Each morning, I enjoy the ritual of putting on my jewelry. Every day, as part of that ritual, I put around my neck a St. George medal. It started when, in 2002, following the death of my father, with the help of a friendly monk, I ordered the medal from a Catholic catalog. The medal is silver with a raised image of St. George astride his horse, slaying a dragon. An odd image for a pacifist to wear it might seem. My father was not a saint, he'd be the first to say that, but his name was George, and I felt moved to wear a memory of him around my neck.
I am a pacifist, like my father, but he wasn't always a pacifist. No, truthfully, I cannot say I know that for sure. I just have a feeling based on his other transformations, like from evangelical to ecumenical. From a believer in youthful, simplistic dogma, to one who embraced complex paradigms. In World War II he was a chaplain. He did not have to pick up a gun, not that I know of. It's hard to tell from his role in the war what his stance was about that war. Many British people, including my mother believed World War II was a necessary war, that there was no other way to defeat Hitler. What I do know is that over my father's eighty seven years, which included six years in Africa and India during the war, he became a stronger advocate for non-war solutions to the problems of the world.
In his work as a Methodist minister, my father in fact became known as a peace maker. Not so much in the world at large, mostly refereeing fights among parishioners in the various churches at which he served, then later as a District Superintendent, where he used his gift for diplomacy and his keen wit to diffuse potentially explosive situations among the different factions, both ordained and secular, running the church. It cannot be proven his chronic, difficult to manage, even with modern medicine, high blood pressure, was a result of his being calm and patient when others lost their cool. But I was glad when, after a long career, he retired from the ministry and retreated to his study to write. It is my belief his retirement extended his life and gifted our family with a loving grandfather and a confidant for his own grown children, something he was rarely around to be, earlier in our lives.
My father was not always successful in his efforts as a peacemaker in the church, and sometimes the final results of his work were not seen for many years after, even only in hind sight after he'd moved on to other things. But as a diplomat, he was highly skilled and sought out for his wisdom. In short, after witnessing brutality, death, and carnage in the war, after conducting countless funerals, my father became a peacemaker. So it is odd I wear in his memory an image of a battle.
But not odd when you consider there are many kinds of battles. And often the dragons we slay are within ourselves. I've been reading Graham Greene. An Englishman, a gifted writer, a novelist. Now Pico Iyer has written The Man Within My Head. His own account of his relationship with Greene, a person he never met. I am understanding his fascination with Greene's writing. In The Quiet American, Greene speaks with a voice one might hear among one's friends today. The theme of loyalty and betrayal is iconic. The Quiet American is also about war. Knowing The Quiet American was written in 1951 tells me a lot about my own father, how intellectuals of that time thought. Iyer's point seems to be much the same. It is possible to have insights about one's father, through the writing of another.
My father was a writer, although unpublished. I did not become a writer until after his death. Yes, I always wrote, but not seriously, not owning the passion for it that had always been there, deep down. My dad became a writer at 65. He'd written hundreds of eloquent sermons in his career as a preacher, but it wasn't until his retirement that he had the time it takes to approach writing as a craft, as a daily love affair with one's own passion. To fearlessly pursue writing as art form regardless of how others view it, that takes a kind of courage. My father paved my way by his simple willingness to embrace the new no matter his age. And he always did that. For better or worse. But mostly for the better, I think.
My father wasn't always strong. No one can always be strong. But when it mattered, he was there to defend me in whatever form I needed. In that way he was the dragon slayer, he was my knight in shining armor. He fought his own internal battles too, just as I do. That is why I wear the medal. It is a talisman when I'm out in the world. I do use it that way. But more importantly, when I put on the medal, I feel stronger, more able to face my fears and the day, whatever it may bring, just as my dad did. And for that, and for my father I am truly grateful. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment