Edward L. Kimball, 23 September 1930 -- November 21, 2016

My son Chase says:

“My grandfather Ed Kimball was my soft spoken hero. He was the man I want to be, in virtually every way: a dedicated teacher; a thoughtful disciple; a loyal son, father, and husband; a clear writer and honest historian. I love him, and I know he loves me.”

The list of Dad’s attributes is long: kind, smart, dedicated, thoughtful, honest, funny, considerate. I would like to illustrate a few, including some for which stories tell and single words fail.  

A.    Dad saw three-dimensional people. He did it in writing history and biography. He did it in serving on the parole board. He did it in serving as a bishop. He did it in parenting seven quite different children. He did not categorize or label people. He saw individuals and dealt with us as individuals.   

B.    Behind the Clark Kentish mild-mannered demeanor, Dad thoughtfully and knowingly challenged the status quo. He did it by asking good questions. I have called him “subversive” in the kindest most affirming sense. He would have rejected the label but smiled with recognition. Dad was not didactic. He seldom preached or argued. Dad was subversive in the sense that Socratic dialogue is subversive of things as they are. He was subversive in the sense that good history is sometimes subversive of revealed religion. Dad took pleasure in asking good questions.

C.    Dad would volunteer to act as scribe or secretary for faculty meetings. He explained to me that nobody wanted the job and it was a way to serve, and allowed him be more of a quiet listener than active participant. He was a modest, self-effacing man, always serving others. But the next sentence is important. He went on to say that when anyone wants to know what was discussed and decided, the minutes tell the story. By delivering the minutes in his voice, he had the last word.

D.    When I was 14, Dad and I went to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota for a 50-mile canoe trip. We paddled across lakes, then portaged the canoe and our packs from one lake to the next. Dad was commanding in the canoe but struggled to carry a small pack over the portages. I carried a pack on my back, a second in front, and the canoe on my shoulders. With powerful arms and shoulders, but something like 1-½ legs, Dad did the almost impossible feat of paddling and walking 50 miles. That’s big. Dad took his son on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. That’s really big. But the most important part of the story is that Dad humbled himself to make the trip even knowing that his 14 year old son would have to carry the load.

No son should see his father that way. It ruins the hero myth. But every son should carry his father, at least once in his life.

E.    In the context of a discussion about the nature of God and how we think about the God-Man relationship, I mentioned to my Jewish philosophy professor that one of my models was my father in that I knew about him that he loved me, without reserve, without regard to what I did or did not do. It was absolute bedrock certainty. The professor suggested that was valuable knowledge--unusual and to be treasured.

If I had one wish it would be that my children and grandchildren would enjoy that absolute assurance, that I love you, as my father loved me, as our Father and Mother love us.

F.    Dad is rightly lauded for the two biographies of Spencer W. Kimball. The first one in particular (written with his nephew Andrew) broke the pattern of hagiography that characterized stories of Mormon leaders. The usual narrative is that he was a truth teller, essentially unable to do otherwise than tell it ‘warts and all.’ That is correct. But the deeper story is that he knew what he was doing--consciously, intentionally, using all the advantages at his disposal. He told me once that he felt a filial duty to write about his father, but he also recognized an opportunity to make a difference in the world of Mormon history and biography. He had unparalleled access to the life of a living Mormon Prophet. He was confident that he could persuade his father to give permission. And he knew that it would work out to everyone’s benefit because his father was a genuinely good man--not perfect, but good.

Dad would not say it about himself, but would have warmed to my saying it of him, as he did of his father: Edward Kimball, my father, was a good man.

In The Midst of Life

I participate in a private Facebook group, the PMP Appendix Cancer Support Group. (Very highly recommended for anyone who belongs, as an “individual and their caregivers/advocates who have or have had Pseudomyxoma Peritonei (PMP) and/or any other form of Appendix Cancer,” and mostly irrelevant and not particularly inviting for everybody else.) This is a small group because PMP/AC is uncommon (for example, a couple of hundred new cases per year in the United States), but almost 2,000 members because Facebook has a worldwide reach and because we are survivors, for days and months and years. However, almost daily, it seems, somebody dies. About as often I determine to turn it off (but I don't). Death is hard, and it seems like it’s always people I know, even if just the wee bits we get through social media. And selfishly, I’m always reminded of me.

I am now going to quote from "Through the Valley of Shadows: Living Wills, Intensive Care, and Making Medicine Human." (Recommended, but I should acknowledge that the author Samuel Brown is a long-time acquaintance and friend.) For the thesis of the book in one line, I could do worse than this line from the book: “A modified advance directive could state simply, ‘If I’m ever in a situation where I could choose to undergo medical treatments or choose instead to allow a natural death for myself, please advise me and my family of this before we start the treatments.’”

And here begins the long quote (with my own unmarked edits and ellipses) which is about life and death and the people we care about:

“Media vita in morte sumus is a phrase that has circulated among Christians for many centuries: “In the midst of life we are in death.” No one knows who first said those words. Most believe the language comes from an old French hymn, perhaps as early as the eighth century. Whatever the source of this saying, it contains centuries of wisdom.

A much-simplified version of the old Christian phrase says to “Live every day as if it were your last.” That’s a complicated saying too. It seems to suggest that we should not waste a single day, that we should savor the beauty life has to offer with all the vigor we can muster. It might also suggest that we should do great things we would otherwise procrastinate. The concept of a “bucket list” is based on that concept. While I support living life to its fullest and recognize that the specter of death motivates a certain immediacy in experiencing rare or special things, I am skeptical of a bucket list of adventures as a response to mortality. It’s not that we shouldn’t dream and achieve, but there is much more to life than a list of expensive vacations or risky spectacles.

Living life in the midst of death means creating relationships in the presence of our confounding temporariness. It means recognizing that we will grow and age and sometimes lose our way. Life in the presence of death means consistently treating people with the marvelous, tender poignancy that arises spontaneously when we discover that they might die.

One thing advance care planning gets right is that it’s better not to wait until it is too late to say or do certain things. In the rush of life, we commonly forget to acknowledge how important we are to each other."

A Christian Path

I am reading the New Testament in German (very slowly—it will take years). I hear familiar verses in a new way. Today I read part of the very familiar 1 Korinther 13 (1 Corinthians 13). I startled to the realization that for many years I have heard and associated this chapter 13 with weddings, interpreted as instruction to the couple about how they are to be with each other, but that’s not the original or intended setting or purpose (although it’s not inappropriate or incorrect to use it at a wedding also). Rather, the opening lines give the setting:

Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels . . . though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and all faith . . . though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor . . .

This is the lawyer, president, prophet, priest, the educated and powerful and wealthy and smart . . . and faithful and giving. This is all good things I would like to have or be or be about. And it is Paul. His first person approach is a lesson in itself.

But Paul says that for all that, without charity I am nothing.

Coincidentally, I listened today to several lectures in the Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition series, including one on Buddha and Buddhism. It struck me that the eightfold path of the Sravakayana, one possible path to enlightenment, has much the same purpose.

The eightfold path is right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Now listen to Paul (very loosely translated from the German and converted into command form) as he gives what might be considered a Christian version of a path to being:  

Be forbearing, be kind, do not be jealous.

Do not puff yourself, making yourself big or important.

Control yourself—do not be wild, indecent, lewd, vulgar.

Do not seek for your own benefit.

Do not let yourself be provoked to anger or bitterness or sadness.

Do not consort with evil, or find pleasure in unrighteousness.

Be happy with truth.

Tolerate, believe, hope, endure.