On the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today is a picture of a huge freighter being christened for its first sail out of Detroit on June 7, 1958. At 729 feet, it was then the biggest ship on the Great Lakes. 17 years later later, loaded with 26,116 tons of taconite (iron) pellets, she would encounter gale winds of 70 knots and waves of 25 feet or more in the extreme eastern end of Lake Superior. At about 7 PM on November 10th, 1975, she would disappear from radar off the coast from Whitefish Point. She was named after the primary investment owner, Edmund Fitzgerald, president of Northwestern Mutual Life in Milwaukee.
The questions are not quite answered, and probably never will be. Did it hit underwater shoals? Did water seep into the hull, slowly and undetected? Was the main hatchway improperly secured, allowing the water to pour in and sink the ship quickly? The latter was Gordon Lightfoot's explanation, taken from the Coast Guard, but later changed. In any case, no man was found, and the wreckage lies undisturbed in Canadian waters, now protected legally from scavengers by the Ontario Heritage Act. It is a graveyard, like so many others on the lake, made famous by Lightfoot and the fact that it was the last sinking of its kind on the Lakes. We all know of it from the eerie, timeless song. Stand on the shores of Lake Superior in November, as I do every year and am about to again, and you understand the music. It, this lake, is mysterious, dangerous, vast - in a word, cosmic. I both fear it and love it, for the grandeur that produces the fear.
No song or poetry could ever hold it fully. The companion piece to the article, then, is just what one might expect but could never predict. Written by Stephen Kalmon, he talks of the last night he saw his brother Allen. He was visiting Milwaukee from up north where he lived, now as a new cook for a maritime company. Steven describes the visit: "Finally, he said, 'It's time to go, Stevie.' We walked out together, shook hands and said our goodbyes. He headed to our mother's home, where he would stay the night. I headed back to my family, making a mental note of his unusual behavior.....It was the last time I would see him."
We find, over all, that Allen was unusually affectionate that night, tinted by a warm melancholy, as if he knew something. A month later, he would get a call from his employer telling him that the main cook was sick and that he would have to take his place the next day. Allen was, his wife said, excited about the job. He had had trouble with alcohol all his life, and on ship, none was allowed. He felt that he had found a safe niche. He was, of course, the cook on the Edmund Fitzgerald who in the song said, "fellas, its been good to know ya."
Do we get premonitions before we die? If so, how? We know of no science that could adequately explain this, for it creates mountains of problems, both for science and for philosophers. For the later, we would have to ask, "if so, what of free will?" Yet we know, if we are candid with ourselves, that we believe it, and many of us have seen it, seen a change before death. Most are of old people whose deaths are expected, but some are not - like Allen. This possibility, never to be decidedly proven, points to something in us that knows far more than the future; it points to mystery, to a depth in ourselves that is beyond the selves we know. We know the secret is hidden in us, waiting to unfold. That unfolding comes at death, but sometimes before, sometimes just before we die. It, this mystery, is not "out there," an alien interloper, but us, somehow at the core of us that we cannot grasp in this world. It is such that, were we to think of it enough, there could be no long-term despair, for nothing is ever settled or over and done in the mystery. It goes on and on, to an infinitude that terrifies us, but should also give us limitless hope. For it does never end; it is never over. There is always hope of new possibilities, not just for some, but for everyone, because this hope is based on something far more real than what we consider real. It is based on this mystery, this terror that is also our salvation.
And we know it. When we look out at a cold storm and listen to Gordon Lightfoot's "The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," we feel the terror of the storm and waves and coming death, but we love the song for the mystery of it - the far-off sounds that remind us of our own Edmund, our own fate and destiny. Stand at the edge of Lake Superior in November and you will feel small - and large, like the astronaut on the moon looking at earth. We are small, but this lake, this terrifying grandeur, is not in the lake itself, but in us; the lake is water, thoughtless water. It is our soul that dresses it with this awe, for that is where it resides. The lake is, in this way, our reflection, a mirror into something deeper that puts us all on the deck of the sinking ship,, and that song in us.
