I love getting them. And though I write a blog I actually prefer getting these Christmas messages the old fashioned snail mail way rather than electronically (and I will be pleased to get any Reply you might choose to send via whatever medium.)
For more than 30 years the first one has come from the now long retired Senior pastor of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Manhattan, New York, Dr. John Damm. He always includes a well thought out homily, an Advent theme.
This is followed by the assortment with which we are all familiar. They run the full gamut-highly artistic versions of ancient classic paintings , silly ditties with cartoon figures, messages allegedly written by pets. Some feel like the same sermon said in the same way year after year. At least three or four will feature the family biographies of budding Nobel Prize winners, the next Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Mother Teresa or Abraham Lincoln. I read them all with always a touch of disappointment when there is no personal note and even the signature is pre-printed.
Each one is guaranteed a second reading. Jane and I save each of those greetings where we can get at them every day. Then each morning we pull one out , re-read the message and say a short prayer for the sender. Since we get about 300 of these a year it works out great and by the following Christmas our Christmas Letter box is empty.
Of course we send out our Christmas letter too. My wife Jane is the organized one in this marriage so we can find many of the letters of the 58 years of our married life. In re-reading them I find no literary masterpieces or eye-watering narrative. Yet these Christmas messages (both those sent and those received ) are precious. They provide glimpses into the joy, trauma and everyday routines which make up our lives. And because they are in relation to a very special religious observance they point not only to things transient but also to the friendships, love, values and hope that transcend not only the Christmas season but our very lives .
So keep those cards and letters coming.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Sick Child
It’s Christmas Eve, 1961. At midnight I sit next to my 10-month-old daughter, Betty. She’s in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit of Lutheran Hospital Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She is fighting for her life, threatened by pneumonia and a serious staph infection. In spite of oxygen tents, respirators and I don’t know what other catheters, plug-ins and tubes, she can hardly breathe. It breaks my heart to see and hear her struggle for every breath. Worst of all is when she tries to cough, tries to get mucus out of her overburdened lungs. With each cough she grows weaker. The nurse had told me that if Betty survived until midnight then she would probably live. So I have prayed. I have meditated on another Child at Christmas midnight. I have tried to trust the goodness of God. I cannot stop my tears as another forced cough shakes her little body.
Is there any more agonizing experience for a parent than seeing one’s child hurt or sick or dying? Is there any greater challenge to one’s perception of how things ought to be than to see or to fear that one’s child will precede one in death?
It was not time for Betty to die. She not only survived, but has thrived. Even today as a mother and a clinical psychologist she has a special bond and care for little ones.
And her father has never again experienced Christmas Eve without thanking God for the gift of the Child and of His child, Betty/Lyzse/Elizabeth.
Is there any more agonizing experience for a parent than seeing one’s child hurt or sick or dying? Is there any greater challenge to one’s perception of how things ought to be than to see or to fear that one’s child will precede one in death?
It was not time for Betty to die. She not only survived, but has thrived. Even today as a mother and a clinical psychologist she has a special bond and care for little ones.
And her father has never again experienced Christmas Eve without thanking God for the gift of the Child and of His child, Betty/Lyzse/Elizabeth.
Death
Death is a natural part of the human experience. From my earliest memory I was taught to not fear death. It was always assumed that children were present for the funeral and burial rituals. In the rural part of Texas in which I grew up we went to the home of persons who had died and often “viewed the body” laid out in a casket in the parlor of the home where the deceased had lived.
During grade school years all of us students in the Lutheran school attended all funeral services in the church situated next to the school. At the close of the service we would all walk by and look into the coffin. My father tolled the church bell as the coffin was moved from the church to the nearby cemetery. The church-owned “teacherage’ in which we lived adjoined the cemetery. Death was not a stranger.
But dying was. It was not until years later that I was physically present when a person died. By then I was in Hong Kong. A student from the school of which I was principal was involved in a traffic accident. I was called to the emergency room. In those days medical services in Hong Kong simply could not cope with all the challenges of a refugee swollen population. I found the student unattended, lying on a stretcher on the floor, bleeding profusely. I grabbed a medical staff person and pleaded for assistance. I was told, “Can’t you see? He’s been fatally injured. There’s nothing we can do for him. He will soon be dead.” I knelt next to him, held his hand, prayed, and felt him die.
There were other death experiences. The aged Lutheran gentleman from America was finally released from house arrest in China by Mao Tze Tung and allowed into Hong Kong. He was frail, weak, unable to stay alive. So I stood by the side of his hospi8tal bed. Since he spoke German we prayed the Lord’s Prayer in German - and then he died - with his aged wife virtually the only one who knew him.
I immediately took the grieving widow to our house where she sobbed inconsolably and went to sleep only when my wife took her into bed with her.
Then I went to the casket-making street in Hong Kong, negotiated a casket, found a grave site and hired 4 coolies to carry the coffin up a hill to an open grave. Halfway up the hill the bearers set the coffin down. They refused to carry it further up the hill until I paid them an extra stipend. Then we laid Mr. Henkel in the grave, conducted the interment liturgy and made our way slowly back down the hill.
Since then I have been present for peaceful deaths, the quiet death of a still-born and the lingering death of those ill with cancer.
So I see death as one step in the God-given journey of each human. Because of the death and resurrection of Christ, I think I am moving to my own death completely unafraid.
During grade school years all of us students in the Lutheran school attended all funeral services in the church situated next to the school. At the close of the service we would all walk by and look into the coffin. My father tolled the church bell as the coffin was moved from the church to the nearby cemetery. The church-owned “teacherage’ in which we lived adjoined the cemetery. Death was not a stranger.
But dying was. It was not until years later that I was physically present when a person died. By then I was in Hong Kong. A student from the school of which I was principal was involved in a traffic accident. I was called to the emergency room. In those days medical services in Hong Kong simply could not cope with all the challenges of a refugee swollen population. I found the student unattended, lying on a stretcher on the floor, bleeding profusely. I grabbed a medical staff person and pleaded for assistance. I was told, “Can’t you see? He’s been fatally injured. There’s nothing we can do for him. He will soon be dead.” I knelt next to him, held his hand, prayed, and felt him die.
There were other death experiences. The aged Lutheran gentleman from America was finally released from house arrest in China by Mao Tze Tung and allowed into Hong Kong. He was frail, weak, unable to stay alive. So I stood by the side of his hospi8tal bed. Since he spoke German we prayed the Lord’s Prayer in German - and then he died - with his aged wife virtually the only one who knew him.
I immediately took the grieving widow to our house where she sobbed inconsolably and went to sleep only when my wife took her into bed with her.
Then I went to the casket-making street in Hong Kong, negotiated a casket, found a grave site and hired 4 coolies to carry the coffin up a hill to an open grave. Halfway up the hill the bearers set the coffin down. They refused to carry it further up the hill until I paid them an extra stipend. Then we laid Mr. Henkel in the grave, conducted the interment liturgy and made our way slowly back down the hill.
Since then I have been present for peaceful deaths, the quiet death of a still-born and the lingering death of those ill with cancer.
So I see death as one step in the God-given journey of each human. Because of the death and resurrection of Christ, I think I am moving to my own death completely unafraid.
Herb
Tomorrow the “mortal remains” of Herb Brokering will be laid to rest. But this I know, neither he nor his “remains” will ever be completely at rest. Herb will continue to inspire, evoke a shake of the head, create a smile and stir a tug at my heart.
Herb was dubbed the “Leonardo DaVinci of the Prairies”. So when we see him identified as pastor, professor, or staff associate of Wheat Ridge we know that those titles don’t get close to describing him. When we recall him as poet, hymn writer, author, lyricist, “master of free association” or creative provocateur then we come closer.
Many others are writing official obituaries and well-deserved paeans of praise. For me it all becomes personal.
The first time I met him he had all of us writing poetry. When I told him that my teen-aged daughter was a better poet than I he encouraged me, but also insisted that I take to my daughter a poem he had written along with his encouragement for her to continue to write poetry.
Once when he was at my church with our very creative musician Stan Beard and they were doing a presentation together, Herb looked at Stan and said to him, “Play something orange!” Stan did and the two of them were off where previously only angels had made music and musings.
When we were in India together (running hours and hours behind schedule because Herb kept finding more immediate signs of God), he left behind those of us looking for traditional souvenirs. He went to the open-air clothes market. There he bought baby socks. He took them to the States and gave them to infants as a sign that all the babies of the world share a need for warm toes and hopes for a wonderful life.
When he and I were to have a planning session at a hotel 30 miles from Chicago he excused himself. The front desk had called and said someone whom he had never met before was looking for him. The young man had alcohol and other drug problems. Someone somewhere in Chicago had told him to find Herb. He did, came to the hotel and Herb lifted the man’s vision – and then most likely never heard from him again.
Just weeks before he died he telephoned me. We have a mutual friend about whom Herb was concerned. Herb said, “Mel, call him. He needs some advice and encouragement from you. So just call him and talk to him.”
So I muse with Herb as he writes “Cat Psalms” or “Dog Psalms”, or “Earth and All Stars” or “Thine the Amen” and I hope that with his unmatched vision to see what others cannot see, Herb is smiling and telling me to get ready for just one more surprise.
Herb was dubbed the “Leonardo DaVinci of the Prairies”. So when we see him identified as pastor, professor, or staff associate of Wheat Ridge we know that those titles don’t get close to describing him. When we recall him as poet, hymn writer, author, lyricist, “master of free association” or creative provocateur then we come closer.
Many others are writing official obituaries and well-deserved paeans of praise. For me it all becomes personal.
The first time I met him he had all of us writing poetry. When I told him that my teen-aged daughter was a better poet than I he encouraged me, but also insisted that I take to my daughter a poem he had written along with his encouragement for her to continue to write poetry.
Once when he was at my church with our very creative musician Stan Beard and they were doing a presentation together, Herb looked at Stan and said to him, “Play something orange!” Stan did and the two of them were off where previously only angels had made music and musings.
When we were in India together (running hours and hours behind schedule because Herb kept finding more immediate signs of God), he left behind those of us looking for traditional souvenirs. He went to the open-air clothes market. There he bought baby socks. He took them to the States and gave them to infants as a sign that all the babies of the world share a need for warm toes and hopes for a wonderful life.
When he and I were to have a planning session at a hotel 30 miles from Chicago he excused himself. The front desk had called and said someone whom he had never met before was looking for him. The young man had alcohol and other drug problems. Someone somewhere in Chicago had told him to find Herb. He did, came to the hotel and Herb lifted the man’s vision – and then most likely never heard from him again.
Just weeks before he died he telephoned me. We have a mutual friend about whom Herb was concerned. Herb said, “Mel, call him. He needs some advice and encouragement from you. So just call him and talk to him.”
So I muse with Herb as he writes “Cat Psalms” or “Dog Psalms”, or “Earth and All Stars” or “Thine the Amen” and I hope that with his unmatched vision to see what others cannot see, Herb is smiling and telling me to get ready for just one more surprise.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Five Far Apart Thoughts
Usually I try to focus on only one thought or experience per blog posting. I have just had a very interesting 5 days which brought up 5 different reflections. So here goes.
1. Really big bucks. I attended a Board meeting of the Van Lunen Fellows Program. We provide executive management skills for administrators of faith-based schools. We get our fiscal resources from the Van Lunen Foundation. When Mr. Van Lunen died about 4 years ago he left behind a trust, a group of 4 trustees, some money and the simple instructions, “Do something good with this money.” The surprise: the money he was speaking of came to approximately $100 million. What “good” does someone do when suddenly having available $100 million?
2. What’s a university for? I also attended a conference of university professors. The focus was on teaching practices at the university level. The keynoter challenged us with the proposition that the sole function of a university professor is for the experience to teach the students to think. Is that correct? Does the university professor want the students only to think or does s/he have in mind a particular way in which they should think? Does the professor care about what conclusions the students reach from their thinking? Does it make any difference if the university is secular or church related?
3. Vices and Virtues. One of the outstanding lectures was on teaching students to reflect upon the 7 vices and their counterpart 7 virtues. The vices, defined as habits or character traits, are envy, vainglory, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust. The virtues, defined as excellences of characters, habits or disposition, are faith, hope, love, wisdom, justice, courage and temperance. So, what vice do I still have embedded in my character? What virtue do I feel I possess and which am I still seeking? (Note: I decided to try to help me answer that question by teaching an eight session course on the topic at my church.)
4. The limits of humor. On the plane I read Garrison Keillor’s newest book, Pilgrims. I decided that I did not like it. I thought that the author had lost any sense of sympathy for his characters and was just enjoying poking fun at their sincere eccentricities Am I fair? Does a writer need to have sympathy for the characters in his novel or does s/he just describe them and hopefully produce a few understanding chuckles?
5. Nobody knows me. To balance Garrison Keillor a bit I was reading the diary of the great Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaaard. While still a young man he wrote this: “How awful it would be on Judgment Day when all souls return to life again … then to stand completely alone, alone and unknown to all.” Does this have anything to do with my decision to write a blog?
1. Really big bucks. I attended a Board meeting of the Van Lunen Fellows Program. We provide executive management skills for administrators of faith-based schools. We get our fiscal resources from the Van Lunen Foundation. When Mr. Van Lunen died about 4 years ago he left behind a trust, a group of 4 trustees, some money and the simple instructions, “Do something good with this money.” The surprise: the money he was speaking of came to approximately $100 million. What “good” does someone do when suddenly having available $100 million?
2. What’s a university for? I also attended a conference of university professors. The focus was on teaching practices at the university level. The keynoter challenged us with the proposition that the sole function of a university professor is for the experience to teach the students to think. Is that correct? Does the university professor want the students only to think or does s/he have in mind a particular way in which they should think? Does the professor care about what conclusions the students reach from their thinking? Does it make any difference if the university is secular or church related?
3. Vices and Virtues. One of the outstanding lectures was on teaching students to reflect upon the 7 vices and their counterpart 7 virtues. The vices, defined as habits or character traits, are envy, vainglory, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust. The virtues, defined as excellences of characters, habits or disposition, are faith, hope, love, wisdom, justice, courage and temperance. So, what vice do I still have embedded in my character? What virtue do I feel I possess and which am I still seeking? (Note: I decided to try to help me answer that question by teaching an eight session course on the topic at my church.)
4. The limits of humor. On the plane I read Garrison Keillor’s newest book, Pilgrims. I decided that I did not like it. I thought that the author had lost any sense of sympathy for his characters and was just enjoying poking fun at their sincere eccentricities Am I fair? Does a writer need to have sympathy for the characters in his novel or does s/he just describe them and hopefully produce a few understanding chuckles?
5. Nobody knows me. To balance Garrison Keillor a bit I was reading the diary of the great Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaaard. While still a young man he wrote this: “How awful it would be on Judgment Day when all souls return to life again … then to stand completely alone, alone and unknown to all.” Does this have anything to do with my decision to write a blog?
Bravado
Earl was a dominating presence. Well over six feet tall with broad shoulders, taut muscles and aggressive tenacity he controlled the lanes of the basketball court. He and I were both in our early twenties with lots of stamina. Our team was sponsored by D & W Billiards Parlor from the wrong side of the tracks in Tracy, California. We took on all comers from the local city league or neighboring small towns and even from Stockton, the county seat.
I don’t quite remember how I got to be asked to play with that particular team. After all, I was the supposedly pious principal of the small Lutheran elementary school and my teammates were not likely to often find themselves in my or any other church.
Earl stood out and sounded out. His oaths were articulate. Highly descriptive threats intimidated many. His after-game relaxation fit right in. Beer was guzzled. Tales of female conquests were recalled. When we drove to some urban sites for games in certain parts of town Earl enjoyed calling the street walking prostitutes by name and telling of their particular skills.
After playing for the Tracy D & W Billiards team for three years I ended my career with them by missing an easy lay-up that would have won the game. A few months later (unconnected with my missed lay-up) I accepted a call to serve in another church and school 500 miles away. A few years after that I was even further away, in Hong Kong, serving as a missionary.
