Two Men Called Jack

Today is November 22, 2013. Because of this, I spent some time today listening to everything I could about that other November 22. The one in 1963.

It was a life changing series of events, beginning with the sharp rifle shots that altered history.

Like so many others, I remember exactly what I was doing on that day, when someone informed us all that Jack Kennedy had been shot. It was an awful moment, and one that has lingered more or less constantly, ever since.

We were still in Junior High School, and in the middle of a Science lesson our principal opened the door, saying, 'The President has been shot,' and closed the door once again. Although transistor radios in class were against the rules, 3 of them materialized, and we all listened in shock to the news reports. In a short time, we learned that the President was dead.

The news reports continued on, and on, as a man named Oswald was found and arrested; as he was jailed; as he was transferred to another facility; as he was shot and killed during that transfer; as Jack Ruby was seized and arrested for Oswald's murder; as numerous television announcers continued the dialogue about what was happening, and would happen; as the somber drums of the funeral march beat the moments away, before our eyes. It went on, and on.

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Throughout the shock of all of this, another man quietly died that November 22. The other man they called Jack. C.S. Lewis, beloved author and University professor, slipped away to very little fanfare. There came no frantic radio message, there was no flag draped coffin followed by thousands. Only a few gathered round his grave  near Oxford, that day. But the life of this other Jack was such that thousands have since found themselves following, if not the man himself, then the God he wrote so prolifically about.

Many of us would not even know that this Jack died the same day as the other. The fact was over-shadowed, as you know.

I do not write of these two Jacks in order to compare them, as though one or the other was the greater man. That is not a discussion for today. But I do want to remember them both, this day, November 22, 2013.

For me, today the flags are flying at half mast for both Jacks. 

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