Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Today is the 36th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald that cost 29 lives.


Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Music and lyrics ©1976 by Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

when the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more

than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,

that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

when the "Gales of November" came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side

coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.

As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most

with a crew and good captain well seasoned,

concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms

when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.

And later that night when the ship's bell rang,

could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound

and a wave broke over the railing.

And ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too

'twas the witch of November come stealin'.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait

when the Gales of November came slashin'.

When afternoon came it was freezin' rain

in the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'.

"Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."

At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,

"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"

The captain wired in he had water comin' in

and the good ship and crew was in peril.

And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight

came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes

when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay

if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.

They might have split up or they might have capsized;

they may have broke deep and took water.

And all that remains is the faces and the names

of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings

in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.

Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;

the islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario

takes in what Lake Erie can send her,

And the iron boats go as the mariners all know

with the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,

in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."

The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times

for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."

"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead

when the gales of November come early!"

Great Quote from Tolstoy

“There is something wrong with the order of this world when the rich live off the labors of the poor. They are fed by them, live in the houses they build, and are served by them—and if that isn’t enough, they establish charities for them and think themselves benefactors.”

"At the Smithville Methodist Church" by Stephen Dunn

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home
with the “Jesus Saves” button, we knew what art
was up, what ancient craft.
She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
they sang when they weren't
twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad?
Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith
in good men was what
we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,
that other sadness.
OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
singing “Jesus loves me,
the Bible tells me so,” it was time to talk.
Could we say Jesus
doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad? We sent her back
without a word.
It had been so long since we believed, so long
since we needed Jesus
as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was
sufficiently dead,
that our children would think of him like Lincoln
or Thomas Jefferson.
Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief
to a child,
only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
nearly as good.
On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts
all spread out
like appetizers. Then we took our seats
in the church
and the children sang a song about the Ark,
and Hallelujah
and one in which they had to jump up and down
for Jesus.
I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain
about what's comic, what's serious.
Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
“Evolution loves you.” The story stinks
of extinction and nothing
exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
a wonderful story for my child
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
she sang the songs,
occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do
but drive, ride it out, sing along
in silence.

Ascribing Good Fortune to God--and Angels

I tire of people speaking of God's blessing them, especially when I contemplate so many people who are not enjoying such good fortune. This poem from The New Yorker earlier this month says it far better than I can.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

However busy you are, you should still reserve
One evening a year for thinking about your double,
The man who took the curve on Conway Road
Too fast, given the icy patches that night,
But no faster than you did; the man whose car
When it slid through the shoulder
Happened to strike a girl walking alone
From a neighbor's party to her parents' farm,
While your car struck nothing more notable
Than a snowbank.

One evening for recalling how soon you transformed
Your accident into a comic tale
Told first at the body shop, for comparing
That hour of pleasure with his hour of pain
At the house of the stricken parents, and his many
Long afternoons at the Lutheran graveyard.

If nobody blames you for assuming your luck
Has something to do with your character,
Don't blame him for assuming that his misfortune
Is somehow deserved, that justice would be undone
If his extra grief was balanced later
By a portion of extra joy.

Lucky you, whose personal faith has widened
To include an angel assigned to protect you
From the usual outcome of heedless moments.
But this evening consider the angel he lives with,
The stern enforcer who drives the sinners
Out of the Garden with a flaming sword
And locks the gate.

Carl Dennis, "New Year's Eve" (TNY, 4-11-11, 58)

When the Dam Breaks

Here is the opening poem in God is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself, edited by Andrew David, Christopher J. Keller and Jon Stanley.



Praise Him by Brad Davis

As for idols, they are impotent. Not
one can see or speak or feel

a neighbor's ache--her dog dead
and child missing below the levee. I read

headlines and feel more
than all the idols that there ever were.

Even the idol that is our idea
of God is impotent--B is not A--

yet God does what he pleases,
the earth what is true to its nature.

We build cities and pay scant attention
to either, then cry foul when the dam breaks

Idols cannot save, nor theologies.
Only God, and that is no great comfort.

Memorable Words

I was listening to Bobby Kennedy tonight---his announcement of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Many in the crowd had not yet heard. He was calling for calm. He made reference to his brother's death, pointing out that he too had been killed by a white man. He quoted his favorite poet, Aeschylus, a playwright who lived in Greece in the sixth century B.C. Here are the memorable words Kennedy quoted:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart . . . falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Marcus Borg on Christianity

Here are excerpts from The Heart of Christianity: Re-discovering A Life of Faith (2003). He is discussing three affirmations that are central to Christian faith, those being "the reality of God, the centralty of Jesus, and the centrality of the Bible."

--"God is real. There is a 'More,' to use language I will also use in Chapter 4. . . ."

--"Christian faith means affirming . . . Jesus as the decisive disclosure of God and of what a life full of God looks like. It means affirming Jesus as the Word of God, the wisdom of God, the light of the world, the way, and more, all known in a person. . . . Affirming the centrality of Jesus for Christians need not lead to Christian exclusivism."

--Just as Jesus is for us the Word of God disclosed in a person, so the Bible is the Word of God disclosed in a book. Being Christian means a commitment to the Bible as our foundational document and identity document. The Bible is our story. It is to shape our vision of life---our vision of God, of ourselves, and of God's dream for the earth" (pp. 37-38).

Borg goes into depth on these three foundational aspects of Christianity. The following is under the sub-heading "Metaphor as Bridge":

A Metaphorical approach to the Bible has the potential to be a bridge between the earlier and emerging paradigms. In Christian history, the more-than-literal meaning of biblical texts has always been most important. Only in the last few centuries has their literal factuality been emphasized as crucial.

Moreover, much of conservative Christian preaching today emphasizes the more-then-literal, the more-than-historical meaning of biblical texts. From my recent experience, I provide two brief examples.

The first was in a Pentecostal church. The preacher's text was the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man in the second chapter of Mark's gospel. The "punch line" of the text and his sermon was, "Jesus said to the paralytic, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk.'" The preacher told several brief and moving stories of people paralyzed, immobilized in their lives, by addictions of various kinds, by long-term unemployment and giving up on ever finding a job, by abuse the prevented intimate relationships, and so forth. And after each story, he paused dramatically and then said emphatically, "And to that person Jesus says, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk!'" It occurred to me that he was preaching the text as metaphor; that is, he was preaching the more-than-literal, the more-than-historical meaning of the text.

The second was an Easter sermon in a conservative Baptist church. The pastor's sermon repeated one sentence over and over again, with great emphasis on the last four words: "They went to the tomb, but the tomb was empty!" In between the repetitions, he told stories of people who had encountered what felt like the "end" of their lives and hopes bitter disappointments, devastating griefs, tragic betrayals, children killed in accidents or imprisoned, financial catastrophes--the whole terrain of human trouble. And after each, often with his eyes getting big, his voice lowering to a hushed but loud whisper filled with amazement, he said, "And they went to the tomb---but the tomb was empty." His point was clear: what they had feared was the place of endings and death was the place of beginnings and new life. It was enormously effective (pp. 56-57).