Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was this past Wednesday, February 12, though we celebrate it this coming Monday, Presidents Day. I like the following poem by David Shumate because it gets at one of the core questions of the man: could he be real? We know stories of Washington, like the famous cherry tree incident, were made up. We’ve had plenty of information to disillusion us about Kennedy and his Camelot, yet Lincoln’s image only seems to burn the brighter as time goes on and we learn more about his accomplishments.
Of course we’ve also learned more about this sorrows, his tragedies, and his trials. Which turns the question into an enigma: how did someone burdened with such difficulties become so resolute, so good, so wise?
But perhaps this reframed question reveals the error of our framework: that somehow blessing and hardship, wholeness and brokenness, faith and doubt, are separate entities, antitheses that do not easily coexist, when in fact they are siblings, part and parcel with each other, intimately related ingredients to an authentic life. And maybe authenticity — owning who and what we are — is the key, not just to greatness, but to faithfulness as well.
Did not the Apostle Paul urge that “we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5).
Perhaps that’s the essence of Lincoln: he was a man who knew who he was, owned and took responsibility for that, and from that wellspring of confidence and honesty was able to see truly the challenges of the day and summon all that he had and was to meet them.
Lincoln
If it weren’t for the photographs, you might think Aeschylus or
Euripides had made him up. Or that he was one of those biblical
fellows tormented to the brink of what a soul can bear. But there
he stands. Long black coat. Tall hat. Half a beard. Droopy eyes. Ears
large enough to serve several men. Like the offspring of a midwife
and a coroner. A tree impersonating a man. Alongside him, his
generals seem daunted. Anxious for the day they too will grow
into men. Then there’s that odd mix of joy and sorrow etched
across his face. As when a joke hits a little too close to home. Given
all that’s gone on—Gettysburg, Antietam, both Bull Runs, four
long years of war, more than half a million dead, a wife moaning
on the balconies, a child in the grave—Given all that … why hasn’t
his hair turned pure white?
By David Shumate, from Kimonos in the Closet
Thanks to The Writer’s Almanac, source of many a good poem.
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