The Missing Memo

“The Missing Memo”
The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

April 9, 2023

Matthew 34.32-35 

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

I was supposed to walk 60-65 miles.  Five days, roughly 12 miles a day.  This was the Camino in Spain, the traditional path of Christian pilgrimage.  This was almost a decade ago and I was just as out of shape then as I am now. 

To walk the whole Camino takes more than a month.  I was just doing a small piece.  Wanting to see if this was something I enjoyed before committing to a month’s effort and hundreds of miles with a backpack, I chose a modest walk. Smart choice.  If only my intelligence had persisted.

Perhaps it was the lack of adult supervision as I was walking alone, but after the first day, my mind started to recalculate the modest walk.  Five days?  Why five days?  Up the pace a bit and we can do this in four.  And with that the moderation of 12 miles became 16 and then 20.  Approaching the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela, on the fourth day, my body was ransacked, a mess. 

I pushed too far.  The twenty miles the day before made the few remaining miles very painful.  Needing a break, I sat by the side of the road to drink some water and rest.  And then the voice came.  Why? Why did you push so hard?  Why?  There is nothing you get by doing this faster.  What have you gained by exhaustion? 

And then it was as if I got a memo that had gone to junk mail or got lost in the mail or simply was not read.  Work enough for the day and then rest so you are refreshed for the next day.  The memo went on: It is dumb to work to exhaustion and then collapse so you recover just enough to continue.  Looking over the invisible memo, the inspired message of the Holy Spirit, I could feel the weight of my life theretofore press down on me.  You work until you are exhausted and only stop long enough to recover.  Not once in a while or if there is an emergency.  It’s just what you do. 

That was a very helpful memo. I’ve found it a life-changing guide; perhaps even a life-saving direction.  Work enough and then, rest.  Who would have thought?

Recently I have seen several interviews about the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Not sure why but I have.  It came out almost 40 years ago, almost but not quite.  Listening to different movie stars talk about being in the movie or what the movie meant to them, I was cast down memory lane.  I distinctly remember watching it and being a bit embarrassed that I never did what Ferris did. I never cut class and went on a wild adventure to art museums or drove a Ferrari or dined with Chicago’s finest before joining a parade. I remember thinking, is that what the other kids did?  I never thought something like that was possible.  I just went to school. If only I got the memo.

Recently, I rewatched the movie.  I wanted to see what it looked like now. In 1986 the movie for me was about a daring adventure, hijinks and stepping out of the mundane of your life.  I took to heart the last words of the movie, the postscript of Ferris chastising the audience, “You’re still here?  Go on.  Go home.”  It was if he was goading me, “life moves pretty fast” you need to get busy.

Now, decades later, when I watched it again, I could still hear and see the memo, “don’t let life pass you by.”  True. But now I see the movie was really loving a friend who was lost.  Despite the title of Ferris, the movie was about Cameron, his best friend, whose life felt like it was over before it ever began.  Cameron was in the half-life of depression and anxiety and despair.  Ferris was taking a day off from his life so to bring life to his friend.  Such joy in my first watching; but now, in the rewatching I find such hope: Love can lift a fallen friend. 

I was worried about a friend of mine recently.  His world was about to change and it’s gonna hurt.  I am not sure he’s prepared for the change; I am not sure how he will make it through. 

My friend is not a wilting flower.  In fact, he is pretty belligerent and quite often bombastic.  He’s ready for a fight, for a rough exchange.  When COVID hit I called him up and said, no one is better suited to the pandemic than you.  You are by nature anti-social, content with walking your dog, and would be fine not seeing or talking to people for a long time.  He laughed and concurred.  “I am doing just fine in isolation.”  The disruption so many felt was a moment of relief for him.

But the change this time is not about how he lives; it’s about his family.  They are going to hurt; they are going to suffer.  This will not be a moment best lived by tenacity.  When your kid goes through a divorce you need to do more than walk the dog. 

