Universalist Unitarian Church Santa Paula, California

On Being Alive: Love, Loss, Pain, Peace
by Reverend John Alexie Crane

These events I want to speak of now, events from my own life long ago, have much to do with religion and with meaning; and, perhaps, as I speak of them, you will be reminded of parallel events in-your own lives.

II.
First of all, when I was a boy, I had a good friend named Joe — Joe Miles. Though I haven’t seen him face to face for more than sixty years, I still have him, still know him within myself. He was for me a special person. Even after all these years I remember him with affection and respect.

We were closest I suppose when we were in the third grade together. He lived just around the corner from me, and so we went to school together every day and came home together and played around the neighborhood together until dinner time. We also formed several secret clubs just between the two of us, most of which held their meetings in the dark, dusty space under the back steps to his house. It was a great place for.secret society meetings.

At school Joe served as a kind of guardian angel for me because he was bigger and older than the rest of us, and much kinder, much more gentle and peaceable. He was older because he had moved into the city from far out in the country where he had gone to one of those old one room schoolhouses they used to have out there; and so when he came to the city he had to drop back a grade or two. That’s why he was older than the rest of us in the third grade; but I don’t know why he was warmer and kinder, He just was. That’s the way he was. Everyone liked him and looked up to him, everyone in the third grade with us certainly.

It wasn’t,that he was warm and gentle because he had everything he wanted. He had problems of his own, just as.everybody has. He never forgot his life in the country where he had lived until just the year before. He didn’t care at all for city life, and looked forward to the day when his family would move back to the country area they had come from.

I was myself somewhat familiar with this area: it was flat and sandy, very hot and fly-bitten during the summer and unbearably cold in the winter, entirely lacking in cultural amenities. No movie house, no library. It was just inconceivable, unthinkable to me that anyone in his right mind could love the place. I looked upon Joe’s affection for the country as a crippling flaw in an otherwise very fine character, and I did everything I could to help him straighten out his thinking in the matter.

I told him that the city was the,only place for really living people to live, people who were going to amount to something. I assured him that cities were exciting oases in the vast deserts of rural wasteland by which they were surrounded. But Joe only smiled gently, patiently, and tried.to explain to me what it was about country life that so appealed to him. However, his explanation simply made no sense to me, so he tried again; but I still could not understand what appeal that dull flat, empty, hot-and-cold country could possibly have for a bright young man like himself.

Still, this was a matter of importance to me: I couldn't have my good friend Joe wasting his life away out there in the country. He was clearly meant for greater things; not only did everyone look up to him, but he was a personal friend of mine, which was a very high recommendation, it seemed to me. Since we were friends, I had a responsibility to help him find his way, so I hammered at him with questions, certain that, bright as he was, he would surely, in a few minutes, begin to see the error of his ways. I grew more and more passionate in my praise of the city, more and more vigorous in condemnation of the country.

But then, as we talked, I noticed all at once that he was smiling. He was looking straight at me and smiling as though he couldn’t hold it back. It may have been just his usual warm smile. Still, I wasn’t sure. It made me uneasy; and before long, it made me mad, made me furious. Was he thinking that I was stupid? Was he thinking that I couldn’t understand what a country bumpkin like himself was saying? Was he thinking (ridiculous though the idea was) that he was right and I was wrong) that the country really was a better place to live than the city, and that I was just too dumb, too dense to see the point? Well, one thing led to another and the upshot of the matter was that we didn’t speak to one another for some time after that — not until the following morning in fact.

III.
The last time I saw Joe we were both of us in our middle teens. His family, as he had hoped, had spent only a few years in the city before going back to the country that they all loved; but I had seen him from time to time on their infrequent visits to the city. The last time we were to meet was when we were teenagers.

I had finally come to accept the fact that he definitely preferred the country to the city, even though I couldn’t begin to understand why, So, when he came this time I thought, well, poor fellow, since he loves the country so, he might enjoy taking a walk in the park while he is stuck up here in the city. I was myself very fond of this park, spent a lot of time in it, and as a result was somewhat downcast when, after we got there, Joe did not appear to be much impressed by it. He was a hard man to understand, I thought. Still, we did have a good talk together as we walked, talking mostly about our plans for the.future. We were both of us reaching an age where we had to think a lot about the future, about what we were going to do and to be.

We were walking along a quiet path there in the park, and through the trees you could see a stream flowing gently by, making its way over and around a bed of scattered, gray rocks. As we walked we noticed at one point that a young man and woman were sitting very close together there on the near bank of the stream. They were so absorbed in each other that they did not notice us; and, as we passed, they kissed. Not just casually and quickly, but deeply, and at length. It was clear that, in that moment, for those few moments that Joe and I spent in passing them by at least, the young man and woman were aware only of each other — nothing else existed.

I looked guardedly at Joe and he looked at me; and we both of us, being then in our middle teens, smiled a knowing, sophisticated smile, by which we each indicated to the other the wide range of our own experience in this regard, and, at the same time, our sympathy and understanding and tolerance for the young couple linked together there on the bank of the stream. We didn't actually say anything — just smiled knowingly.

That was the last time I was to see Joe, because he died not long after this day in the park.

He had returned to the country after his visit, and then one day word came that he was dead. My mother told me, and I concealed from her the shock, the pain, the grief I felt. He had had an attack of appendicitis, and in those days, especially in the country, it was a much more serious matter than it is now. In any case, the exact cause didn’t matter much. It was the fact itself that was so heavy; and the fact was that he had died, that I would not see him again, neither in the city nor in the country. He was no longer there in either place.

However, in a few weeks, after the first shock of the news had passed, I began to realize a curious thing. You see, I had for years been accustomed to thinking of Joe as being, not right here nearby, next to me or in front of me, but, somewhere far off, out of sight and out of reach, off in the country somewhere.

