Rev Joseph Boyd
Harry Randall Truman was an odd celebrity. He lived a quiet life, never married, and lived his days as a caretaker at Spirit Lake at the base of Mt. St Helens in Washington state since 1928. You could say that Harry was a natural caretaker…taking care of the base of Mt. St Helens to make sure that it stayed clear and free of debris that travellers would carelessly leave behind. For travelers, Mt. St Helens was a place to visit, for Harry…it was his home. It was this commitment to his home, which thrust Harry into the spotlight, making him a local celebrity. It was 1980, and the world received news of rupture. Mt. St Helens was expected to erupt within days sending tons of debris and hot lava rolling which experts predicted would cover all the land and people down at the base of the mountain. There was an emergency evacuation, everyone was instructed to leave within 30 miles of the base. Everyone followed these reasonable instructions, everyone except Harry Randall Truman.
He was 83 years old, and had been caring for this portion of Mt. Hood for 52 years. He made the decision to stay. Instantly he became a local celebrity, painted as this rugged individualist who would not let the authorities dictate his choices.
He basically became the embodiment of a Northwest hero. Within days, this older man who had lived most of his life in solitary seclusion was flooded with fan mail from all around the world…people expressing how much they loved Harry, how much they admired his commitment to stay put whatever came his way. This single, solitary man received many marriage proposals by mail, women begging to spend their last days with a man like him. There were earthquakes that occurred at the base of the mountain, a tell tale sign that it was about to erupt. Reporters asked Harry what he thought of those earthquakes. He told them – “They don’t bother me none. I just go down and sleep in the basement. I sleep like a baby.”
On May 18, 1980 in the early morning, a volcanic blast shot hot lava from the top of Mt. St. Helens, destroying Spirit Lake. burying Harry under 150 feet of lava and debris, stone rolling down the mountain, literally creating his tomb. His death turned his celebrity into legend. Musical artists from around the country wrote tribute songs, and a class of children from Salem, Oregon made a banner for his memorial service saying: “Harry – we love you.”
Many strangers were seen on television weeping for Harry, weeping for this solitary man who occupied his time with the mountain he cared for, a man who had few friends and little family, no spouse.
It may seem to some that Harry was a just a stubborn man, even an ignorant man. Nonetheless he became a celebrity, and there’s a good reason why he became so famous. Harry whether he was aware of it or not, stumbled upon an important human truth – Sometimes what we love most is at the heart of rupture, and we would rather have our hearts or our bodies split in two rather than abandon it. Harry reminded everyone that rupture was part of life, unavoidable
We come into this world through rupture…literally tearing a way so we can crawl out of our mother’s belly to get a taste of air. Birth is a rupture event, where for parents as well as child there is a moment where everyone knows that this bloody, tear filled time will mark the beginning of a new kind of life, a life that can’t be predicted or imagined. Death is also a rupture event, even when it’s expected. A death of someone reminds us of our own death, it ruptures our heart to think of the love we have for this person, the encounters and memories that know have a definite end date.
It’s comforting to feel we can see someone later, even if we never see them for years. A death ruptures that understanding…it makes the relationship finite, something for awhile that we feel we can step outside of and look at. We watch the waves as they come at us, soaking us with memory and longing, and we let it soak us to the bone, because we never want to forget, even if pain is the cost of this remembering.
Life is rupture too, though most of us do whatever we can to avoid this. It’s what the insurance market is based on…trying to protect ourselves as much as possible from the cost of rupture.
The theme this month is strength and renewal…and you might be saying to yourself – can get you get to the renewal part. Like Harry, maybe I’m too stubborn to accept renewal as is. When I look at my journey, I see that every piece of my life that has renewed my vision or spirit has been following some kind of rupture. Maybe I’m a slow learner, or maybe this is part of the common human experience. I’m not sure…but it’s what I feel like I have the authority to talk about, if I’m going to be honest with you anyway. I don’t many people who enter the ministry or who intend to follow a consciously spiritual life, who didn’t arrive here because of some kind of rupture.
Like Harry, maybe some of us need to witness the blast and be buried under molten lava – we need to let the stones roll over us before we can open ourselves to renewal.
