Shading the picture - memories of 1995 - Column

Christian Century, Jan 17, 1996 by Martin E. Marty

WHEN THE editor sends me a ballot for the "top religion stories of the year," I'm surprised it's that late in the year. On Christmas morning, as I read the cards and letters others have sent us, I realized that the season had sped by and I had not done a roundup of my own; for the 35th year I had not gotten around to writing a family Christmas letter. Each year magazines pick the memorable sayings of the year, and I am jarred into reflecting: I keep track of such sayings all year long, without ever rating them.

So, tardily, I whip into action: If I had to recognize one moment, one person and one quote, the moment would be the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; the person would be his granddaughter, Noa Ben-Artzi; and the saying would be her words to him posthumously: "People greater than I have already eulogized you, but none of them was fortunate like myself to feel the caress of your warm, soft hands and the warm embrace that was just for us."

I'd type more, but it'd be through tears. I was moved by Noa's way of piercing a national tragedy for an entire people and bringing it to the realm of personal pain. We have too often seen supercelebrities the without being thus mourned, heroes in the public realm whose private caresses were of a different sort, better not revealed.

We do not want to focus on Noa remarks in a way that sentimentalizes the public realm. People do not win freedom or achieve statehood by putting a grandparental arm on a grandchild. And to give grandpa the honors without recognizing how mother and grandmother brought tenderness along with hard bargaining to the familial scene would be to reinforce patriarchalism. To fail to recognize that some can be saints to their own and beasts beyond their family circle would be naive.

On a more intimate scale: one of the mixed blessings of Christmas letters is the glimpse they give of the private moments of people we admire for their public roles. One of the unmixed blessings we get when families gather are hints of the way the generations ready themselves for the hand-on-the-shoulder eulogies of some future day.

Nothing is more pleasing in our circle, for instance, than to have a family phone call shortened because the eldest son's youngest son needs father's help in a science project. Or to think of a son who ran for governor in 1994 (and went down to defeat) who to his children remains a parent who has time to read to them each night. Or of a (foster) daughter who pursues a career and maintains a home, and also endures the scratchings of her daughter's Suzuki-method violin playing, and calls, wondering with her husband, "When does it stop sounding so scratchy?" Or of a busy son and daughter-in-law--one a pastor, one a nurse--who, as our recent visit confirmed, know how to keep priorities in order for their children. However any of these turn out, the important thing is the ability to envision their children's children some very distant day being able to speak of the warm hand on the shoulders. (End of sneaked-in, tardy Marty family letter.)

No, we do not want cute images of White House children or grandchildren. Nor do we want a vision of history reduced to the domestic. We are asking instead in this cruel epoch for assessments of people that include dimensions about which we usually find out too late, after they are gone.