Though he had died, it did not seem to me that he was any farther away than he had been during all those years since his family had moved back to the country. There hadn't really been an enormous change in the way things were between us. It was only that someone had come in from the country to say that he was dead. Even so, he was still there witnin me, in my awareness, just as he had always been when he was away in the country. Nothing had changed in this regard. We were no closer, no farther apart than usual. Our relationship was pretty much unaffected, and, indeed, seems but little affected to this day.

To be sure, he is still a boy in my mind. If he had lived he would be a man now: quite a good man I would think. He was planning to study for the priesthood, he had told me that day in the park. He was quite sure that that was what he wanted to do. It is, I know, a great pity that he did not live. Nothing can ever erase the waste and the loss of it; and yet it matters a great deal to me that I knew him as a child. That we were close. His life remains a precious segment of meaning and experience in my own. It is clear that I will never forget him.

IV.
During that year we were in the third grade together, something happened between Joe and me that has, ever since, loomed rather large in my thinking about myself and about people generally. Actually, the incident, looked at objectively, was of no great importance, was trivial in fact; but it has mattered a great deal to me somehow, has remained fresh in my memory throughout the many years that have passed since that summer morning.

I remember standing beside a pale tan stucco wall in the warm sunlight of a summer morning, standing there doing nothing in particular, just talking rather aimlessly with Joe; and when I leaned back against the wall 1 could feel the sharp points of the little stipples that had been raised on it, little pointed, conical lumps about an inch apart (which was the way stucco was generally applied in those days in that part of the world). In any case, whatever Joe and I were saying, we began to tussle a bit as third grade boys will.

We joined hands, facing each other, arms extended left and right like wings, and began to see-saw from side to side as though each of us were trying to force the other to go spinning end over end in a cartwheel-like motion. I don't know why we fell into this peculiar contest, but we did. Just a playful test of strength and skill you know, one on a side.

But then, all at once, for no clear reason, the contest ceased to be play to me and became deadly serious combat. One moment it was fun, and the next it was war. I was finding it difficult to match Joe's strength; he was forcing me over gradually, irresistibly to one side. Then I remembered the sharp points on the stucco just behind me, and my wrists and arms were bare. However, before I could shout or scream or cry, Joe dumped me on the sidewalk, being careful not to brush my bare arms against the rough wall.

I had been afraid of being hurt earlier, but now I was furious. I hated him, hated his strength and his skill, was infuriated by his smile (which struck me as smug and superior). I had been afraid, and now I felt defeated, felt ashamed and thwarted, having lost out in the contest. I hated Joe; so I struck out blindly with one fist after the other, struck out at what I perceived as that superior smile.

The smile turned to shocked surprise as Joe stepped back out of range. This, of course, only added to my fury, so I kept after him. He turned and ran around the corner and up the hill, with me trailing along behind, throwing the stones I had snatched up on the way. Joe easily outdistanced me, and turned to look back, puzzled and hurt, a little surprised still; and I stood down the hill, breathless, looking daggers at him, trembling with rage and hate.

A neighbor across the street, a woman, hearing the commotion, came to her front door and shouted at me: "Hey, what’s the matter?"

An interesting question. What ever in the world was the matter? "Nothing’s the matter,” I said, and threw the rest.of my stones in the gutter.

V
Though it has been seventy years since that summer morning, I have not forgotten the incident. Indeed, it is as fresh in my mind as if it had happened only yesterday; and I daresay that there are similar events lodged in your memory as well. Hence, we ought to be ever so sure to remind ourselves that, in among the odds and ends of the experience of any day, there may well be happenings that we will remember forever and ever. In any day. Each day we are making the life that we will know intimately, know vividly within ourselves, throughout the reach of our lifespan.

There are, I think, a number of other insights suggested by the experiences I have recalled here. For example, there is the implication that, since we are inevitably and inescapably human, since we are none of us perfect, we will make mistakes from time to time, will do things we may wish (and wish) we had not done. This is the way it has been and will be with us. We are none of us perfect, and we have to learn to live with the fact that this is the way it is. We will make mistakes. There are limits to our powers end possibilities. This is how it is with humans.

Or, again, in these experiences is the suggestion that we sometimes (and perhaps often) use anger in regrettable ways, such as to fight off a threat to our feelings of self-esteem, a threat to the inwardly felt worth cf our own self. We will often grow angry in order to block out an awareness of our own faults, weaknesses and shortcomings; and when we use anger in this way, we will do everything we can to assure ourselves that our anger is fully justified, that others are to blame for it.

There is the further implication that those we love may die, and that when they do, we lose them, but we do not lose them altogether. Physically, they are no longer there, to be sure; but within us, in our awareness, they are as alive to us as they ever were when we were apart, were in different places, were not in the same room together.

In addition, there is the suggestion that even people who like each other very much may feel affection for radically different things, and this for deep, inner reasons that they may not be able to explain clearly. We need to learn to comfortably accept our differences.

There is the implication in these experiences that it is important for us to be in command of ourselves, not be at the mercy of every 1ittle vagrant whim, wish, impulse, or drive that crops up in us. It is good for a man or a woman (a girl or a boy) to be in possession of themselves. Being human, every individual will have to accept the fact that they will be something less than perfect in this regard; but it is good to press hard in this direction.

It is important that each of us accept ourselves as we are, but, at the same time, that we strive always to be a little better than we are: to accept ourselves with all our faults and failings, but not ever be entirely satisfied with the person we are.

If we can manage this delicate task, it has seemed to me, then we will be wholly alive, will be, much of the time, at peace with ourselves and the world.

Dr Alexie Crane
2880 Exeter Place
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805) 682-3476

Lex1304@aol.com

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