The Treasures in the Box (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

I got a surprise ---well, surprises--- this week.

I looked out the front door and saw a small box snugged up against the brick wall. That wasn't surprising; we get quite a few boxes. The surprise, the first one anyway, is that it was addressed to me. There are many boxes arriving at our door, but few of them are addressed to me.

I have a small confession. I love it when a box is addressed to me; feels like Christmas or my birthday all over again. I thought that might diminish as I grew older, but it hasn't. It's one of the ongoing joys of my life. As soon as I see my name on the box, I feel the endorphin rush and that goofy grin spreading across my face. Every single time.

I already loved it and I hadn't even opened it.

The second surprise, and definitely the bigger surprise is what I found inside: letters, 30 or 40 of them, and all of them from the mystery that was my father.

You could get to know Dad, but only the pieces he chose to reveal. As father and son, Dad and I occupied the same residence for about two decades. Then I knew him, adult-to-adult so to speak, for almost three more decades. All of those years, and yet, I knew very little about him. It seems like other people can rattle off tale after tale of each parent's childhood, school years, romances, and careers. And I can do some of that, but there is a very, very limited supply of those stories about Dad. He just didn't share much with us.

Maybe he was, as I have always assumed, just a very private person. He definitely personified the saying, "Still waters run deep." He was also, in my view, the kind of person who, "kept his own counsel." In recent years, I have concluded Dad may well have been an introvert, living deep within himself and only surfacing from time to time to interact with the rest of us as needed.

The period of Dad's life of which I know the least is his service during World War II. Dad rarely talked about the war. This puzzled me as a child; many a childhood friend told me tales of their father's service. But as I became an adult, and several of my own friends were returning from the Vietnam War, I gained some understanding. Some things are too hard to recall, much less tell to children. In time, I just packed away all my questions about that time in his life, accepting that he might never be able to tell me more than the very handful of stories he had already shared.

The box was from my cousin, the daughter of one of dad's sisters. The letters? Almost all from Dad during World War II.

I immediately opened the letter on top. Dad's handwriting was difficult for me to read. But I could understand enough to realize just what a treasure I now possessed. Here was a young man with a lightness of spirit I never saw in my Dad. He was having a little fun with my aunt and uncle. My Dad, funny. Funny! Mind-blowing. And then, not three sentences in, he referred to his "wife."

Wait. What?!

Dad didn't meet my mother until AFTER the war. Who was this wife? And where did she go? I checked a couple more of the letters; all referenced his wife. After the shock, I found myself experiencing something else, a kind of hope. I will learn something new about my father, and from his own hand.

I am amazed to have such a treasure appear at this point of my life. In time, we will transcribe them and share their content with my sister and the rest of the family. Thousands of questions have resurrected themselves, now; questions I had long ago decided could never be answered. I can no longer ask Dad. It's likely I will never, "understand all mysteries." But at least now, I may get some answers.

And get to know him a little better.

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See more reflections at
http://steveorr.blogspot.com
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (January 31, 2016)
First reading
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm
Psalm 71:1-6
Second reading
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Gospel
Luke 4:21-30
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Winter continues, but it's warm at Lectionary Breakfast! Can you gather with us Friday morning at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant? We start at 8:00, enjoying an hour (ish) of food, friendships, and illumination from God's word.

Mysteries are revealed.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

At War With Dad - DDay Special Edition

A memoir by Steve Orr.

THIS IS A REPOST FROM AN EARLIER DATE. IT APPEARS TODAY TO HONOR ALL WHO HAVE SERVED, OR NOW SERVE, OUR COUNTRY IN MILITARY ENDEAVORS.

The argument had been going on for the better part of an hour. Actually, Dad didn't think it was much of an argument considering his Sergeant was doing almost all of the talking. The Captain of the boat handled his side of the argument with looks and shrugs. Dad couldn't hear them, but based on the fury he saw on his Sergeant's face, it seemed like it must be pretty important.

But Dad didn't really care what they were arguing about. In true army fashion, they had been rushed to the disembarkation point, only to find they had to wait over 24 hours before they could board the boat. Then, once on board, he and his crew of two having secured their 40mm Bofors gun, the excitement of finally DOING something was cut short by the journey itself. The crossing had been rough. Most of the men on the boat were seasick, Dad included. And for the last hour, he had watched his Sergeant alternate between puking over the side of the boat and yelling at the salty old Brit who was piloting them across the Channel.

It was June 6, 1944. D-Day. They were on their way to Normandy, France.

Dad knew very little about the plans for that day; only that when they finally did reach shore, they were supposed to hitch their gun to a deuce-and-a-half truck which would transport it, and the three of them, to the place where they would start shooting at things with it. And as a recently promoted Corporal, he knew more than most.

The landing, when it finally came, happened swifty, and not at all as had been described. When the ramp slapped onto beach, everyone on the boat saw the same thing: nothing . . . no other soldiers, no equipment, and most importantly to Dad, no deuce-and-a-half. So, at the urging of the Sergeant, several of the soldiers helped Dad and his crew wrestle the wheeled gun off the boat and across part of the beach until they reached a point where the resistance of the sand could no longer be overcome by human efforts. They were stuck midway between water's edge and the firmer ground that bordered the beach. Nothing was going to move that gun one more inch until a truck could could be found to pull it.

That's when Dad learned the topic of his Sergeant's one-sided argument: he had been trying to convince their civilian pilot they were headed in the wrong direction, but to no avail. The result? They were on the wrong beach.

So, while Sarge and the rest of the soldiers left to reconnect with the larger body of the invading force, Dad and crew had to stay and protect their gun. Which didn't seem like such a bad thing, until the ordinance starting falling all about them. Their gun was cradled in a wheeled structure, or carriage. It didn't provide much cover, but it was the best they were going to find. So they dived under it, dug a shallow trench in the sand and, as Dad put it, "hunkered down." All throughout that day they "hugged the sand" under that gun, praying the random explosions would not find them.

Eventually, the day came to an end, and with it an end to the shelling. It was only later that Dad learned the old pilot's mistake had spared them the horrors, and likely instant death, they would have encountered at their intended destination: Omaha Beach. If you've ever seen the opening sequence to the movie, "Saving Private Ryan," then you have some idea of what they were spared.

[The above is a selection from a longer piece I am writing about the few things my Dad told me of his service during World War II.]