THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF PHIL 'S DEATH - NEW YORK, NY

Elizabeth McAlister

These past month, weeks, days, I've found myself revisiting these months, weeks and days two years ago - with a force and inevitability beyond anything I could even seek to control. These months and weeks and days two years ago were excruciating and at the same time beautiful beyond telling. Those of us who shared Phil 's last journey, those of us who surrounded him in that time cannot forget a jot or tittle of the experience. What made it so remarkable was that Phil not only knew that he was dying (and verbalized it), but once he realized it, he journeyed into death with the fervor he journeyed into everything in his life.

Two moments stand out:

1. The day after thanksgiving (the day of Art and Colleen 's wedding) as others were celebrating their wedding, Dan and Steve Kelly and I made plans for Phil 's anointing. Later, I was on night watch with Phil and at 2:00 a.m. was attending him. As he returned to his bed, he asked: "When are we going to do the anointing?" I responded that we had decided on 10:30 or 10:45 a.m. "That will be too late!" he said. "Oh, Phil !" I responded. "No it won't!" Then with a regret that I'm not sure I felt, I added: "This dying, it takes longer than you think!" I was remembering attending my younger brother some years before when the realization hit me that dying is so much harder even than giving birth...

2. Being called to Phil 's bedside before 5:00 a.m. on Monday, December Second. Phil was agitated and asked for me. Becky - on watch that night - woke me. He said that he was being visited by a dark angel - an angel full of mockery toward him. We talked a while. Then I pulled out one of the books we kept near and read a couple of passages. He listened intently and then said: "That's enough! Pray with me, now!" Pray: "Father into your hands I commend my spirit!" We held hands and prayed. It was a hard prayer. Do I really choose to walk that walk with him or do I cling to him and deny what was undeniable. After a number of repetitions, he said: "That's enough! I'll go to sleep now and perhaps die in my sleep!"

I confess too, that these moments are more present/raw this year than last. It is as if we got through last year by placing one foot in front of the next - living by necessity or rote - numb, underwhelmed or overwhelmed - it is hard to say or distinguish. The gaps were - and are - mammoth, ineffable - walk with one leg, see with one eye (absent the insight that all of us so treasured), hear with one ear, hammer a nail with one hand...

Last Saturday Susan and I traveled to Gwynedd PA for the memorial service for Bill Stewart-Whistler . Scotty was so brave. She was celebrating the 19 years they had had together. Something inside me snapped as I realized the journey she has before her. Can we be brave and broken at the same time - vulnerable and human? I think Scotty taught me something about how we get broken down and needy and dependent and so learn the limits of the human?

Rosemary Maguire , a friend of more than 30 years, lost her husband to cancer last December 16. She came to the cemetery a few days before Thanksgiving looking for a place to bury Tom 's ashes. Having found the perfect spot, she asked if she might join us for Thanksgiving. Her family can't even mention Tom 's name or acknowledge his death and the loss and pain they all live with. Denial of his death or fear for their own, who knows the human heart? When will we understand that the loss is not lessened by denying or ignoring it? We had Thanksgiving together in mutual loss and gratitude and we'll bury Tom 's ashes in ceremony at the winter solstice. The light returning... maybe it will. I believe it will. But it seems so slow.

Phil - a Hopi Elder described him well when he spoke about our time: "It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing..." Phil ached at the suffering and evil of war in every fiber of his being. That was clear to all who knew him. I vividly recall visiting him in Dauphin County Jail in the spring of1972. The U.S. had multiplied atrocities in Vietnam , Laos and Cambodia . I don't recall the specific new war crime (he would remember chapter and verse - names, dates, places). But even if I wanted to (and I don't), I'll never erase the image of him that evening, caught between rage and grief; the walls and bars could barely hold him; he was terrifying. War and suffering were never abstractions to Phil.

Revisiting that scene, living through these last couple of years, I have often wondered what this latest war would have done to a living Philip Berrigan . Aside from the grief that Phil is no longer among us, aside from all he gave of himself and his insights, aside from the crater in our lives, I have to admit to you that I've know gratitude these past two years that at least he didn't have to suffer this war, this devastation, these lies. At the same time, I think he would have been cheered by the millions in the streets and in the jails. And at the same time, I've wondered what he would have done different from what we did - what insights he might have shared that could have helped us. And I've longed and longed for his view of this time, his hope from on high, if you will. But he's not telling. And I can't but feel cheated by his silence.

What I'm trying to learn and live is that this isn't Phil 's war ; like it or not, it is ours. Yesterday we had one of a series of retreat at Jonah House . Frank O'Donnell , S.M. gave the afternoon reflection and ended his remarks quoting from the an address at the recent Call to Action Conference (11/7/04) by Clarissa Pinkola Estes :

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. .. Yes, for years we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...

One of the most... powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Souls... shine like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire... The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours; they are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.

We were made for these times... And we are together in these times. And each of us is needed and oh so important. The words - we were made for these times - brought to mind these verses, I'm sure you know them: "Thank God our time is now when wrong comes up to face us everywhere, never to leave us till we take the longest stride of soul a person ever took." The lines are from A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry . I'd like to conclude with the poem itself ...

The human heart can go the lengths of God
Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now. The frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;
The thunder is the thunder of the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul a person ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.
The enterprise
is exploration into God.
Where are you making for? It takes
So many thousand years to wake
But will you wake, for pity's sake?