On this date in history—September 14th—a bunch of people died. I know a bunch of people die every day, but this date is different. Some famous, influential, world-changing people died. (Moving backwards) In 1901, our 25th President William McKinley (1843—1901) died after succumbing to an infection from a gunshot wound. In 1932, musician and hymn writer Charles H. Gabriel (1856—1932) died. He had penned many famous hymns including Send the Light and I Stand Amazed in the Presence. In 1321, literary legend Dante Alighieri (1265—1321) died in Ravenna, Italy, possible of malaria. He wrote the greatest epic of medieval Christianity, The Divine Comedy. In 407 and 258, respectively, Church Fathers John Chrysostom (c. 349—407) and Cyprian of Carthage (c. 210—258) died after contributing a vast collection of Church writing on wisdom and polity.
As I read these names and dates and accomplishments this morning, one thing stood out to me so clearly and unexpectedly: the dash between the dates. I had seen and read this formula a million times before—Birth year / Dash / Death Year—but it didn’t really register to me until this morning the deep weight of that dash. It represents everything for a person—their life, their contribution to this world, their legacy, their imprint on the culture. It’s all there in the dash between. Continue reading “The Dash — Between”
Every Christmas season I sit down to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol among other lesser holiday movies. There’s one scene especially burned in my brain: A small, homeless, Christmas-caroling bunny stops by Ebenezer Scrooge’s office in hopes of scoring a charitable donation from Scrooge. (He obviously doesn’t know who he’s dealing with). Scrooge throws him into a snowbank and tosses a wreath at him when he’s down. It’s a moving scene. But the Christmas carol that bunny chooses to sing at Scrooge’s doorstep is forever ingrained in my memory. “Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen / When the snow lay ’round about, deep and crisp and even / Brightly shone the moon that night…” That’s the point the bunny gets manhandled. Long story medium-long, I remember those words, but I have no idea what the rest of the song is about, who in the world this King Wenceslas is, or what he did that made him good. So I did a little digging. 
It’s there, awkwardly displayed/abandoned in the corner of the sanctuary—the Christian Flag. It’s a subject of debate among some, pride among others, and confusion among most. Why do we have it? When was it created? What does it represent? 
The Dash — Between 