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.

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.

Cities

I love New York! My heart races just thinking of getting off the train in Grand Central Station. I am swept up by the crowds that carry me up the stairs into the massive, yet beautiful terminal and into the throbbing streets outside. I sidestep the frenetic cab catchers to walk toward Fifth Ave. It’s fun to watch the eyes of the Nigerian street hawkers. The pupils of their eyes try to focus at many places at once to concurrently see the potential customer, the ally who signals the coming of the cops and the open case holding the fake Rolodexes. It’s a big game, more or less enjoyed by all.

The ethnic mix of the city energizes me. When visiting Lutheran schools I am lifted up by the beautiful accent of a Jamaican principal in the Bronx. I share workshop memories with the cadre of women teachers from the Philippines. I marvel at the classroom discipline of a Brooklyn school presided over by staff from Belize. I visit with a principal in Staten Island who was born in Pekin, Illinois. His school includes recent arrivals from Beijing, China. I drop in at the oldest Lutheran school in America. It’s in Manhattan. Once again a shift is occurring among the ethnic mix of the community. The waves come and go; German to Chinese to African American to Puerto Rican to Colombian to who knows what next. In Queens Lutheran School I can hear 21 different native languages in one student body. On parents nights interpreters from Korea, China, Honduras, Yugoslavia and Russia facilitate parent-teacher communication. Just a few miles away it seems simpler; it is overwhelmingly Oriental. Only Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese interpreters are necessary.

Within the poly-saturated ethnic mix, unsaturated communities thrive. I’m meeting in an apartment in Harlem with a community group of long time residents. I’m the only white person within miles it seems. This tightly knit group speaks of their care for the students. They tell how neighborhood shopkeepers, hawkers, housewives and police officers all keep their eyes out, ensuring that the school kids make it home or to public transportation. They care deeply about their community and the institutions that enrich it.

The feel is very different in the section of Brooklyn dominated by close knit immigrants from Guyana. To move from there to another school celebration in another part of Brooklyn (Bay Ridge) is like hop-scotching into Italy where the sense of ethnic solidarity is celebrated with entirely different sets of rituals.

The city! It’s full of hope and aspirations, from the newly certified MBA down on Wall Street putting together an IPO, to the recently arrived San Salvadoran hawking peeled oranges on the streets of Washington Heights.

Pick a topic - Food: Four Seasons to street hawkers; Housing: The Trump Tower of midtown Manhattan to the street hot air vent sleepers on the lower East side to the tenements of Brownsville or the burnt out shells of the lower Bronx; Entertainment: Les Miserables to hookers, to cock fights; Salvation: St. Patrick’s Cathedral to St. Peter’s Jazz vespers, to Pentecostal glossalalia to Jamaican voodoo.

I love the city.

I am not alone. The biggest movement of people in the history of the world is underway: a world-wide migration to the city. Millions upon millions are moving from the countryside into Shanghai, Mexico City, Khartoum, Sao Paulo and into city after city, each with a population in excess of 5 million. For the first time in the history of our planet most of the people will never have experienced a season of planting and harvesting, never have seen a sunrise over an open horizon, never have walked a country lane, never have gone to bed without making sure all the doors are locked.

How will the new urbanization affect families and values and the world’s great religions? How will the Christian church transfer its pastoral images, parables and liturgies from the countryside to the curbside?

It’s a great time to be alive and to be part of the challenge of living out a theology as big as the city

Down The River

Twelve-year-old son Tim and I are having a FATHER-SON BONDING EXPERIENCE! Together with two other fathers and sons we are on an overnight river adventure, each pair of us in separate canoes, floating down the idyllic Michigan trout stream called the Au Sable. It is both wonderful and terrible. I am creating a disaster.

There are some complications. I’m afraid of any flowing water more than 6 inches deep. Neither Tim nor I have ever paddled a canoe before. Within five minutes our fellow campers are so far down the stream we can’t even see them. I don’t even know from which end of the canoe the control is supposed to come. The stream is swift. We ram the shore on the right. We move away, across the stream, and ram the shore on the left. Tim at the back of the canoe, dad in the middle, we end up going down the stream backward. We change positions and barely miss a fly fisherman in waders who, I’m grateful, was not able to exchange his fishing rod for another type of rod. Our cargo gets wet. We sweat. Blisters develop. We continue to careen from shore to shore.

