What’s the point of remembering Pearl Harbor?  Or, for that matter, 9/11, Gettysburg, the Alamo, and myriad other days of conflict?  It’s a relevant question given the current reluctance of many to remember 9/11 and the concerted media effort to keep photos of 9/11 out of the public eye.

9/11 generated the truthers, and a similar crowd sprang up around Pearl Harbor.  Even posting the human interest story below concerning a pulley from the mast of the U.S.S. Arizona brings out the nut cases who believe every bad thing results from a conspiracy among a cabal of warmongering bankers and whoever occupies the White House.  Giving the truthers their say has some benefits.  The paranoid will always be with us, and it’s useful to know just how deranged they really are.

But there are better reasons to remember such things.  They are defining events in our culture – rallying points.  The concerted effort and sacrifice of a nation or people to meet such challenges speaks well of humanity.  Storytelling sustains a culture, and the content of those stories defines it.  In remembering the rallying points, we do well also to remember the stories of ordinary people who rallied to a worthy common cause.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This item arrived in my email. A quick Internet search confirms the essential facts, for example here and here.  It says a lot about our times where the media systematically elevate the frivolous and make-believe over real accomplishment.  But then Irena Sendler did not seek the Nobel Prize.  No doubt she had better motives for doing what she did, and doing it was its own reward.

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena Sendler. During WWII, Irena got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive. Being German, she KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews. Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack for larger kids. She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2,500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. . . . She was not selected.

Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

Reflections on the life of Lillian (1916-2008)
From her children: Kathy, Hank and Ruth

And now, faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13:13)

The Cardinal Virtues – Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Courage – and the Theological Virtues – Faith, Hope and Love – are a rigorous means for assessing a life lived. Mother can stand this test. Whether you knew her as teacher, friend, guide – or for we three lucky ones, Mother – hers was an example to reckon with.

She blazed a trail in the church and in her community, taking unpopular views that were right. Lawrence Bottoms was a frequent overnight guest in our home in the segregated 1950s. They call this Courage.

She had no sympathy for people taking unnecessary risks and didn’t want to hear about Hank’s skydiving or too much about Kathy’s mountain hikes. She knew calamities – the loss of her father at age 3, the Depression – and always sought stability and acted carefully. She was Prudent.

She sought Justice. She took on Mrs. Edmundson in the neighborhood and championed Ruth’s right to miss school for the Beatles’ first U.S. concert tour. Strong discipline was mixed with love. Right and Wrong were real things.

She was private. She understood the sensitive position of being the minister’s wife. She did not suffer fools, but was unfailingly polite. She was the person we went to for advice. She believed in Temperance and self-control.

She rose far above circumstances that conspired to deny her bright intellect a higher education. She determined to get that for herself at PSCE. Her mind knew no boundaries, whether reading on the couch or traveling throughout Europe. Daddy wondered at the stars. She contemplated the sea.

People who knew her called us last week to thank us for her Faith. Rigorous inquiry was an essential part of hers. And so was Hope – for the ultimate good in people, for Life, for History.

But the greatest of these is Love. Measured out every day, without stinting, in strawberry shortcakes, hugs, hand-sewn prom dresses, understanding, laughter, crocheted caps for our babies, wisdom, forbearance, dinner on the table, a look, a smile and the softest hands on Earth.