The 200 lb. bell from the wreck was recovered in 1995 and placed in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, MI. Since then, it is rung 30 times on the anniversary of the wreck - one for each crew member, and one for all the others who have died on the lakes. But that last could be for all. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee" is not only a poetic allusion to shared loss, but to our mutually shared mystery in life, and beyond. We know this, too. To live this mystery is not to live in fear, but in wonder and awe; to live it is to live in the age of miracles. It is possible, and one day, we will see that it is our birthright. The storms will rage and the waves collide, and we will be among it all, fully alive, boredom and despair as unimaginable as it was on the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 40 years ago, but with a difference; then, we will know, or begin to know, that those icy depths that hold our fears are really our greatest gift. It is our eternal mystery, our calling, the path to our home in the cosmos. FK
The questions are not quite answered, and probably never will be. Did it hit underwater shoals? Did water seep into the hull, slowly and undetected? Was the main hatchway improperly secured, allowing the water to pour in and sink the ship quickly? The latter was Gordon Lightfoot's explanation, taken from the Coast Guard, but later changed. In any case, no man was found, and the wreckage lies undisturbed in Canadian waters, now protected legally from scavengers by the Ontario Heritage Act. It is a graveyard, like so many others on the lake, made famous by Lightfoot and the fact that it was the last sinking of its kind on the Lakes. We all know of it from the eerie, timeless song. Stand on the shores of Lake Superior in November, as I do every year and am about to again, and you understand the music. It, this lake, is mysterious, dangerous, vast - in a word, cosmic. I both fear it and love it, for the grandeur that produces the fear.
No song or poetry could ever hold it fully. The companion piece to the article, then, is just what one might expect but could never predict. Written by Stephen Kalmon, he talks of the last night he saw his brother Allen. He was visiting Milwaukee from up north where he lived, now as a new cook for a maritime company. Steven describes the visit: "Finally, he said, 'It's time to go, Stevie.' We walked out together, shook hands and said our goodbyes. He headed to our mother's home, where he would stay the night. I headed back to my family, making a mental note of his unusual behavior.....It was the last time I would see him."
We find, over all, that Allen was unusually affectionate that night, tinted by a warm melancholy, as if he knew something. A month later, he would get a call from his employer telling him that the main cook was sick and that he would have to take his place the next day. Allen was, his wife said, excited about the job. He had had trouble with alcohol all his life, and on ship, none was allowed. He felt that he had found a safe niche. He was, of course, the cook on the Edmund Fitzgerald who in the song said, "fellas, its been good to know ya."
Do we get premonitions before we die? If so, how? We know of no science that could adequately explain this, for it creates mountains of problems, both for science and for philosophers. For the later, we would have to ask, "if so, what of free will?" Yet we know, if we are candid with ourselves, that we believe it, and many of us have seen it, seen a change before death. Most are of old people whose deaths are expected, but some are not - like Allen. This possibility, never to be decidedly proven, points to something in us that knows far more than the future; it points to mystery, to a depth in ourselves that is beyond the selves we know. We know the secret is hidden in us, waiting to unfold. That unfolding comes at death, but sometimes before, sometimes just before we die. It, this mystery, is not "out there," an alien interloper, but us, somehow at the core of us that we cannot grasp in this world. It is such that, were we to think of it enough, there could be no long-term despair, for nothing is ever settled or over and done in the mystery. It goes on and on, to an infinitude that terrifies us, but should also give us limitless hope. For it does never end; it is never over. There is always hope of new possibilities, not just for some, but for everyone, because this hope is based on something far more real than what we consider real. It is based on this mystery, this terror that is also our salvation.
And we know it. When we look out at a cold storm and listen to Gordon Lightfoot's "The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," we feel the terror of the storm and waves and coming death, but we love the song for the mystery of it - the far-off sounds that remind us of our own Edmund, our own fate and destiny. Stand at the edge of Lake Superior in November and you will feel small - and large, like the astronaut on the moon looking at earth. We are small, but this lake, this terrifying grandeur, is not in the lake itself, but in us; the lake is water, thoughtless water. It is our soul that dresses it with this awe, for that is where it resides. The lake is, in this way, our reflection, a mirror into something deeper that puts us all on the deck of the sinking ship,, and that song in us.
The 200 lb. bell from the wreck was recovered in 1995 and placed in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, MI. Since then, it is rung 30 times on the anniversary of the wreck - one for each crew member, and one for all the others who have died on the lakes. But that last could be for all. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee" is not only a poetic allusion to shared loss, but to our mutually shared mystery in life, and beyond. We know this, too. To live this mystery is not to live in fear, but in wonder and awe; to live it is to live in the age of miracles. It is possible, and one day, we will see that it is our birthright. The storms will rage and the waves collide, and we will be among it all, fully alive, boredom and despair as unimaginable as it was on the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 40 years ago, but with a difference; then, we will know, or begin to know, that those icy depths that hold our fears are really our greatest gift. It is our eternal mystery, our calling, the path to our home in the cosmos. FK
RSS Feed