IN LOVING MEMORY OF JANNIS HAGEN
JULY 5th 1948-MAY 3rd, 2010
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
here never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
-John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
|...‘‘Twas she before he I noticed on that fateful Saturday morning when I wandered into the Lomita clubhouse for the first time. My sharing was ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. The pain I felt, however, was very real, but how deep it went I had yet to discover. Her smile told me everything was going to be all right; and she was right, for her husband, unbeknownst to me, was about to lead me of the dreary desert of futility of abandonment to self I had sentenced myself to.
Week after week I saw her there, dutifully sitting next to her beloved, and always that sweet, quixotic smile – ‘I know something you don’t you’ kind of smile. That ‘something’ was the fact that I was in the hands of my new sponsor, an AA giant, a man who walks this better than most can talk it. Her very presence gave me solace – and pause.
At first I thought he was just a rube with a loose grasp on reality and an even looser grasp on this AA way of life; luckily for me, it was I with the loose grasp. For whatever reason God has graced me with many handicaps but some very good teachers, and this teacher I have right now I wouldn’t trade for anyone in the world.
So sad am I for him in his loss that I can barely eat nor talk; I do feel his pain, for he has taken most of mine away. “Joy Cometh in the Morning”, or so says scripture; I hope so; for my sponsor is weeping today, as am I. The earth is less one angel today I fear, but heaven is increased by one good soul.
Jannis – I hardly knew you, and I am sorry for that. But your love and your kind, gentle smile carried me farther than anybody's words ever could have. You 'showed me a sermon' - a lesson I have yet to absorb. God bless you, and may happiness carry you on the rest of your journey on "laughter-silvered wings".
...and so it goes.|
COG, 1st Cl.
Week after week I saw her there, dutifully sitting next to her beloved, and always that sweet, quixotic smile – ‘I know something you don’t you’ kind of smile. That ‘something’ was the fact that I was in the hands of my new sponsor, an AA giant, a man who walks this better than most can talk it. Her very presence gave me solace – and pause.
At first I thought he was just a rube with a loose grasp on reality and an even looser grasp on this AA way of life; luckily for me, it was I with the loose grasp. For whatever reason God has graced me with many handicaps but some very good teachers, and this teacher I have right now I wouldn’t trade for anyone in the world.
So sad am I for him in his loss that I can barely eat nor talk; I do feel his pain, for he has taken most of mine away. “Joy Cometh in the Morning”, or so says scripture; I hope so; for my sponsor is weeping today, as am I. The earth is less one angel today I fear, but heaven is increased by one good soul.
Jannis – I hardly knew you, and I am sorry for that. But your love and your kind, gentle smile carried me farther than anybody's words ever could have. You 'showed me a sermon' - a lesson I have yet to absorb. God bless you, and may happiness carry you on the rest of your journey on "laughter-silvered wings".
...and so it goes.|
COG, 1st Cl.
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Welcome as a witness to a fools journey out of the darkness. I welcome all tidings - you are all my teachers on this path toward a meaningful and purposeful sobriety.
COG, 1st Cl.