The View from the West Mesa

Today in the United States we remember the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, and the Marines - and the Coasties and merchant mariners who have died in almost every corner of our world. These soldiers didn’t intend to be killed or to die when they joined up and likely not even when they got up on that last day. Some experienced fear, some loneliness, some numbness, and for some it was just another day. Some thought they couldn’t be killed, and some in those last few minutes or seconds knew they would be. These soldiers died because of us and they died for us. Whether as part of a great invasion or as a lonely sailor floating in shark infested waters, or perhaps trapped in the hull of a ship as it sank beneath the waves, they died so that we might be able to live in freedom, with liberty, and yes, pursuing our own versions of happiness. These soldiers have been proclaimed heroes in victory, and decried as baby killers in a war we wanted to forget. They have been pawns in international

I will not leave you as orphans. This, Jesus's assurance to His disciples that with His impending departure, they should not panic, become disoriented, or give up. There are people all around the world who grow up as orphans - without parents and in too many more cases than we often care to think, without any adult to care for, protect, nurture, or love. In the U.S. it can be bad enough, horrific enough. But in the first century it would literally be unbearable with abuse expected, starvation likely, and a shortened life guaranteed. That life would likely be anguish with death welcomed. To be destitute and without hope, that was and too often still today is what being orphaned is. I will not leave you as orphans. The disciples I suppose probably didn't think that deeply about what Jesus's departure would mean to their physical wellbeing. They were, at least the male members of his little tribe well, men. They could work and would not be deistitute. But Jesus doesn't m