November 2024

On Monday, October 7, just after lunch, I found myself driving from Knoxville to Chelsea, Iowa for the committal service for our dear sister in Christ, Jennie Wilson. Naturally, I had Jennie on my mind. I though about how Jennie was a big Beatles fan. And I thought about how my favorite Beatles song of all time is “Blackbird.” I didn’t know why; I just liked it.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life, you were only waiting
For this moment to arise.
Blackbird fly into the light of a dark, black night.

I wanted to sing this verse at the committal service, but I wasn’t able to croak the words out, or even speak the words without my voice cracking up, as I wanted to cry.

Take these broken wings and learn to fly. But how does one fly with broken wings? Would not broken wings ground you and prohibit flight?

Jennie’s wings were broken; damaged by disease. But was it not her destiny, in spite of broken wings, to learn to fly?

All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

What moment? This moment. Finally, Jennie was allowed to fly. Finally she succeeded, released from the grip and confines of this mortal life. Was she not waiting all her life for this moment?

And then, most cryptically of all—Fly into the light of the dark, black night.

What a startling paradox! The light of the dark, black night? Since when is the dark, black night perceived or described as light? But is not the dark, black night of dying, as we perceive it, not, in reality—light? Is it not all brightness as we pass through the veil that enshrouds all people?

I never knew why Blackbird has always been my favorite Beatles song. I know now.

The only trouble now is I can’t get it out of my head. And I can’t stop singing it to myself without starting to choke up with tears. The tears are a mixture of sorrow and joy.

And does this song not describe all of us, as well as Jennie? Do we not all have, in some respects, broken wings with which we try to fly? Are we not all, all our lives, waiting for that moment when we will be able to take flight? And though dying looks and feels so much like a dark, black night, is not truly—all light; all brightness?

November begins with the festival of All Saints’ Day—one of the most precious days in the Church Year to me. I like that it’s All Saints’ Day, as opposed to special and particular saints day; as opposed to celebrity and superstar saints day. It is a day for the ordinary instead of the exceptional.

Exceptionalism is a poison that infests the world and which the Church should not reintroduce into its bloodstream by way of making up its own special class of superior individuals. We tell ourselves, by way of a convenient explanation, that such figures inspire imitation by us. In reality, they inspire feelings of diminishment. We don’t measure up. They inspire a spirit of competitiveness amongst ourselves and even in regard to those deceased. Who’s the most pious? None of this nonsense is healthy.

We cannot and should not try to imitate one another. We cannot. Our vocations and places in life are not identical. I can’t be like Jennie Wilson, because I have not been given identical circumstances to her. But I do delight in having had the course of my life cross hers; not because I desire to imitate, but because she was and is beautiful. Beauty, like hers, is its own explanation. It doesn’t require mimicry, only admiration.

A lovely little blackbird sat in our midst. Let’s keep singing her song and waiting ourselves for that moment to arrive.

In Christ,
Pastor Picard