The column didn't choke me up, but maybe that's because I have gotten a lot of my grief out over the last three weeks at each sight of a firefighter's funeral on television. And what really got to me, oddly enough, was the military funeral with honors on "The West Wing" on Wednesday.
I'm going to share something from the heart with you folks, since I've been sharing a lot of what's in my head. A firefighter's funeral in 1981, for John Heidish, who died in a house fire just before his 21st birthday, has a great deal to do with why I'm a Christian. I had arrived early, representing the Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Services (EDS)-- John was also a volunteer with EDS. While waiting for the service to begin, I opened a Bible for the first time in a long time. The first words I saw, printed in bright red, were these: "Greater love has no one than this, that he that lay down his life for his friends." That's John 15:13. The pastor repeated that verse several times. Those words, for me, were like the words that the disciples heard on the road to Emmaus. For those who aren't familiar with that story, they had encountered a stranger on the road, who asked them what they were talking about. Surprised that the stranger hadn't heard about Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, they told him about it. Then they invited him to dinner. When he broke the bread and blessed it, they suddenly recognized that the stranger was Jesus. The disciples asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" A couple of years after John's funeral, after I had joined a church and begun to tear down some of the barriers I had put between God and me, I suddenly realized why those words in red had stuck with me. I saw that John Heidish's life and death, even though I did not know him very well, helped bring me to God, had opened my eyes to a truth that doesn't come from science or logic. It's hard for me to tell that story because I don't think I should have needed to be hit over the head quite so hard; it is embarrassing and humiliating. At the same time, I find peace in the faith that John Heidish knows that his death, which was seemingly meaningless and tragic (it was a dumb little house fire that flashed over) in other ways. The idea of more than 300 funerals in New York has overwhelmed me. But I am sure that tens of thousands of people are hearing the words, "Greater love has no one than this, that he that lay down his life for his friends." Those words have become at least 300 times more powerful. Nick > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Gautam Mukunda > Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 11:29 AM > To: Brin-L > Subject: Firemen > > > If I could recommend to everyone Peggy Noonan's recent column in the Wall > Street Journal. The URL is > http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001272. I'm not > ashamed to say that I choked up reading it. Noonan is often > called the best > speechwriter in America - she wrote Reagan's legendary "The Boys > of Point du > Hoc" speech, among many others, and this column is a good example of why. > > Gautam >