I was stunned the day a letter arrived from Tracy, California, from Earl. In it he recalled our time together. He informed me that his business was doing well. He told me he was a changed man. Christ had entered his life. He had cleaned up his act. He was happily married, the father of two and determined to raise them up properly. He wrote that he thought I might like to know that. So he went to no small pains to get my mailing address. He just wanted to wish me blessings and express the hope that Hong Kong still provided an opportunity for me to shoot a few baskets.
I don’t quite remember how I got to be asked to play with that particular team. After all, I was the supposedly pious principal of the small Lutheran elementary school and my teammates were not likely to often find themselves in my or any other church.
Earl stood out and sounded out. His oaths were articulate. Highly descriptive threats intimidated many. His after-game relaxation fit right in. Beer was guzzled. Tales of female conquests were recalled. When we drove to some urban sites for games in certain parts of town Earl enjoyed calling the street walking prostitutes by name and telling of their particular skills.
After playing for the Tracy D & W Billiards team for three years I ended my career with them by missing an easy lay-up that would have won the game. A few months later (unconnected with my missed lay-up) I accepted a call to serve in another church and school 500 miles away. A few years after that I was even further away, in Hong Kong, serving as a missionary.
I was stunned the day a letter arrived from Tracy, California, from Earl. In it he recalled our time together. He informed me that his business was doing well. He told me he was a changed man. Christ had entered his life. He had cleaned up his act. He was happily married, the father of two and determined to raise them up properly. He wrote that he thought I might like to know that. So he went to no small pains to get my mailing address. He just wanted to wish me blessings and express the hope that Hong Kong still provided an opportunity for me to shoot a few baskets.
Arabs
Arabs. I thought I knew about Arabs. They lived in the desert. They owned camels. They were the descendants of Ishmael. They were Muslims. I was pretty sure about all this until I went to Beirut in 1968.
My objective was to meet with American missionaries there to discuss education opportunities. They were hospitable: a lunch of 30 small dishes of Lebanese delicacies. They were helpful: tour and contacts at the American University of Lebanon. Then they threw me a curve. For the rest of my trip they assigned me to a local guide; an Arab in a business suit; an Arab who was a university graduate, lived in an apartment and drove a car; an Arab who was a devout Christian; an Arab who was very gentle with his arrogant and ignorant guest.
He taught me about the cedars of Lebanon and the many different ethnic, cultural and religious groups who have walked under those majestic trees. He took me to Tyre and Sidon, recalling for me the history of Phoenicians. He took me to where Jesus walked. He showed me the remaining Crusader Forts built by Christians who had come to annihilate non-believing Arab Muslims who were called infidels. He showed me the massive military build-up by Israel which he correctly predicted would be used to invade his country.
He spoke with no bitterness or animosity. There was no condescension toward my American inspired pro-Israeli bias. He just shared his experiences, his fears, his hopes, his faith.
Now 50 years later I need to remember him as post 9/11 images and rhetoric would ask me to forget or ignore what I experienced in those few days and what I learned from my Arab brother. Arabs, like all ethnic groups, come with a variety of values, beliefs, aspirations. Some of these points of view I despise – others I share.
My objective was to meet with American missionaries there to discuss education opportunities. They were hospitable: a lunch of 30 small dishes of Lebanese delicacies. They were helpful: tour and contacts at the American University of Lebanon. Then they threw me a curve. For the rest of my trip they assigned me to a local guide; an Arab in a business suit; an Arab who was a university graduate, lived in an apartment and drove a car; an Arab who was a devout Christian; an Arab who was very gentle with his arrogant and ignorant guest.
He taught me about the cedars of Lebanon and the many different ethnic, cultural and religious groups who have walked under those majestic trees. He took me to Tyre and Sidon, recalling for me the history of Phoenicians. He took me to where Jesus walked. He showed me the remaining Crusader Forts built by Christians who had come to annihilate non-believing Arab Muslims who were called infidels. He showed me the massive military build-up by Israel which he correctly predicted would be used to invade his country.
He spoke with no bitterness or animosity. There was no condescension toward my American inspired pro-Israeli bias. He just shared his experiences, his fears, his hopes, his faith.
Now 50 years later I need to remember him as post 9/11 images and rhetoric would ask me to forget or ignore what I experienced in those few days and what I learned from my Arab brother. Arabs, like all ethnic groups, come with a variety of values, beliefs, aspirations. Some of these points of view I despise – others I share.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Fears
I have finally gotten around to reading Mitch Albom’s “Tuesdays With Morrie”, subtitled "an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lessons". One of the topics they discuss and upon which I have been reflecting is FEAR and my experiences around fear.
I have no recollection of the common childhood fears of dark places, ghosts, or things that go bump in the night. With one exception. I must have been - oh, maybe in the third grade. It was after dark. I was all alone in the dining room doing my homework. Dad was in his ”study” and I guess Mom was putting my sisters and younger brother to bed. Suddenly I was sure I heard a noise in the dark room just off the kitchen. I perked up my ears and looked. Sure enough, a shadow was moving across that dark neighboring room. I quickly ran across the hall to Dad’s room alerting him, ”There is a prowler in our back room.” He ran out his door and through the yard to the back. He rushed into the room. I heard a loud shriek! He had caught the intruder, only to discover that it was Mom looking for an item she wanted to retrieve. Then we laughed, but for a few minutes I had been afraid.
A second incident about that same time in my life left more lasting effects. I had somehow or other secured a broad-rimmed black hat. I thought I looked great in it and proudly wore it to school the morning after I had received it. As I neared the school a group of men from the congregation were on the water tower working on a leak. They noticed me. I could hear them laugh. Then one said in German “Na, hut, was hast du denn in zinn? Wo willst du mitt den jungen hin!” (Rough translation: “Now hat, what is in your head? Where are you taking that little lad?”) I knew it was a put-down. I was being laughed at. And I felt it in the core of my being. It produced a fear of people making fun of me, a fear of what would people think of me. That ingrained fear resides in me still and I have not yet overcome it. (See previous blog entitled “What Will People Think”.
I have been afraid when I feared loved ones would die. Daughter Elizabeth at less than a year lay in intensive care on Christmas Eve and the Dr. had warned us that she might not be with us on Christmas Day. On a later occasion wife Jane was in a coma from a cerebral aneurysm and our emergency flight from Asia to the USA encountered headwinds forcing a stopover in Alaska. Three times I have been in intensive care units wondering if persons who had attempted suicide would die. My guess is that these fears were not so much the fears of death, but of the consequences of death on me and my family or close friends. Now those are fears worth contemplating.
Fear, of course, is often a natural and God given response, which helps us protect ourselves. So I am glad that sometimes I am still able to be afraid.
I have no recollection of the common childhood fears of dark places, ghosts, or things that go bump in the night. With one exception. I must have been - oh, maybe in the third grade. It was after dark. I was all alone in the dining room doing my homework. Dad was in his ”study” and I guess Mom was putting my sisters and younger brother to bed. Suddenly I was sure I heard a noise in the dark room just off the kitchen. I perked up my ears and looked. Sure enough, a shadow was moving across that dark neighboring room. I quickly ran across the hall to Dad’s room alerting him, ”There is a prowler in our back room.” He ran out his door and through the yard to the back. He rushed into the room. I heard a loud shriek! He had caught the intruder, only to discover that it was Mom looking for an item she wanted to retrieve. Then we laughed, but for a few minutes I had been afraid.
A second incident about that same time in my life left more lasting effects. I had somehow or other secured a broad-rimmed black hat. I thought I looked great in it and proudly wore it to school the morning after I had received it. As I neared the school a group of men from the congregation were on the water tower working on a leak. They noticed me. I could hear them laugh. Then one said in German “Na, hut, was hast du denn in zinn? Wo willst du mitt den jungen hin!” (Rough translation: “Now hat, what is in your head? Where are you taking that little lad?”) I knew it was a put-down. I was being laughed at. And I felt it in the core of my being. It produced a fear of people making fun of me, a fear of what would people think of me. That ingrained fear resides in me still and I have not yet overcome it. (See previous blog entitled “What Will People Think”.
I have been afraid when I feared loved ones would die. Daughter Elizabeth at less than a year lay in intensive care on Christmas Eve and the Dr. had warned us that she might not be with us on Christmas Day. On a later occasion wife Jane was in a coma from a cerebral aneurysm and our emergency flight from Asia to the USA encountered headwinds forcing a stopover in Alaska. Three times I have been in intensive care units wondering if persons who had attempted suicide would die. My guess is that these fears were not so much the fears of death, but of the consequences of death on me and my family or close friends. Now those are fears worth contemplating.
Fear, of course, is often a natural and God given response, which helps us protect ourselves. So I am glad that sometimes I am still able to be afraid.
Not Afraid
As I reflect upon some episodes in my life I marvel at my lack of fear. At the age of 13 my parents sent me off to a religious ministerial training prep school, a boys only boarding situation. I was really quite naïve, having grown up in the country surrounded by a close-knit family, relatives and friends who cared about me and watched over all of us youngsters who were considered part of a very large congregation-wide extended family. I knew nothing about guys “from the city” or kids whose parents were something other than farmers, ministers or country trades-people. But off I went unconcerned and unafraid. The school was small enough so one could play on all sports teams. The Profs knew us and our parents and most of us came from equally depleted depression era homes. I was unafraid and it worked great!
When I later worked in Hong Kong I always felt perfectly at ease everywhere I went in that Colony, even in the relatively off limits section called Kowloon City. Once I went roaring through there when I probably should have been afraid. My assistant principal had guaranteed some loans and then was unable to repay them. He contacted me to come in my car to pick him up from a designated location. I should have been forewarned when he ducked low and crept into the back seat of my car. He had glanced back just long enough to see another car about a hundred yards behind us ready go come get him. I sped away. Flying up and down streets and alleys until we lost our pursuers in Kowloon City. I found a route to the rural New Territories where he asked me to just drop him off and drive away. I do not remember being afraid.
When I worked in Hong Kong I had the privilege of serving Lutheran schools in all parts of that metropolitan community. Sometimes this entailed night meetings in all sections of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. I always went, carefully and confident, assured that my colleagues were not asking me to do anything they themselves did not also do. I had nothing to fear. I remember especially one evening when I met with a group of parents in a Harlem apartment. They had invited me there in an attempt to help save their Lutheran school. During the conversation they told me of a community network they had established which kept an eye on each of the pupils on their way to and from school, assuring their safety. Then they told me that they had made a similar arrangement for me that night to get safely to my car and home. I had no need to be afraid
On another occasion I had reason enough to fear and I wonder why I do not recall that emotion. My two sons and I had gotten caught up in the Tien An Men Square massacre in l989. We were trying to get out of Beijing. We had actually hired a very small van driven by a man determined to defy the authorities. We drove past barricades which had been run over by tanks. We saw burning busses. We watched crowds ebb and flow as the military approached and backed off. We smelled the odor of burnt bodies, some hung from lampposts. Just as we thought we had gotten through the worst of it we suddenly heard the sound of guns from our right. Bullets could be heard flying near our small van. We proceeded forward and suddenly all was still. In retrospect it seems to me that I experienced it somehow more as an observer than as a participant. I do not recall being afraid. I do recall praying, so that is probably the more accurate remembrance.
I do not fear death. I sometimes feel uneasy about what could be a painful process preceding death. But I have no fear of death and the after-life. I figure that God and God’s Grace have that pretty well handled.
When I later worked in Hong Kong I always felt perfectly at ease everywhere I went in that Colony, even in the relatively off limits section called Kowloon City. Once I went roaring through there when I probably should have been afraid. My assistant principal had guaranteed some loans and then was unable to repay them. He contacted me to come in my car to pick him up from a designated location. I should have been forewarned when he ducked low and crept into the back seat of my car. He had glanced back just long enough to see another car about a hundred yards behind us ready go come get him. I sped away. Flying up and down streets and alleys until we lost our pursuers in Kowloon City. I found a route to the rural New Territories where he asked me to just drop him off and drive away. I do not remember being afraid.
When I worked in Hong Kong I had the privilege of serving Lutheran schools in all parts of that metropolitan community. Sometimes this entailed night meetings in all sections of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. I always went, carefully and confident, assured that my colleagues were not asking me to do anything they themselves did not also do. I had nothing to fear. I remember especially one evening when I met with a group of parents in a Harlem apartment. They had invited me there in an attempt to help save their Lutheran school. During the conversation they told me of a community network they had established which kept an eye on each of the pupils on their way to and from school, assuring their safety. Then they told me that they had made a similar arrangement for me that night to get safely to my car and home. I had no need to be afraid
On another occasion I had reason enough to fear and I wonder why I do not recall that emotion. My two sons and I had gotten caught up in the Tien An Men Square massacre in l989. We were trying to get out of Beijing. We had actually hired a very small van driven by a man determined to defy the authorities. We drove past barricades which had been run over by tanks. We saw burning busses. We watched crowds ebb and flow as the military approached and backed off. We smelled the odor of burnt bodies, some hung from lampposts. Just as we thought we had gotten through the worst of it we suddenly heard the sound of guns from our right. Bullets could be heard flying near our small van. We proceeded forward and suddenly all was still. In retrospect it seems to me that I experienced it somehow more as an observer than as a participant. I do not recall being afraid. I do recall praying, so that is probably the more accurate remembrance.
I do not fear death. I sometimes feel uneasy about what could be a painful process preceding death. But I have no fear of death and the after-life. I figure that God and God’s Grace have that pretty well handled.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
So Close
I am in Harrod’s Casino, Reno, Nevada on January 28, 1951. My wife Jane and I have traveled there from our home in Tracy, California, some four hours away. We are dirt poor, combined income of some $2,000 a year. But we’d spent some Christmas gift money for gasoline and planned to drive to Reno and back on the same day because we don’t have the $6.00 required for an overnight stay in a motel. We do have, however, one dollar each for the slots. We feed the nickel machines.
The slots smile on us. By the time we feel we need to head home we have parlayed our $2.00 into $5.00. We take a breather, have a discussion, and make a decision.
We’ll take two dollars of our gain (2 neat rolls of nickels) and secure them in the glove compartment of our car. Then we’ll take our $3.00 worth of winnings and hit the slots again. If we can just win $2.00 more we’ll have enough for a motel room. We’ll spend the night in Reno and head home the next day -just like the high rollers.
Twenty minutes later Jane and I are pulling out of our parking slot, heading back over Donner Pass on the way home for a very late dinner.
Fifty-nine years later I still feel the rush. So close! I’m not alone. From Las Vegas to Atlantic City to Mississippi River boats to Indian reservation casinos to state run lotteries, every day there are millions who feel the rush. “Just maybe...”
The slots smile on us. By the time we feel we need to head home we have parlayed our $2.00 into $5.00. We take a breather, have a discussion, and make a decision.
We’ll take two dollars of our gain (2 neat rolls of nickels) and secure them in the glove compartment of our car. Then we’ll take our $3.00 worth of winnings and hit the slots again. If we can just win $2.00 more we’ll have enough for a motel room. We’ll spend the night in Reno and head home the next day -just like the high rollers.
Twenty minutes later Jane and I are pulling out of our parking slot, heading back over Donner Pass on the way home for a very late dinner.
Fifty-nine years later I still feel the rush. So close! I’m not alone. From Las Vegas to Atlantic City to Mississippi River boats to Indian reservation casinos to state run lotteries, every day there are millions who feel the rush. “Just maybe...”
Prejudice and Pride
The year is 1961. I’m on a “missionary-on-furlough” lecture tour in the Deep South. My primary target: black Lutheran churches in Mississippi and Alabama.
