Father's Day 2011

Like millions of other kids on this day, today I remember my father. Of course, my memories are biased. They should be as I hope every kid has a positive bias in recalling their father. I certainly hope my kids bring a very positive prejudice (free even from justly deserved negative judgments) to this special day. So here go a few of my very fond and strong memories of my DAD.

Faith: My father was a man of deep religious faith. He believed in grace. I recall that at dad’s funeral the pastor said that he had a problem preaching on the text which my father had requested. My father had selected a text which referred to himself as “a chief sinner.” The pastor said that no-one who knew my father would ever have used that designation-but for dad it was a take-off to point to grace, boundless love and unconditional acceptance. My father’s faith in God, in family, in kids, in the possibility of preferred future, continues to ground and inspire me. He even had faith that someday his beloved Chicago Cubs would actually win a World Series!

Trust: My dad trusted me. I recall that when I was still quite young I lied to him. Even in that undeserving situation he trusted me and took me at my word. Toward the end of his life I came to tell him that I had made a major decision regarding my future and I wondered how he would react. He said “Mel, I raised you in a way that I could trust your judgment.. I have always trusted your judgment-“do what seemeth right to thee”.

Worker: Dad worked hard-probably too hard. When I was young he taught grades 4 to 8, was the principal of a two room Lutheran school. He concurrently served as the congregation’s choir director, organist, youth director, brass band director, custodian, and congregation secretary...all the while raising nine children, and sufficient pigs, chickens cows and vegetables to provide food. During the hot Texas summer he took himself and his kids into the fields to pick cotton - always with the injunction “In the field by sun-up!”

Story teller: Dad told stories at home-especially when we kids pleaded with him to tell the stories of his childhood when wolves howled at night, horses suddenly stampeded, grandmother encountered chicken thieves, and his dad’s black farm hands shared their own dreams of greatness. In school he told the stories of the Bible in such a way that recalling them sustains me to this day. At the Texas rural weddings (after he played the organ for the ceremony) there would come a time after much beer and bar-b-que where Teacher Kieschnick was asked to tell his fantasy stories about the bride and groom. Then he closed the entertainment with the appropriate version of his solo about how fortunate to marry either a very large or a very petite spouse-always changing the words to fit the situation.

Teacher: For his entire career my Dad was often just called TEACHER Kieschnick. And that was certainly the most appropriate title. He taught all those years at the elementary school level. He taught the values of faith and trust and humor and integrity, but I also marvel at how much academic stuff he taught. In that little two-room school I, for one, learned proper grammar and to this day know how to diagram sentences and determine if a verb is transitive or intransitive. He taught us how to multiply and divide fractions, the names of the capitals of all the sates, the three branches of government, and regularly checked to make sure we knew the names of all the secretaries on the US president’s cabinet.

Lover: Each of us nine kids is convinced that we were dad’s favorite child. Later this love was extended to in-laws and grandkids. One night there must have been near 20 of us in his small house. We were sleeping all over the place with our blankets and palates on the floor from wall to wall. I woke up during the night to see dad just walking by that mass of sleeping family and his heart was aglow. He loved us all and thought we were all great. He often spoke of and constantly demonstrated his great love for his wife-our mom. One of the saddest moments I remember of my dad was when in his old age once late at night he confessed to me that his one regret in life was that he never made enough money to give mom all that he would have liked. Of course, mom would join us and especially me in saying “Dad, you gave us riches way beyond your wildest imagination!”

Nobody Knows My Name

It was way back in the 1950’s that I became haunted by James Baldwin’s “Nobody Knows My Name”. Haunted is the right word. Personally, I saw in his writings a reflection of my own deeply ingrained racism. Professionally, I knew that as a Lutheran educator I needed to face up to the reality that the Brown vs. Board of Education decision would bring blacks also into the previously all white Lutheran schools. At an even deeper level I recall pondering what it would be like if, in fact, “Nobody Knows My Name” were true for me.

“Nobody Knows My Name” was not a personal reality for me. I was a fish in a very small pond where everybody knew everyone else’s name. In the small Lutheran community in Texas and the small German Lutheran community within that and the even smaller Missouri Synod community within that everybody knew my name. I was Melvin, the son teacher Kieschnick the most respected educator in that pond. I went to a very small Lutheran academy. Less than 50 students and everybody knew my name. It didn’t change when I went to Concordia Teachers College, a pond so small everybody knew everybody’s name, including mine. My circle stayed small; of course everyone in the Conference of Lutheran School principals of Northern California knew my name. Then I went to Hong Kong and within the small pond in which I swam everybody knew my name. I was the only American in most of those gatherings. And so it continued for another 40 years. In my small pond everybody knew my name. And that was “nice”.

The other day I was sitting at a lecture on anticipated changes in health care for seniors in America. I looked around. Nobody there knew my name. When I asked a question of the woman sitting next to me she glanced at my name badge and said, “I don’t think I know you.” When earlier this year I roamed corridors and exhibit hall at a national conference of Lutheran educators nobody knew my name. Even in my own congregation at clusters of those under 40 I am sure nobody knows my name. And I understand. I know I am now living in that huge pond named “retirement”.

All of this has led me to think about the millions in their world for whom “Nobody Knows My Name” is an entirely too common reality. They feel unnoticed, or neglected or just a cipher. What a tragedy.

Two reactions settle into my consciousness. 1. I will more often recall the words of the prophet who assured us that there is indeed One who “calls us by our name”. 2. I will work even harder to make sure I get the name of the persons with whom I have an interaction (no matter how casual) and call them by name. That way they will not be able to say, “Nobody Knows My Name.”