“When Will We Ever Learn?”

Sixty-One Years…Or Was It Yesterday?

Sixty-one years ago today, I was in Mrs. Shontz’ typing class (none of us realized back then how important those skills would become!) at Clarion Area High School, no doubt bored with the repetitious testing of our typing skills. Mr. Wieberg’s voice on the intercom system interrupted the boredom to tell the teachers to turn on the radio. (My children and grandchildren cannot imagine a room without a monitor or iPad!) We heard Walter Cronkite pause to hold back tears when he announced that President Kennedy was dead.

Everyone who was alive that day remembers what they were doing when they got the news. Our eyes were glued to our black and white television screens as we watched the unbelievable events unfold that weekend, just the way we watched every moment in the days following the 911 attacks. Churches were packed with Easter-sized crowds on that Thanksgiving Sunday morning the way churches were packed on the Sunday after 911. In both cases, preachers faced the daunting challenge of putting words around an event that left us speechless.

Words to Remember

The Rev. Dr. Harold Buell was the pastor at Hyde Park Methodist Church in Tampa (1962-1967). He was a Ph.D. scholar, WWII veteran, caring pastor, a faithful friend of Hyde Park Church, and a great encourager to me in my early years at Hyde Park. In his sermon that day he called the assassination “a symbol of the moral deterioration of American life.” He declared:

“We have placed our trust in militarism, in the philosophy that might makes right; and then we wonder that an assassin thinks he can solve a problem with the firing of a gun. We are fed violence and brutality on television all day…and then we wonder that an assassin follows the techniques of television.”

He went on to say that the assassination was “the inevitable result of the work of hate mongers … in American life.”

“These extremists would pit American against American; white American against black American, and black American against white American; Roman Catholic against Protestant, Protestant against Roman Catholic, and Catholics and Protestants against the Jews. These extremists have taught hatred of the United Nations, of the Supreme Court and other American institutions; they have sown distrust of leaders in both Church and State. The murder in Dallas reflects the work of those who have spread hatred.”

Sound familiar? I suppose you could say some things haven’t changed; they’ve been supercharged by cable TV propaganda.

A Word of Hope

Having named the painful reality of the time, Dr. Buell offered a word of hope.

“John F. Kennedy will not have died in vain if his murder calls us back from our mad pursuit of money, pleasure, fame and power, to the things that made American great … You can kill a man with a bullet, but you cannot kill the truth the man stands for.”

He told the congregation that the death of the President “calls us to a rededication to righteousness in public and private life” and he affirmed that “we still have one to whom we can cling; we have the stability that trust in an Omnipotent God can give.”

When Will We Ever Learn?

Looking back as a child of the ’60’s, I hear Peter, Paul and Mary singing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” with its haunting question, “When will they ever learn?” Jesus still weeps over our violence-addicted, power-intoxicated, hate-filled world saying, “If only you knew the things that lead to peace.” (Luke 19:42)

It’s not enough to remember where we were when JFK was shot or when the towers fell.  We must also learn the deeper lessons they have to teach us about who we are and what we are called to become.

Grace and peace,

Jim