Smile When You Feel Like Crying
No cross, no crown: Turning point moments blend inspiration with the best and worst of life
Sunrise on a partly cloudy day? I held my iPhone in the time-lapse mode for what seemed like forever.
Beautiful light poked through elaborate dark clouds. The Atlantic waves and people came and went.
Crunching 35 minutes into 35 seconds allows the time-lapse video to show all the changes happening that you quickly overlook just standing there.
Everything — dark and light — combine as part of the more immense, beautiful tapestry of life.
“I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery.’’ (Colossians 2:2, MSG).
Before President Gerald Ford died on the day after Christmas 2006, he was fascinated by his time-lapse video. Ford was watching a time-lapse daily as his alma mater, the University of Michigan, completed construction of the School of Public Policy named in his honor. Ford’s life ended as he watched his legacy come together.
This morning, I finished writing about our friend, Patrick Anderson, and his legacy, how he escaped New York City’s Ground Zero during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Patrick has always been one of my heroes, but I never realized how powerful his story was until I wrote about it myself.
Then I walked our dog through the woods, listening to women marvel over the way our dog “smiles.’’
Women gush over our dog and say it’s his smile. He’s a fairly ordinary dog, but that smile “look’’ of his captures passersby — attitude matters.
“The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:25–27, NIV).
Do dogs smile? Does God wink?
Our friend Patrick has a pretty great smile too, joyful because he traveled to hell and back on 9/11 and lives on to teach others about it. Conflict is the essence of every powerful story, and the best memories seem to make you both smile and cry.
We’ve known Patrick for 13 years and never really thought of him as a 9/11 survivor, yet his 9/11 story is essential to explaining who he is.
I generally think of Patrick as an economist and former state budget guru who is famous for wearing suits and bow ties. He speaks and shines at once: a joyful face and all the answers and data to back up every explanation.
Then we watch his TV interviews and hear of him fleeing the World Trade Center on 9/11 wearing one shoe, walking 2.5 miles, and it makes us cry — and smile.
“Then he said, ‘Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’” (Exodus 3:5, ESV).
How do you walk 2.5 miles wearing just one shoe? I just ordered a pair of new shoes, and the company insisted a size ten would fit my extra-wide 10.5 EEE-sized feet. They came today and feel super tight, so I’ll return them. I again sit and wonder what it would be like to walk two miles in one of Patrick’s shoes?
During long walks in public places, you can see “one shoe’’ or one sock (and more recently one abandoned surgical mask) and wonder, “How did that get there?’’ How could you drop something like a shoe and not immediately notice and stop?
There’s so much we don’t understand
Every human is assigned a guardian angel who watches over us while the devil sends a demon to challenge us, Church Fathers taught.
Many felt an angel guided Patrick to escape at precisely the best possible moment while a stranger became another kind of angel, helping guide him on his long walk to safety.
“And the angel said to him, ‘Dress yourself and put on your sandals.’ And he did so. And he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.’” (Acts 12:8, ESV).
Our young Facebook follower, Elizabeth, messaged this morning: “I can’t believe it’s been 19 years since that terrible day. I was only 3.’’
It was hard for me to imagine someone not remembering that day I recall so vividly. The good and bad memories all morphed into one fantastic, unforgettable story.
One of those days when everything mattered
I was 36 at the time, just three years older than our son is now. But he was just a teenager then. I was supposed to get on an American Airlines flight that afternoon and fly home from Chicago, but that plane never flew.
No commercial planes flew for several days, so I wound up in Chicago for three more days before taking a packed Amtrak home.
Todd Beamer, the “Let’s roll’’ hero who stopped the fourth terrorist-controlled plane over Pennsylvania, was just 32. His youth makes him seem all the more heroic to me now, nearly two decades later.
Someone so young did so much, I wonder. Something so powerful? Then I am reminded Jesus was 33, and the Bible records just three years of his ministry.
We can live for 100 years, but our life’s important moments, the ones best remembered? Those turning point moments that people talk about decades later are fleeting, the glory days Bruce Springsteen sang about in our youth.
We sometimes aren’t sure when those turning point days happen until after they occur. But in cases like 9/11, we know we are living through a historic moment as they happen.
Made for this: Moments of a lifetime
The Apostle Paul went through his turning point moment when he met Jesus and changed from Saul to Paul, then spent a few years traveling and digesting what he learned that day.
We, too, can spend years reflecting on a few key moments.
Those moments are the traumatic ones that haunt us for life, but they are also exciting and moving, the ingredients of stories we will re-tell the rest of our lives. The agony and ecstasy seem to come all at once, sharing the same neighborhood. Paul Anka called such moments the “Times of Your Life.’’
Those turning point moments are our trials by fire, the tests that forge us into who we become. When I think of my grandfathers and what their lives were all about, I think of how they faced World War II.
For our friend Patrick, I will now always think of 9/11. When Michigan hit its peak Pandemic numbers last April, I told our friend Dr. Tom Graves, “You were made for this moment.’’
Americans say, “No pain, no gain’’ and my very Catholic Polish ancestors brought Christ into the same message: “No Cross, No Crown.’’
So, I think of 9/11 and mourn the dead, the years of restrictions, war, and isolation that followed. So costly. But I also smile at how our heroes faced their darkest moments and came shining through.
Our world came through 9/11 just as today’s young will somehow come through today’s crises.
Charlie Chaplin wrote a beautiful song on this blending of pleasure and pain called “Smile.’’ The Michael Jackson version displays a life that was tragic and triumphant, beautiful, and sometimes slightly scary. The video below shows why “Smile’’ was Jackson’s favorite song. The tapestry of life blends all emotions.
As he sang: “Life is still worthwhile.’’
