Goodbye Joe

Last weekend I said goodbye to my father inlaw Joe Loomis. To be honest I could never write something that would adequately describe what he means to me. But I will try. When I was in high school, Morgan and I started dating. For my 18th Birthday we had a party at the Opera House. Being young, we didn't think about practical things like what we were going to eat, or where we were going to sleep. No one brought food that night. We just wanted to play. Joe looked at me and Morgan and asked, "What are you going to eat?" I said, " I don't know. We'll be alright." An hour later Joe had returned from town with tri-tip steaks and garlic bread for us. He didn't have to do it. We really would have been fine. But he wanted to. When Morgan and I were having a hard time in high school, Morgan decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night. He walked for hours until he finally walked so far that he didn't think he could walk back. So he called his dad to come get him. Joe asked him what was wrong. After Morgan explained a little, all Joe said was, " I thought it was either drugs or a woman." That was all he said. When we told him we were getting married ten years later, he giggled with delight and said, "I thought that was what you were going to say. Wonderful! I loved being married" I remember the first time he told me he loved me. He was standing in the doorway of the house he was building. He was laughing with delight when he said it, I just couldn't believe how happy we made him. He was a great listener and curious about everything. I love historical narratives and he loved history. We went on and on about Columbus, Cortez, and little Lady Barker from the NZ Sheep station. Every time he saw me he brought up a book that he thought I would like. It was a collection of journal entries from women who crossed the United State by wagon train. He never knew what happened to his copy of the book. It most likely got burned up in one the many house fires he lived through. A few days before the memorial I found the book he recommended on my grandma's bookshelf. I guess I am destined to read it. Morgan's mom and dad had an interesting relationship that I never really understood. When my parents divorced, they avoided each other. Even now, they don't talk and only see each other when it is absolutely necessary. Morgan's parents though, were very different. Wherever their kids were, they both were, even after being divorced. They made conversation and never minded each other's presence. They did this for their children. I thought when people got a divorce, that was it. You take these friends, I take these. We don't talk to each other. The kids make all the visitation arrangements, and I no longer care about you... at all. Most people think this way about divorce. Its normal. But Carol and Joe were never normal. When you talk to anyone about their marriage, everyone agrees that they loved each other very much. And even when it was over, their respect and a tinge of love lingered. I believe how they handled their divorce left their children whole. The combination of Carol's abundance of unconditional love, and Joe's unconditional acceptance and respect for individuals made some amazing children. Joe was a man of principle. He believed that things were the way they were and people were the way they were. It wasn't our job to change anyone or anything. It was our job to wonder. He found amusement and pleasure in the simplest things. When he was showing us around his amazing home that he built himself, I made the polite conversational comment that all he needed was a few pictures to hang on the walls. For some reason he thought that was hilarious. The next time we came to visit he had maps, family photos, and art hanging everywhere, all because of me he would say. He never did things to achieve higher financial or social status. He never did things for the sake of completing tasks. He did things for his pleasure and enjoyment. When I think about this I think that his mind was closer to godliness than any of us, as pleasure is the purest motivation to create. Because of Joe, my love for people has become simplified. While some see his refusal to dwell on problems as a fault, I see it as optimism and idealism. For this I can respect him and be eternally grateful for what I have learned from him.

Reflection

I have been following the Travon Martin and Mark Zimmerman situation for a while now and thought I would reflect on how I feel and what I think about all of it. I think firstly, it is tragic on so many levels. Any loss of life, especially someone who is so young, is painful and horrific to see. Secondly, I think it is wrong that people are judging Travon Martin by how he dressed and what he may or may not have done in his short life. He is dead. It is not right for anyone to criminalize him to justify his death. What we need to do is show respect to his family. As a nation we need to love them and mourn with them for their tragic loss. As big as the United States is, we are supposed to be a family. As a spectator of this tragedy, I don't believe there is enough evidence to say if Zimmerman "murdered" Martin, or "killed" him in self defence. I know very small pieces about the confrontation and it is not right for me to pass a judgement like this. It isn't right for people to feel like they have to pass such a judgement. This brings me to the real issue. The culture of the U.S. is "Right or Wrong, Yes or No, Hot or Cold....Black or White." Whatever happened to "I don't know, I need more information, I choose not to judge, I can see both sides of the situation and they both have merritt...every situation is different?" People are so obsessed with being right that they don't take a moment to try and understand how another person is feeling. There is no reconciliation in the culture of the United States. This is why race will always be an issue, even if it was or was not a motivating factor in the death of Travon Martin. The United States is one of the most legalistic places I have ever lived. This is why this situation is so sickening. The deeper problem is the law that allowed one man to carry a gun, shoot and kill another without any legal accountability. While yes he went on trial in the end. It was however, only because of the outcry of the public. If it were up to the law, there wouldn't have been a trial. And in the end, because of the law, the entire trial and judgement only caused more pain and resentment for our country. What the public wanted in this situation was a country that made judgements based on morality, rather than law. But laws these days are so hard to change in the United States that there is little room for conscience any more. In New Zealand, the government can pass a law in three days if they want to. In the United States it takes years because of all the earmarks, 1000 page bills, lobbying, and corruption. Even though people desperately want change, It takes lifetimes for it to happen. In Travon's case, a very short lifetime. Race is in the very soil of our country. It is cut into every person's subconscious like a dry river bed winding through a desert. It is not Travon Martin's death alone that causes people to cry out and rebel. It is the history of our nation. People talk about slavery as if it were a thing. It is not a thing. It is millions of people being uprooted, chained, beaten, raped, whipped, and murdered for over 100 years. After slavery was "abolished" black people were in even more danger, this time of losing their lives. Because they were no longer considered "property" it didn't matter if they lived or died. Thousands of black people were lynched, burned alive, and shot without proper trial for at least another 70 years (withoutsanctuary.org). Then, for another 40 years, black people were legally prevented from voting, attending the same schools as white people, and eating or drinking or using the same bathroom facilities as white people. This was all permitted under the legality or the fabric of our society until 1964 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964). So for nearly 200 years our country, our constitution, "we the people" allowed for this terror to take place. I refer to this history because I can understand why people choose to riot and use violent protest, especially in a society where the most influential nonviolent civil rights leader was assassinated. Today, when a young black man is shot, people cry racism not because they know all the facts. They cry racism because of our country's track record. This history is crazy making. Honestly, what would 200 years of violence do to a group of people? In the end, I do not believe that violent protest solves anything. But I can at least understand it. When I first started learning and exploring issues of race, I would become defensive. I would say, "I did not do this to them." While this is technically true, it does not give me the excuse to deny that racism exists and that it is still a problem. By denying it and taking no responsibility for this problem, I am the problem. I am not writing this because I have the answers. The only thing I feel certain about is that we need to stop being defensive and listen to each other even if it makes us uncomfortable. We need to let someone who is angry vent on us for a while. We need to be strong enough to not be afraid of anger, be compassionate and brave enough to be empathetic. We must be big enough to forgive even when we are not forgiven. In the very end, Love. Love doesn't mean criticizing or judging. It doesn't mean being confrontational and closed minded. If you don't know what love means, go look it up, 1 Corinthians 13.