Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras
und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen
wie des Grases Blumen.
Das Gras ist verdorret
und die Blume abgefallen.
One of my favorite pieces of music is Brahm’s Ein deutsches Requiem. Normally we call it the German Requiem, but Brahms called it Ein menschliches Requiem: The Human Requiem. I like that better. There’s some speculation as to Brahm’s impetus to write it, but it has been suggested that the death of his mother hit him particularly hard. Doesn’t matter why, what matters is that he did.
So I sit here at a patio table in Boston, waiting to fly home tomorrow after a conference. It’s beautiful, flowers and shrubs, a pretty bold squirrel searching around me for some sort of nut. There are basil and rosemary plants that perfume my temporary office.
I started trying to write some ad copy for work and decided to listen to Brahms.
Now I am unable to work until I write this down.
I remember over 20 years ago, sitting in a Sunday School class being taught by a gentleman named Dave Clark. Dave was a geologist professor at the University of Wisconsin, but since we have a lay clergy in our church, we all take turns doing different things. We were lucky to have Dave as a teacher. He was thoughtful, stimulating and somewhat intolerant of lazy thinking and platitudes. He challenged our thinking, and certainly brought his heart and his brain into the equation.
At the end of this particular Sunday School class, Dave pulled out his boom box and played this movement of the Requiem. I remember listening and being moved to tears. I didn’t understand the words other than looking them up in the Bible and figuring out that fleisch is flesh and gras is grass.
So yeah. All flesh is as grass. It withers, fades and shrivels up. The glory of man is as grass, and the blooms fall. Sometimes it lasts a long time, sometimes it doesn’t. I think that’s the point.
My friend Doug is now as grass. Doug Clark was the thoughtful and kind son of this wonderful Sunday School teacher, and I have known few men like him, and I will most likely never meet anyone like him again.
Now it’s customary to say really nice things about someone after they die and gloss over the not-so-nice things. The problem I have is that Doug probably had many character defects: we all do, but I am aware of precious few of them. I’m sure he showed them, but Doug had the gift to love greatly, deeply and authentically. Because I knew Doug loved me, I was pretty blind to the rest of his character flaws. And I know a handful of people who loved so deeply. His goal was to be like Jesus. When I say Jesus, I mean Carl Sandburg’s version.
He never came near clean people or dirty people but they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers that hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out of the running…This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands wherever he passed along.
The Jesus who healed. The one who loved. The one who threw out something fresh and beautiful. Not the Jesus that supposedly hates simmers and can’t wait for an opportunity to toss someone into the garbage chute to eternal damnation. Not the Jesus used for political reasons. Not the Jesus that doesn’t exist. Sorry, haters. Doug wins.
A few weeks ago I was heading out of town for a trip to Germany. I was to fly out Saturday, and Doug had been ill for some time with an incurable and particularly nasty form of cancer. He was withering. The bloom was about gone. I wanted to see him, to see if I could bring him back anything from Germany. Doug had served a mission in Germany back in the 70s, and I thought a little chocolate or a one-legged pair of lederhosen might provide him a little bit of a lift.
I called about 9:00 Friday morning to see if Doug was available. The quiet voice on the other end of the phone was undoubtedly one of his sons, who told me in a flat voice that he wasn’t, but did I wanted to leave a message. I said, no, that I’d call back later.
I learned a few hours later via Facebook that he had passed away a few hours before I called.
[Insert tears of regret here]
Doug would, no doubt, chide me for my foolishness. “Hey, didn’t you listen to the next part?”
So seid nun geduldig, liebe Brüder,
bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn.
Siehe, ein Ackermann wartet
auf die köstliche Frucht der Erde
und ist geduldig darüber,
bis er empfahe den Morgenregen und Abendregen.
The good news is that we just need to be patient. Like the song says.
Therefore be patient, brothers,
Unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth
for the precious fruit of the earth,
and has long patience for it,
until he receive the morning and evening rain.
So be patient.
I don’t want to be geduldig. I don’t think it’s fair my friend died at all. I don’t think it’s fair that he left a wonderful (I mean wonderful) wife and four children (ibid. on the wonderful part) to cope with the loss of a great husband and father. It’s not fair that he left such a big hole in the world. And I’m selfish. And life isn’t even remotely close to fair. If it were fair, it wouldn’t be the world.
But I will be patient. I know I’ll see Doug again, this time with two legs. He’ll be Doug again, maybe even better. We’ll both have more hair. He’ll be a little skinnier, maybe, but he’ll keep the awesome beard. We’ll go paddling together and possibly motorcycling or whatever one does in the afterlife that correlates with those things. One hopes that it’s paddling only the water’s cleaner and motorcycling without anything ever breaking down.
“Keep listening,” says Doug.
Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in Ewigkeit.
Die Erlöseten des Herrn werden wiederkommen,
und gen Zion kommen mit Jauchzen;
Freude, ewige Freude wird über ihrem Haupte sein;
Freude und Wonne werden sie ergreifen
und Schmerz und Seufzen wird weg müssen.
But the word of the Lord endureth forever.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with songs
and everlasting joy upon their heads:
they shall obtain joy and gladness
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Thanks for the reminder, Doug.
“No problem. I love you, Darren.”
Freude…ewige Freude. Eternal joy sounds pretty good to me. So long as I can spend eternity with my wife, my family, and people like Doug, I can’t imagine it could be any other way.
Now I can blow my nose, wipe my eyes and get back to work.
Respectfully submitted,
Canoelover