REFLECTIONS ON A BLESSED AND HAPPY LIFE NO. 28: TEACHERS COLLEGE

There was never any doubt as to which college I would attend. I think I was only 5 years old when I announced to my Mother that I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a teacher in the parochial school system of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) and that is where I landed.

 In 1945 Concordia Teacher College (CTC) was a very closed institution. It enrolled only LCMS Lutherans aspiring to be parochial school teachers. While it was co-ed it was far different from today’s coed colleges. Males were not allowed to visit the women’s dorms except on a few rare occasions and the women were ordered to keep their room doors open at any of the rare times when males were allowed on the floor. Once a year a wife of one of the Profs gathered the “girls” and gave them a lecture on sex. The women had to be signed into their rooms by 11:00 pm except for once a term when they received a special permit to stay out until 1:30 am.

Academically the school was very traditional. The Profs were committed to their students and all of them had to be rostered ministers of the LCMS. Of course, there were no computers and I had no typewriter. Teaching by assigning group projects was unheard of.

I did not do well in my freshman year and in one term made three grades of “C”. Then I caught on and did well always being on the Dean’s List and eventually graduating with highest academic honors.

Our education courses turned out to be not very helpful. However we had an English professor, Diesing, who taught me how to read, to organize, to write, to appreciate theater. It was also obvious that the teachers really cared about us students. Their office doors were always open. They always knew my name, and gave me much positive affirmation. My piano and organ teachers were unbelievable. All students were required to play an instrument. Teaching me to do that was hopeless, yet my teachers were kind, kept my weekly sessions with them short and encouraged me to fully use my other talents..

 The school helped shape my spiritual values and beliefs. I am grateful to Doc Koehler who indoctrinated me in the Lutheran tradition. Daily chapel attendance was required and not very creative. I now realize that all of this helped my spiritual formation but I also realize that I no longer believe much of what I was taught, especially as it relates to the role of women, the insights on all world religions, the wide arms of grace, the definition of church, the inclusiveness of the sacraments, etc. etc. I am grateful for what I was taught and that I have continued to learn and develop.

In retrospect CTC helped shape me, gave me a commitment to learning, prepared me for graduate work, gave me my first teaching placement and maybe most important of all: gave me the opportunity to meet a young woman named Jane Scheimann about whom I will write in my next blog.

AFGHAN TORTURED FAMILY SAGA PART II

 When Afghan refugee whom I have designated S-1 was sent to San Diego she was advised to contact Survivors of Torture, International. This is an organization that helps people who have fled to the USA because they have suffered government-sponsored torture. I had assisted this organization secure a start-up grant from Wheat Ridge Ministries more than ten years ago. I was a member of its Board of Directors. By coincidence our late son David had contacted this organization with an unusual offer.

David lived alone in his home here in San Diego. On his lot he had refurnished a beautiful small granny flat. Originally he intended to rent it out. Then he came to the conclusion that he did not really need rental income and that some needy person might find it a wonderful place to live. So he contacted Kathi Anderson of Survivors of Torture, Inc. Within 24 hours she had identified S-1 who was overjoyed to find a place to live other than the small one-bedroom apartment she was sharing with three refugees from Africa

When she moved in she was in a very difficult status. She spoke virtually no English. She had recurring headaches. She knew her parents were dead, her elder brother also murdered and her siblings in hiding.

David sprang into action. He provided cooking utensils, bedding, helped her get a bus pass and assisted her in enrolling in a local community college. She responded with deep appreciation, incredible hard work at her studies, and got a job of cleaning rooms in a hotel. She regained hope.

After about a year her siblings found refuge in America under the sponsorship of several human care agencies. Unfortunately, 2 of her sibs were assigned to San Diego and 4 younger ones placed in a foster home in Hemet, CA some 90 miles away. David assisted in cutting miles of red tape, got the family to at least have telephone connections, and all this while he was suffering from growing throat cancer. Then David’s cancer worsened and he died.  Like the rest of us she was devastated but determined. Against unbelievable odds and with massive assistance, especially from David’s Estate and generous members of Calvary Lutheran Church, Solana Beach, S-1 got herself named “foster parent” for her siblings. The entire family was reunited in San Diego with 6 of them now living together in a rented home.

All 7 of this family are now in school. Two have found part-time work. S-1 is in school full-time, foster parents the younger ones and manages it all. They are all determined to make it. She has sworn that they will stop needing “outside assistance” as early as possible.

The challenges continue. Getting a used car and driver’s license is a continuing major issue. Women do not drive cars in Afghanistan and roads do not lave lanes or stop lights. The house got bed bugs. The kids who had not seen a dentist for 5 years have terrible teeth and no money for dental care. Her eyes are a mess and her insurance does not cover eye care. Their Muslim headscarves bring them occasional taunts.