I know now that renewal is difficult to accept. I’ve done ministry in various settings now – hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, churches all around the country. In my time serving all these diverse people I’ve discovered the one thing that everybody seems most afraid of. Do you know what it is? It’s not pain, it’s not despair, it’s not molten lava burying them. It’s love, human intimacy and acceptance. To let yourself be seen for who you really are, and to be able to touch the world from that authentic place is the scariest thing in the world. The paradox is it’s also what we want most. It’s why we’re here. Some of you have been coming here for 40 years or more. If love was so easy to accept, none of us would be here right now. I wouldn’t be here. It seems that we can never stay connected and satisfied for too long…it’s not part of the human journey. The human journey is marked by series of ruptures.
Rupture is a guarantee – no way around it, even when we try, even when we run. Renewal is optional, not a guarantee.
Sometimes rupture is instant like a volcanic blast, or an accident, or a death. But ruptures can be gradual too. We can be like a mirror with a small crack, that gradually grows every time you look at it, and we don’t know the moment when we’re going to fall apart. It may sound like bad news, kind of scary to think that rupture is a guarantee. But I think once we digest this truth it can be an unexpected gateway to renewal.
I’ll give you an example. As I mentioned a couple weeks back, my father died, and I moved to New York to be an actor. After a few months of being in the city, I feel like I was about to erupt from the inside. I could feel the earthquakes from within, warning a rupture was about to take place. I didn’t know anyone in the city, at least not well, so I did the only thing I could think of – I went to an anonymous grief support group. The next available group was the next morning in Borough Park, Brooklyn. I didn’t know this at the time, but Borough Park is almost exclusively a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood. Hassidic rabbis and their followers immigrated from Europe in the early 20th century, and they wanted to create a religious and cultural life that could thrive in America, untouched by American Protestant economics and culture.
Their experiment was Borough Park, Brooklyn, where they created an economy and school system of thier own, and created a culture that followed Torah including observing the Sabbath and only serving Kosher food. It’s one of the most fascinating places in America. Anyway, I didn’t know any of this. So it’s 8 am, and I’m sitting in a rented room in Borough Park, surrounded by Hasidic men seeking grief support. Every man is wearing a dark suit and beard, has a black hat…and I’m sitting there in a jeans and t-shirt, in sneakers, clean shaven at the time. I get there just as the meeting is about to start, and all these Hasidic men look at me for a second, and then the meeting starts while i awkwardly find a seat. I’m waiting for someone to tell me to leave or kick me out, but nobody does. A man in his 40’s, in full Hasidic dress asks if he can speak first. He shares how he lost his father months ago, and he describes in great detail how he feels his insides are going to rupture. He feels sick, he feels disturbed, he feels isolated unable to connect. He describes in detail walking down the street, taking the subway, unable to control his feelings, how it pains him nonstop while he tries to get through his day. He said he feels like he’s waiting to explode but nothing happens.
I’m sitting there in awe, almost disbelief. How is this 45 year old Hasidic man from Brooklyn living my inner life? How is this possible that he can be going through the same thing I am? Going through his day, just like me? Remember how I said that rupture is a guarantee. Well, when we realize our ruptures big or small are part and parcel of being alive, we can experience the intimacy and authenticity we yearn for. Rupture is far more common that we wish it was, and in embracing and connecting through this fact, we can be renewed.
It is impossible to experience genuine renewal without experiencing rupture. If we spend our energy trying to manage or avoid rupture, our renewal can be shallow, and can fail to touch us at the source of our living.
This experience of rupture and renewal is true for the personal and the cultural. Revolution always comes after rupture. Right now it can feel like our country is going off the deep end…falling prey to cyber attacks and leaders with little or no empathy for a large segment of the population, including women. Perhaps we’re heading toward rupture. Rupture is scary, powerful, painful, and unavoidable in the end. We can do our best to patch up the cracked mirror, keeping up appearances, but sooner or later whether we like it or not, it will crack.
This is devastating, and it also can be renewing. By leaning into the rupture, letting the waves crash on us, letting the lava and debris cover us, as long as we have something to hold onto, as long as we have someone to hold onto, we can make it out.
Rupture forever changes us. The debris, the waves of grief, become part of us, lodged in our hearts and mind. It changes the way we think, the way we relate, the way we see ourselves, and the way we see others.
Rupture does not guarantee renewal, but it presents the opportunity in due time. Sometimes it take years, sometimes a lifetime. Rupture does not force the agenda of renewal, it only presents the opportunity. And it’s a hard opportunity. It’s not the kind of renewal we usually wish for, the one we hoped for. The opportunity is this – to reach out to others like ourselves that are drenching, soaking wet with grief, and remind each other that in between the waves, we can breathe…in between the waves…life comes…in between the waves, life is there for us…in between the waves…life is waiting for us, waiting to be born.