John Morgan, a Leave Taking

MAUNDY THURSDAY

AM Psalm 102 • PM Psalm 142, 143
Jer. 20:7-11 • 1 Cor. 10:14-17, 11:27-32 • John 17:1-11(12-26)

We hardly spoke but then he would say, “Rebecca, will you put my books in my back pack?” and, when I did, he would whiz off in his wheel chair. He would always have several books with him to read before church.

But I was hoping, when we got back after covid, to sit beside him again with coffee before church while he ate his breakfast.

He was one of the poets who defied the Viet Nam War. In a book titled Where Is Vietnam? American Poets Respond, he signed his name for me on the page where his poem appeared: “For a Fellow Poet and Friend.” Shortly after writing his poem against the war, he was then a twenty year old Marine, he was arrested and returned to his base to face a court-martial for refusing to fight.

At the breakfast before church I could be silly, especially if other people joined us and I was trying to draw them out or be friendly, but he still trusted me with putting the books he was reading into his backpack. So when I heard he had died, I knew that breakfast time was over. In his memory, here is part of the scripture for today from John 17. It is another leave taking story. Jesus taking leave of his disciples.

“Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world … so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou has loved me.”

We will not see John Morgan in his wheel chair again whizzing down the aisle when church is over.

Written by Rebecca Newth

Rebecca Newth is a long-time member of St. Paul’s.