Even though I grew up immersed in the racism and prejudice of central Texas, I am struck again by the racial arrogance of the whites, color segregated schools, restaurants, water fountains, motels, churches. When my black driver picks me up from the airport in Birmingham to take me to a black church he asks me to sit in the back seat. I refuse, “You’re my brother, not my chauffeur!”
I get in the front seat next to him. At the first stop light the white in the car in the lane on our right at us and cuts us off. We narrowly avoid colliding with his vehicle.
In Montgomery the white taxi driver almost refuses to take me to a black church. He’s both afraid and very skeptical of my intentions. He’s suspicious of outside agitators who go to black churches.
I grieve at the facilities and resources in our black Lutheran schools. I can hardly believe the diet at the Lutheran college dining room. I bask in reverent awe as I sit together on her front porch swing listening to a black saint, Rosa Young. She tells me about her unflagging ministry through black schools and churches.
After Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights Act, Brown vs Board of Education, elimination of the poll tax, no more water fountains, busses or restaurants designated “For Colored Only”, surely the 1960’s or at worst the 70’s would see the end of segregation and racial prejudice in the USA.
It’s a Sunday evening, 1999. We are sitting in liberal California, enjoying a dazzling sunset over the multi-hued Pacific, enjoying a glass of crisp California Chardonnay.
Our guest, a teacher in a nearby public high school speaks. He tells us of a story nowhere reported in the local press. One of his students, Roxanne, has committed suicide. She, the only black in her class, was hounded to death by racial slurs spoken to her, written in her books, scrawled on the blackboard. She was shunned, spit at, known only as that damned n________. It went on for three months. Our guest had tried to be a friend and counselor. He sought assistance. The community claimed he must be a communist. A promising young woman is dead.
I hang my head in shame for my own failures at not more intentionally confronting racism. I feel anger at any system, which still claims some sort of superiority by virtue of a white skin. Once more I examine my own heart. I image the face of a Creator God with tears streaming from his eyes, watching us humans still failing to see that we are all of one blood, all of us sisters and brothers.
Even though I grew up immersed in the racism and prejudice of central Texas, I am struck again by the racial arrogance of the whites, color segregated schools, restaurants, water fountains, motels, churches. When my black driver picks me up from the airport in Birmingham to take me to a black church he asks me to sit in the back seat. I refuse, “You’re my brother, not my chauffeur!”
I get in the front seat next to him. At the first stop light the white in the car in the lane on our right at us and cuts us off. We narrowly avoid colliding with his vehicle.
In Montgomery the white taxi driver almost refuses to take me to a black church. He’s both afraid and very skeptical of my intentions. He’s suspicious of outside agitators who go to black churches.
I grieve at the facilities and resources in our black Lutheran schools. I can hardly believe the diet at the Lutheran college dining room. I bask in reverent awe as I sit together on her front porch swing listening to a black saint, Rosa Young. She tells me about her unflagging ministry through black schools and churches.
After Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights Act, Brown vs Board of Education, elimination of the poll tax, no more water fountains, busses or restaurants designated “For Colored Only”, surely the 1960’s or at worst the 70’s would see the end of segregation and racial prejudice in the USA.
It’s a Sunday evening, 1999. We are sitting in liberal California, enjoying a dazzling sunset over the multi-hued Pacific, enjoying a glass of crisp California Chardonnay.
Our guest, a teacher in a nearby public high school speaks. He tells us of a story nowhere reported in the local press. One of his students, Roxanne, has committed suicide. She, the only black in her class, was hounded to death by racial slurs spoken to her, written in her books, scrawled on the blackboard. She was shunned, spit at, known only as that damned n________. It went on for three months. Our guest had tried to be a friend and counselor. He sought assistance. The community claimed he must be a communist. A promising young woman is dead.
I hang my head in shame for my own failures at not more intentionally confronting racism. I feel anger at any system, which still claims some sort of superiority by virtue of a white skin. Once more I examine my own heart. I image the face of a Creator God with tears streaming from his eyes, watching us humans still failing to see that we are all of one blood, all of us sisters and brothers.
Golfing Partner
When we lived in Hong Kong during the l950-and 60’s we did not have many vacation options. US law prohibited travel to the China mainland. Financial limitations precluded travel abroad. So once in a great while I would take a day off by playing golf and then spending the night at the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club.
I was there alone on one occasion when the starter asked me if I wanted a partner for the afternoon round. Of course, I did. The guy was good. I noticed immediately that he had a very good swing and played at very near par. He was not very talkative and I had learned that British protocol precluded me from prying. He did tell me that he was a Scotsman that he had just come from India and was on his way to the USA.
After the golf round we agreed to share a drink and dinner. He ordered “whisky”. In Hong Kong, of course, that meant scotch served neat. I ordered bourbon. He asked, “What is that?” I explained. He stuck up his nose at the thought, especially when I asked for it over the rocks. However when I also asked for a Seven-up mixer, he told me that was almost more than his stomach could handle but in a good-natured way we had our drinks and dinner.
Then he asked me if I would be around the next day and if I would care to play with him. He said that he was playing with the Captain of the Club.
I was surprised at his good connection but felt pleased to accept the offer. I asked him if he knew the Club Captain.
“Not really”, he said. “But you see he is playing with me because I am on my way to the USA to represent my country in an international competition. It is called The Eisenhower Cup.
I was there alone on one occasion when the starter asked me if I wanted a partner for the afternoon round. Of course, I did. The guy was good. I noticed immediately that he had a very good swing and played at very near par. He was not very talkative and I had learned that British protocol precluded me from prying. He did tell me that he was a Scotsman that he had just come from India and was on his way to the USA.
After the golf round we agreed to share a drink and dinner. He ordered “whisky”. In Hong Kong, of course, that meant scotch served neat. I ordered bourbon. He asked, “What is that?” I explained. He stuck up his nose at the thought, especially when I asked for it over the rocks. However when I also asked for a Seven-up mixer, he told me that was almost more than his stomach could handle but in a good-natured way we had our drinks and dinner.
Then he asked me if I would be around the next day and if I would care to play with him. He said that he was playing with the Captain of the Club.
I was surprised at his good connection but felt pleased to accept the offer. I asked him if he knew the Club Captain.
“Not really”, he said. “But you see he is playing with me because I am on my way to the USA to represent my country in an international competition. It is called The Eisenhower Cup.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Rocks
It was one of the best parties I’ve ever attended. Beautiful site, incredible food, aged wine, stimulating, supportive friends. Allan gave the party for Brenda, his wife who turned 60. The focus of course was on Brenda. So I was surprised when Brenda and her friend Nancy came to Jane and me with little gifts. They were in appreciation of our roles in leading a just completed tour to Luther Land in Germany.
One of the gifts was a small rock, nothing more than a pebble. It was picked up at the Wartburg Castle in Germany, the site where Luther was held safe from those who sought to kill him. We had explored that castle, stood where Luther stood, peered in the cubicle that was his home for 9 long months. This little rock spoke to our friends saying, “Take me to Mel and Jane.” They did. It is indeed a precious stone.
Stones have not always seemed so precious to me. When as a young child I dug in the dirt, pesky stones prevented me from digging very deep. When I picked cotton and the knees on which I crawled down the rows landed on a stone it really hurt. Years later I fought a nasty legal action against a corrupt construction company which only took stone from a church/school site instead of leveling the site for construction of the building.
I spent more than 2 years on a church fund-raising effort built upon a Biblical theme of an Old Testament stone set up as an icon for remembering the greatness and goodness of God.
And now this little stone takes on surprising meaning for me. Like Luther, I struggle. Like Luther, I get upset with the institutional church. Like Luther, I feel like hurling things at evil forces. More importantly, like Luther, I find something outside myself to rest upon, to hope upon, to rely upon: a Rock of Ages.
One of the gifts was a small rock, nothing more than a pebble. It was picked up at the Wartburg Castle in Germany, the site where Luther was held safe from those who sought to kill him. We had explored that castle, stood where Luther stood, peered in the cubicle that was his home for 9 long months. This little rock spoke to our friends saying, “Take me to Mel and Jane.” They did. It is indeed a precious stone.
Stones have not always seemed so precious to me. When as a young child I dug in the dirt, pesky stones prevented me from digging very deep. When I picked cotton and the knees on which I crawled down the rows landed on a stone it really hurt. Years later I fought a nasty legal action against a corrupt construction company which only took stone from a church/school site instead of leveling the site for construction of the building.
I spent more than 2 years on a church fund-raising effort built upon a Biblical theme of an Old Testament stone set up as an icon for remembering the greatness and goodness of God.
And now this little stone takes on surprising meaning for me. Like Luther, I struggle. Like Luther, I get upset with the institutional church. Like Luther, I feel like hurling things at evil forces. More importantly, like Luther, I find something outside myself to rest upon, to hope upon, to rely upon: a Rock of Ages.
It Still Hurts
“I’m glad it still hurts,” said Wayne.” He was leading devotions at a Lutheran School Administrators Conference. He was principal of the oldest Lutheran parochial school in America, St. Matthews, Manhattan, New York City. What he was speaking of was his need to fire a teacher. There were plenty of reasons for the dismissal. The teacher was failing. The kids were not being well served. He had tried to help, but to no avail. So he fired the teacher. It hurt both him and the one let go. It was not the first time he had fired someone. Yet we all knew he meant it with all his heart when he said, “I’m glad that it still hurts”. It hurts to end another person’s employment.
It stirred up memories of the times it has been necessary for me to terminate a colleague’s employment. It’s never easy and never more difficult than in my early years in Hong Kong. It was really difficult to find a job in those days. It was often especially difficult for some teachers for they were frequently without documents to prove their education background. They had fled for their lives with only the clothes on their backs. They didn’t always have the remotest chance of carrying their official diplomas and the schools from which they had graduated were now closed by the Communists. The school records were all burned.
However, we had gotten Mr. Wong certified to teach. He was overwhelmed with joy and appreciation. Now he could get off the street. He could feed himself. After a few months he was able to buy a suit to replace the one from the charity bin. However, I soon discovered that he was (in King James language) not apt to teach. There was no classroom discipline. The only method he used was lecture. I observed him often and made suggestions. I had my academic dean try to assist him. It was decided that we would not renew his contract. This would have tragic consequences. In the Chinese idiom, “His rice bowl would be broken.” He would have a very hard time getting another job. His loss of face was overwhelming.
I will never forget the day I had to give him the bad news. It was the right thing to do yet it hurt me to do it. It still hurts. I’m glad it still hurts.
It stirred up memories of the times it has been necessary for me to terminate a colleague’s employment. It’s never easy and never more difficult than in my early years in Hong Kong. It was really difficult to find a job in those days. It was often especially difficult for some teachers for they were frequently without documents to prove their education background. They had fled for their lives with only the clothes on their backs. They didn’t always have the remotest chance of carrying their official diplomas and the schools from which they had graduated were now closed by the Communists. The school records were all burned.
However, we had gotten Mr. Wong certified to teach. He was overwhelmed with joy and appreciation. Now he could get off the street. He could feed himself. After a few months he was able to buy a suit to replace the one from the charity bin. However, I soon discovered that he was (in King James language) not apt to teach. There was no classroom discipline. The only method he used was lecture. I observed him often and made suggestions. I had my academic dean try to assist him. It was decided that we would not renew his contract. This would have tragic consequences. In the Chinese idiom, “His rice bowl would be broken.” He would have a very hard time getting another job. His loss of face was overwhelming.
I will never forget the day I had to give him the bad news. It was the right thing to do yet it hurt me to do it. It still hurts. I’m glad it still hurts.
Brief Encounter – Edith
I hardly knew her, but 25 years later I can still picture her. She was the only English woman in my class of 45 Pakistan parents I was teaching in Karachi. I see her now, sitting on my right, two rows from the back. She seemed to hang onto every word. She engaged in the role-plays with intensity. The topics of active listening and honest self-disclosure seemed to especially to her attention.
On about the third day she spoke with me briefly during a break and asked if we could arrange for a longer interview. Of course. We set that up. When we met she spoke of the importance of being listened to and of the deep pain of not having anyone with whom one can be totally open.
Slowly she poured out her story.; She was one of two wives of a Pakistani gentleman. This was perfectly legal. The other wife was Pakistani. Her husband was kind to her and not like other husbands she knew who beat their wives. He provided for her and even gave her an adequate allowance to purchase personal items. Yet, she said, she was missing something. She knew that she was “number 2 “ in the relationship. She knew that she was never fully accepted into his family. She knew some of her husband’s friends asked him about her and asked some painfully intimate questions about the relationship. She said she could endure all of this.
But what was most difficult for her was that there was no one, absolutely no one with who m she could share her experiences, her thoughts, her feelings., her longings. Nor was there anyone who would just listen without judgment, moralizing, advising, or even blaming. So we talked for a log time and she felt free to release what had been building up in her for more than two decades.
She came to see me again after the last session. She said to me, “There is one place I can express my self. I write poetry. And I collect the poetry of others who share my feelings. I have actually compiled them into a little book of which I have only a very small number. I would like to give you a copy of that book if you would accept it.”
In my retirement I have disposed of almost all of the thousands of books I have owned in my lifetime. The one given to me by Edith I hang on to.
On about the third day she spoke with me briefly during a break and asked if we could arrange for a longer interview. Of course. We set that up. When we met she spoke of the importance of being listened to and of the deep pain of not having anyone with whom one can be totally open.
Slowly she poured out her story.; She was one of two wives of a Pakistani gentleman. This was perfectly legal. The other wife was Pakistani. Her husband was kind to her and not like other husbands she knew who beat their wives. He provided for her and even gave her an adequate allowance to purchase personal items. Yet, she said, she was missing something. She knew that she was “number 2 “ in the relationship. She knew that she was never fully accepted into his family. She knew some of her husband’s friends asked him about her and asked some painfully intimate questions about the relationship. She said she could endure all of this.
But what was most difficult for her was that there was no one, absolutely no one with who m she could share her experiences, her thoughts, her feelings., her longings. Nor was there anyone who would just listen without judgment, moralizing, advising, or even blaming. So we talked for a log time and she felt free to release what had been building up in her for more than two decades.
She came to see me again after the last session. She said to me, “There is one place I can express my self. I write poetry. And I collect the poetry of others who share my feelings. I have actually compiled them into a little book of which I have only a very small number. I would like to give you a copy of that book if you would accept it.”
In my retirement I have disposed of almost all of the thousands of books I have owned in my lifetime. The one given to me by Edith I hang on to.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Bars
I was six years old. Prohibition had just ended. I walked into that small Texas town saloon with eyes wide open, my nose sniffing the new smells, my ears hearing the debate as to whether this 15 cent bottle of bought beer was really better than home brew. I eyed the muddy boots, the Oshkosh overalls, the sweated Stetsons. The barkeeper behind the simple bar wore a white half-apron drooping from his waist. The dominoes clicked. The language became guarded as we entered because my father who brought me there was the principal of the local parochial school and had taught them all. Even in that saloon I knew he was probably the most respected man in the community. He bought a beer for himself. Then he slid over a nickel for a big bottle of red strawberry soda pop for me. I had been introduced to the world of bars, saloons, pubs, lounges.
My Uncle Otto was in town, staying in a big fancy hotel in the downtown loop of Chicago. He had invited me, a college freshman in suburban River Forest to come see him. When I arrived he invited me to join him in the bar. He said he would buy me a beer. “Buy me a beer… - but I’m not of legal age”, I thought. But he took me in. We sat in a booth. He ordered 2 beers. But I’ll never forget it. What surprised me was not that the waiter never questioned my age, but that he asked for $2.00. “That’s a dollar a bottle!” my mind screamed. I had never in my life heard of a beer costing more than a quarter. It was one of the memorable beers of my life.
I either was 21 years of age or at least appeared to be. I sat in a dark midwestern neighborhood tavern, in a high wood-paneled booth. I was there with my new girl friend Jane. I ordered her a bourbon and 7-up. We looked into each other’s eyes. We held hands. We sipped our drinks. We swam in our love.
