WHATEVER HAPPENED TO……?

SOUL ACCOUNTING “Soul Accounting” is a term coined long ago. It was used especially in congregations of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It described a very good practice. It was a process to track and follow-up on the status of their members. The Senior Pastor had primary responsibility. Often he was assisted by a team of lay persons (in those days always men) who shared responsibility with the pastor. The goal was to monitor as best as possible the spiritual well being of the congregation members. It focused on frequency of communion attendance, regularity of attendance at worship, consistency of financial offerings, ensuring that children were enrolled in the Lutheran school et sim. It really had a noble purpose and when properly carried out greatly assisted the congregation in its responsibility for the spiritual welfare of all of its members.

If I were to use that term today in my ELCA congregation I would get a blank stare and the honest question, “What in the world do you mean by 'soul accounting'? Is that some new computer tracking system?” My congregation keeps no formal record of communion or church attendance. It has no lay committee charged with monitoring how things are going in the families of the church. I know of no system in place for laity to visit the ill, no functional utilization of our apparently dead Stephen Ministry. I know of no effort to have private conversations with members who have stopped making financial contributions. All of this leads to my lament “Whatever happened to soul accounting?”

LUTHERAN CONGREGATION SINGING Again, I have wonderful memories of robust total congregational singing in the Lutheran churches of my youth. There were old hymns (especially chorales) accompanied by a full pipe organ. Men, women and children joined in, often in the four-part harmony of soprano, alto, tenor, bass. Now many new songs are filled with what to me is simply a repetition of quickly succeeding sixteenth notes. Maybe one-in-ten congregants sing along. In my congregation the singing of hymns is a lost art.

HOME VISITATIONS AMONG CONGREGATION MEMBERS It is, I am sure, not just nostalgia that recalls all those Sunday dinners we used to share with other members of our congregation. And they were augmented by big at-home beer and bar-b-que filled wedding receptions, birthday celebrations, and remembrances of years of marriage. The pastor was certain to have been an invited visitor in every single congregation home. Now it usually takes death or a near death experience to have an in-home pastoral visit.

But it is not only church related stuff that I am nostalgic about this morning. Rather, I ask more about WHATEVER HAPPENED TO…

EATING OUT AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE This week my wife Jane and I celebrated her birthday at a wonderful top level steak house. It was generously paid for by friends and family. Here is what we had: 1 serving of French onion soup, asparagus, dessert, one glass of good house wine, the smallest filet on the menu and the lowest cost full-sized steak. The bill (without tip) was $175.00. Now, I want to be clear: it was great, the gift from friends and family deeply appreciated. But $175.00! What retired Lutheran schoolteacher in the world could ever do that without assistance from family and friends!

A DECENTLY LONG GOLF DRIVE I just watched the golf tournament at the magnificent Bethpage-Black Golf Course in New York. I saw and relived the hole where 30 years ago I won the long drive contest with a drive of about 275 yards. Today it takes me a good drive and another wood to reach that distance

THAT MEL WHO ALWAYS HAD A POSITIVE SPIRIT The truth is he is still very much alive. He knows that the whole scene of congregational life has changed in the last 75 years and the good ole’ days have been replaced with lots of good multimedia worship. He knows that Lutheran congregations are still places of care, good pastoral ministry and music which lifts the souls of many. Good dinners can be found and paid for without taking out a loan, and it does feel good to hit golf drives that are straight even if they re not very long. But I just decided to let it all hang out for a few minutes, post it on a BLOG and then go have a good glass of wine and be grateful for the past, the present and the future.

REFLECTIONS ON A BLESSED AND HAPPY LIFE NO 32:PAYING FOR COLLEGE

Paying for college in 1945 (the year I entered) was a whole different story from what our children are paying for our grandchildren’s college in 2016. My recollection is that I figured my total cost for college, including transportation between Texas and Illinois, all tuition and room and board, came to about $600.00 a year. That was because the church charged us NO tuition as we were all studying to become commissioned teaching ministers on the official roster of the church. And because, according to the US government, $1.00 in 1945 is equivalent to $1.32 in 2016. My recollection is that my father  (who provided most of the money) was making about $3,000.00 a year. Yet he sent in all the money for room and board. My two sisters, Erna and Leona, who “went to work” rather than go to college themselves and helped pay my fees for four years at Concordia Academy, had both married and were no longer providing funds for me. Costs for daily activities, laundry, books etc. were up to me

