While driving around the Navajo Reservation in our little Chevy Luv truck, besides chatting, singing primary songs and discussing mission business, we often memorized scriptures, quotes and poems. One of the poems we learned together 25 years ago was written by a man name William Ernest Henley as his body was being destroyed by a painful illness. I have often thought about these words while watching my good friend these past months. It was originally titled INVICTUS, but could just as well be named WILLPOWER.
Out of the night that covers me
black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever goods may be
for my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced not cried aloud
under the bludgeonings of chance
my head is bloodied but unbowed
It matters not how straight the gate
how charged with punishment the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul
Leave it to my good buddy with his driven personality and obsessive/compulsive tendencies to keep an eye on his wristwatch and fight off death until the exact day he was born 45 years earlier. No question, it has been painful to see his robust, healthy body shrivel up and wither away because of his cancer and the chemotherapy. I remember talking about the resurrection with him years ago as we ran together. We joked about if being restored to a perfect body meant having our bowed legs straightened and if so, how much taller we would be in the next life.
Willy loved the Green Bay Packers and carried a quote around with him in the mission field by the legendary Vince Lombardi. It was titled “The Habit of Winning” and the finally paragraph said, “any man’s finest hour, his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.”
Memory from Allen Naylor.
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