I had tipped the maitre d’ generously and he had come through. Immediately he led us to a choice table. We were at the Windows of the World cocktail lounge at the top of Tower II of the World Trade Center in New York. The table was right next to the window. The view of New York on this beautiful day stretched magnificently below us. I ordered a bottle of good wine. It was great to be in New York. Wonderful to be with a wife and a sister I loved. Perfect to be in the best seat at the best bar in New York. All was well with the world.
Nevermore!
My Uncle Otto was in town, staying in a big fancy hotel in the downtown loop of Chicago. He had invited me, a college freshman in suburban River Forest to come see him. When I arrived he invited me to join him in the bar. He said he would buy me a beer. “Buy me a beer… - but I’m not of legal age”, I thought. But he took me in. We sat in a booth. He ordered 2 beers. But I’ll never forget it. What surprised me was not that the waiter never questioned my age, but that he asked for $2.00. “That’s a dollar a bottle!” my mind screamed. I had never in my life heard of a beer costing more than a quarter. It was one of the memorable beers of my life.
I either was 21 years of age or at least appeared to be. I sat in a dark midwestern neighborhood tavern, in a high wood-paneled booth. I was there with my new girl friend Jane. I ordered her a bourbon and 7-up. We looked into each other’s eyes. We held hands. We sipped our drinks. We swam in our love.
I had tipped the maitre d’ generously and he had come through. Immediately he led us to a choice table. We were at the Windows of the World cocktail lounge at the top of Tower II of the World Trade Center in New York. The table was right next to the window. The view of New York on this beautiful day stretched magnificently below us. I ordered a bottle of good wine. It was great to be in New York. Wonderful to be with a wife and a sister I loved. Perfect to be in the best seat at the best bar in New York. All was well with the world.
Nevermore!
9/11
9/11
The date is September 11, 2001. It’s 9:30 p.m. and I have just left a dinner at the American Club in Hong Kong. I was the honored guest of the Alumni Association of Concordia Lutheran School, Kowloon. It has been a wonderful evening of memories, laughter and hope.
A car and driver had been sent to pick me up and return me to my hotel. The driver is obviously agitated, paying very close attention to the car radio. My Cantonese is surely not what it used to be, so I don’t catch all of what he and the radio are announcing. But I do get the message than at airplane has hit a building in New York. I do understand enough Cantonese to know that the driver keeps repeating, “This is terrible, terrible!”
I rush to my hotel room. Worldwide CNN is there live to air the tragedy. Like millions all over the world I watch in horror as the second plane hits, the twin towers collapse. Throughout the night I watch in sadness, horror and anger.
In light of the indescribably terrible consequences so many experienced, because of this tragedy, my messed up plans, cancelled flights and delayed trip home, of course, amount to nothing. Further, in view of all the sadness so many endured because of this tragedy, my own memories of the World Trade Center amount to nothing.
Yet for each one of us, our memories are personal. And mine of the World Trade Center are all wonderful. I loved the bar at the top at the Windows of the World restaurant. It was a “must stop visit” with any relatives and friends who came to see us in New York. There was a the private club on that same floor at which Jane and I (and a host of private donors) arranged for an appreciation luncheon for all Lutheran School principals of the metro New York area. For all those urban principals this was their first experience in the marvelous exclusive setting. It was on the 98th floor of the other tower where I had conducted workshops for the staff of an international bank. It was in the basement where we always found parking to explore so much of what those towers offered.
Now all that made up the physical components of that center has been pulverized, melted, or carted to a dump on Staten Island. As I write this more 8 years since that fateful day, the whole world continues to weep, to cope and dares to hope.
The date is September 11, 2001. It’s 9:30 p.m. and I have just left a dinner at the American Club in Hong Kong. I was the honored guest of the Alumni Association of Concordia Lutheran School, Kowloon. It has been a wonderful evening of memories, laughter and hope.
A car and driver had been sent to pick me up and return me to my hotel. The driver is obviously agitated, paying very close attention to the car radio. My Cantonese is surely not what it used to be, so I don’t catch all of what he and the radio are announcing. But I do get the message than at airplane has hit a building in New York. I do understand enough Cantonese to know that the driver keeps repeating, “This is terrible, terrible!”
I rush to my hotel room. Worldwide CNN is there live to air the tragedy. Like millions all over the world I watch in horror as the second plane hits, the twin towers collapse. Throughout the night I watch in sadness, horror and anger.
In light of the indescribably terrible consequences so many experienced, because of this tragedy, my messed up plans, cancelled flights and delayed trip home, of course, amount to nothing. Further, in view of all the sadness so many endured because of this tragedy, my own memories of the World Trade Center amount to nothing.
Yet for each one of us, our memories are personal. And mine of the World Trade Center are all wonderful. I loved the bar at the top at the Windows of the World restaurant. It was a “must stop visit” with any relatives and friends who came to see us in New York. There was a the private club on that same floor at which Jane and I (and a host of private donors) arranged for an appreciation luncheon for all Lutheran School principals of the metro New York area. For all those urban principals this was their first experience in the marvelous exclusive setting. It was on the 98th floor of the other tower where I had conducted workshops for the staff of an international bank. It was in the basement where we always found parking to explore so much of what those towers offered.
Now all that made up the physical components of that center has been pulverized, melted, or carted to a dump on Staten Island. As I write this more 8 years since that fateful day, the whole world continues to weep, to cope and dares to hope.
The Benefits of Gin and Tonic
The Building Committee of the Lutheran Church of Hong Kong for which I served as chair made a mistake. We hired a construction contractor to do the site formation for Saviour Lutheran Church and School on Tai Po Road. He was a fraud on many counts. I did not know that when we had the first of many “unfortunate incidents”. He was blasting away a rock hillside to create the level building plot. He had erected a huge bamboo screen to contain the blasted rock. Then one day he used entirely too much explosives. One of the rocks flew over the screen. It landed on and shattered the front windshield of the Rolls Royce parked there. The owner: The Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Supreme Court.
By the next morning I had the official notice from Crown Lands. “All site formation at said site is herewith terminated until further notice.”
I knew that I did not have a strong case when I went in to make my appeal for another chance. For over a month all work on that site was suspended.
Through the kindness of the Director of Kodak International, a wonderful Lutheran layman from the USA, I had been accepted into associate membership in the exclusive Royal Hong Kong Golf Club and I regularly made use of that privilege.
Since only British citizens had the right to full membership, we associate members did not always interact with those with higher status. But one day after a round of golf one of “them” invited me to join him on the veranda. I offered to buy the first round. We made our introductions. When he learned of my work with Lutheran schools he asked me if I had any connection with that new building planned for the Tai Po Rd site next to the new court building. I confessed that I did indeed have some responsibility. He informed me that he was the person responsible for all blasting permits in Hong Kong. His next sentence was unequivocal “Well, blasting at that school site will continue on exactly the same day hell freezes over !” I hastily ordered another round of gin and tonics which I offered as apology for his having to deal with a very upset judge.
And so we commiserated: my problems with greedy contractors, my deep desire to get that school built and open for the poor children of the community and his having to respond to people living near construction sites and all their unreasonable objections and complaints. One more round of gin and tonics and we might be able to endure!
Exactly ten days later I received the registered letter on official crown stationery. “The blasting permit for the site on Tai Po Road is herewith immediately reissued.”
By the next morning I had the official notice from Crown Lands. “All site formation at said site is herewith terminated until further notice.”
I knew that I did not have a strong case when I went in to make my appeal for another chance. For over a month all work on that site was suspended.
Through the kindness of the Director of Kodak International, a wonderful Lutheran layman from the USA, I had been accepted into associate membership in the exclusive Royal Hong Kong Golf Club and I regularly made use of that privilege.
Since only British citizens had the right to full membership, we associate members did not always interact with those with higher status. But one day after a round of golf one of “them” invited me to join him on the veranda. I offered to buy the first round. We made our introductions. When he learned of my work with Lutheran schools he asked me if I had any connection with that new building planned for the Tai Po Rd site next to the new court building. I confessed that I did indeed have some responsibility. He informed me that he was the person responsible for all blasting permits in Hong Kong. His next sentence was unequivocal “Well, blasting at that school site will continue on exactly the same day hell freezes over !” I hastily ordered another round of gin and tonics which I offered as apology for his having to deal with a very upset judge.
And so we commiserated: my problems with greedy contractors, my deep desire to get that school built and open for the poor children of the community and his having to respond to people living near construction sites and all their unreasonable objections and complaints. One more round of gin and tonics and we might be able to endure!
Exactly ten days later I received the registered letter on official crown stationery. “The blasting permit for the site on Tai Po Road is herewith immediately reissued.”
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Retirement
Sometimes I think I ended up as head of Lutheran Education for a major Lutheran denomination as a result of a fluke. For a very brief period (before it was ruled to be illegal age discrimination) the Church had a rule that heads of major departments had mandatory retirement at 65. My predecessor, Dr. Arthur Miller, got caught by that rule and entered forced retirement, the only officer ever required to do that.
One of the saddest moments of my stint as his successor was when he came to see me not long after I assumed office. He told me that he had taken a new job. He was going to be a door to door salesman peddling encyclopedias.
I saw (and still see) this as a tragedy Art was a man of great passion for Christian education. He himself earned a Ph.D. when few professional church workers made that choice. What he lacked in personal charm or charisma he made up with meticulous attention to detail, astute management of budget, surprising skill at getting larger fiscal appropriations for his department and great ability at hiring and supporting very competent staff.
And for that he ended up knocking on doors, selling books on credit.
Out of that came a personal resolve. I would retire at 65 by my own choice, not by bureaucratic rules. I would manage my finances so that we would not feel impoverished. In retirement I would pursue interests congruent with my skills and values.
That is how I planned to retire. That is how I have done it now - many times.
One of the saddest moments of my stint as his successor was when he came to see me not long after I assumed office. He told me that he had taken a new job. He was going to be a door to door salesman peddling encyclopedias.
I saw (and still see) this as a tragedy Art was a man of great passion for Christian education. He himself earned a Ph.D. when few professional church workers made that choice. What he lacked in personal charm or charisma he made up with meticulous attention to detail, astute management of budget, surprising skill at getting larger fiscal appropriations for his department and great ability at hiring and supporting very competent staff.
And for that he ended up knocking on doors, selling books on credit.
Out of that came a personal resolve. I would retire at 65 by my own choice, not by bureaucratic rules. I would manage my finances so that we would not feel impoverished. In retirement I would pursue interests congruent with my skills and values.
That is how I planned to retire. That is how I have done it now - many times.
More Than A Sex Symbol
I regret that I recall neither her name nor the name of her son. But I do know that the boy was a student in the first grade and that I was his teacher. The boy’s tuition was being paid by an elderly woman from our church who was the landlady for the woman and her son.
I remember what the mother looked like. She was stunning. Tall, slim, well endowed, long flowing hair. She was a Southern California carhop, a waitress at a drive-in. She came to the cars to take and deliver food and drink orders. Her scanty halter-top uniform, I’m sure, helped her generate generous tips.
It may have been because she was not home in the evening to assist her son with homework or it may have been something else. For whatever reason, he was not doing well and it was time for a parent-teacher conference.
We met in the principal’s office and discussed the issue. I soon learned how much she loved her son and was saddened by his slow progress. She really wanted the best for him. She wanted to be a good mother. We discussed a variety of options. I assured her that her efforts would bear fruit.
As we came to the end of the interview she thanked me. Then tears suddenly began to roll down her cheeks. She looked across the desk at me and said, “Thank you. You must know that no man in my whole life has ever talked to me in this way.”
It was probably an exaggeration, but I got the message. No human wants to be deemed merely an object, or symbol. We all yearn to be accepted as being more than a title, just someone’s spouse, someone who’s rich or poor, or any other symbol. “See the me who’s a real person” is the plea of us all.
I remember what the mother looked like. She was stunning. Tall, slim, well endowed, long flowing hair. She was a Southern California carhop, a waitress at a drive-in. She came to the cars to take and deliver food and drink orders. Her scanty halter-top uniform, I’m sure, helped her generate generous tips.
It may have been because she was not home in the evening to assist her son with homework or it may have been something else. For whatever reason, he was not doing well and it was time for a parent-teacher conference.
We met in the principal’s office and discussed the issue. I soon learned how much she loved her son and was saddened by his slow progress. She really wanted the best for him. She wanted to be a good mother. We discussed a variety of options. I assured her that her efforts would bear fruit.
As we came to the end of the interview she thanked me. Then tears suddenly began to roll down her cheeks. She looked across the desk at me and said, “Thank you. You must know that no man in my whole life has ever talked to me in this way.”
It was probably an exaggeration, but I got the message. No human wants to be deemed merely an object, or symbol. We all yearn to be accepted as being more than a title, just someone’s spouse, someone who’s rich or poor, or any other symbol. “See the me who’s a real person” is the plea of us all.
Little League-1930’s Style
Like more than 50% of the television viewers in San Diego I spent time last weekend watching the Little League World Series. The team from Chula Vista just down the road from where I live won it. I admit I had a bit of mixed emotions knowing whom to root for. As an American and Californian I wanted to be loyal to my own country and area. But I also had a heart for the Taiwanese. I am forever grateful for all that my Chinese friends have taught me and just this last year my 11-year-old grandson had spent the year in Taiwan where he really fell in love with baseball and caught that country’s baseball fever. In the end the locals won and I joined in the celebration!
In the process I recalled my baseball life when I was around 10. There was no Little League in Texas in the 1930’s (at least not out in the country where I was growing up). In fact, I remember no structured programs of sports for kids. So we created our own. At school we went to the pasture just outside the schoolyard. We put in the bases and played at school and else where, wherever and whenever. When a group of more than 4 gathered we quickly choose up sides (after flipping a bat to see who chose first) and then went at it. We were our own umpires and we set the local ground rules. At school we played before school, at recess and noon hour (which now in memory I am sure the teachers extended so that each team got to bat at least once). Equipment was minimal. One good ball was a luxury. I remember being a hero. I had codgered relatives and friends until I had 20 tops of Post Toasties cereal boxes. Sent them off. Four weeks later the prize arrived: a brand new 12-inch in-seam softball. To this day I recall taking it to school where it was passed around to all the guy, our first experience of actually handling a brand-new never been hit softball!
Competition was limited. My memory is that we were allowed about 4 games a year, two each against the nearest public schools (in Walburg and Jonah). Being a Lutheran school we were not allowed to play against the local Catholic school. I don’t know which of us feared spiritual contamination more! Forever etched in memory is the day my mom and dad took me to a very rare dentist appointment on the very day we played and I missed the game. I was convinced that my replacement at shortsto,p Wimpy Kalmbach would lose the game for us. I regret to report that after the game when I returned from the dentist it was reported that Wimpy had played very well and in fact made one spectacular put-out. To my shame. I was kind of sad to hear of this threat to my position.
Fantasy often replaced formal opportunity. Sunday afternoon after Sunday afternoon found the two us together: Skippy Mertink and me. We played fantasy big league baseball. The batter stood in front of the barn. The pitcher out toward the barb-wired fence. Singles, doubles and homeruns were carefully delineated by benchmarks. The pitcher was also the radio announcer. Since there were only 2 major leagues with only 8 teams in each league we knew by heart the line-up for each team. Sunday after Sunday we assumed the identity of both player and announcer: the names keep coming back: Bucky Walters, Red Ruffling. Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean, Carl Hubbel - throwing strikes and fastballs at Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig. Jimmy Foxx, Mel Ott, the whole lot ! My blood flows more quickly just remembering it.
So now we have tee ball, Pony League and Little League etc.etc. There are managers, uniforms, and umpires, and water coolers and new balls and aluminum bats and away games and playoffs - even Little League World Series! Great! I am glad our kids have them all. And sometimes this old man would love to see a group of kids just creating their own field, choosing sides and then going at all on their own until the sun goes down!