I am fully confident my friend knows this and stands at the ready.  He has the memo; he’s read it, I am sure.  If not, his wife will read it to him.  Yet, and here is the worry, it’s not understanding how life is supposed to be that makes a difference in suffering.  It’s weathering the storm trusting this is not how life is supposed to be and happiness will return.

I read a great poem about not getting the memo.  The poem is called "What you missed that day you were absent in fourth grade." It’s written by Brad Aaron Modlin.

It goes like this:

“What you missed that day you were absent in fourth grade”

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark

After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s voice.

Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home.

This prompted Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

"What you missed that day you were absent in fourth grade"

I go to great lengths not to speak for others, but I would dare say this poem speaks to something most people feel.  It is as if parts of life were just not quite clear, not explained well; it is as if the lessons were offered the day you missed class in fourth grade and you were not even in a parade. I love that line "a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the psalms during cigarette breaks."  What a great skill‑such chanting; what a great power to possess.

A part of the poem for me is just not seeing what others seem to see or being unable to find the number in the picture with all the dots that don’t seem to be anything in particular.  Another part is a kind of awe in those whose life has peace when yours does not, or a hunger for joy that seems to move through your grasp like a fish that has no intent of being caught by your hands.   

For a great part of my life, I felt this way about the resurrection.  I did.  I just couldn’t grasp the joy.  I feel like I missed the lesson in Sunday School, the one where the mystery of the empty tomb was made clear with glue and tongue depressors and just hint of glitter, a cotton ball or two.  Don’t half understand me: I get it; I have read the doctrines and dogmas and I know not to mess with the hallelujah and the brass.  I can engage the Easter greeting: He is risen; He is risen indeed.  I can even say it in Greek, but there was ever a part of me that felt like my answers lacked happiness.  When I heard the Easter greeting, my answer to the proclamation, Jesus is risen from the dead, what I wanted to say was, “well, that’s great for Jesus; I am happy for him.”  He deserved a break after such a raw turn with Judas and Peter and those fools the Pharisees.  Good for Jesus; good for him.

But for a lot of my life, I just didn’t see it, hear it in me—the resurrected joy that is. And then, I got it.  No fanfare, no trumpets, just green hills and spring flowers.  I got the Easter memo when I stood in the green hills of Galilee and considered the lilies; there I learned the lesson of the fig tree: life comes back. We cannot get time back, but we regain our life.  I got it.

After all the instruction and construction of a theological education was complete, only then did I get the memo offered by the angels.  Jesus isn’t here; he went home.  He told you he’d meet you Galilee.  Go home.  You’ll find him there. 

If you think about it the story of the resurrection is really a memo in the appendix of the gospel; it is a kind postscript to remind the reader of how life is lived well if you can go home to joy.  He went home; now you go home.  Live where you are. You know life moves pretty fast and you’ll miss it unless you learn how to go home to joy. 

This resurrection memo is a kind of riff on one of the psalms, something you can chant on a cigarette break: weeping may tarry through the night, but joy comes with the morning.  The suffering we endure is brief, the peace, everlasting. 

I hope you are not like me, and the clarity of Easter doesn’t need a postscript; I hope your resurrection needs no memo because you heard Mrs. Nelson explain in fourth grade; you’re all set.  You weren’t absent.  I hope the elusive nature of joy is something you’ve never experienced.

But just in case, just in case you’re still listening after such ramble and just in case you feel more like Cameron more than Ferris, just in case you feel unprepared to navigate the challenges of life, just in case you missed the Sunday School class like me, where we find the memo: Jesus went home and we can too, just in case I'll say it again, we regain life. 

The life we lose in the midst of heartbreak or the transience of time, the peace robbed by bad dreams where the math of being enough, having enough, and being loved by one person, which is a great answer, just in case it’s not adding up for you, here is the memo: go home to joy; you can; go to Galilee and find him there.  Don’t rush; don’t waste your time on things of no value, not treasured in heaven.  Don’t wreck yourself; just head out, be modest, get a dog maybe.  Live as if you are almost ready for joy, as if there is enough and you can rest.  Soon you will make it home.  At least that's what the angel said.  Amen.