Category Archives: history

Resting in their graves at the Presidio.

death, family, history, ,

Last week my housemate Bea and I drove to San Francisco to visit the grave of my uncle,
who in 1944 was buried in the National Cemetery at the Presidio.

Photo by Robert Campbell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

The Presidio, originally named El Presidio Real de San Francisco, “…had been a fortified location since September 17, 1776, when New Spain established the presidio to gain a foothold in Alta California and the San Francisco Bay. It passed to Mexico in 1820, which in turn passed it to the United States in 1848.” (Wikipedia)

Its status as an Army military installation ended several decades ago and it was transferred to the National Park Service in 1994. The military cemetery remains, roughly in the middle of the park, and that is the only part of the Presidio that Bea and I had time to visit.

Maj. James R. Roche, d. 1895.

We wished we’d had more time. As it was, we spent quite a while locating my uncle’s grave, and after saying a prayer there, we wandered up and down the rows of headstones, reading and musing over the names and dates, for an hour and a half.

Pearl Irene Mendonca, d. 1954.

We especially noticed the married couples. Above, John A. Smith and his wife Anne M. — John was a colonel in the Army during both world wars. He was born in 1882 and died in 1948. Anne M. died in 1986.

Richard Domba, and possibly his wife.
Arthur Superior Peterson and his wife Hilda Georgina.

Arthur Superior and his wife Hilda Georgina
died on the same day, October 3,1952.

Brigadier General Louis H. Rucker and his wife Cinderella.
General C.D. Greene and his wife Kate.

It was a gorgeous day, but the wind blowing off the Bay was chilly. The views: breathtaking!

My uncle died before he became an uncle; I never knew him. But I have been remembering him to God, and hope we will meet eventually. I’m glad his precious body has had such a beautiful place in which to rest and wait. Come, Lord Jesus!

I have nothing belonging to me.

history, love, quotes, saints, , ,

“What do I need? I need nothing on earth, except for the indispensable. What do I need? I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom within me. On earth, the place of my pilgrimage, my temporary instruction, I have nothing belonging to me: everything is God’s, everything is transitory, indicated for temporary use. Whatever I have in excess belongs not to me, but to my poorer brothers.

“What do I need? I need true, Christian, living, active love. I need a loving heart, compassion for my neighbors, I need to feel joy at their happiness and well-being, sorrow during their sorrows and sicknesses, compassion for their sins, infirmities, disorders, deficiencies, misfortunes, poverty. I need warm, sincere sympathy for them in all the circumstances of their lives, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep.”

— My Life in Christ: The Spiritual Journals of St John of Kronstadt by Ivan Ilyich Sergiev

St. John of Kronstadt was a beloved priest and spiritual father in the latter half of the 19th century, and into the 20th. His pastoral care and guidance in the spiritual life did much to prepare his flock for the sufferings they were to endure in the coming decades. He was born in 1829 and died in 1909. If you want to read more about him, here is a long article with his life story and many more quotes revealing his ministry of charity and encouragement: “Saint John of Kronstadt.”

Here is one paragraph from the article, to give you a glimpse of the character of this pastor:

“How did he manage to do it all? He had the ability – acquired, no doubt, by prayer and patience – to snatch a short period of deep sleep wherever and whenever he got the chance; and he had a great love of the early morning hours for prayer and meditation, but his early morning walks in his garden were soon discovered, and then – farewell to solitude! Often, indeed, he could barely save half-an-hour for his own prayers. On the rare occasions when he was able to pass a whole day in Kronstadt he liked to walk in the streets toward midnight, praying and meditating: if he saw a light, however, he would knock – often to comfort someone ill or dying, but just as ready to join in laughter and cheerful conversation, if that should be what he found. It is not surprising that he had moments of depression through sheer fatigue; he had been beset in the same way in his student days, then later he overcame them, as he overcame all, as he achieved all, by prayer and, above all, by devout reception of the holy communion.”

Cathedral of St Andrew in Kronstadt – destroyed in Soviet times.

 

Looking at the Grand Lady.

art, history, , ,

I enjoyed this collection of comic book covers over the years, those featuring the Statue of Liberty: America at 250: The Statue of Liberty in 13 Covers. Here’s one of the earliest, from 1941:

And here is my favorite:

This is the first time I’ve ever really looked at comic book art as something more than the background to the text. It helps that someone put all these examples in one place as a mini-museum for me to peruse. Maybe you will like to click through and see all 13 yourself.

The promise remains urgent.

church, current events, history, holidays, quotes, , , ,

I don’t think anyone has ever asked me a question of the sort, “What does it mean to you to be an American?” But last year in Athens I asked my taxi driver, “What makes you proud of your country?” and quickly realized that as my goal had been to start a conversation, he was the perfect person to ask. He answered, “The philosophers!”, and went on to talk at length, with some encouragement by more questions, about Plato, Aristotle, the ancient church fathers, the London School of Economics, the dire situation in the EU… Basically, it was all downhill from Plato. Greece is not what it was.

The United States of America is not what it was 50, 100 or 250 years ago. I am just one citizen, in our diverse culture  — or anti-culture. It’s hard for me to think of my country in the abstract, as an idea, especially if that is to be deduced from the behavior of the total population. There have been many individuals who asked God for His help and tried to live virtuous lives, who also called themselves Americans. I would like to be that sort of citizen, so maybe my answer to the meaning question would be, “It means that I pray with the Church, ‘For our country, the president, all those in civil authority, and for the armed forces: Lord, have mercy.'”

Founding Fathers, National Archive

I was glad to see that some Orthodox Church leaders have given us a word on the occasion of this 250th anniversary of our nation:

Two hundred and fifty years is a span of time sufficient to accumulate both great achievements and grave failures. This nation—like all nations under God—has known the heights of generosity and the depths of injustice; the nobility of aspiration and the tragedy of betrayal. The Church does not pretend otherwise, nor would it serve this nation’s good for her to do so.

We bear witness to a God before Whom no nation and no person stands without need of mercy. The promise spoken to Solomon rings out across the centuries with undiminished urgency: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (1 Chronicles 7:14)

It is in this spirit that we call the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America—and, through their witness, this nation—to repentance: repentance for injustices past and present; for the idols of wealth, comfort, and power that seduce every generation; for the divisions and enmities that tear at the fabric of common life; and for the ways in which we have failed to love our neighbors as ourselves.

A true commemoration of a nation’s founding is not mere self-congratulation; it is a moment of sober examination, of honest confession, and of renewed dependence upon God. The Church does not speak this word from a posture of superiority. We acknowledge our own failures—in charity, in unity, and in the fullness of our witness to the Gospel. We, too, stand in need of God’s mercy. But it is precisely because the Church has known the healing power of repentance that she cannot withhold this word from the world she is called to serve.

—Excerpt from the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America