Friday, August 21, 2009
A Time To Speak
We had moved through “Jingle Bells” to “Let It Snow” to “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Then it was my turn to speak. I was the president of the student body and so was invited to give the devotion/homily/speech, whatever one wants to call it.
So I spoke on “Let us go to Bethlehem.” We were going home and that was great. We were going to be among those who loved us and that was wonderful. I suggested that all of this was part of going to Bethlehem, to the crèche, to the place where we meet anew the infant Jesus, to the place where angels assure us that this is where acceptance, hope and love abound.
The speech worked. Since all in that room were preparing for public ministry with the Lutheran church, most were touched at a deep spiritual level of the meaning of their life.
It was a great time to speak.
Since then I have spoken to a hundred (maybe more than a thousand) different audiences in settings as varied as convention centers in New York City to the tiny chapel of the Baptistery of Lydia in Greece. Every once in a while it all worked.
The crowded low-ceilinged meeting room was in a Colorado Springs hotel. It was the 60’s and Lutheran schools shared in the upheaval. Young and old were questioning institutions, even schooling itself. I spoke to some 300 teachers in the schools of the “4-corners” area. My theme was “The Church That meets in Your Classroom.” I reminded those teachers that their classroom met all the criteria of church: the Gospel was shared, faith united the community, and the demons of ignorance, racism, and sexism were being exorcised. Miracles like learning to read and write were happening every day. And each teacher was the minister in that classroom that God used to make it all possible. The addressed worked. It was a time to speak.
Every once in a while the magic occurred. Speaker and audience reacted in unison. Thoughts were stimulated. Emotions were evoked. Hope and promise seemed real.
Of course, sometimes it just didn’t work. (See “A Time To Keep Silent). Sometimes it was just another speech. But when it all came together it reassured me that even in the age of multi-media there are still occasions when the best communication occurs because “It is the time to speak
A Time To Keep Silent
In later years I realized that I should have taken it as a warning. Sometimes I have made speeches when I really should have chosen silence.
A rather fundamentalist congregation was sponsoring a weeklong revival. I was asked to speak on “the Battleground for the Gospel”. I knew what they wanted: Warnings against secular humanism in public schools, The shame of removing posters of the Ten Commandments in southern courtrooms, The threat of radical feminism, free condom or drug needles distribution. I chose another route.
I suggested that the real “Battleground for the Gospel” lay deep within the heart of each one of us. Our struggles between knowing the good, but not doing it. The continuing wish to earn God’s favor in place of freely accepting grace. The constant seeing of the speck in my neighbor’s eye, ignoring the beam in my own.
As I spoke, the usual “Amens” were very sparse. “Tell us brother” was not to be heard. At the end of the day I decided that I should have suggested a different speaker while I remained silent.
The event was a national conference of construction workers and spouses. It was in a very fancy Hollywood Hotel. I was scheduled to speak at a 3:30 p.m. sectional on effective parenting. Attendees there were hoping to forget their children for a few days. Vender hospitality suites next door were stocking their bars. My audience had one goal: Get out of here. Let the good times roll. Effective parenting - well, I’ll think about that when I get home. I should have chosen silence.
Not just a lecture, but a whole course. I was asked to teach General Psychology to a class in a seminary. Two problems: I was to teach it in Cantonese (even after 6 years in Hong Kong, teaching a psychology course in Chinese was not to be recommended.) the second problem: The only psychology texts available in Chinese were translations from Russian behaviorists, hardly the best grounding for future Lutheran pastors. The students (at least outwardly) were marvelously patient. I was terrible. I should have remained silent.
There is one whole class of speaking opportunities that has no equal. Give a lecture, conduct a workshop or lead a seminar. Do it for a faculty that is required to attend. Speak at the close of the school day on a Friday afternoon in any (especially urban) school in America. Forget about it. Stay silent.
The ancient writer had it so right, “There is a time to speak and a time to remain silent.” Why is that silent part so hard to put into practice?
Pharaohs Who Know Not Joseph
This forgetful Pharaoh made the Jews his slaves and in the end he lost them all and even lost his own son. All because he failed to remember Joseph.
The story is repeated straight up to this morning. It is called "loss of institutional memory". Others call it forgetting one’s roots. Still others find it demeaning to admit that they stand on another’s shoulders. Some talk blithely about that was then, this is now and it is time to move on - now!
I just returned from my annual family reunion. My niece and her family orchestrated it wonderfully. She was determined to be a female Pharaoh who remembered Joseph and Joseph’s queen and so our parents were recalled in gratitude and appreciation.
On the other hand, I have seen schools and congregations currently led by Pharaohs who do not remember anyone named Joseph. There is no acknowledgment of those who have gone before. That is why (even before I was in my 80”s) I believed in celebrating the anniversaries of institutions. The early Josephs and their female counterparts not only deserve to be remembered but also they are forgotten at the peril of the current power wielders.
Citizens can all too easily enjoy the freedoms, life style and opportunities of the present while all too off-handedly dismissing those who whose efforts, sacrifice and even life blood makes it possible for them to have the blessings currently enjoyed. Of course I read Kibrahn’s “The Prophet” and agree with him that “life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday”. However, I cringe at the all too true joke that the most commonly passed resolution at the annual meeting of the congregation at which I grew up was the one that ended with “therefore be it resolved that we stick with the old!” Of course we move on. But we also remember Joseph and if he is around we consult with him and his sisters, we stand on those shoulders and then see new vistas and dream new dreams and even celebrate new paradigms.
Now I must run and have a long talk with an elderly friend names Joseph!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Energy
I am screaming my lungs out, all caught up in the frenzy of the crowd. I’m at Shea Stadium. It’s the bottom of the tenth in the 1986 World Series. The slow grounder off the bat of Mookie Wilson has just gone through the legs of Red Sox first baseman Allan Buchner and we win! Mets win! Mets win! We don’t want to leave the stadium. We are all friends. We are all exultant. It doesn’t get any better than this.
I am walking as fast as I can, being jostled, pushed, propelled out of the mouth of the tunnel from the subway. I am being carried on the motion of the crowd of thousands right into the heart of Tian An Men Square in Beijing, China. It is June 4, 1989. Everyone is hopeful, ecstatic, that reform is coming to Communist China. People talk to me in Mandarin whether I understand them or not. Music blares. Flags fly. Arms hug. Youths exult. Elderly contemplate. I am part of a sea, the crest of a wave, moving in concert with a sea of humanity toward the shore of freedom.
The city swoops me up into her arms and carries me from midtown to downtown. It’s the Centennial Celebration of the Statue of Liberty and we are all celebrating it in the pulsating heart of Manhattan. People are everywhere. They are eating, singing, brake-dancing. There is reggae and salsa and military marches. Kids wear Statue of Liberty head decorations. Adults wave American flags. Even dogs are attired in red, white and blue. The people sweep me along, all the way across from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Bridge. Later in the darkness sirens howl, spectacular fireworks explode, laser beams shoot up into the sky. There is massive motion and no violence. There is brotherhood and sisterhood among people of every color, multiple dress styles, uncountable different languages. All are celebrating and I am part of it. This is the celebration of the open arms of America, land that I love!
Hang on, little Peggy. Let’s hold hands tightly so we don’t get separated. We are once again a part of that happy company of crowd-loving Chinese going down the ramp of the Star Ferry to cross from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. The signs warn, “Watch out for pick-pockets” so we are careful, but not so careful as to detract from the pure exhilaration of being a part of the crowd, a connected piece of humanity, a couple of cells in the body of all God’s people.
Crowds can do this to me! They give me energy, synergy, life!
I am walking as fast as I can, being jostled, pushed, propelled out of the mouth of the tunnel from the subway. I am being carried on the motion of the crowd of thousands right into the heart of Tian An Men Square in Beijing, China. It is June 4, 1989. Everyone is hopeful, ecstatic, that reform is coming to Communist China. People talk to me in Mandarin whether I understand them or not. Music blares. Flags fly. Arms hug. Youths exult. Elderly contemplate. I am part of a sea, the crest of a wave, moving in concert with a sea of humanity toward the shore of freedom.
The city swoops me up into her arms and carries me from midtown to downtown. It’s the Centennial Celebration of the Statue of Liberty and we are all celebrating it in the pulsating heart of Manhattan. People are everywhere. They are eating, singing, brake-dancing. There is reggae and salsa and military marches. Kids wear Statue of Liberty head decorations. Adults wave American flags. Even dogs are attired in red, white and blue. The people sweep me along, all the way across from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Bridge. Later in the darkness sirens howl, spectacular fireworks explode, laser beams shoot up into the sky. There is massive motion and no violence. There is brotherhood and sisterhood among people of every color, multiple dress styles, uncountable different languages. All are celebrating and I am part of it. This is the celebration of the open arms of America, land that I love!
Hang on, little Peggy. Let’s hold hands tightly so we don’t get separated. We are once again a part of that happy company of crowd-loving Chinese going down the ramp of the Star Ferry to cross from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. The signs warn, “Watch out for pick-pockets” so we are careful, but not so careful as to detract from the pure exhilaration of being a part of the crowd, a connected piece of humanity, a couple of cells in the body of all God’s people.
Crowds can do this to me! They give me energy, synergy, life!
Praying
It was on a quiet hill called Tao Fung Shan (the mountain of the wind of the way). Behind me Hong Kong swarmed with tens of thousands of desperately poor street-dwelling refugees. In front of me lay Mao’s China where as many as 3 million were starving because of his misguided Great Leap Forward. Around me were the young restless teenagers facing a most uncertain future. We sat under a naked white cross inscribed with only two black Chinese characters pronounced, “sing leo” meaning “It is finished.” I prayed for the terrible past to be finished, the unsettling present to be handled, and that the future to be open. The voiced ‘Ah-moon” of us all, the end of the prayer, came from deep within and floated heavenward in doubt, faith and hope.
The auditorium in Disney Land was still tense. Among the 2000 there, some were anxious. Some rejoiced. Others feared. Some threatened. Some cursed. It was the end of an exceedingly stormy session of a large churchwide convention. All day in the name of God people had fought like the devil. I had been asked to lead the closing prayer at the end of the day. So I began, “Dear God, those of your children called the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have kept you very busy today...”
The other passengers were already off the plane at the Lincoln Nebraska airport. Only my seatmate whom I had met an hour earlier and I remained. She was not sure she had the courage to get off the plane to face her father. She planned to inform him, a Lutheran pastor, that she had filed for divorce. She feared her father would be angry, disown her, damn her to hell; or maybe ... understand, forgive, support. While the flight attendant waited I held her folded hands in mine and we prayed.
Only two of us stood before the simple altar in the chapel at Maxwell Air Force Base where I was conducting a weeklong workshop for military chaplains. The Jewish chaplain and I were the only ones in the room. He had invited me to come with him as he prayed. Yesterday I had been in the much larger Catholic Chapel where the Catholic chaplains had violated official policy and had invited me (a non-Catholic) to share with them the sacred elements of the holy mass. And just two days previous some 20 of us had held hands surrounding the altar of the Protestant Chapel where together we prayed saying, “Our Father in heaven”.
The eyes of all wait upon you, oh Lord.
The auditorium in Disney Land was still tense. Among the 2000 there, some were anxious. Some rejoiced. Others feared. Some threatened. Some cursed. It was the end of an exceedingly stormy session of a large churchwide convention. All day in the name of God people had fought like the devil. I had been asked to lead the closing prayer at the end of the day. So I began, “Dear God, those of your children called the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have kept you very busy today...”
The other passengers were already off the plane at the Lincoln Nebraska airport. Only my seatmate whom I had met an hour earlier and I remained. She was not sure she had the courage to get off the plane to face her father. She planned to inform him, a Lutheran pastor, that she had filed for divorce. She feared her father would be angry, disown her, damn her to hell; or maybe ... understand, forgive, support. While the flight attendant waited I held her folded hands in mine and we prayed.
Only two of us stood before the simple altar in the chapel at Maxwell Air Force Base where I was conducting a weeklong workshop for military chaplains. The Jewish chaplain and I were the only ones in the room. He had invited me to come with him as he prayed. Yesterday I had been in the much larger Catholic Chapel where the Catholic chaplains had violated official policy and had invited me (a non-Catholic) to share with them the sacred elements of the holy mass. And just two days previous some 20 of us had held hands surrounding the altar of the Protestant Chapel where together we prayed saying, “Our Father in heaven”.
The eyes of all wait upon you, oh Lord.
Church Picnic Softball
Last Sunday my church once again sponsored Sunday Church Picnic in the Park. It was wonderful. Lots of hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salads, homemade cakes and cookies. The fellowship was great. Persons of all ages milled around together enjoying a gorgeous day.
After the meal there was the usual: putting contest, hula hoops, water balloon toss. The works. Then came the announcement,”Time for the softball game. Get you glove, bat and balls and let’s head for the ball field.”
It was at that point that I hesitated. Should I join in? I remembered our last church picnic softball game, now some ten years ago. Of course I was younger then, only 71 and anxious to get into the game. First came the matter of choosing teams. One chooser was a middle aged softballer, the other an eager teen-ager. By turn they made their selection. Almost all had been selected when it hit me. ”Hey, I haven’t been picked “. This was a pretty new experience for me. I used to be always among the first ones picked. I felt a tinge of rejection.
Finally all had been chosen, all except me, that is. Then to add injury to insult the middle aged guy said to the kid, “Why don’t you just take Mel?” The reply, “No, that’s okay. You take him” So I joined my team in the field. Naturally I was assigned short right field.
When it came my turn at bat I was ready. I rejoiced as I belted a single through the infield. I admit it was not a screamer, but I was safely on base. The next batter hit a slow roller. I was not about to be doubled off at second. I took off with every ounce of energy my legs could generate. About half way between first and second it happened. I felt my hamstring snap. I fell to the ground. I was assisted off the field. I watched the rest of the game in silence trying not to show any pain. It was the first time in all of my life that I declared a church picnic a disaster.
That was why I hesitated last Sunday about joining in the game. I made the right decision. I wished my fellow congregants well. I went home and watched the Padres lose on television.
After the meal there was the usual: putting contest, hula hoops, water balloon toss. The works. Then came the announcement,”Time for the softball game. Get you glove, bat and balls and let’s head for the ball field.”
It was at that point that I hesitated. Should I join in? I remembered our last church picnic softball game, now some ten years ago. Of course I was younger then, only 71 and anxious to get into the game. First came the matter of choosing teams. One chooser was a middle aged softballer, the other an eager teen-ager. By turn they made their selection. Almost all had been selected when it hit me. ”Hey, I haven’t been picked “. This was a pretty new experience for me. I used to be always among the first ones picked. I felt a tinge of rejection.
Finally all had been chosen, all except me, that is. Then to add injury to insult the middle aged guy said to the kid, “Why don’t you just take Mel?” The reply, “No, that’s okay. You take him” So I joined my team in the field. Naturally I was assigned short right field.
When it came my turn at bat I was ready. I rejoiced as I belted a single through the infield. I admit it was not a screamer, but I was safely on base. The next batter hit a slow roller. I was not about to be doubled off at second. I took off with every ounce of energy my legs could generate. About half way between first and second it happened. I felt my hamstring snap. I fell to the ground. I was assisted off the field. I watched the rest of the game in silence trying not to show any pain. It was the first time in all of my life that I declared a church picnic a disaster.
That was why I hesitated last Sunday about joining in the game. I made the right decision. I wished my fellow congregants well. I went home and watched the Padres lose on television.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Trying to Teach a Pig to Fly
In the late 1940’s the national Lutheran body of which I was a member had an unshakable conviction (which had nothing to do with theology). It believed that every person whom it certified as a recognized rostered member of the teaching ministry could be taught to play a keyboard instrument, if not a pipe organ, at least a piano.
