The Birth of an Idea!

Today I attended the memorial service of the Rev. Dr. Hebert Meza. Most of us who knew this kind and gentle man knew him simply as “Herb.” I first met Herb in 1988 when I first inquired as to how I might become a member of the Presbyterian USA denomination. 

Herb served as the chair of the committee charged with examining me and approving my ordination credentials. He made the process of making that transition so much easier with his acceptance of me as a colleague of equal standing. In fact, he told me more than once that everything would be fine and for me not to worry. 

He had such a way of putting me at ease. I have never forgotten the way Herb Meza encouraged me and gave me the confidence of knowing I was making the right decision to become a Presbyterian minister.

But there was something else about Herb Meza I did not know until just recently and it serves as the inspiration for this article. 

You see, even in death Herb was able to affirm me and give me confidence in knowing that I am tracking well with my understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Keep reading and it will become clear what that track is.

Herb served as a teenage Marine in World War II. He experienced an event during his tour in the Pacific that resulted in the birth of a magnificent idea for him; an idea that he never gave up on for the rest of his life.

One night during combat Herb and a Japanese soldier engaged in hand-to-hand combat, the result of which led to the death of the Japanese soldier. In that fox hole in the middle of the night Herb Meza discovered the idea of becoming a peacemaker.

He claimed that killing that Japanese soldier altered the direction of his life and led him to go beyond lip service to peacemaking, but rather to dedicate his life to that endeavor. 

He also carried a picture of a Japanese woman that he found in that dead soldier’s wallet for many years afterwards in hopes of somehow meeting her and having the opportunity to apologize to her and ask for her forgiveness. 

What many would describe as an act of bravery was for Herb the birth of a magnificent life-changing idea: 

The idea that peace is incredibly important to sustain life on this earth. 

Some today would call Herb Meza a “hero” but I am certain he would not welcome that moniker upon himself. If he was a hero he would be a “hero for peace.”

I never experienced combat in the ways Herb Meza did but I too captured a huge idea that was bigger than any idea I had previously  entertained: 

That peace is a worthwhile endeavor and there is no limit to what we should do in its pursuit.

At Herb’s memorial service a portion of his own reflection of faith was read. I have included it below and hope it will speak to you as it did to me. 

I have committed as much of myself as I could to as much of God as I have discovered along the way. But the thing that has sustained me has been a lesson I learned from the Spanish mystic, Miguel Unamuno, “Most men,” he once wrote, “are Don Juans about ideas. What we should do is find a large idea, marry her, and set up housekeeping with her.” That is what happened to me. And I have come to the conclusion that, for those of us who love humanity, we must not be satisfied to serve the power of any one race or nation. 

We must insist on a larger idea, particularly in this nuclear age. For those of us who have seen that idea in Jesus Christ, we must remember that in the complexity of this modern world only a tough-minded and resolute determination to think all things in the light of the revelation of God’s purposes, and in the style and love of Jesus Christ will see us through. For the world is too small for anything but love, and too dangerous for anything but truth. 

It is my prayer that in this time of bitter division that we Americans will marry an idea much larger than ourselves, or our politics, or our country—an idea inspired by the image of Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace. 

An idea that Jesus Christ expressed so succinctly yet so passionately: 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

An idea such as this is worth a lifetime of investment from us all.