Finally we spot our fellow travelers. They’ve set up the tent, have a fire going and believe it or not are enjoying before dinner drinks. Tim and I have traversed 4 times as much distance as they to reach the same destination.

We (or at least I) are complete failures. It is wonderful. Tim and I are learners together. We fail together, we reach our destination (if not our goal) together. We laugh. We celebrate.

Now Tim is an experienced hiker, camper, boater. He has hiked high in the Cascades, rafted down the Rio Grande, explored Death Valley. I just write memoirs and reflections and recall two of the most wonderful days of my life, canoeing down the Au Sable with my son.

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. 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.”

Praise Denied /Praise Junkie

My recent thinking about praise began simply enough. A colleague wrote a book and sent me a copy. On the title page he wrote a few words of affirmation (maybe even praise) of me. It felt good to read that. Yet as I took my morning walk the thought came up, “Mel, have you become a ‘praise junkie?” I knew where that thought came from.

For years I was a colleague of Dr. Thomas Gordon, the author of “Parent Effectiveness Training” and other best sellers. He and I disagreed about the role of praise in parent-child communication. Tom was very leery of parental praise for children. He was afraid the praise might be empty or just be flattery. He feared that a child’s self-esteem might become too dependent upon the evaluation of others. He coined the phrase “praise junkie”, a person who regularly needs a fix of praise to maintain self-worth and positive self-image.

I was concerned about children who were not affirmed, not praised or whose positive actions would receive no comment from significant others in their life. I argued that praise was actually necessary, provided it was honest and given without hope of personal gain or favor, I argued that praise is most helpful when three conditions are met: 1. A person acts in a way that is commendable. 2. The person receiving the praise feels that the cause for praise is merited. 3. The praise comes from a person who is significant to the one receiving the praise and there is no hope on the part of the praise giver to get anything in return for the praise given.

I further recalled a conversation I had with our son John when he was in junior high. I do not recall what he did that pleased me. I do recall saying, “John, you are a good boy.” I meant it. Yet John’s reply to me was “Dad, I do not like it when you call me “a good boy.” So we explored that a bit. Part of it was that John heard me making a judgment on him as a person. If I reserved the right to call him “good” I would also have the right to label him “bad”. Further: in the culture of junior high being called “ a good boy” may, in fact be not at all what a young person is looking for. So I decided I needed to express words about his actions that pleased me rather than making a general statement of judgment of his total character.

My mind then went to my wife Jane. The fact is throughout much of my career I was often in the public eye as a speaker, teacher, leader. In those contacts (especially in formal introductions) people would say nice things about me and about my accomplishments. Of course, that felt good. Yet often sitting right next to me was Jane. Often her presence was completely ignored, even as it was in the cocktail hour conversations before dinner at these events. Jane has a strong self-concept, yet I often wished she could get a bit more praise. Then I wondered if this were more a statement about me than about her.

Of course, the matter of bestowing praise or speaking words of praise varies from culture to culture. In Chinese culture there is often lavish praise which we Westerners might consider flattery. Yet for them it is simply a form of politeness. It is said that in certain Nordic cultures one must win the Nobel Prize to ever merit a “Not too bad, son.”

Finally there is the entire matter of being evaluated by others, always a two-edged sword. When I would receive 49 positive evaluations and one negative, why did I seem to focus on that one negative? Had I, in fact, become a “praise junkie”?


Conclusion: I choose to run the risk. I will continue to speak words of praise as long as they are honest and heart-felt, with no hope for personal gain. There are so many put-downs and so much negativism in the world that a bit of positive affirmation (and yes, even praise) just might help make someone’s day.

Mother’s Day 2009 - Mental Images

As another Mother’s Day dawns I let my mind retreat to days gone by. To thanksgiving and myriads of memories of Lina Doering Kieschnick, my Mother. Image after image floats into my consciousness, hundreds and thousands of them. I select just a few, each one a pointer to others, possibly more important or profound.

Mother at Work - Some may say she didn’t have a choice. The wife of a Christian Education Minister in a rural Texas parish. The mother of nine (count them: nine!) with a miscarriage or two in between. So she worked at providing daily bread. I still see her standing at the kitchen stove, at first only a wood-burning one, then kerosene, gas and finally electric. I see her sitting on the floor of the porch doing the prep work for canning peaches, pears, plums, berries, beans, peas, corn, pickles, beets, jams. jellies, relishes, (One summer she “put up” 800 quart jars of them!) Baking was constant. We ate only home made bread and pie from fruits in season, also biscuits, cornbread, jellyrolls, strudel, and the mandatory angel food cakes (using a dozen fresh eggs) for every birthday. She fed the chickens, helped butcher the pigs, milked the cows and then separated the milk, made the butter and lowered it in a bucket into the well so the cooler temperatures there would help preserve it.