I was brought into that system when I entered the ministerial preparatory school at the age of 13. I was assigned a piano teacher. Mr. Bentrup was his name. He showed me how to curve my wrists over the keyboard. He assigned music with no sharps or flats. He reserved for me specific practice pianos at designated practice times. He encouraged me. He threatened me. He praised me. Once he even slapped my hand. Finally, he gave up. He thought the solution was to get me a different teacher, a woman.
Ms. Schneider was wonderful. She seemed especially young and attractive as one of only 2 female teachers on an otherwise all-male faculty for the all-boys prep school. She was wonderful to me, supportive, kind, affirming, appropriately confrontive, patient. And when, after 3 years I graduated from that prep school she was at the ceremonies thanking God, I am sure, that she no longer had me as a student.
Post-prep school meant university in the Midwest. The doctrine was still believed, “All certified teaching ministers will be able to play a keyboard.” The elderly piano teacher assigned me had been at it for some 40 years. After a few months of disastrous piano lessons, she came up with the brilliant solution. She recommended that I try to qualify for pipe organ lessons. For weeks she had me do one simple piano piece in preparation for the placement test. I actually got through it. But at the placement test I was asked to sight-read a piano number. It could have been written in Sanskrit instead of music notes and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
The results of the placement tests were announced: Promoted and qualified for pipe organ instruction: Melvin Kieschnick.
I’ll spare the details. I was assigned to an outstanding organist whose compositions are still being played in church services all over the world. We came to an accommodation. The student who had her lesson just before mine would get 50 minutes instruction instead of 30 and so there were only 10 minutes left for me. I learned how to turn on the organ, clumsily move my feet across the foot pedals, and push the stops to get a trumpet effect - and all of this in only 3 academic years. It was conveniently agreed that no grade on instrumental music would ever appear on my transcript and I was graduated and certified for the teaching ministry of the Lutheran church.
I really do love music. I married a woman who was outstanding on the pipe organ and still plays marvelously on the piano. But as for me, the closest I’ve come to being an accompanist was a surprise tribute from a wonderful Christian couple. They donated a marvelous grand piano to our congregation. The inscription says simply, “Donated by an anonymous couple in recognition of the ministries of Mel and Jane Kieschnick.” And that’s as close to a keyboard as anyone will ever permit me to go,
I was brought into that system when I entered the ministerial preparatory school at the age of 13. I was assigned a piano teacher. Mr. Bentrup was his name. He showed me how to curve my wrists over the keyboard. He assigned music with no sharps or flats. He reserved for me specific practice pianos at designated practice times. He encouraged me. He threatened me. He praised me. Once he even slapped my hand. Finally, he gave up. He thought the solution was to get me a different teacher, a woman.
Ms. Schneider was wonderful. She seemed especially young and attractive as one of only 2 female teachers on an otherwise all-male faculty for the all-boys prep school. She was wonderful to me, supportive, kind, affirming, appropriately confrontive, patient. And when, after 3 years I graduated from that prep school she was at the ceremonies thanking God, I am sure, that she no longer had me as a student.
Post-prep school meant university in the Midwest. The doctrine was still believed, “All certified teaching ministers will be able to play a keyboard.” The elderly piano teacher assigned me had been at it for some 40 years. After a few months of disastrous piano lessons, she came up with the brilliant solution. She recommended that I try to qualify for pipe organ lessons. For weeks she had me do one simple piano piece in preparation for the placement test. I actually got through it. But at the placement test I was asked to sight-read a piano number. It could have been written in Sanskrit instead of music notes and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
The results of the placement tests were announced: Promoted and qualified for pipe organ instruction: Melvin Kieschnick.
I’ll spare the details. I was assigned to an outstanding organist whose compositions are still being played in church services all over the world. We came to an accommodation. The student who had her lesson just before mine would get 50 minutes instruction instead of 30 and so there were only 10 minutes left for me. I learned how to turn on the organ, clumsily move my feet across the foot pedals, and push the stops to get a trumpet effect - and all of this in only 3 academic years. It was conveniently agreed that no grade on instrumental music would ever appear on my transcript and I was graduated and certified for the teaching ministry of the Lutheran church.
I really do love music. I married a woman who was outstanding on the pipe organ and still plays marvelously on the piano. But as for me, the closest I’ve come to being an accompanist was a surprise tribute from a wonderful Christian couple. They donated a marvelous grand piano to our congregation. The inscription says simply, “Donated by an anonymous couple in recognition of the ministries of Mel and Jane Kieschnick.” And that’s as close to a keyboard as anyone will ever permit me to go,
Farewell
I am in the hospital in San Antonio visiting my ill father for the last time before my wife and I return to our home in California - and for the last time before he returned home to the arms of God who first gave him life. My siblings who saw him daily had told me that the cancer seemed to be “in its final stages.” Yet I was shocked at his gaunt appearance. It was hard to see my father so weak. He had always been for me the very epitome of strength: of body, spirit, faith, integrity.
While his body was weak, his mind was sharp. So we spoke of love, of family, of the church, of God, of hope. In the last minutes before our final visit we recalled together the many years during which our family had what we called “evening devotions.” They were simple: a reading from the Bible, Martin Luther’s Evening Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and the singing of an ancient hymn titled “Abide with Me.”
We agreed to repeat the ritual there in his hospital room. However, instead of just singing the first stanza of the hymn we sang the last stanza also. Dad’s voice was not only audible, it was strong and he sang not the melody line, but the strong tenor part. My wife Jane sang alto and together we ended our time together:
“Hold thou, thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life (long pause), In death (another long pause)
Oh Lord, abide with me.”
It was my farewell and my intimation of when we’ll again say to each other, “Good Morning.”
While his body was weak, his mind was sharp. So we spoke of love, of family, of the church, of God, of hope. In the last minutes before our final visit we recalled together the many years during which our family had what we called “evening devotions.” They were simple: a reading from the Bible, Martin Luther’s Evening Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and the singing of an ancient hymn titled “Abide with Me.”
We agreed to repeat the ritual there in his hospital room. However, instead of just singing the first stanza of the hymn we sang the last stanza also. Dad’s voice was not only audible, it was strong and he sang not the melody line, but the strong tenor part. My wife Jane sang alto and together we ended our time together:
“Hold thou, thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life (long pause), In death (another long pause)
Oh Lord, abide with me.”
It was my farewell and my intimation of when we’ll again say to each other, “Good Morning.”
Hospitality To Strangers
I find it interesting (and have been greatly blessed) by the commandment central to all the great faiths of the world, “to show hospitality to strangers.” But last week I found myself railing against inhospitality. Jane and I had just taken a young student from China to her first trip to the university at which she had been accepted for study. We arrived at the appointed time and place only to find no one there. After finally solving that problem we discovered that when her classmates arrived at the airport their promised university escort who was to have met them there arrived about an hour late, had inadequate space for their luggage and had no apparent understanding of what it felt like to be stranded in a new country and get only recorded telephone messages when pleading for help. As an educator I railed, “Why can‘t universities ever learn the art of hospitality!” I have too often had assignments on university campuses only to find that no one knew where my materials for the workshop were stored, or where I was to stay or who could find me a key to my assigned guest suite that more than once had no bedding in place. Then a couple days ago all of that despair was disproved from being universally true of institutions of higher learning. I went to a board meeting for the Van Lunen Fellows program at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A driver was waiting for me at the airport. My beautiful room in the Prince Center was waiting, complete with welcome basket and a full agenda of activities was on the desk. Ah! Hospitality!
On further reflection I got in touch with the reality that my life has been one succession after another or people showing me hospitality. Even though I was part of a large family of nine children the people of my home congregation in rural Texas always opened their home to our entire family for Sunday dinners, wedding receptions, birthday parties and golden wedding observance Once when I was hitchhiking from Illinois to Texas a couple of young women from Mena Arkansas picked me up late in the day. In genuine purity of heart they expressed concern that I would be thumbing a ride in the dark. They offered to have me come to their home for dinner and a night’s sleep. When I was in an automobile accident in Oklahoma a complete stranger took a couple sibs and me in for medical care and got away before I even got his full name and address. Later on in that same trip (now continued by train) a stranger was concerned when it appeared I had no money (He was right.) and offered to buy us dinner in the train diner. When my family was home on leave from missionary service in Hong Kong families in 17 states took us in and housed, fed and welcomed us.
Hospitality around the world has consistently enveloped me. Once I was overtaken by a local gentleman in Peshawar Pakistan. He followed me down the street and asked me anxiously about a pakol (Arab cap) I had just bought. H e wanted to know where I had gotten it and what I had paid for it. Slowly he made it clear to me that he wanted to make sure that I had not been overcharged. He even told me that hospitality was essential to his belief system. Another gentleman in Brazil discovered late one night that one of my travel companions was having a birthday the next day. At ten o’clock at night he found a bakery that would have a nicely decorated birthday cake waiting for me in the morning. In Calcutta a total stranger learned of my interest in the arts of India and found a member of the India National Dance Troop to come to me and show me around. In Cairo I was nearly in trouble because I had been accidentally seated at a hotel table exclusively reserved for a very wealthy sheik. When the sheik’s personal aide (an Egyptian Coptic Christian) discovered me at his boss’s table he worked through his fear and I ended up sharing a delightful meal with the sheik!
The Bible says that by showing hospitality people have been found to be “ entertaining angels unaware”. In my case I have found myself as the one being entertained by angels unaware!
On further reflection I got in touch with the reality that my life has been one succession after another or people showing me hospitality. Even though I was part of a large family of nine children the people of my home congregation in rural Texas always opened their home to our entire family for Sunday dinners, wedding receptions, birthday parties and golden wedding observance Once when I was hitchhiking from Illinois to Texas a couple of young women from Mena Arkansas picked me up late in the day. In genuine purity of heart they expressed concern that I would be thumbing a ride in the dark. They offered to have me come to their home for dinner and a night’s sleep. When I was in an automobile accident in Oklahoma a complete stranger took a couple sibs and me in for medical care and got away before I even got his full name and address. Later on in that same trip (now continued by train) a stranger was concerned when it appeared I had no money (He was right.) and offered to buy us dinner in the train diner. When my family was home on leave from missionary service in Hong Kong families in 17 states took us in and housed, fed and welcomed us.
Hospitality around the world has consistently enveloped me. Once I was overtaken by a local gentleman in Peshawar Pakistan. He followed me down the street and asked me anxiously about a pakol (Arab cap) I had just bought. H e wanted to know where I had gotten it and what I had paid for it. Slowly he made it clear to me that he wanted to make sure that I had not been overcharged. He even told me that hospitality was essential to his belief system. Another gentleman in Brazil discovered late one night that one of my travel companions was having a birthday the next day. At ten o’clock at night he found a bakery that would have a nicely decorated birthday cake waiting for me in the morning. In Calcutta a total stranger learned of my interest in the arts of India and found a member of the India National Dance Troop to come to me and show me around. In Cairo I was nearly in trouble because I had been accidentally seated at a hotel table exclusively reserved for a very wealthy sheik. When the sheik’s personal aide (an Egyptian Coptic Christian) discovered me at his boss’s table he worked through his fear and I ended up sharing a delightful meal with the sheik!
The Bible says that by showing hospitality people have been found to be “ entertaining angels unaware”. In my case I have found myself as the one being entertained by angels unaware!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Killers
I am in my office in downtown St. Louis. At noon. On a Saturday. It’s the one time of the week when there are no scheduled meetings, no coworkers seeking appointments, no telephone calls. The telephone rings.
Beyond my wildest expectations (it had never happened before) my Mother is calling from Texas.
“Melvin, I have bad news,” she said with a firmness of voice held steady by sheer force of will. “Your sister Miriam has been shot in the head. I’m afraid the whole back of her head is gone. There was a bank robbery at the Walburg State Bank. She lay face down on the floor just as the robber ordered. But as he left he still fired the gun at her. And, oh yes, your Uncle Reinhold has also been shot. We’re quite sure he’ll survive. But we are not so sure about Miriam. I know you’ll join us in prayer.”
My thoughts turn to Mimi, one of my six sisters. Intelligent, vivacious, Director of Nurses at a hospital - shot - critically - dying. Of course I pray, fervently.
What about the robber? I assume it’s a male. I assume he thought this small bank in a small Texas town was an easy Saturday morning target. I assume he was frightened or on drugs. He had the money. Why did he have to shoot to kill?
Soon further details emerge via phone and radio: The robber had fired again. This time he instantly killed the state trooper who had stopped his fleeing vehicle.
Further developments: miraculously Miriam survives. The robber is apprehended. Giving thanks for the miracle my mind turns to the murderer. He has already admitted guilt. What should be his fate? Texas, of course, has the death penalty. The murderer killed a peace officer, for crying out loud! My sister is alive, but she’ll always have a black hole in that part of the brain where the bullet blasted away her optic nerve.
Yet, even as I mourn for the trooper, his widow and young daughter left behind, even as I struggle with my anger at the brute who attempted to murder my sister, I cannot force myself to wish for him the death penalty.
In this apparent bleeding heart liberal response, I am out of step with the very Texas culture in which I was raised and in which so many of my values were shaped. Texas is where the death penalty is more common than in any other state. Texas, in fact, accounts for one third of all public executions in the USA. Texas is where six convicted killers were recently executed in the span of only 2 weeks. Texas is where I was taught in church catechism class, ”All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
But my heart won’t buy it. I can’t get myself to believe that killing to punish killing, or killing to prevent killing, or killing to teach people not to kill is not rational nor has it ever proved to be a detriment to further killing.
So in my sometimes lonely meditations I thank God for saving Mimi from the would-be killer. I pray that I will not be a party to another killing even in the name of justice or for the purpose of teaching someone a lesson.
Beyond my wildest expectations (it had never happened before) my Mother is calling from Texas.
“Melvin, I have bad news,” she said with a firmness of voice held steady by sheer force of will. “Your sister Miriam has been shot in the head. I’m afraid the whole back of her head is gone. There was a bank robbery at the Walburg State Bank. She lay face down on the floor just as the robber ordered. But as he left he still fired the gun at her. And, oh yes, your Uncle Reinhold has also been shot. We’re quite sure he’ll survive. But we are not so sure about Miriam. I know you’ll join us in prayer.”
My thoughts turn to Mimi, one of my six sisters. Intelligent, vivacious, Director of Nurses at a hospital - shot - critically - dying. Of course I pray, fervently.
What about the robber? I assume it’s a male. I assume he thought this small bank in a small Texas town was an easy Saturday morning target. I assume he was frightened or on drugs. He had the money. Why did he have to shoot to kill?
Soon further details emerge via phone and radio: The robber had fired again. This time he instantly killed the state trooper who had stopped his fleeing vehicle.
Further developments: miraculously Miriam survives. The robber is apprehended. Giving thanks for the miracle my mind turns to the murderer. He has already admitted guilt. What should be his fate? Texas, of course, has the death penalty. The murderer killed a peace officer, for crying out loud! My sister is alive, but she’ll always have a black hole in that part of the brain where the bullet blasted away her optic nerve.
Yet, even as I mourn for the trooper, his widow and young daughter left behind, even as I struggle with my anger at the brute who attempted to murder my sister, I cannot force myself to wish for him the death penalty.
In this apparent bleeding heart liberal response, I am out of step with the very Texas culture in which I was raised and in which so many of my values were shaped. Texas is where the death penalty is more common than in any other state. Texas, in fact, accounts for one third of all public executions in the USA. Texas is where six convicted killers were recently executed in the span of only 2 weeks. Texas is where I was taught in church catechism class, ”All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
But my heart won’t buy it. I can’t get myself to believe that killing to punish killing, or killing to prevent killing, or killing to teach people not to kill is not rational nor has it ever proved to be a detriment to further killing.
So in my sometimes lonely meditations I thank God for saving Mimi from the would-be killer. I pray that I will not be a party to another killing even in the name of justice or for the purpose of teaching someone a lesson.
Racism
I grew up racist. I still haven’t overcome it.
