ENDPOINT
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Endpoint.”
Endpoint is the title of a book of poems I just finished reading. It's by John Updike. He died this year at the age of 76. It was his last book – hastily put together – just weeks before his death. (January 26, 2009) He dedicates the book to his wife "Martha, who asked for one more book: here it is, with all my love." And it's obvious in this thin book how much love and joy he found with his wife.
Since I always thought he was one of America’s best writers, I read it. It’s a good read – but not a great read. There was no poem in the book that grabbed me like some of his earlier poems had. He wrote over 60 books: novels, short stories, poetry and art and literary criticism.
He was especially good at being a keen observer of what goes on inside us human beings and between us human beings.
Timing is everything. I found myself reading the book at the right time – hitting 70, hitting the end of the Church year – and now the beginning of a new church year – Advent – but also coming to the end of the regular calendar year and in another month or so, we hit the year 2010.
The title of my homily is, “Endpoint!” I don’t remember ever using that word – or thinking of its implications - in a homily. Having read the book, having to come up with a homily for today, the first Sunday of a new Church year, I thought I’d preach on the theme “endpoint” and use Updike’s last book before I bring it back to the Annapolis Public Library tomorrow.
I don’t like to just finish a book. I like to ask myself afterwards, “What did I hear in this book? What hit me? What’s being said?”
TODAY’S READINGS
Today’s readings talk about endpoints.
Jeremiah talks about days to come when promises will be met.
Jeremiah talks about a time to come when there will be peace and security in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
Today’s second reading from First Thessalonians talks about the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ with all his holy ones.
Today’s gospel also talks about this big endpoint – when Jesus, the Son of Man, will come back – on a cloud – in power – in glory.
In the early Church, most thought the endpoint was almost here.
Jesus tells us when the endpoint happens the seas will be roaring – the heavens will be shaking. There will be dramatic signs in the sky: in the sun, the moon and the stars. People will be perplexed and frightened. Jesus tells us when we see these signs, “raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” Jesus tells us not to fall asleep – or be drunk – or trapped – or surprised – but to be ready for the end times.
In time, the Church realized that the end time was not coming.
This did not mean that there would not be predictions of end times from time to time. There were and there will be. But each time – nothing happened. The world did not end. We’re still going like the Energizer Bunny.
I would say one’s best bet is to say: we won’t see the endpoint of this world in our lifetime. The sun is 4.5 billion years old and is estimated to last at least another 5 billion years. How much time the earth has, we have no idea – and at some point – I’m imagining there will be expeditions to deep outer space. Maybe there are other worlds – and other places to inhabit or to discover.
In the meanwhile, today’s middle reading is the message we need to hear and bear in mind and put into practice. Increase in love for one another. Conduct, lead our life, following the instructions Jesus gave us.
ENDPOINTS – BACK TO THE BOOK
Now here is where the book of poems by John Updike helped me and triggered some good stuff.
We don’t know when the endpoint is for the universe – but we do know we have an endpoint for our life.
John Updike’s book are thoughts he put into poems in the last 7 years of his life – especially as he began to experience aging, sickness, cancer and the reality of the approach of death – his endpoint.
Let me list three thoughts that hit me. Maybe you’ll find them helpful for yourself as well.
FIRST: COMPARISONS
As I read the poems, I noticed he was comparing himself to others – neighbors – classmates – but especially his parents – when they were dealing with their life before their endpoint.
He writes about hitting the age of 69 – an age his dad didn’t reach. [p. 12]
He writes about his dad in a poem entitled, “Outliving One’s Father”. There he is, a little kid, walking with his dad – who was a high school science teacher – his dad standing tall next to him – he the only child - his shorter only offshoot.
“I could feel, above me,
the hunger in his stride, the fear
that hurled him along an edge
where toothaches, low pay, discipline
problems in the classroom were shadows
of an all-dissolving chaos.” [p. 54]
He writes about his mom in a poem, “My Mother at Her Desk”, about her blind hands flogging typewriter keys – in hopes of coming up with the right combination of words that would sell something she was writing – but she didn’t have the luck or the blessing of having anything published like he did – but she never gave up – sending in things she wrote – all coming back rejected. [p. 12]
I don’t remember my 50’s enough, but I know that I started doing more and more comparing in my 60’s. Does everyone do this? Does everyone at some point start to make a studied look at one’s parents and where we came from? This is the stuff of comparisons. I noticed John Updike used his birthdays – as days to compare his dreams and hopes with his realities – since his last birthday.