Mother Responding to Crises - She was there as each one of us ran the usual gamut of childhood diseases: measles, mumps, intestinal worms, whooping cough, chicken pox, appendicitis (before penicillin ), broken bones and broken hearts. One strong image is seeing her incredible strength, stamina and determination as she lugged two metal buckets each filled with 5 gallons of water and with wet burlap bags over her shoulders. A Texas late summer grass fire had erupted near our house. She led the way running full speed for over a hundred yards to the edge of the fire and kept the flames from spreading.

Mother at My Side - She was always there. She fought with unceasing resolve not to have a “favorite child” and yet each one of us considered ourselves her favorite. I was only 13 years old when she bundled me up and sent me off to the small dormitory prep school where future Lutheran ministers were trained. Years later she stood with me in her beautiful new blue dress quietly pleased that the first of her children was graduating from college. Later I saw her standing outside the train waving good-bye to my wife Jane, our son David and me as we were on our way to that great yet strange place called Hong Kong. In those days the church rules were that no one who went to “the foreign mission field” was allowed to return home for a visit until after they had served five year abroad. She may have wept for her little grandson but her heart was proud that her son and his wife had been seen fit to be called to this important ministry

Mother in the Spot Light - This she could never imagine. In her eyes she was too unworthy to ever be in any kind of spotlight. And she certainly wasn’t going to put herself there. “Eigen- lobt stinks” (Self-praise stinks) was a mantra, so she kept a very low profile when her husband or one of her kids received an honor, but her deep gratitude could not be hidden. When she was named Texas Lutheran Woman of the Year she was almost embarrassed and assumed that someone had made a mistake.

Mother at Prayer - Prayer was as natural (and often as quiet) as breathing. We prayed all the time, before and after meals, at bedtime, before dashing off for school, after a safe trip. Yet it was never a show. It was just quietly there. “Evening devotions” were absolutely routinized: a scripture reading and commentary, a written prayer, The Lord’s Prayer in unison and the blessing. Dad was always in charge. The leader for the readings and prayer might vary (it was never Mom) but the blessing was Dad’s prerogative. On the day of Dad’s funeral most of our vast family crew gathered in Mom’s home. We ate, drank, celebrated, cried and remembered. Finally it was time. Mother said, “It’s time for bed. Let’s have devotions.” As we went through the ritual my mind wandered: “Who will say the blessing? Should Erna do it? She’s the eldest. Should I do it? I am the eldest son. Would she prefer one of the official pastors in the group to do it?” Then the moment came. There was not one second of hesitation. Mother’s voice was instantaneous, loud, clear, completely at ease and in charge. “The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us. The Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us peace. Amen.

The mantle had passed. Mom wore it with dignity and grace.

Risk-Reward Ratio

I am violently jolted awake out of a sound sleep. I struggle to get my orientation. I find myself in the middle of an Illinois cornfield 100 feet from US Hwy. 66. I’m still in the general area of the back seat of a vehicle whose driver somehow failed to react to the sharp left turn sign. Part of the huge danger sign has been knocked off, the front end of the car has some new dents, but the vehicle is upright. The driver puts the car into reverse, backs onto the highway, changes into first gear and we head back down the road toward Mexico. It’s another hitchhiking experience in the late 1940’s.

Hitchhiking was a generally accepted mode of transportation for young men then. I started doing it when I was in high school, just short 40 mile trips between home and prep school. Then in college we hitched between Texas and Illinois. Later there were trips across the Midwest and once to New York. Most trips provided at least some small addition to hitchhiking lore. There was the driver who kept bragging that he was a top representative for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation which paid for everything and anything he did: travel, food, accommodations, expensive women, and the “buttermilk” he sipped continuously from the brown bottle he kept between his feet. After he took careful aim and still just barely made it between the abutments on the sides of a bridge, I decided that the next crossroad was my destination.

There was the flashy young woman (I still remember her electric yellow blouse and shimmering green slacks) who stopped in response to my extended thumb. She opened the door, invited me to sit in the front seat, concurrently very visibly and deliberately moving the cocked Colt 45 from the passenger seat to her lap. She said she was just looking for a little conversation. Nothing more. I talked.