So, of course, I worked over the summer. The first couple years I worked as a waiter at Wukash Brothers Café in Austin. The last two years I worked at constructions jobs. And work I did! I was at the lowest level of skills and pay. I think I was paid 40 cents an hour and spent most of my time digging foundation trenches and then fabricating the steel foundations. It was often over 100 degrees of Texas heat. I wore shorts and no shirt. I was turned a very dark tan and my muscles were as hard as the steel I fabricated. I also learned about the language and conversation of people who were far removed from “church work” and the curses and oaths that surrounded very graphic descriptions of sexual activity were, at first, very foreign to my ears.

I remember one of the first little jobs I took on a Saturday in River Forest. It was to install storm windows in a private home. I didn’t even know what a “storm window” was, but the two female residents of the home who hired me were very kind and forgiving and we did eventually get all those storm windows installed on both levels of that big two-story house.

 By far the best job I had during the school was “setting pins” in the bowling alleys of the private Oak Park Club. I was responsible for 2 adjoining lanes from 7:00-11:00 pm. Obviously that was before there were pin-setting machines and so it was all hand labor. While I was responsible for the lanes up to 11:00 pm it was also agreed that if no one was there after 10:00 pm I could take off and head back to the dorm. I was paid $4.00 a night and often worked two nights a week and in those days $8.00 was enough to take care of my incidental expenses. Obviously “incidental “could not allow for any restaurant meals, cigarettes, alcohol, et sim and very little to take the el to the Chicago Loop and just enjoy the sights.

The good news: I graduated from college without debts (other than the $100.00 I borrowed to start grad school) and it was good financial discipline! It blows my mind that last night when Jane and I went out (as guests of family and friends) our dinner bill for the two of came exactly to the same dollar amount as what my salary was for my first month of teaching in a Lutheran school.

Reflections on a Blessed and Happy Life No. 31 College Sports

 I have a friend who often reminds me that when I speak of my high school and college sports activities that I should always begin by explaining that I played in a very small pool. His point is that when one is in a small pool one can be a tiny fish and still seems to have volume. He has made his point ever since he discovered that my high school had about 100 students and my college some 600.

When I arrived at Concordia I had never played legal tackle football. (I say “legal” because we had an unauthorized little team which played without uniforms and which snuck onto the wonderful turf of Memorial Stadium of the University of Texas and played against a similar unauthorized team made up of local black young men from the neighborhood). I was eager to play college football. I was assigned the position of right end and played both offence and defense. I had a couple things going for me: 1. I had spent the summer in San Antonio heat digging foundation trenches at construction sites using only pick and shovel. So, my body was rock hard and 2. I had played lots of “take away” where we competed to grab fly balls snatching them away from other pursuers. Thus I did pretty well at catching passes, grabbing five of them in the first quarter of an early game. The bad news is that I was a very slow runner and the coach reminded me on the sidelines “Kieschnick, if you could run we would have a bunch of touchdowns!” Then I broke my ankle - but I did play all four years.

 

Probably the biggest surprise of my days as a footballer is that I was elected team captain. It was in my junior year. I had returned after a year of being a teaching intern. The coach assembled the team and asked then to use a secret ballot to elect their captain. I won – getting almost all the votes. It had been entirely kept from me by my teammates that they were planning this.

I was on the varsity basketball team for a year, but other players, especially those from basketball- crazy Ft. Wayne Indiana were all better that I was. So after my freshman year I settled for intramural basketball, did a few things on the track team like throwing the discuss and shot putt, but you will certainly not find my name in an record books.

I did play four years of varsity baseball. In high school I always played shortstop, but that position was sewed up by an upper classman and I took to the outfield. My arm was not bad, but after college I played some under a very experienced coach. He always (correctly) insisted that my throws from the outfield had too high an arc and therefore took too long to reach their destination. He was right. My baseball colleague Rudy Block (who died way too young) really monitored batting averages and he assured me that my batting average was number two on the team, second only to his

One other memory: Once I was removed for a pinch hitter even though the coach knew that I had the second highest batting average. And Coach Waldschmidt had seen my two previous plate appearances against this very small but canny left-hander who struck me out in both my previous two trips to the plate. I simply could not connect with his curve which broke toward my body. I guess some moralist will tell me that it was a good learning experience for me to have to sit on the bench.

