the sounds of silence

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Things are hectic. My life seems to speed up around the holidays. I leave tomorrow for Gabe’s funeral and tonight I’m trying to get my thoughts together. It’s a time of transition for me and despite the loss of a good friend I feel a new since of hope for the year ahead.

Gabe was buried today on Long Island, alongside several of his family whose graves date back to the 18th century. The strangeness of his death and burial are fitting for his enigmatic life.

There are a lot of things going on in my life, but I don’t feel like I have any grasp of them. It’s in these times that I find it hardest to write. I won’t know how I feel, until these moments have past.

Boxing Day

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It's December 26th Boxing Day. An elusive holiday that often passes without much notice. But this year it has been my occasion for reflection on the loss of a great friend. In feudal England, Boxing Day was a time for the Lord of the estate to give to the serfs—whose lives were the substance of his equity—a mandatory offering of goods. It was also the day when churches would open up the offering box and give its contents to the poor and dispossessed. It is a day for public offering and this year it has required me to give to posterity the story of a friendship that was cut short by the hard and sometimes bitter shifts of life. Sometimes words feel inadequate for their subjects, but to leave them unsaid would be a further tragedy. In my reflection I was reminded of a prayer, one attributed to one of my favorite theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, but one whose sentiment has been poking up in the hearts of people for centuries. It reads,

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

The Holiday Blues

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Marcus: I blogged in November, I have since returned to the US from Nicaragua, celebrated my sister's wedding and graduated from Vanderbilt University. Some of the other events since my return have been less joyful.

It’s Christmas Day, but I don’t feel very happy. I’m in Gatlinburg TN staying with my family in a rustic cabin up on the side of a mountain. Several of my uncles and aunts and their children gather here each year—we have a big holiday celebration replete with gift giving, massive dinners and a family thanksgiving service where we pray for one another and each year a different family member takes a turn speaking to the fifty or so others. A few of my cousins are missing this year, they had to be with other family members elsewhere and It doesn’t quite feel the same.

I also found out Saturday that one of my closest friends Gabriel Rice died in a plane crash just outside of Bishop California. Because of the circumstances of the accident it took some time for the information to get back to his family and from them to me. I’ve taken on the responsibility of calling and informing our mutual friends of his death a task that has left me with a feeling of nausea that I can’t seem to shake.

Gabe was a great pilot he had flown over five thousand hours in Alaska and was one of the bravest and most compassionate people I have ever met. His death has left me in a state of shock I can only seem to distract my mind from this horrible reality for a few brief seconds, before feelings of loneliness come flooding back.

Gabe was in my wedding five years ago this is what I wrote about him in the wedding program.

Gabriel Rice, Friend of the Groom
Gabe and I meet at Christian Life College in 1997 and after meeting became fast friends. It was great to have met someone that had just as much enthusiasm as I did about going and seeing the world. I didn’t get much homework done that semester, but Gabe and I sure did see the West Coast of the United States. We would leave on Friday every weekend and show back up for class Monday morning. We drove up and down the California coast sleeping on the beach and in my Honda Civic. We drove to Seattle going up on Friday and coming back on Sunday a pretty ambitious trip considering it was about 12 hours each way. We later backpacked together around Europe and made memories that bind us together forever.