A Wing and a Prayer

One of the many great privileges I have as a Pastor in a church is to preside at a funeral worship service. I always pray that I can be used by God to help bring hope in the midst of the deep sting of grief. As we plan the memorial services, I’m gifted with the ability to listen in on holy ground as family members share the important storied narratives of their loved one’s lives.

Bill was no exception to the rule. His life story captivated me. He lived to one hundred years old. Bill literally had at least five lives that we’re aware of. Surely, a rich legacy of living life to the fullest. And, a little providence.

Bill lived with Polio at age five. He experienced a terrible car accident in his teens that should have taken him. In his early twenties, a Japanese suicide bomber hit his Navy ship in Okinawa during WWII. He contracted stage four cancer at age seventy two. And, he was baptized at eighty four. As in the waters of baptism, he seemed to die and rise to new and abundant life, over and over.

Yet, nothing more captivated my attention than the piece of the Japanese suicide bomber’s wing that showed up at the display table at his memorial service. As a signalman in the Navy at age twenty three, on the USS Roper, an old WWI recommissioned destroyer, Bill watched a Japanese kamikaze bomber hit the three inch, fifty gun in the front of the bridge deck. He saw the world crashing right down in front of him. Time stood still. The ship should have blown up. Under “radio silence,” Bill signaled his 12-inch signal search light to another destroyer for help and assistance. Miraculously, the fire was put out and the ship was brought back home to the Navy base to safety.

As the ship silently moved back to harbor, Bill somehow snuck a piece of that kamikaze’s bomber’s wing on the bridge deck for his treasured keepsake collection. And, some seventy seven years later, this artifact showed up serendipitously as memorabilia on a remembrance table at his visitation.

This wing stirred something in me right away as I looked at that family collection of Bill’s family’s heirlooms. It was a window into my own story as a sailor who has been in and out of port sailing the waters in my much shorter life. There are days that the mighty wind, the raging waters, and the dancing sails make it difficult to traverse the seas. Other days there is not a puff of wind to even lift the sails and make it back to harbor. Occasionally, there are days when something crashes down upon your vessel and there is not a rudder big enough that can navigate those waters besides faith and surrender to the movement of the universe.

Most importantly, this wing reminded me that my life has lift. And, I hope it’s the right lift of goodness and light, and not the kamikaze forces that try to destroy the very beauty of human nature. I hope, like Bill, I can live life to the fullest in the little or large amount of time that I’m given. Five lives or just one precious and abundant life. That, as I navigate the seas of my life, I can also be a signalman — to signal the search light of God’s love and healing that helps bring hope and beauty and goodness to the world around me.

My deeper inner longing is that I can be a vessel of hope that helps people find their rudder home to their true and authentic selves’ callings in their lives.

And, maybe, I can help others find a “wing and a prayer.”

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