I attended a funeral today for my friend and colleague, Val MacMurray. I lived and worked in Nigeria from 1983 to 1987, working for a humanitarian organization called The Thrasher Research Fund. Val was the director of our program, which was administered by the LDS Church. We were sent to Nigeria to work in dozens of villages, training village health workers. We helped in any way we could and did our best to make a difference. Val cheered us on from Salt Lake as we did our best to do hard things on the other side of the world.
Here are a few photos of some of his visits to Eket, Cross River State, where we lived.
Above: Working in the cassava fields with Val.
Below: Mary Ellen Edmunds, Val MacMurray, Ann Lewis and Bob Briem.
Below: Val MacMurray and Keith McMullin.
I’ll always remember Val when I consider a poem he shared with me about 30 years ago. I loved it then, and I love it still. Today at his funeral, one of his daughters shared a few stanzas of this poem with us. He had just introduced it to her last month, reading it to her from a well-worn and tattered book. She was also moved by it.
Here’s to Val, a dear friend, who led a life that ended quietly and without much fanfare. Only a handful of us came to send him off. He made some interesting choices in the end. I hope he finds his peace. Val–go to your god among the stars, with my love.
The Morning Song of Senlin by Conrad Aikin b. 1889
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.
Vine-leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea…
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me….
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, clouds of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.
Vine-leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones;
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.
It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, and tie my tie.
There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains….
It is morning, I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor….
…It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where;
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know….
Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three dear tones.
