One of my favorite movies is 2002’s Signs, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. It is a story of loss and redemption set against the backdrop of an alien invasion. A great scene unfolds as the world watches fearfully as strange sightings and lights appear in the sky. Phoenix’ character asks Gibson’s what he thinks and the former pastor gives a melancholic soliloquy on fate and chance ending with this flourish: “See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?” In Gibson’s case, after loss and heartbreak, he no longer believes in miracles, just the random purposelessness of existence.

Do you see signs? That question came to my mind last night as I watched Make Peace or Die:Honor the Fallen, a dramatic and engaging film directed by my friend Manny Marquez. Here is the official description of the documentary:

Riddled with survivor’s guilt after his unit lost 17 men during “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, Marine veteran Anthony Marquez makes it his mission to reconnect with the Gold Star families of the fallen. By carving and hand-delivering a battlefield cross for each of the families affected by loss, Anthony finds the path to heal himself.

The documentary follows Anthony as he delivers the battlefield crosses he’s carved to each of the families. Along the way, we get some of the backstories of the men who died and a peek into the lives of those living with the loss. We learn that some of these Marines were part of an EOD, Explosive Ordinance Disposal, unit and were very much on the front lines of the action. We also learn that no one was left without scars from their experience. The title of the film comes from the motto of the unit. I cannot do the film justice in a few short words – it is powerfully compelling on many levels and I highly recommend it as a reflection on sacrifice, community, and redemption.

Many of the families of these fallen Marines described young men who felt a strong call to service. And not just any service, but service in the Marine Corps. As the parents expressed their hesitations and how insistent their sons were, to the point in some cases of wanting to enlist before they turned 18, the viewer could feel the weight of that call and its attending sense of purpose. For these young men, there was a powerful pull and they followed it.

Beginning a reflection this morning, Isaiah 42:6-7 appeared on my screen:

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

These men and their sense of purpose seemed to center around such thinking as justice and duty and being a “light for nations.” Watching video of them on the ground in Afghanistan, the sense of brotherhood stood out against the backdrop of their calling. Firefights. IED’s (remember all we learned about “improvised explosive devices”?). Deployments. The words of war in countless headlines came back to me. The film evoked a strong sense of community and mission among these men – the bonds were deep and strong – but the headlines could never capture the essence of those ties or the harrowing reality of existing under such circumstances.

Years later, we watched as Anthony visited families and I could hear my friend Manny ask: “Was it worth it?” It was a provocative way to frame a question around purpose. Absolutely not. What could ever be worth the life of a child? Each family agonized over the loss of their son and questions of purpose were lost in the broad sweep of the political, whether in being there to begin with, for so long, or for leaving and handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban. All worked to draw the line between supporting their heroic young men in doing their duty and a sense that their deaths ultimately seemed pointless.

Particularly poignant were parental characterizations of the painfully dramatic visits from Marine Corps officers to tell them of the death of their son, the headlines and celebrations for the local heroes, and then the cold, piercing, fact of life moving on. More than one shared a sense of feeling their son had been forgotten. Death deals that card to all who have loved and lost, but the loss of a child seems particularly acute.

Is the death of a soldier ever pointless? Perhaps by the measure of such things as politics or power or revenge or economics. Maybe the seen and unseen why’s of war evade justice in the purest sense of the word as violence begets violence in the endless mystery of man’s own disordered desires. There is no reconciling such inevitable brokenness with the loss of precious life.

But there is meaning in every life and every death…if we choose to see it. If we’re able to see it. The journey of this veteran through struggle and suffering is taking him somewhere – has already taken him somewhere. The story of each of these young men means something. Their lives and their deaths have touched others, with pain yes, but with something else. The gift of love remembered, of life lived to a calling, of community with those who share the same struggle, of gratitude for time had, for the sharp edge of feeling the fullness of life and death. There is purpose in the beautiful gravity of it all and the weight of imprints left along the way.

For some it might be the gift of faith in a search for something more, even in meaning that’s hard to see. By our measures: time, place, fashion, circumstances – perhaps death has little purpose. Perhaps it always seems pointless to we who are left behind. But maybe the point is about what it points to: a life experienced, shared, loved, known… and something beyond life as we know it.

A few days ago, our seventh grand child was born. Little Marin Felicity Grace is number five for our oldest daughter, and by the standards of our society, a bold choice. Some might say foolish, after all, children are expensive and tend to get in the way of doing all that we want to do. Isn’t that the way of a call? It often gets in the way. Perhaps we’d like to be called to fame, fortune, and power, but such is the nature of a calling: it is vocational and the most meaningful vocations ultimately help us realize that our lives are not about us.

For baby Marin, it all sits in front of her. The choices, the challenges, the suffering, and the joy. She must learn it all. Experience it all. We cannot know how her story will go, the part we might play in it, or dramatic purpose it will hold in time and history. But her very being has already left an imprint, her little light has already shone, her existence already has purpose. From here, everything else is the beautifully difficult journey of her own becoming, and the fingerprints she leaves upon the world along the way.

Do you see signs or is life just a bunch of coincidences? Thinking of my friend’s gritty documentary of loss and the journey of healing that all battle with after such tragedies, perhaps the message is make peace AND die. For that is our shared experience. Death always haunts us and finding peace in a world marked by it is the fundamental struggle of humanity. However, the journey of a soul is never without purpose and no matter how senseless death may seem when or how it comes, the point of the story and the breadth of human experience within it, echoes in eternity.

Photo by Lance Cpl. Sergio RamirezRomero