In my childhood years in rural Central Texas racism was as pervasive and unquestioned as the air I breathed. There were certain a priori, never questioned assumptions. Blacks and whites don’t attend the same church or school. They drink from separate water fountains, eat in different restaurants, ride in different sections of public transportation. Blacks are less intelligent. They suffer from the curse of Ham. Their cute children are called pickannies. They are tenants, never real estate owners.
I have no memory of my assumptions ever being challenged. In eight years of parochial schooling and daily religious instruction, I don’t recall ever being presented with an alternative perspective. Of course, we all shared our fallen humanity. Christ is the Savior of the world. We are to love everyone, but love for blacks was a love expressed within a segregated contest with more than a hint of condescension.
In the all male, all white dormitory prep school which I attended for my high school years, most of my prejudices and presumptions about race were reinforced, with a few assaults upon my blindness.
It was during World War II. A black army officer came to worship in the church we attended. He was quickly escorted out of the church by the thoroughly prepared white ushers.
Some twinge of conscience within me was stirred. This was not right.
One day in class the teacher made a reference to a black lawyer. I was silently incredulous. How could a black person be a lawyer? The teacher must have noticed a similar look on the face of a classmate. He berated my classmate for his unwarranted racist assumptions. I had avoided the face to face chastisement of my teacher, but my consciousness was raised.
World War II was raging. I was exempt from the military draft with a 4D classification because I was studying to become a minister of the church. However, I had a certain amount of uneasiness about this arrangement, especially as I noticed that the young black men of my community all seemed to be classified 1A, were drafted (albeit into a segregated military), sent overseas and too often returned home in body bags. My conscience was awakened.
During succeeding years I slowly, entirely too slowly, saw the error and sinfulness of my attitude and actions. Usually my teachers were black persons. I read their writings: The Autobiography of Malcom X, The Algiers Motel Incident, Black Like Me, Black Rage, etc. etc. I attended lectures and conferences. Slowly I was led out of my ignorance by people like the Rev. William Griffin and Dr. Pete Pero. I was driven to deep reflection after I listened to black activist Fred Hampton speak of how the police would find a reason to kill him. Within weeks, he was shot dead by the white police while on his bed in his Chicago apartment.
Theologians like Paul Schultze, James Cone, and civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inched me along. Personal contacts with blacks around dinner tables, shared bedrooms, long walks, harsh confrontations, animated conversations with persons like Orlando Gober all helped move me down the stony path my soul desperately needed to tread.
My own children helped. They quickly sensed any racism I evidenced and called me on it. My oh so slowly developing spirituality forced me to face my error
Now in the later years of my life I am grateful for the progress made. Yet I must confess I still have a need for purging pieces of my consciousness. When I hear of certain criminal behaviors my first instinct is still to image a black person. When I hear of a significant literary or research publication my initial, seemingly unconscious belief is that a white person (white male, actually) must be the author.
So my struggle goes on and I say with the Apostle, ”Not as though I were already perfect, but I follow after...” (Phil. 3:12)
In my childhood years in rural Central Texas racism was as pervasive and unquestioned as the air I breathed. There were certain a priori, never questioned assumptions. Blacks and whites don’t attend the same church or school. They drink from separate water fountains, eat in different restaurants, ride in different sections of public transportation. Blacks are less intelligent. They suffer from the curse of Ham. Their cute children are called pickannies. They are tenants, never real estate owners.
I have no memory of my assumptions ever being challenged. In eight years of parochial schooling and daily religious instruction, I don’t recall ever being presented with an alternative perspective. Of course, we all shared our fallen humanity. Christ is the Savior of the world. We are to love everyone, but love for blacks was a love expressed within a segregated contest with more than a hint of condescension.
In the all male, all white dormitory prep school which I attended for my high school years, most of my prejudices and presumptions about race were reinforced, with a few assaults upon my blindness.
It was during World War II. A black army officer came to worship in the church we attended. He was quickly escorted out of the church by the thoroughly prepared white ushers.
Some twinge of conscience within me was stirred. This was not right.
One day in class the teacher made a reference to a black lawyer. I was silently incredulous. How could a black person be a lawyer? The teacher must have noticed a similar look on the face of a classmate. He berated my classmate for his unwarranted racist assumptions. I had avoided the face to face chastisement of my teacher, but my consciousness was raised.
World War II was raging. I was exempt from the military draft with a 4D classification because I was studying to become a minister of the church. However, I had a certain amount of uneasiness about this arrangement, especially as I noticed that the young black men of my community all seemed to be classified 1A, were drafted (albeit into a segregated military), sent overseas and too often returned home in body bags. My conscience was awakened.
During succeeding years I slowly, entirely too slowly, saw the error and sinfulness of my attitude and actions. Usually my teachers were black persons. I read their writings: The Autobiography of Malcom X, The Algiers Motel Incident, Black Like Me, Black Rage, etc. etc. I attended lectures and conferences. Slowly I was led out of my ignorance by people like the Rev. William Griffin and Dr. Pete Pero. I was driven to deep reflection after I listened to black activist Fred Hampton speak of how the police would find a reason to kill him. Within weeks, he was shot dead by the white police while on his bed in his Chicago apartment.
Theologians like Paul Schultze, James Cone, and civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inched me along. Personal contacts with blacks around dinner tables, shared bedrooms, long walks, harsh confrontations, animated conversations with persons like Orlando Gober all helped move me down the stony path my soul desperately needed to tread.
My own children helped. They quickly sensed any racism I evidenced and called me on it. My oh so slowly developing spirituality forced me to face my error
Now in the later years of my life I am grateful for the progress made. Yet I must confess I still have a need for purging pieces of my consciousness. When I hear of certain criminal behaviors my first instinct is still to image a black person. When I hear of a significant literary or research publication my initial, seemingly unconscious belief is that a white person (white male, actually) must be the author.
So my struggle goes on and I say with the Apostle, ”Not as though I were already perfect, but I follow after...” (Phil. 3:12)
Hunger
This morning, once again, I saw a picture of a hungry child. I have decided that never in my life have I really experienced hunger. Of course, I have been hungry and have eaten as though I were famished and would never eat again; yet I was just hungry, not in a condition of hunger.
I grew up during the great depression. Dad was a teaching minister in a Lutheran church and we didn’t always get his meager monthly salary. Money may have been scarce, but food was not. Even in the bleakest months my mom would have me crawl under the house to retrieve some of our homegrown potatoes that we stored there. She would open a quart or two of canned red beets. That red juice/water made a great covering for the potatoes. We had butchered hogs and saved the bones from which almost all the meat had been cut to make sausages. The leftover bones we called “knochen fleish”. Mother boiled these. We added bit of mustard, combined that with the boiled potatoes and beets and a glass of fresh milk. Soon we certainly did not have to deal with hunger!
When I would come home from school I felt hungry. If all that was available was a slice of bread with a bit of jelly on it I soon learned that if I complained to Mother her stock reply would come echoing back, “Wenn du hungrig bhist, dennn scheckt auch jelly brut gut”. If you are hungry then jelly bread tastes good, too!
Another hunger lesson taught me by my father was a Biblical quote: ”If any would not work, neither should he eat.” The message was clear If you expect to eat, do your chores. Yet dad was always equally quick to say, “Now remember, too, that some people want to work but are unable to do so. They are in danger of hunger. Those we must help feed.”
My first encounter with persons who were suffering from hunger came in Hong Kong in the mid 1950s. To this day there is an encounter burned into my consciousness. We had been there less than a month. I had taught a late night class and was walking back to our tenement flat along the northern end of Nathan Road. I walked by a middle-aged man. In his arms he held, pieta-like, his starving young son who may have been ten. His stomach was not extended but absolutely flat. There was no flesh or fat on any of his skeleton. His eyes were those staring orbs always seen in the face of those starving. The father looked at me with pleading eyes, not saying a word. I did not know a word of Chinese. I paused just long enough to pull out of my pocket and place into the hands of the father a one Hong Kong dollar bill. The father’s eyes looked back at me with a full-bodied look of gratitude as he thanked me. I went on my way home and yet I remember the whole incident as though it were last night. A father on the street holding his son dying of hunger, completely dependent upon some stranger walking by and dropping in one dollar (17 cents in US money!).
Since then I have seen a few of the approximately 1 billion hungry people in the world and am still haunted by some of those extended stomachs, vacant eyes, pleading parents in India and Africa. Some of the 4% of American citizens who are hungry confront me even in affluent San Diego County
It is easy for me to become so overwhelmed by the enormity and complexity of this challenge that I am tempted to try to just push the whole issue out of my mind. But that doesn’t always work. So in my very small way I try to help the hungry at the San Diego TACO homeless feeding program, at Bread for the World which deals with hunger in the USA and Lutheran World Relief which takes a global perspective. Mine is just a drop into an empty food plate but I do put in the drop.
Much more to say, but I need to run. It’s time for lunch. Food
I grew up during the great depression. Dad was a teaching minister in a Lutheran church and we didn’t always get his meager monthly salary. Money may have been scarce, but food was not. Even in the bleakest months my mom would have me crawl under the house to retrieve some of our homegrown potatoes that we stored there. She would open a quart or two of canned red beets. That red juice/water made a great covering for the potatoes. We had butchered hogs and saved the bones from which almost all the meat had been cut to make sausages. The leftover bones we called “knochen fleish”. Mother boiled these. We added bit of mustard, combined that with the boiled potatoes and beets and a glass of fresh milk. Soon we certainly did not have to deal with hunger!
When I would come home from school I felt hungry. If all that was available was a slice of bread with a bit of jelly on it I soon learned that if I complained to Mother her stock reply would come echoing back, “Wenn du hungrig bhist, dennn scheckt auch jelly brut gut”. If you are hungry then jelly bread tastes good, too!
Another hunger lesson taught me by my father was a Biblical quote: ”If any would not work, neither should he eat.” The message was clear If you expect to eat, do your chores. Yet dad was always equally quick to say, “Now remember, too, that some people want to work but are unable to do so. They are in danger of hunger. Those we must help feed.”
My first encounter with persons who were suffering from hunger came in Hong Kong in the mid 1950s. To this day there is an encounter burned into my consciousness. We had been there less than a month. I had taught a late night class and was walking back to our tenement flat along the northern end of Nathan Road. I walked by a middle-aged man. In his arms he held, pieta-like, his starving young son who may have been ten. His stomach was not extended but absolutely flat. There was no flesh or fat on any of his skeleton. His eyes were those staring orbs always seen in the face of those starving. The father looked at me with pleading eyes, not saying a word. I did not know a word of Chinese. I paused just long enough to pull out of my pocket and place into the hands of the father a one Hong Kong dollar bill. The father’s eyes looked back at me with a full-bodied look of gratitude as he thanked me. I went on my way home and yet I remember the whole incident as though it were last night. A father on the street holding his son dying of hunger, completely dependent upon some stranger walking by and dropping in one dollar (17 cents in US money!).
Since then I have seen a few of the approximately 1 billion hungry people in the world and am still haunted by some of those extended stomachs, vacant eyes, pleading parents in India and Africa. Some of the 4% of American citizens who are hungry confront me even in affluent San Diego County
It is easy for me to become so overwhelmed by the enormity and complexity of this challenge that I am tempted to try to just push the whole issue out of my mind. But that doesn’t always work. So in my very small way I try to help the hungry at the San Diego TACO homeless feeding program, at Bread for the World which deals with hunger in the USA and Lutheran World Relief which takes a global perspective. Mine is just a drop into an empty food plate but I do put in the drop.
Much more to say, but I need to run. It’s time for lunch. Food
Monday, June 8, 2009
Telephones
My telephone number is 760 702 6531. It may seem strange to some for me to just put it out there like that. But there is a story, of course
I have only recently learned that currently my phone number is not listed in any kind of public directory. When we moved to this retirement community last year the number we got is the number assigned to this room (and not to the name of the room occupant). The only public listing is the name of this community. This has resulted in some problems. Out of town relatives who were in the area and wanted to call and stop by could not find us listed anywhere. Several international callers have been unable to find my number anywhere and in the process a very important contact was never made. A blog reader who wanted to call knew there were Kieschnicks serving as ministers in the Lutheran Church, found an official directory and reached my sister- in- law who provided my number
When I was growing up in rural Texas there was no telephone listing for my family, simply because we did not have phone service. Then came the old party line. When there was one long and two short rings we knew it was for us.
In the 1950’s in Hong Kong we were told that only through the payment of significant under the table bribes could one secure a telephone without a year or more wait. However, we just applied for ourselves and for our school and within a week the phones were installed. During my years with The Lutheran Schools Association of Metropolitan New York we did not yet have emails, but plenty of phone calls. I still remember when I had been out of my office for two days and returned to my very full answering machine with 51 calls waiting to be returned. (Now my email aficionados say, “I had 100 emails yesterday.” The response: “Lucky you, I had 150 by 10:30 am!")
Last week I met my next-door neighbor returning to his unit muttering. I asked, “What’s up?” “Oh, I forgot my (expletive deleted) cell phone! “Would you believe that I am going just a few blocks to the dog park with my dog. I have my GPS to get me there but I don’t dare go without my cell phone!” Then he mused, “What will it be like a hundred years from now? I bet all this stuff will be embedded in our bodies. I just bet that cell phones, I-phones, I-pods, direction finders, blood pressure, radar units, etc. etc. will all be right in my cells! But for now I’ve got to find my cell phone!”
I have only recently learned that currently my phone number is not listed in any kind of public directory. When we moved to this retirement community last year the number we got is the number assigned to this room (and not to the name of the room occupant). The only public listing is the name of this community. This has resulted in some problems. Out of town relatives who were in the area and wanted to call and stop by could not find us listed anywhere. Several international callers have been unable to find my number anywhere and in the process a very important contact was never made. A blog reader who wanted to call knew there were Kieschnicks serving as ministers in the Lutheran Church, found an official directory and reached my sister- in- law who provided my number
When I was growing up in rural Texas there was no telephone listing for my family, simply because we did not have phone service. Then came the old party line. When there was one long and two short rings we knew it was for us.
In the 1950’s in Hong Kong we were told that only through the payment of significant under the table bribes could one secure a telephone without a year or more wait. However, we just applied for ourselves and for our school and within a week the phones were installed. During my years with The Lutheran Schools Association of Metropolitan New York we did not yet have emails, but plenty of phone calls. I still remember when I had been out of my office for two days and returned to my very full answering machine with 51 calls waiting to be returned. (Now my email aficionados say, “I had 100 emails yesterday.” The response: “Lucky you, I had 150 by 10:30 am!")
Last week I met my next-door neighbor returning to his unit muttering. I asked, “What’s up?” “Oh, I forgot my (expletive deleted) cell phone! “Would you believe that I am going just a few blocks to the dog park with my dog. I have my GPS to get me there but I don’t dare go without my cell phone!” Then he mused, “What will it be like a hundred years from now? I bet all this stuff will be embedded in our bodies. I just bet that cell phones, I-phones, I-pods, direction finders, blood pressure, radar units, etc. etc. will all be right in my cells! But for now I’ve got to find my cell phone!”
Friday, June 5, 2009
Hope Shattered - Dreams Destroyed - On the 20th Anniversary of Tienanmen Square Massacre
I am surrounded by weeping students in the quad of Beijing University. It’s the evening of June 5th, 1989. Mournful funeral music sweeps from speakers across the campus. The banner in front of the campus gates, in black characters on white cloth laments, “Tienanmen bathed in blood. The whole world weeps.”
By now the world knew what those milling about us had experienced in the hours before. The Peoples Army did fire on students. Tanks rumbled through the streets and the square. Bodies were bullet ridden and crushed. Soldiers were captured, strung up from light posts and burned while the crowd cheered. Buses were parked together to form barricades. One side or the other torched them. Sporadic skirmishes and resulting deaths would continue for another day. But the outcome was immutable. The student led foray for freedom had failed. The Party won.
