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,

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.”

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!