But they persevere and with the help of friends they will make it and be a valuable addition to this country they now very thankfully and proudly call home.

AFGHANISTAN TORTURED FAMILY SAGA, PART I

 Five years ago a young woman whom I will call S-1 lived a reasonably contented life- as contented as possible for a middle class Afghan family enduring the on-gong conflicts in that ancient country. The father ran a business including a money-exchange component. The mother was an active supporter of women’s rights. The children of school age were attending school. And that is where the trouble started.

One day as S-1 was coming home from school she was stopped by the Taliban. “Who is sending you to school?” they demanded. She told the truth: “My Father.” The response “Tell him he must stop doing that immediately!  In this country girls do not go to school!”  

After about a week S-1 was again stopped on the way home from school. This time it got even more serious. The Taliban discovered that she was not only going to school she was learning English. The next day her father disappeared. It was soon obvious that he had suffered the same fate as his eldest son who had previously disappeared. Both Father and Son were murdered by the Taliban. When the Mother heard this distressing news she suffered a heart attack and died.

The remaining 7 family members, all under 20 years of age tried to manage. Then a government agent arrived at their home with information provided by the USA forces. The threat was clear. “You, S-1, are next on the list for extermination by the Taliban. Escape at once. ”The entire family scrambled out of their home in the middle of the night making their way to a neighbor some distance away. The escape was in the dark and hurried and in the process a younger sister fell and broke her leg.

Someone related to the USA again arrived -this time with one tickets on a flight to the USA. S-1 was given the strong advice to flee for her life, get on the next flight and find freedom in the USA. S-1 arrived in Washington DC.

Meanwhile back in Afghanistan the nearby family was helpful but only for so long. It was announced that their 6 siblings could stay, but there was one new condition. The youngest girl in the family was to become an added wife to one of the care providers. He was 65, the girl, 12! They refused. They decided to get what cash they could for all their goods, car, home, and other possessions. Every penny of the proceeds was given to an underground group that got the family safely out of Afghanistan into hiding in Pakistan. About this time our family was about to get connected.

(More in next blog).

65th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Yesterday Jane and I celebrated our 65^th Wedding anniversary. It was a good time to give thanks, reflect and look forward.  Jane and I had a long and wonderful conversation in the context of the traditional Christian wedding vows plus a list or two of what it takes to have a good marriage. A few of the thoughts that struck us are listed below.

We promised to live together in the holy estate of matrimony. Our time together has been made holy by a gracious, generous, forgiving God. We are aware that our spiritual insights, beliefs and values have both remained firm and have significantly changed. We are much more open and less dogmatic. We are more comfortable with mystery and not in need of certainty about non-essentials. We are less provincial and feel a stronger shared unity with all of God’s people and the whole creation.

We have experienced poverty and riches. We recalled how in our early years of marriage Jane took our meager check, cashed it, and carefully placed the appropriate amount in individual envelopes, even $1.00 for postage. We have always tithed and more and as the years went by included more and more “non-church” causes in our designations. We realized that after ten years of marriage we were still making less than $300.00 a month (plus housing) and now we live in a wonderful retirement community where our monthly fee is well in excess of our annual salary in the first ten years.

Like others, we experienced together sickness and health, both to an extreme extent. Our daughter Liz was once not expected to live through Christmas Eve to the next day. We flew Jane home from Hong Kong while she was in a virtual coma. We watched our son Dave’s face be destroyed by cancer and held his hand as he breathed his last. And at age 88 both of us still travel the country without cane, wheel chair or oxygen tanks,

 

We have learned to love and cherish each other with a love that grows deeper with each passing year even as the sexual expression of that love which we so much anticipated and enjoyed for so many years is now sometimes more a memory than a current reality.

Our personal intercommunication has been strengthened by our ever deeper commitment and practice of active listening, non-blameful confrontation. win-win problem  solving and honest sharing of values and beliefs.

Family members including spouses and grandchildren are sources of joy, pride, new insights, challenges and satisfactions.

Colleagues and work experiences enriched us. Sixty-five years ago both of us anticipated spending our professional careers in the elementary classrooms of Lutheran parochial schools. That would, of course, also have been a very satisfying calling, but we have been blessed by all kinds of other opportunities for service from California to New York to tens of cities and countries around the world, ranging from Hong Kong to Helsinki to Pakistan and places in between.

The marriage vows conclude with “as long as you both shall live.” How long that will be is, of course, unknown to us. Yet this we do know. It’s has been and is great. We are blessed beyond what we ever imagined possible on that Saturday afternoon in Zion Lutheran Church, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. 65 years ago.