Stoppage Time Redux
Yesterday was a memory day for me, riding out to the airport, Mary took a picture of me ready to board the jet plane, which she posted yesterday and I copy and post here
a young fellow of 75, leaving Ordinary Time for the twilight zone of Stoppage Time.
And it was, as twilight as the bleak city the narrator walked in Lewis' The Great Divorce, as anyone knows who's been on the shore of Lake Erie in January!
Stoppage Time was extraordinary for me, to me, physically and mentally, but also spiritually in ways I don’t necessarly appreciate, as if something magical didn’t wake up from the ether. Maybe I'll blog on that at some point, or maybe not; after all, this is public, not the private journal I started mid-week of 17 October 2010 for a specific purpose and reason. That didn’t happen, to God be the glory. So I have this, my daily nonsense.
Musing on Stoppage Time yesterday, I went back and read my CaringBridge entries for the week 18 January to 24 January 2011, traveling, being examined, being approved, and finally prepping for open heart surgery, then waiting on a gurney in a wide, chilly hallway outside a door, clutching a bottle of tiny nitrostat pills and totally relaxed for an hour or so as people kept bringing me heated blankets! As, notwithstanding public access, the blog is for myself alone I’m thinking to recall here some of my CB entries for that Time that awarded me +Time, and now from eighty a blessed sense of +Time+.
For reminder, Ordinary Time, terms taken in some sense from English sport in chat with Jeremy, was all of my life before waking on January 18, 2011, because I was “out of time” according to the cardiologists. Then the Referee called Stoppage Time and I was peacefully hoping, but not expecting, it to fold into Extraordinary Time, which I renamed +Time because of both cross and math. Anyway —
+++ +++ +++
STOPPAGE TIME: DAY ONE
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children (παιδια -- young ones whom you have raised, trained, taught, educated), you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. (John 21:4-13)
Quite different from the synoptics, John’s gospel is more a spiritual proclamation of God the Incarnate Word than the earthy stories of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry that we find in Mark, Matthew and Luke. This peaceful post-resurrection story on the beach is almost like a dream, isn’t it. A dream. Or like home. Down by the bay in my front yard, or maybe on the Gulf beach at St. Thomas by the Sea, or maybe near the jetties on Shell Island very early morning as the sun comes up. It’s one of my favorite stories because it rings home for me. After Patty died Joe sent me a tile she had liked with the inscription: “Sounds of the wind and sounds of the sea make me happy to be.” That’s where I am!
This peaceful little story at the end of John’s gospel also reminds me of the ending of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Chronicles of Narnia. It had been a wild and dangerous and exciting voyage, and the little company have come to the parting of ways and there are tears. The film version (then) in theaters has everyone standing on the beach with Aslan, giant waves crashing ashore. In the book and in the BBC film version, Aslan appears on the beach first as a Lamb and then as the Lion, gospel symbolism impossible to miss. The Dawn Treader has sailed to the end of the world, journeyed to the edge of dawn, and the mission has been completed. From here ship’s company, including King Caspian, will sail back to Narnia. King Edmund, Queen Lucy and cousin Eustace must return home to England. Of all seven Narnia stories, this one is perhaps the most poignant. The Pevensie children all have now grown too old and will never return to Narnia. Caspian and the crew of Dawn Treader realize that the parting is permanent, and there is sadness and weeping. Alone, with faith in an old prophecy, Reepicheep, jubilant, confident, throws his sword into the sea and goes on beyond the dawn to Aslan’s Country:
Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter East.
The ending of the Voyage is poignant also for me because so much of my devotional theology resides in Narnia, and especially because it takes me back to my own Narnia, happy years at Holy Nativity Episcopal School -- with Aslan and -- παιδια - the children.
If this were a Sunday morning homily I would now be obliged to return to the shore of the Galilean Sea with Jesus and the disciples. But this is no homily and it’s certainly not John’s gospel. This is my journal musing before daybreak on Stoppage Time Day One. In a few hours comes our flight to Cleveland, Ohio and Linda and I are so grateful to the Lloyd family. Rayford & Eugenia, Bill & June for such generosity and lovingkindness.
There are more adventures in Narnia ahead. Aslan will summon Eustace to meet Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle on a mission to save Prince Rilian, son of Caspian. But we will not see Reepicheep again until The Last Battle.
Tom
+++ +++ +++
On the memory day, always remembering my love and debt, yesterday I stopped by to visit Bill for a moment. He’s not there I know, but I hoped that in some sense he knew that I was there. June once told me, stop thanking us, we’ve been thanked enough; but from working among humans who so often too soon forget, I’ve always tried to be a person whose gratitude never wanes.
