I was lifting a pile of old and odd shaped papers from a long forgotten box when a piece of stiff paper in the shape of a cross fell to the floor.
On one side was a colorful artistic rendition of a cross. On the blank back side were these penciled in words: I wore this in the Easter program, 1944. Daddy put it on.
Then came this highly probable flashback: After making sure we were properly dressed for the occasion, our family of four would have driven to the other side of “town” (a scant three blocks) to the church, an imposing rectangular brick structure with several large stained glass windows.
On that Easter Sunday, my dad would have led the congregation in a special mix of words, songs, and pageantry to celebrate the life and death of Jesus. That would have been followed by a prayerful plea for the safe return of the thousands of young Americans who were courageously fighting for the survival of our country.
Three years before, Germany, Italy, and Japan had joined forces to wage war against the United States. Eventually, however, they were forced to surrender. With that began the painful task of repairing war torn countries, mourning the loss of loved ones who never returned or returned only to never fully recover.
History is like that — wonderful, terrible, and undeniable. When revealed many years later, we react in ways ranging from joyful and reassuring to tearful and regrettable. Regardless of how gloriously or tragically we might think of it now, wishful thinking can’t change it or make it disappear. What happened did happen.
Despite that reality, some people foolishly insist that the usual phenomenon of cause and effect was either absent at the time or was different from what was recorded. To them, today’s perceptions should be allowed to override and smother yesterday’s facts. Witness how much tampering there has been and continues to be of history such as “inappropriate” exhibits being removed from view or even destroyed and words deleted or “smoothed” so they will be less likely to offend.
In sharp contrast and in accordance with sound logic, history is to be both respected and protected. That applies not only to what we already know, but to what is added as the result of new and factual discoveries.
Just as important, history can only be expressed within the context of how the world was at the time of the happening. No matter how unreasonable or unthinkable the past might have been, it should never be intruded upon or held hostage by present and often very different values.
We humans are constantly changing how we think and act, dress, work, or otherwise exist. Our lives are filled with the constant challenge of having to leave behind the old while welcoming the new. We keep searching, discovering, and inventing new devices and tools for fixing, communicating, governing and otherwise flourishing in a world filled with rich resources waiting for us to use them for our betterment.
History is the anchor for all of that, the irrefutable reference point and solid backstop of what we so far have ended up doing well or doing wrong, and the mistakes we made for which we either found or are still looking for solutions. To even attempt to think of it in any other way ratchets us backward instead of forward.
So, what is so special about that paper cross?
Well, it’s an emotional reminder of a simple and extremely thin slice of time against a huge backdrop of a way of life that was slowly and almost invisibly slipping away even as we were experiencing it.
Now, the “town” where I grew up is hardly more than a smudge on the landscape. Many of the houses are gone. Those who once lived there either moved away or have passed on, replaced by people who have no good reason to know or even care about what happened there.
More recently, the church closed when the handful of elderly faithful could no longer afford to keep it open. An ironic counterpoint is the sunlight that still shines through those stained glass windows. It brightens now-empty and dusty benches on which our family sat so many years ago to sing hymns, offer words of praise, and pray for a better world.
Neither I nor anyone else should ever rationalize how it was back then, what should have been but wasn’t, or what should have been done but didn’t happen. That would be tampering with history, condemning it, mocking those who created it, twisting what really happened into something much different — all of which would be an utterly futile and misleading effort.
When any condition or event happens, it belongs not to us to change but to the ages where it is and will forever remain true and firmly intact.
