Force Direction: Essential and Symbolic Observer
A cymbal is a thing that does a thing. A symbol is a thing that represents an idea.
Cymbals make sounds. Ideas make music.
I have two U.S. flags on shelves in a storage room. They are tightly folded in triangles with the stars displayed forward. I have them because they covered the coffins of military veterans, and at graveside, were folded and presented to a next of kin by a military honor guard. I know the one with fifty stars was on my grandfather's coffin and was presented to his daughter, my mother. The other has forty-eight stars and was on the shelf in the storage room of the house I live in now when we moved in. When the house was sold to us by the previous owner's children, the flag was left behind. It's still there. The flag from my grandfather's coffin is on an adjacent shelf.
I remember when I was a teenager, I learned that in Great Britain, old flags were often cut up and used as rags. They had symbolic meaning when they were on display. They were a piece of still useful cloth when they became too old and tattered for display. Not so in the United States. They remain potent symbols until they are ceremonially burned or buried.
I didn't mention having a flag from my father's burial. He was a Navy veteran of WWII honorably discharged and entitled to a flag and ceremony.
Here's where we get into the cognitive processing of visual images. My father was an essentialist. He was highly perceptive of functional quality. He wanted to know how useful something was, and how well it did the thing it was supposed to do. He was that way with people, too. He judged us all by our usefulness. He didn't have nostalgia. He shook off the past, and was always moving forward. He had no attachment to having been a military veteran. He left it behind when he was discharged, and kept moving forward. The idea of a flag on his coffin and the ceremony, was to him, a meaningless affectation. He was all about things; not symbols.
And then there was my mother. Through her, we had crucifixes, rosary beads, a replica of the Shroud of Turin, statues of the Virgin Mary. Most notably, when my parents were downsizing in retirement and selling their house, she buried a small statue of St. Joseph, upside down, in the front yard. It's hard to know where to begin here. Does anyone even know what St.Joseph looked like? Anyway, the story my mother was sticking to was that St. Joseph was the guardian of our homes. If we needed to relocate, St. Joseph's job was to guide a buyer to the realtor. Burying his graven image upside down was a signal to him that he needed to get on the job forthwith. It was considered a sign of respect and confidence. That's all I have for you.
My mother, a registered nurse, with advanced certification from the Harvard School of Public Heath, let me in on the utility of a placebo for pain management. Patients who got an inert pill with dosage and frequency instructions reported real pain relief.
I'll let Harvard Medical School speak for itself:
"A study published in Science Translational Medicine explored this by testing how people reacted to migraine pain medication. One group took a migraine drug labeled with the drug's name, another took a placebo labeled "placebo," and a third group took nothing. The researchers discovered that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack.
The researchers speculated that a driving force beyond this reaction was the simple act of taking a pill. People associate the ritual of taking medicine as a positive healing effect. Even if they know it's not medicine, the action itself can stimulate the brain into thinking the body is being healed."
It turns out, a symbolic medicine, that is, the idea of a medicine, can be at least 50% as effective as an actual medicine.
My father found ideas like this too ridiculous for comment. Consistent with his integrity, he never found it necessary to challenge another's beliefs: not a good use of his time, attention, or energy. He would go along if going along greased the wheels of his getting what he wanted.
Back to the flags on my shelf. Fate put them in my possession. Fate gave me the empathetic imagination of the moment of those flags having been handed to a loved one at the conclusion of a rich and meaningful ceremony. It was meant to transcend the inertness of death and the emptiness of the hole. If at least 50% of the time, it relieves some pain of grief, that's good enough for me.
An American tourist in England recently described the dissonance of seeing a Union Jack peeking out of the debris in a trash can. My father would tell me to put those old pieces of cloth in a trash bag so they won't offend a stranger's sensibilities, and drop it in a dumpster.
I can't say my father's consummate practicality would be wrong. I can't say my mother's mystical approach to a real estate problem was wrong. They engaged the same world and were directed by different forces.
In the writing of this, I see what fate is asking from me. The completion of the flag ceremony at the graveside is a respectful cremation of those aged flags. It's not for the now long-dead survivors; it's not for the flags. It's for me. It's because I'll feel better being the person who follows a noble deed through to its end.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
ceremonially burned or buried: https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/article/2206946/how-to-properly-dispose-of-worn-out-us-flags/
upside down: https://www.catholic365.com/article/5739/the-superstition-of-burying-saint-joseph-in-the-ground.html
speak: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect