“1,500 people went into the sea when
Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby, and only
one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included. Six, out of
1,500. Afterward, the 700 people left in the boats had nothing to do but
wait... wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution, which would never
come.” -Rose, Titanic
I
recently watched James Cameron’s Titanic with my family. It was the first
time I had seen it in six years or so. I routinely give my students a hard time
about the movie, especially the girls who are all swoony over the love story
between the nonexistent Jack and Rose. I tell them that Jack had to die,
because in reality, a marriage between those two would have never worked out. Jack
was a nice guy and all, and even honorable when given the opportunity. But he
had to die heroically, sacrificially. Had they married, Rose would have gotten
fed up with him rather quickly. She would have told him to get a real job
instead of trying to eke out an existence drawing pictures. He would have
gotten angry and called her a spoiled brat. But for those few, shining days
aboard the Ship of Dreams, they saw the best of each other. Jack died to save
Rose’s life, and she could carry that ideal of him with her forever. In that
sense, it is indeed a beautiful love story.
Real
love stories are even better, though. To me, the love between the Strausses,
who were only briefly shown in this version of the tale, would make a much
better movie. I would love to see a film about them, about what they endured
and overcame together over the course of fifty plus years of marriage. His
refusal to get on a boat because he was a man,and her refusal to leave his
side-that’s good stuff. It’s the real thing. I would be willing to bet that
during all those years of marriage there were rough patches. There were hard
times and arguments. Maybe they quarreled over silly things and then realized
they were being stupid and made up, and he took her out to dinner. After so
many years together, they were as one. There could be no separation. So they
chose to go down with the ship, hands clasped, united. That’s love.
As
the ship was going down, families struggled to stay together. That’s what
families are supposed to do. The band played on until the Boat Deck dipped under.
They stayed at their post. That’s honor. The captain went down with his ship,
as a good captain does. His body was never recovered. Meanwhile, the cowardly
Bruce Ismay, president of the White Star Line, managed to slip onto a lifeboat
and was saved-but for what? He was later so destroyed by the press and by his
conscience that his health broke down and he died a lonely and haunted man.
More first-class men were saved on that night than third-class children,
because class distinctions trumped the rule of “Women and children first.”
People justified their actions by talking about the chaos, the confusion, the
cold. They defended themselves by saying that no one who was not actually there
could possibly understand the terrible, intense horror. That is very true.
Nevertheless, Benjamin Guggenheim and his butler when down “like gentlemen”,
dressed in their evening dinner attire. John Jacob Astor, millionaire, also
conducted himself like a man, going down with the ship after convincing his
young, pregnant wife to get on a lifeboat. “You go and I’ll stay awhile.” Their
Airedale, Kitty, was seen pacing the deck in bewilderment just before the ship
sank, searching for her master…searching…
It
is these reports of heartbreak and heroism, of cowardice and class ,that make
the story of the Titanic a source of
endless fascination and speculation. There is debate as to what song was played
at the last, while the band was still able to play. Nearer, My God, to Thee, certainly makes for the best story, and I
prefer it myself, but the real point is that every band member died. They were
people, real human beings with lives and families and friends. Every soul on
that ship was a person. The 705
survivors, for the most part, preferred not to talk much about the experience.
The last survivor, who was an infant when the ship went down, died not long
ago. There are hundreds of untold stories, things that we will never know.
Secrets and joys and sorrows. Desperation and wonder. They were all buried with
the Titanic. The arrogance of those
responsible, those who called it “The ship God Himself could not sink”, are
reminders to us of the cost of that kind of pride. The courage of those who
could have been saved but refused to leave loved ones or who simply followed
God’s command of esteeming others better than themselves are reminders of that
kind of selflessness. But there is one more message, one more lesson. It’s the
thing that life always comes back to.Love.
As
the hundreds who were plunged into the icy waters of the Atlantic on that
freezing April night began to realize that they were doomed, that they were
dying, as they ceased to struggle and accepted their fate, they began calling
out to one another across the dark, merciless sea. Eyewitness accounts stated
that there was one thing repeated over and over, to friends, children, parents,
husbands, wives. It was I love you. In
the end, love is all that matters. It was what I whispered to my father as they
took him away to surgery, and I knew deep in my soul that I would never see him
again. It is what my husband tells our children and I every morning as he drops
us off at school. It is what I tell my mother every time I talk to on the
phone, before I hang up. I say it to my students, my sisters, my friends. I
even say it to my dogs. Because you just never know what will happen at any
given moment. Ships sink, even those said to be unsinkable. Accidents happen.
Illnesses occur. Tragedies, big and small, may be just around the corner. We
live in a world that, despite its incredible beauty and goodness, is sinful and
fallen and yes, sometimes cruel.
God
Himself is not cruel. In Taylor Caldwell’s wonderful novel Tender Victory, young Jean, a victim of a World War II
concentration camp who was kicked and beaten and may be a cripple for life,
looks at his adoptive father and smiles sadly. “Yes, Papa. I understand. It is
the world.” Jean has come to a saving knowledge of his Heavenly Father, of Christ’s
atonement and great mercy, but he understands that the world does not see Him,
that the world rejects His amazing Love. He saved us by His death because He
knew there was no other way. We weren’t going to change on our own. We couldn’t.
So he did Something. He did the craziest, most unimaginable thing there was. He
suffered and died so that we could know Love. Those who died on Titanic that others might live were reflecting
His sacrifice. If there is any purpose at all served by the Jack and Rose
subplot of the film, it is Jack’s willingness to die for her.
Without
Jack and Rose, however, even without them, the truth of the real story still
shines. At the very end, those who died knew that all you need is love. John
Lennon understood that. I don’t know if the Beatles realized the importance of
that message-but maybe they did. I believe it is built into all of us, this desire
for Something, this craving for Love. I hope that each of the 705 survivors of Titanic went on to live lives that were
successful-not by the narrow view and definition that we often have of “success”,
but that they found fulfillment, that they found God-that they found Love.
“He
saved me, in every way that a person can be saved.” Rose said this of Jack. He
saved her from a life of meaninglessness and shallowness, and then he saved her
physically. So it is with Jesus. He saves us in every way, so that when we
leave this life, there is before us Eternity. But what we stay alive for, as
John Keating says in Dead Poet’s Society,
are things like romance, beauty, Truth. We live to love and be loved. As the
Word says, “Make Love your aim.”
“For faith, hope, and love remain, these
three, but the greatest of these is love.”
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