There Is

There is

So much

Beauty in the world.

In the sky at morning’s birth

In the sky as each day dies

And soon after, in the stars singing faintly in the distance

And the wide-faced full moon smiles in their direction, and ours.

In the laughing baby, I dare you to look, listen, and not to laugh yourself: unlikely!

In the life-partner, holding the one that makes life live as their life ebbs away

In the silence between two significant phrases, when life opens up and blooms.

There is so much beauty in this creation:

How can I look any day or night, any man or woman, any pup or singing bird in the face,

And fail to cry

Heart to heart in beauty’s house?

my brother my brother

oh my brother

my brother

a pope lies silent before the altar in saint peter’s today

an athlete lies unmoving in the middle of a field of movement tonight

you lie beyond my reach, silent and far away

from now on

until death do us join.

my soul feels, severed by pain

the eyes of your children spill heartache

the word of your going-forth shocks and paralyzes

my smile is an echo

my tears are proclamation

I cannot surrender to this enemy

nor to his crime

scripture, tradition, the voice of God repeat:

the final enemy is death, is death, an enemy

to be opposed until beyond the end.

i will not reconcile, i will not come to terms,

i will not accommodate with this breaker of the

covenant of life, with this lie who claims to

speak the final undeniable truth.

my brother, o my brother

i will not accept death’s word, which

denies the Word of God, rather I

will rail against it today tomorrow and

the third day, even after my voice is stilled and

i will call out your name

into the raging wind of dark night until

the morning dawns and you speak again

and speak those words that Christ gives to all

his sisters and brothers, the words that are

the everlasting truth; after i have wept alone

and with your dear ones, until i’ve no

more tears to offer, i will listen to the light

at the eastern edge of all that is holy

and i will clearly hear the word of Christ in

your words:

“I live.”

oh my brother, my brother,

my poor brother, away too soon,

in your memory i will walk deliberately

i will speak by syllable

i will slow the pace of my breath

so that all is awareness

all is measured thought and godly healing

weighed meditation

listening intently for the echo:

I live

we live.

Amen.

In Memoriam

James Peter McGinty

(March 15, 1962 – December 19, 2022)

My brother Jim has died. More importantly, the father of four wonderful young women and a great young man, who were brought into the world by he and Trish van Dusen McGinty, has died. Brother to my brothers and sister. Son of Jack and Mary of Lynn. And so much more.

This hard word came Wednesday from Baltimore. As family we are spread around the states these days. So phone and Zoom and texts have filled these next days with voices of disbelief, grief and sorrow, shock, and much more. Today has brought a huge rainstorm, the same storm that has covered other places with snow. Here, its drenching rain and massive winds seem to express something of what I, at least, am feeling.

Every life is complex, and many deaths as well. It is the moment we are forced, if we are honest, to begin to seek to understand who a person has been, not to fail to appreciate all the good, and neither to fail to admit failings (which every one of us definitely have). That’s our work, and it’s also the best way to honor our loved one.

There will be a lot to say, and voices to hear, in time to come. We will gather to remember and to pray for Jim soon, but we do not know yet when or where. For now, I remember how he could talk with a person he had just met for five minutes and cement a friendship. I remember how closely he listened one day on the beltway outside DC years ago when I shared with him something of great importance in my life. How well he listened, and with what understanding and compassion he responded.

As is so often the case in our times, we did not always agree on politics and issues and the rest. For sure. But I never felt less than connected at the cellular level to him. Brother is brother. Which is a beautiful thing, and also an exquisite source of pain right now. And for the wonderful humans who are linked to him in so many other ways, the complexity, the pain, the questions, are all there.

There is also in all this, and in all else, the One whose birth we are about to celebrate. I commend my brother with absolute confidence into the hands of Mercy. For two days now, in real pain, I have been comforted by an image that simply came to me of our Mom and Dad with him, hugging him, embracing him, loving him. That’s the goal of all lives, I believe. That’s the finish line.

Jim knew joy and hope and health. He also knew sorrow and desperation and sickness. He knew suffering, and sometimes that suffering touched others as well. That was important, but all of it was, including the joy and the love.

When we were little kids, Jim and I shared a bedroom there at 75 Eastern Avenue in Lynn. Two twin beds. He didn’t go to sleep right away. He wanted to talk. I used to make up stories and tell them with as much expression and verve as I could muster. He would laugh and add his own embellishments. Decades later he remembered the names I made up of some of the characters.

All those stories were big adventures, with challenges and setbacks, losses and victories. But every one of them ended with our going to sleep in that quiet room in security and peace, knowing that after all – after all – after all – we were surrounded by love. That is my prayer for my brother these days, and for the rest of my days.

With love, my brother, with love.