There are other memories: three a.m. along Lake Erie outside Cleveland trying to get a small fire started to keep me from freezing. The two young women from Mena, Arkansas who sincerely invited me to their home for dinner and a good nights sleep. I chose to decline. The trucker who locked me into his trailer atop empty beer kegs and bottles and who kept his word to let me out at my destination.

Hitchhiking was a way of saving money. It provided adventure and, of course, just enough risk to add value to the experience. Since then, the hitchhiking risk-reward ratio has gotten out of balance (and Interstates do not allow pedestrians).

Yet, this I know, a life without risk is flat and dull. Irrespective of age, one needs to keep taking risks - in making friends, in investing money, in sharing one’s beliefs, in dreaming dreams and in creating visions. The trick is to keep the risk-reward ratio in proper balance

The Wends

Part I
I am a guest in the home of a well known Swiss educator in the town of Brügg. He is showing me around his ancient village pointing out all the columns, arches and friezes which clearly point to the ancient Roman origins of his town.

Then he tells me there’s a smaller village not far away with definitive Roman markings. The little community is called “Windish”. My interest skyrockets. I consider my ethnic heritage to be Wendish. I am a Wend. My Wendish ancestors emigrated to the Serbin, Texas area a century and a half ago leaving behind many of their Wendish relatives in southeastern Germany. Could this “Windish” be a connection?

So my friend and I head for Windish. Outside this small town we stop to look at the remains of an ancient arena, like a small Roman coliseum. “Oh yes,” my friend explains, “There was a Roman garrison here. One of the Caesars even paid a visit to this place. This arena was built for his entertainment. It seems the locals (Wends) were stubborn Christians and in this arena they were put to the test, ‘Give up your Christian faith or face the consequences.’ We’re not sure if the consequences meant fighting animals, gladiators or just fighting naked against armed Romans.”

He went on, “A recent excavation here found some previously undiscovered human remains, probably from those first Christians. They were a stubborn lot!”

I listened in stunned silence, moved to reflection. I sensed that I was standing on personal holy ground. I let my mind wander through the centuries, priests baptizing infants, parents teaching children from generation to generation, from Windish in Switzerland to Germany to Texas to Zion Lutheran Church, Walburg,Texas. to my family and my Wendish father, Oscar Henry Kieschnick.

Part II
I am the designated Protestant lecturer at a religious retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany sponsored by the religious education department of the U.S. Armed Forces - Europe. My designated Roman Catholic colleague is Msgr. Al McBride. It is Sunday morning and we’ve led our respective worship services concurrently in two different locations. In my message I had urged my listeners to pass on their teaching from generation to generation. I told them the story of Windish, Switzerland and the Wends.

Shortly after the service Father McBride excitedly came to see me. “I’ve just heard from someone in your “congregation” that you told a Wendish story and that you’re a Wend. Let me tell you something. My religious order of priests was founded back in the 11th century. The original documents declare that one of the goals of the order was 'to convert to the faith the strong-willed heathen nomadic ethnic group called the Wends.' You are the first Wend I’ve ever actually met.”

Part III
My cousin John is interested in genealogy, including the family histories of Wends. He has discovered a little noted book entitled "The Christianization of the Nomadic Tribes of Central Europe.”

From it I learn that the flow of Christianity from Roman times to the 20th Century was not so uninterrupted as I had first surmised. Until at least the 9th century that geographical area now called Germany, Austria and Switzerland was occupied by a whole host of tribes, each independent, each with its own language and system of social organization. One of the toughest, most stubborn and least successful was the Wendish tribe. They fought a lot and they lost a lot. This merely intensified their resolve to keep their own identity, to resist being assimilated. They would keep their own language, customs and gods! Christianity was not their traditional religion nor was it something to be adopted easily. They were the last of the Slavonic tribes to become Christian.

MY PERPLEXITY

As I read of the Wends’ determination to keep their own ways, including their ways of worship, I found one piece of myself rooting for them to resist. A part of my gut was almost hoping they would not convert to Christianity. Two sets of questions: 1. Which kind of Wendish blood still flows in my veins? Am I stubborn and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have written or am I a person with strongly held religious convictions, convictions worthy of praise? 2. Why was a piece of my awareness hoping my ancestors would resist the evangelization efforts of early missionaries? What implications are there in this for me as I act on what I perceive as a mandate to “Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?”