Grandpa, Elijah, and Mahalia, Chaska, MN, March 8, 2018.
Views from the Edge (VFTE) has fallen silent lately. Maybe you have too. The reasons for silence are like the hairs on our heads. Who can count them? The silence on Views from the Edge is both unintentional and intentional.
Finishing a novel requires full concentration to the storyline and every detail. Fiction is like that. It creates the alternative universe that exists only in the writer’s head.
The real world has left me speechless. There is nothing that has not been said. Some of it bears repeating, but I feel no motivation to add to the silos into which our public discourse has fallen. Observing a world of madness much stranger than fiction has left my spirit bone-tired.
I feel a need to stay in touch, to say hello to readers of Views from the Edge. So, “Hi!” You need no reminder of “the edge” from which we view the world. If you’re new here, a quick look through the site will tell you who we are and why we publish.
Today I break the silence to speak again from my experience. My memory is long. A child of World War II, I am aghast at what I see today at the center of American life. I can’t believe my eyes. In Germany in the late 1930s, the Third Reich displaced a democratic republic (the Weimar Republic) by systematically eroding trust in democratic process. Facts became falsehoods. Alternative facts replaced truth. The far right replaced the conservative right, painted the left as evil, and shrunk the middle ground essential to sustaining a democratic republic. Braggadocio and nationalism replaced humility and statesmanship, destroyed the lengthier policy discussions essential to democracy, and frayed the threads of civility that held the German people together. A loud far-right minority who had mastered the craft of theater bullied its way into the seats of power, promising to make Germany great again with boisterous appeals to national exceptionalism and Aryan racial exceptionalism, a fictional creation with no basis in reality. Those who disagreed or whose very existence threatened the national and racial exceptionalism were dismissed, painted as less than human, and sent quietly away the night in freight cars without public attention.
I was raised to belief such a thing could not happen in America. I now wonder whether I was wrong. The parallels seem obvious. But I also see signs of hope that the party that holds power in the White House and both houses of Congress may yet come to its senses. If its own sensibilities fail to lift the nation from the darkness, there are increasing reasons to hope that the Mueller investigation and the stream of White House staff resignations will lead the nation toward our better angels.
By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,
but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
Whoever belittles another lacks sense,
but an intelligent person remains silent. [Proverbs 11:11-12]
Not wishing to add further to the belittling that comes from my own head as well as from the world around me, and hearing Maya Angelou’s wise counsel that hope and fear cannot occupy the same space, Views from the Edge invites hope to stay, and chooses to remain silent. But then … you never know. My grandchild Elijah may yet have something to say. 🤓
Thanks for dropping by.
Grace and Peace,
Donald Trump and I were baptized and confirmed in the Presbyterian Church. I went on to become a Presbyterian minister. Donald went on to become President of the United States of America. Speaking to the nation’s governors yesterday in the aftermath of the latest school massacre in Parkland, Florida, Mr. Trump called for turning grief into action.
“Most importantly, we want to discuss the public safety in schools and public safety, generally. But school safety. We can’t have this go on,” the President said.
“But we will turn our grief into action,” President Trump continued. “We have to take steps to harden our schools so that they are less vulnerable to attack.”
The Presbyterian churches of our youth taught us the way of Jesus. They told us road to invulerability leads to the loss of the good. Hearts of flesh reacting in fear become stone. They reach for whatever weapons the reptilian brain leads us to believe will make us less vulnerable to attack.
I was raised on an old text that looked forward to hard hearts turning to hearts of flesh. Cold hearts turning warm. Violent hearts turning peaceful. “I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” are the words the writer of Ezekiel places on the lips of God. And then there was the puzzling logic that strength comes out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.
Pondering the tragedy of escalating violence in American society often leaves me speechless. I observe and listen. I hear the students crying, “No More!” and want to join them. After turning over the money-changers’ tables in the Temple, the authorities and those who presume themselves righteous criticize the children who have been cheering for him. When the critics tell him to silence the children, Jesus asks, “have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?” Shouts of goodness and truth are pouring from the mouths of America’s youth.
But I also know how quickly emotion can turn to despair. I hear the NRA and ask how anyone raised in a church, synagogue, or mosque can embrace the money-changers the NRA bankrolls, or the simplistic morality of “good guy”s getting rid of “the bad guys” it uses to make the case for the least regulation of military-style weapons.
And I hear impractical dreamers like me wishing we could wipe the world clean of all firearms and weapons more dangerous than a caveman’s club. But quickly realize none of has any more answer to the question of how to “fix” this than the Genesis writer had for why Cain picked up a rock and slew Abel.
I don’t know much. But I learned as a child in a Presbyterian Church that hardened hearts will not conquer hate; hearts that harden etch evil in stone. All these years later, I can still hear 90 year-old Mrs. Thomas teaching our first grade Sunday School class at Marple Presbyterian Church. I find myself wondering whether there was a Mrs. Thomas for Donald at First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica in New York City.
“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure.” — Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel According to Matthew 34:33-35.
Taking steps “to harden our schools so that they are less vulnerable to attack” moves us farther down the road to the heartless world none of us wants. Where’s Mrs. Thomas was we need her?
— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 27, 2018.
What’s happening, Elijah? You just turned nine months last week. How cool is that?
Elijah at nine months.
Yeah! That was last week. I’m home in my crib. There’s no daycare today. I’m scared!
There’s no reason to be afraid, Elijah. Your Mom’s going to work but Grandma’s coming to take care of you today. No need to worry.
Uh-huh! We’re being surveilled, Grandpa! They’re watching us!
Oh my! I’m so sorry you’re afraid, Elijah. But listen to Grandpa. Trust me. No one’s surveilling you. You’re only nine months old. Has Mom been watching “Homeland“?
They are too, Grandpa. We don’t watch “Homeland“. We don’t get Showtime.
Okay. Good. So you don’t watch Carrie Mathieson and Saul Berenson and all that CIA stuff.
Right. Mom likes to read a lot. We don’t watch much TV.
So what makes you think you’re under surveillance?
I don’t just think it, Grandpa. I KNOW it. I’m not making it up. I have hard evidence.
What’s the evidence? How do you know someone’s watching your every move?
There’s a camera next to my crib, Grandpa! Right here. I’m looking into it right now. I can’t even sleep in privacy! You gotta get us outta here! You and Grandma go to U-Haul and move all the stuff out and tell Mom not to come home. We’ll feel safer at your house.
It IS a strange world, Elijah, and you’re right. That camera is a surveillance device. But it’s not what you think. It’s not the FBI or the CIA or ICE. Your Mom put it there to keep you safe when she’s in another room.
I knew it. I have no privacy! Nick Harkaway speaks for me:
“Yes, you are under surveillance.
Yes, it is odious.
Yes, it should bother you.
And yes, it’s hard to know how to avoid it.”
Okay. I get it. I understand why the monitor bothers you. But some things can’t be avoided at your age. Some things really are for the sake of your safety. No one’s spying on you. Mom just wants to watch you so nothing bad happens to you.
You’d better check out your computer, Grandpa! Edward Snowden said the NSA may be watching you right now while you’re talking on the internet. Shut it down, Grandpa! Be safe! And remember. I’ll always be here for you in your old age, if they don’t get me first.
Thank you, Elijah! So happy we can chat like this. Happy Birthday.
— Grandpa Gordon and Elijah, Chaska, MN, Feb. 26, 2018.
Elijah in his high chair
Grandpa, my ninth birthday’s coming up next week! Are we going to have a party and stuff?
Well, Elijah, we only celebrate birthdays annually. That means once a year. You’re going to be nine months old, not nine years old. The day you turn one year old, we’ll do something special for your birthday. I promise.
That’s not right! I have to wait for my presents?
Not necessarily. Grandma and I love to give presents. Do you have something special in mind?
Yeah! I’ve been thinking a lot about it. So can I have it now?
Sure, what have you been dreaming about?
Safety.
Okay. What about it.
Can I have a bomb like Kim Jun un and the President?
Oh for heaven’s sake, Elijah, where’d you get the idea you could have a bomb?
The Second Amendment, Grandpa. The right to bear arms!
Remember our discussion yesterday about the origins of the Second Amendment?
The Supreme Court doesn’t agree with you. The Supreme Court says I have the “right to bear arms”. “Arms” are weapons, Grandpa, so why are we just talking about guns? Arms are what armies and state militias have. I’m stickin’ up for my rights! This is America, Grandpa! We get to protect ourselves. I need a bomb to protect Mom and the family!
Grandpa, do we conceal and carry?
Well, sometimes Grandma and I carry your bottle when Mom’s away, but we have no need to conceal it. Why?
I’m not talking about bottles, Grandpa. I’m talking about guns. Do we conceal and carry guns?
We don’t, Elijah. We don’t carry guns and, if we did, we wouldn’t conceal them. We like to be open. People who conceal things have something to hide.
That’s not what people in Congress are saying! They think everyone should conceal and carry. Grandpa, do I have to go to school?
Yes. When you’re older you’ll go to school. You have to. Every child in America has to go to school.
I don’t want to!
Sure you do. It’s just like daycare but you’ll be older.
School’s aren’t not like daycare, Grandpa. I saw it on the news. All those kids in Florida got killed. Kids shouldn’t have to go to school. They’re not safe. That’s why the NRA wants conceal and carry to protect us from the bad people.
Okay, now I’m getting your drift. This is really sad.
Yeah! If I have to go to school, I want to conceal and carry!
Hmmm. I see. You think your school will be safer if everyone conceals and carries so you can get the bad guys.
Right. Exactly. I’m not a Democrat any more. I’m a Republican!
I see. That’s your right under the Constitution.
Yeah! I’m going to exercise my Second Amendment rights!
Well, let’s stop and think about this before we decide to carry anything but your bottle. The Second Amendment isn’t the only right in the Bill of Rights. If we keep going the way we’re going, the Second Amendment will be the only part of the Constitution left. America will become a mass firing range.
Grandpa, that’s awful! Can I please have my bottle before I open my lemonade stand?
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