Pastor’s Page: Summer Disturbances

I’m back on line after a wonderful three week vacation in the U.S. These are halcyon days in America with employment and income high and the generally lovely summer weather re-enforcing the taste of peaches and cream. Our summer sun shone over us as we enjoyed the lakes of Minneapolis, the fertile farm acreage of Illinois and Indiana, the rolling hills and mountains of the Blue Ridge region, the flatter greenlands of North Carolina, and the brilliantly lit landscapes of Nevada and California.

And yet July brought us more than summer salad days. Our visit to Illinois and Indiana corresponded with the early July murder spree of white racist Benjamin Smith, a 2l year old university student who July 3-5 conducted a rampage of violence in the very places of Chicago, Urbana and Bloomington where we were visiting. Americans may enjoy a serial killer in the summer movies but not one who is haunting your vacation sites.

The tragic deaths of JFK JR. and his wife and sister-in-law shadowed our final days of vacation. My second vote for U.S. President was cast for his father in l960. I heard the elder Kennedy speak in Harlem during his successful campaign and travelled from seminary to the capital for his memorable inauguration.

Despite the limited record he accomplished in his brief tenure and notwithstanding the subsequent disclosures of his often cynical and reckless private life, I experienced President Kennedy as a remarkable public leader who inspired my generation of young Americans in a sense of citizenship and public service which began to evaporate from the public forum not long after his death.

Like probably some millions of my country men and women I had entertained the romantic thought that his equally charismatic son, JFK JR. might eventually seek public office, and give us the opportunity to affirm a glorious closure to the frustrated romance and promise of America’s political "Camelot." Sadly, human error has denied that closure.

In his death we have learned much about the younger Kennedy which he purposefully did not want us to know about him. How he played down his celebrity status in pursuit of his own pilgrimage in selfhood and how he used his fame and money privately to do good. Only because his death now permits them to disclosure do we learn of his many benefactions. He appears to have been a fine example of that class of patrician citizen, who have always brought blessings to their societies.

For me and many in America the final days of July l999 brought tears at these untimely deaths. It was like losing a member of our own families.

Pastor Gene