Now cadres of students come into the weeping cauldron, returning from the morgue with news of whose bodies they found and who was still unaccounted for
.
My two sons and I are the only Americans in the crowd and so the target for unrealistic pleas. “Can’t you contact Pres. Bush? Can’t the US military intervene? Will the free world just stand by and let hope be crushed?” It was a cry not only for themselves, but also for their fallen colleagues and their now under suspicion parents. It was the unrealistic plea for some kind of rekindling of the flame of hope which had been definitively quenched.
We weep with our new student friends. We wince as we they show us wounds in their bodies. We remember with mixed feelings the female student friend of John who was safe in the country-side. The day before, her mother had come and physically carried her out of the square where she had been on a hunger strike. We know we cannot reach our family back home but are confident we will get there. Other student friends will not make it home. Without a doubt many others will make their homes in prisons. It seemed almost secondary to think of two years of John's work reflected in Chinese to English translations now stored "somewhere" on campus. Yet in the magnitude of the suffering, death, and shattered hopes those concerns seem minor. Many have died. More will. It's a long long road to freedom for too many
By now the world knew what those milling about us had experienced in the hours before. The Peoples Army did fire on students. Tanks rumbled through the streets and the square. Bodies were bullet ridden and crushed. Soldiers were captured, strung up from light posts and burned while the crowd cheered. Buses were parked together to form barricades. One side or the other torched them. Sporadic skirmishes and resulting deaths would continue for another day. But the outcome was immutable. The student led foray for freedom had failed. The Party won.
Now cadres of students come into the weeping cauldron, returning from the morgue with news of whose bodies they found and who was still unaccounted for
.
My two sons and I are the only Americans in the crowd and so the target for unrealistic pleas. “Can’t you contact Pres. Bush? Can’t the US military intervene? Will the free world just stand by and let hope be crushed?” It was a cry not only for themselves, but also for their fallen colleagues and their now under suspicion parents. It was the unrealistic plea for some kind of rekindling of the flame of hope which had been definitively quenched.
We weep with our new student friends. We wince as we they show us wounds in their bodies. We remember with mixed feelings the female student friend of John who was safe in the country-side. The day before, her mother had come and physically carried her out of the square where she had been on a hunger strike. We know we cannot reach our family back home but are confident we will get there. Other student friends will not make it home. Without a doubt many others will make their homes in prisons. It seemed almost secondary to think of two years of John's work reflected in Chinese to English translations now stored "somewhere" on campus. Yet in the magnitude of the suffering, death, and shattered hopes those concerns seem minor. Many have died. More will. It's a long long road to freedom for too many
Hope - On the 20th Anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre
I’m standing next to the sculptured Goddess of Democracy in Tienanmen Square, June 3, 1989. Together, she and I fix our eyes intently across Chang An Avenue onto the portrait of Mao Tse Tung guarding the Forbidden City. Never before (or since) have I been in the midst of such exhilaration, such sense of community, such hope.
As our son John had told me over the phone from Beijing University a week earlier, “Dad, you must come. There’s hope that for the first time in the history of China, there may be a bloodless revolution!”
Students by the thousands had marched in orderly columns to the Square. Workers by the millions were joining the surge toward freedom. One middle-aged man with whom I spoke had brought his crippled aged mother in a wheel barrow to the Square. “She never dreamed that she’d be present for the birth of freedom in her country. Her grandchildren will have opportunities now undreamed of!”
English speaking Chinese students surround me. They joyfully speak of America and China forgetting their decades long enmity. “Democracy is coming to China and our two countries will be united in freedom.”
Days earlier the sheer mass of humanity had prevented a military convoy from reaching the Square. The Peoples’ Army wouldn’t dare fire upon their own people. Even the old guard around Deng Chou Peng would finally make the concessions to at least receive the written petition from student leaders. Conversations would begin. Political and economic freedom would begin to seep under the doors of the old imperial palace, now the Communist seat of power. One student even quoted to me, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
Despair was dissipating. Doors to political, economic and intellectual freedom were opening. Hope welled up. It was intoxicatingly energizing.
As our son John had told me over the phone from Beijing University a week earlier, “Dad, you must come. There’s hope that for the first time in the history of China, there may be a bloodless revolution!”
Students by the thousands had marched in orderly columns to the Square. Workers by the millions were joining the surge toward freedom. One middle-aged man with whom I spoke had brought his crippled aged mother in a wheel barrow to the Square. “She never dreamed that she’d be present for the birth of freedom in her country. Her grandchildren will have opportunities now undreamed of!”
English speaking Chinese students surround me. They joyfully speak of America and China forgetting their decades long enmity. “Democracy is coming to China and our two countries will be united in freedom.”
Days earlier the sheer mass of humanity had prevented a military convoy from reaching the Square. The Peoples’ Army wouldn’t dare fire upon their own people. Even the old guard around Deng Chou Peng would finally make the concessions to at least receive the written petition from student leaders. Conversations would begin. Political and economic freedom would begin to seep under the doors of the old imperial palace, now the Communist seat of power. One student even quoted to me, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
Despair was dissipating. Doors to political, economic and intellectual freedom were opening. Hope welled up. It was intoxicatingly energizing.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Grandparents
Someone has told me that grandparents are like golf scores. Nobody ELSE cares about them. Yet as I took my walk today I reflected upon my status as an absent grandfather and upon my own grandfathers and grandmothers. Images of Grandpa Kieschnick quickly flooded my mind. He seemed ancient as he toiled in the very hot mid-summer’s day sun down on “the bottom” of his Lee County Texas farm. He trudged very, very slowly along side the mule drawn wagon. He was “pulling corn” which means he took the ears from the stalks and threw them into the slowly moving wagon. I was about seven years old, walking beside him and I was scared. I was scared that it was too hot, Grandpa was too old, the work was too hard. I feared he was going to die right there in front of me. I imaged myself running to tell Grandma.
He survived that, of course. The next morning he was ready to go again, but not before “morning prayers”. He took out that old well-worn devotion book, read very slowly yet loudly, the appropriate section (in German naturally) and then prayed in that long slow firm voice the prayer he prayed each morning. He took his usual noontime nap on the old leather sofa until the day he went to sleep for the last time.
I remember the wake. The open coffin in his living room. Then the funeral procession to the country church. Along the way we needed to go through several fence gates to get to the county road. As we went through each gate there stood one of his black hired hands. Each stood solemnly next to a black horse. Left hand holding the reins. Right hand holding his hat over his heart. Bidding farewell to the ”old man” on whom the whole family depended for livelihood.
My memory of Grandma K focuses on the humble yet proud woman wearing a gold tiara. It was her 50th Wedding Anniversary and she was queen for that one day. I admired her with a smug feeling for I had just made it through an extremely difficult yet important assignment. It had been my role as one of the grandchildren to recite for memory (in German, yet) some kind of a poetic ode to Grandmother - and I had made it. Grandma eyed me; wanting to make sure that I did not feel too proud of my accomplishment because one must always be wary of the sin of pride, but her smile acknowledged that I had done okay, and inwardly my heart sang!
A whole different Grandma K is recalled in her encounter with the chicken thief. Grandmother had noticed that the size of her chicken flock seemed to be diminishing. So she kept her eyes and ears open. In the middle of the night she heard a slight commotion in the hen house. She strode outside. Sure enough, there sat the thief cowering in a corner. He recovered quickly enough to ask "Which is the best way to Giddings?" (the town ten miles away)Grandmother's response(in German, of course) was the equivalent of "You, S.O.B. know the way to Giddings as well as I do. Just never let me catch you in my hen house again." With that the disappearance of chickens was over.
My Grandfather Doering died before I was born. One of my most heart (and stomach)-warming images is that of coming home for second grade and finding Grandma Doering in our kitchen. She was sitting, peeling apples for the very special apple pie she baked. For some strange reason my mind jumps immediately to the time I found her their calmly peeling away and then telling me that an hour earlier a 22-caliber bullet had flown through the window and by her head. She surmised a hunter in the area was not careful enough-but the pie would still be warm for supper.
And now I am grandparent eight times over. But my kids are strewn across the world. As I write they are in California, Connecticut, Ireland, The Czech Republic and Hong Kong. I wonder what will have replaced blogs 75 years from now and if they will have any memories of their Grandfather Mel.
He survived that, of course. The next morning he was ready to go again, but not before “morning prayers”. He took out that old well-worn devotion book, read very slowly yet loudly, the appropriate section (in German naturally) and then prayed in that long slow firm voice the prayer he prayed each morning. He took his usual noontime nap on the old leather sofa until the day he went to sleep for the last time.
I remember the wake. The open coffin in his living room. Then the funeral procession to the country church. Along the way we needed to go through several fence gates to get to the county road. As we went through each gate there stood one of his black hired hands. Each stood solemnly next to a black horse. Left hand holding the reins. Right hand holding his hat over his heart. Bidding farewell to the ”old man” on whom the whole family depended for livelihood.
My memory of Grandma K focuses on the humble yet proud woman wearing a gold tiara. It was her 50th Wedding Anniversary and she was queen for that one day. I admired her with a smug feeling for I had just made it through an extremely difficult yet important assignment. It had been my role as one of the grandchildren to recite for memory (in German, yet) some kind of a poetic ode to Grandmother - and I had made it. Grandma eyed me; wanting to make sure that I did not feel too proud of my accomplishment because one must always be wary of the sin of pride, but her smile acknowledged that I had done okay, and inwardly my heart sang!
A whole different Grandma K is recalled in her encounter with the chicken thief. Grandmother had noticed that the size of her chicken flock seemed to be diminishing. So she kept her eyes and ears open. In the middle of the night she heard a slight commotion in the hen house. She strode outside. Sure enough, there sat the thief cowering in a corner. He recovered quickly enough to ask "Which is the best way to Giddings?" (the town ten miles away)Grandmother's response(in German, of course) was the equivalent of "You, S.O.B. know the way to Giddings as well as I do. Just never let me catch you in my hen house again." With that the disappearance of chickens was over.
My Grandfather Doering died before I was born. One of my most heart (and stomach)-warming images is that of coming home for second grade and finding Grandma Doering in our kitchen. She was sitting, peeling apples for the very special apple pie she baked. For some strange reason my mind jumps immediately to the time I found her their calmly peeling away and then telling me that an hour earlier a 22-caliber bullet had flown through the window and by her head. She surmised a hunter in the area was not careful enough-but the pie would still be warm for supper.
And now I am grandparent eight times over. But my kids are strewn across the world. As I write they are in California, Connecticut, Ireland, The Czech Republic and Hong Kong. I wonder what will have replaced blogs 75 years from now and if they will have any memories of their Grandfather Mel.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Graduations
It’s Graduation time all over the world. So my mind pauses and catches images of graduations, my own and many others. First, mine. Graduation from 8th grade at Zion Lutheran School, Walburg, Texas was a big deal. We dressed up in freshly starched and ironed shirt, tie and coat. We graduates sat on the outdoor stage under the trees between the school and the area where the kids who rode horseback to school tethered their rides. The motto “Climb Though the Path Be Rugged” was emblazoned on the wall behind. The class salutatorian welcomed all. The guest preacher preached the appropriate words. The diplomas (duly rolled and ribbon enclosed were distributed.) Then the valedictorian (that would be I) gave the closing address, carefully following the rules: thank the parents, the congregation, the school board, and the teachers. Assure your classmates of everlasting friendship and say it LOUD so that all can hear because there was, of course, no speaker system. Lemonade, cookies and angel food cake climaxed the celebration.
Four year later there was very little focus on my or any else’s high school graduation. It was May 10, 1945 just 2 days after V-E Day (Victory in Europe) had been declared. To my own surprise I still remember the graduation address/sermon was based on John the Baptist’s words “ He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease!” The class was all male, all preparing for rostered church ministry. I remember my Aunt Elizabeth being there and I especially remember her telling me that what made her proud was that I had been recognized for my high marks in religion. A female friend who came on her own all the way from Thorndale (35 gas-rationed miles away) was not someone whose presence I could really acknowledge and I do not even recall speaking with her. A few of us guys celebrated afterwards by going to the amusement park and enjoying the baseball-pitching machine. I look back frankly in great surprise that I do not even recall trying to buy an underage beer in that beer-saturated culture.
I remember nothing of my college graduation ceremony. Of course, I was extremely proud to have my mom and dad there (dad had graduated from the same school exactly 30 years earlier). I wish I had been more sensitive to the financial sacrifices they made to come from Texas to Illinois to be there. But the big excitement of the day was that a couple hours before the ceremony I had slipped a package into Jane’s hand. It was our engagement ring. (Incidentally, it was made possible financially when the one head of cattle I owned sold at auction for $100.00) So graduation activities quickly fell much lower in matters to which my head or heart was attuned.
Years (and many other graduations later) I was the pleased parent as each of our five kids received diplomas, in each case with high honors from bachelors through Ph D’s. Tim’s (forever the middle child) was in the midst of other compelling events. The news of my father’s death arrived just as he was lining up for the procession into the beautiful Valparaiso Chapel (He and Jane got the message and had decided to tell me only after the ceremony. The next day we rushed to my dad’s funeral and then later, back to Valpo where daughter Peggy was getting married. Never did attend son John’s graduation from high school, college or graduate school. He is really not into such things and attended none of them.
In the many years since my own I have attended countless graduations. I figure I have been the speaker for at least a hundred elementary and high school graduations. It has been a challenge and a joy to speak at 5 university/college graduations and always a humbling experience to receive honors and awards at others. All are merely pointers to the blessings of an education, a reminder of the challenge to use what has been taught and to be an instrument so that an increasing number of people around the world might receive the benefit of developing their gifts through education for the cause of service and world peace.
Four year later there was very little focus on my or any else’s high school graduation. It was May 10, 1945 just 2 days after V-E Day (Victory in Europe) had been declared. To my own surprise I still remember the graduation address/sermon was based on John the Baptist’s words “ He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease!” The class was all male, all preparing for rostered church ministry. I remember my Aunt Elizabeth being there and I especially remember her telling me that what made her proud was that I had been recognized for my high marks in religion. A female friend who came on her own all the way from Thorndale (35 gas-rationed miles away) was not someone whose presence I could really acknowledge and I do not even recall speaking with her. A few of us guys celebrated afterwards by going to the amusement park and enjoying the baseball-pitching machine. I look back frankly in great surprise that I do not even recall trying to buy an underage beer in that beer-saturated culture.
I remember nothing of my college graduation ceremony. Of course, I was extremely proud to have my mom and dad there (dad had graduated from the same school exactly 30 years earlier). I wish I had been more sensitive to the financial sacrifices they made to come from Texas to Illinois to be there. But the big excitement of the day was that a couple hours before the ceremony I had slipped a package into Jane’s hand. It was our engagement ring. (Incidentally, it was made possible financially when the one head of cattle I owned sold at auction for $100.00) So graduation activities quickly fell much lower in matters to which my head or heart was attuned.
Years (and many other graduations later) I was the pleased parent as each of our five kids received diplomas, in each case with high honors from bachelors through Ph D’s. Tim’s (forever the middle child) was in the midst of other compelling events. The news of my father’s death arrived just as he was lining up for the procession into the beautiful Valparaiso Chapel (He and Jane got the message and had decided to tell me only after the ceremony. The next day we rushed to my dad’s funeral and then later, back to Valpo where daughter Peggy was getting married. Never did attend son John’s graduation from high school, college or graduate school. He is really not into such things and attended none of them.
In the many years since my own I have attended countless graduations. I figure I have been the speaker for at least a hundred elementary and high school graduations. It has been a challenge and a joy to speak at 5 university/college graduations and always a humbling experience to receive honors and awards at others. All are merely pointers to the blessings of an education, a reminder of the challenge to use what has been taught and to be an instrument so that an increasing number of people around the world might receive the benefit of developing their gifts through education for the cause of service and world peace.
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