He also writes about the benefit of travel and moving – helping us to see things we never saw before – especially where we come from – things we missed when they were right in front of us. [p. 27]
SECOND: THE BODY
Updike writes about the body – which we become more and more conscious of as we get closer to our endpoint.
He writes about arthritis and time in hospitals. In a poem entitled, “To My Hurting Left Hand,” he ends by saying to his left hand, “Pained, I still can’t do without you.” [p. 42]
He writes about his old piano teacher’s joking about her latest diagnosis as, “Curtains.” [p. 23]
In a poem entitled, “Colonoscopy” he begins, “Talk about intimacy!” [p. 48]
He had lung cancer. He writes about sitting with a doctor and wondering if this is a wake up call. He writes,
“It seems that death has found
the portals it will enter by: my lungs,
pathetic oblong ghosts, one paler than
the other on the doctor’s viewing screen.” [p. 21]
Certainly we are more aware of health and our bodies as we get closer to our endpoint.
THIRD AND LAST: FAITH
John Updike does not come out of a Catholic tradition. I’ve always known that. In fact he didn’t hesitate to let it be known that he was a Protestant Christian.
He articulates for all of us – that we have religious doubts as we get older – doubts different than the sparring we might have had as kids with parents who wanted us to go to church.
I know that he lost his faith early on in his career – but he found his Christian faith again in reading Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth. As he got older he moved around in the deep waters of religion – knowing the difference between surface and God deep stuff. I know he once said that the 3 great secret things in human experience were: sex, art and religion. (1)
Being a priest I noticed one poem where he describes a clergyman as “those comical purveyors of what makes sense to just the terrified”. He was sick and this clergyman had phoned him, but Updike adds, “and I loved him, bless his hide.” [p. 24]
As priest I know that sickness that leads to the endpoint of death – gets many people to come to God in a deeper way.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “Endpoint”.
Every homily has an endpoint. I assume many people say one of the most basic prayers at that moment: "Thank God!"
Life is filled with endings – as well as beginnings.
We just ended another Church year and we begin a new Church year today with this new Advent.
So too December which is coming up – the last month of our calendar year and then we move into a new year and a new decade in January.
So too football games: one ends and another begins; that ends and another begins; and on and on and on.
So too going into a restaurant; we go in as people are coming out.
So too going over the Bay Bridge; as we go up the bridge, we see cars on the other side getting off.
Life is filled with comings and goings – ins and outs – deaths and resurrections – starts and finishes – starting points and endpoints.
John Updike’s book triggered the memory for me of the day – June 26, 1970 – when we said goodbye to our dad in Moses Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn on. He died. We came downstairs – and as we were going out the lobby door, so too were a couple with a new born baby. We experienced a death. They experienced a birth
So too us – we are moving along through life – crossing bridges – going to work – coming home from work – entering schools and graduating from schools – waking up and going to bed – shopping for a meal and putting out the garbage.
In the meanwhile let’s “increase and abound in love for one another and for all” as Paul told us in today’s second reading. Let’s enjoy the scenery and each other as we move along.
Or as Thornton Wilder said in his play, The Skin of our Teeth, “My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate – that’s my philosophy.”
Or as someone else said, “Eat dessert first! You never know when your endpoint is going to begin.” Amen.
*
(1) “In his autobiographical piece, 'The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood', Updike called sex, art, and religion "the three great secret things" in human experience. James Yerkes defined in his introduction to John Updike and Religion (2002), a collection of essays dealing with the religious vision of the author, "the religious consciousness in Updike may best be characterized as our sense of an unavoidable, unbearable, and unbelievable Sacred Presence." Existential questions were in the center of Updike's work from the beginning of his career. He also read theologians for guidance and regularly attended church for worship.” [ Cf. http:www.kirjasto.sci.fi/updike.htm]
