Sunday Journal, 643 words
My Sunday Journal
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
We're Strong and Fragile
On this day in 1989 I wrote, "Drove to Chapman’s Chapel at Pelham today and taped Dad’s homecoming sermon. He’d left his Bible and notes at home but he did alright anyway...I was struck by his fragility. He held to pews as he walked down the aisle. His hands shook when he drank water. His voice was weak....When you’ve seen someone as strong and invincible all your life, it’s a shock to finally see their fragility. I’ve been looking at him and seeing right through it. But I saw it today...Still, he was powerful in his weakness. Who would attempt a homecoming sermon at 82 only a month after the passing of his lifetime companion? My Dad."
Strangely, that was the first time the word "fragile" had entered my mind in relation to my father. He engrammed me for so many years with this image of his powerful personhood, that I could only see his fragility when it overpowered me that day.
Not just in our senior years, but all our lives we are both strong and fragile. The fastest runner can be taken off his feet by an ingrown toenail. A powerful evangelist can be brought down by a sexual compulsion. Misbehavior with an aide can almost impeach a president.
Yet all these persons for decades have demonstrated their prowess and power. In viewing their weaknesses, we forget their strengths. A greater challenge is to be aware of their fragility when we are awed by their power. And the greatest challenge of all is to look at our own being and become aware of both our strengths and fragilities. We are physically, emotionally, and spiritually loaded with both.
Rhode Island's Superiority
I believe Rhode Island must have greater wisdom than the other states, including my own. All the other states erect statues of past leaders. In my state it’s Cordell Hull and John Sevier. On my courthouse square there is a statue of a grand old Civil War General who came back after the war to establish a national park. In Washington, D.C. we see statues of former presidents.
Not taking anything away from those great leaders, it is the independent minded citizens who have made and saved this nation. And atop the State House in Providence, Rhode Island is a statue identified only as "The Independent Man."
That’s the hope of this nation – to maintain a level of independent-mindedness among our citizens to protect us from special interests, partisanship, and all the political and religious hurrahs rooted in greed and power.
The Power of the Blues
It may seem odd to you but underneath a great picture in my journal of B.B. King lost in playing the blues on his guitar, Lucille, I wrote the Bible verse, "I long to impart to you some spiritual gift...that we may be mutually encouraged by each other."
Yes, I see the blues as B.B.’s spiritual gift to us. When you have the blues, listen to him and you have immediate community—with him, his band, and all those who carry their blues to him for consolation.
Once a lady came in a place where I was playing. Dressed elegantly as if she had just left some high society social event, she sat off to herself in a dark corner. I went over and asked if she was alright and she said, "Yes, I am alright now. Every time you sing one of those sad songs about lost love, I know you understand how I feel tonight and I know the persons who wrote the songs understand, too. So I think I am gonna make it now."
Maybe B.B. can make you sad when you are glad, but one thing is certain:
when you are sad, he and Lucille can let you know they understand.
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