Thos+ in +Time+
Pic: Mary Sittman, thanks!!
a young fellow of 75, leaving Ordinary Time for the twilight zone of Stoppage Time.
And it was, as twilight as the bleak city the narrator walked in Lewis' The Great Divorce, as anyone knows who's been on the shore of Lake Erie in January!
Stoppage Time was extraordinary for me, to me, physically and mentally, but also spiritually in ways I don’t necessarly appreciate, as if something magical didn’t wake up from the ether. Maybe I'll blog on that at some point, or maybe not; after all, this is public, not the private journal I started mid-week of 17 October 2010 for a specific purpose and reason. That didn’t happen, to God be the glory. So I have this, my daily nonsense.
Musing on Stoppage Time yesterday, I went back and read my CaringBridge entries for the week 18 January to 24 January 2011, traveling, being examined, being approved, and finally prepping for open heart surgery, then waiting on a gurney in a wide, chilly hallway outside a door, clutching a bottle of tiny nitrostat pills and totally relaxed for an hour or so as people kept bringing me heated blankets! As, notwithstanding public access, the blog is for myself alone I’m thinking to recall here some of my CB entries for that Time that awarded me +Time, and now from eighty a blessed sense of +Time+.
For reminder, Ordinary Time, terms taken in some sense from English sport in chat with Jeremy, was all of my life before waking on January 18, 2011, because I was “out of time” according to the cardiologists. Then the Referee called Stoppage Time and I was peacefully hoping, but not expecting, it to fold into Extraordinary Time, which I renamed +Time because of both cross and math. Anyway —
+++ +++ +++
STOPPAGE TIME: DAY ONE
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children (παιδια -- young ones whom you have raised, trained, taught, educated), you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. (John 21:4-13)
Quite different from the synoptics, John’s gospel is more a spiritual proclamation of God the Incarnate Word than the earthy stories of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry that we find in Mark, Matthew and Luke. This peaceful post-resurrection story on the beach is almost like a dream, isn’t it. A dream. Or like home. Down by the bay in my front yard, or maybe on the Gulf beach at St. Thomas by the Sea, or maybe near the jetties on Shell Island very early morning as the sun comes up. It’s one of my favorite stories because it rings home for me. After Patty died Joe sent me a tile she had liked with the inscription: “Sounds of the wind and sounds of the sea make me happy to be.” That’s where I am!
This peaceful little story at the end of John’s gospel also reminds me of the ending of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Chronicles of Narnia. It had been a wild and dangerous and exciting voyage, and the little company have come to the parting of ways and there are tears. The film version (then) in theaters has everyone standing on the beach with Aslan, giant waves crashing ashore. In the book and in the BBC film version, Aslan appears on the beach first as a Lamb and then as the Lion, gospel symbolism impossible to miss. The Dawn Treader has sailed to the end of the world, journeyed to the edge of dawn, and the mission has been completed. From here ship’s company, including King Caspian, will sail back to Narnia. King Edmund, Queen Lucy and cousin Eustace must return home to England. Of all seven Narnia stories, this one is perhaps the most poignant. The Pevensie children all have now grown too old and will never return to Narnia. Caspian and the crew of Dawn Treader realize that the parting is permanent, and there is sadness and weeping. Alone, with faith in an old prophecy, Reepicheep, jubilant, confident, throws his sword into the sea and goes on beyond the dawn to Aslan’s Country:
Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter East.
The ending of the Voyage is poignant also for me because so much of my devotional theology resides in Narnia, and especially because it takes me back to my own Narnia, happy years at Holy Nativity Episcopal School -- with Aslan and -- παιδια - the children.
If this were a Sunday morning homily I would now be obliged to return to the shore of the Galilean Sea with Jesus and the disciples. But this is no homily and it’s certainly not John’s gospel. This is my journal musing before daybreak on Stoppage Time Day One. In a few hours comes our flight to Cleveland, Ohio and Linda and I are so grateful to the Lloyd family. Rayford & Eugenia, Bill & June for such generosity and lovingkindness.
There are more adventures in Narnia ahead. Aslan will summon Eustace to meet Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle on a mission to save Prince Rilian, son of Caspian. But we will not see Reepicheep again until The Last Battle.
Tom
+++ +++ +++
On the memory day, always remembering my love and debt, yesterday I stopped by to visit Bill for a moment. He’s not there I know, but I hoped that in some sense he knew that I was there. June once told me, stop thanking us, we’ve been thanked enough; but from working among humans who so often too soon forget, I’ve always tried to be a person whose gratitude never wanes.
Thos+ in +Time+
Pic: Mary Sittman, thanks!!