An interesting intra-mural fun game was badminton. By some coincidence my roommate and fellow Texan Roland Trinkklein and I battled it out for the school championship.

All in all  I am very grateful for my college sports activities. It kept me in good physical shape. Being part of a team is a very rewarding and learning experience. Learning to lose (which we did often) taught me that life often has bitter losses and I have experienced and survived my share of them in the many years since I last played college sports-and being on losing teams prepared me well to be a fan of the San Diego Padres and Chargers.

REFLECTIONS ON A BLESSED AND HAPPY LIFE NO 30: STUDENT GOVERNMENT

One of the most enjoyable and long-term beneficial aspect of college life was my involvement with Student Government. I think it started already in my freshman year when I was a “floor rep”. It got amped up on my junior year when I became head of the Men’s Council. It ended in my senior year when I served as Student Body President. The last was fun even before it started, as there was a long and interesting campaign season.

Two cousins, Blondie and Blackie Doering, were school mates one year behind me. When I decided to run for office they chose to be my campaign managers. That was fun, as we made signs, had slogans, made some campaign speeches etc. They were great and we succeeded. If my memory is correct I received some 90% of the popular vote. Which probably totaled some 600 in this small school.

The task of Student Body President involved quite a bit. I chaired all student council meetings, oversaw a whole host of student committees and met weekly with the college dean to discuss campus life. One of the perks of the office was that it carried with it a school grant in the fabulous amount of $100.00 for the year. (This sounds infinitesimal now, but since my total college costs for the year were around $500.00 this was a nice little help.)

One minor aspect and very strange “duty” of the student body president was to lead the entire campus in table prayers each day for the evening meal. In those days we had a very limited and set time for dinner. It was served “family style” and there were no food options. We ate what was set before us or went hungry. The members of the Student Council sat at an elevated head table. I led the table prayer or designated someone else to do it. In retrospect this all seems very strange.

One of the heavier assignments was that the Dean consulted me when serious discipline actions needed to be taken against students. I still have some regret over one particular case. One of the young men had been caught stealing some money from another student. He confessed and seemed truly repentant. I also knew he came from a rural family and his parents were extremely proud that their son was entering the teaching ministry of the church. But the dean was adamant “This may be his first offense, but it’s serious. He’s out of here.”  Despite my not strong enough protests and pleas he was sent home to his devastated parents and to this day I wonder what he did with the rest of his life. I still regret my failure in giving him another chance.

One of the things I did of which I was most proud is that I suggested, then organized and finally chaired the very first nationwide conference of all student body presidents from each of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod colleges across the country. This was unheard of at that time and our college president was very afraid of this. He feared it might lead to some kind of inappropriate demands from these radical students. It was  of course, nothing of the kind. Just a good time for us to get together, learn from and support each other. One of the wonderful results of this was that for many years after that I would run into those student leaders and see what a positive difference they were making in he life of the church and society.

There is one other aspect of all this about which I have very good feelings. It turns out that in 1920 my father Oscar Kieschnick had served as “sem buck’ for this Concordia. In 1950 I had that title and some 25 years after me our son David was elected student body president at this same school. Just a quiet satisfaction. And the lessons I learned in that position served me well in a variety of positions I held later in my professional life

REFLECTIONS ON A BLESSED AND HAPPY LIFE NO.29: JANE

 By far the most important outcome of my college education had nothing to do with academics or career options. It had everything to do with my meeting, courting, loving and becoming engaged to Jane Ann Scheimann.

I was hardly a big “ladies man” in either high school or college years. In high school I think I had a total of three formal dates and they led to no special relationships. In my freshman year at college I dated some but nothing special clicked. In my sophomore year at college I did fall for a young woman, but she jilted me. Then a colleague suggested I ask for a date with Jane Scheimann, a woman I had not previously noticed. Not noticing her was my bad judgment. Our first dates were very simple. We’d attend a basketball game together, then maybe go to Petersons Ice Cream Parlor for a sundae.

Dating during my college years presented some challenges: I had no money. Cars were forbidden. “Girls”  had to be back in their dorms early, 10:00 p.m.. most nights. Public displays of affection were quickly admonished by the Dean of Women.

But we managed very well. Some of our best dates involved taking the Chicago el to go the Loop in downtown Chicago. Of course we walked the two miles each way to and from the el station. If we could save a few bucks we would buy discounted tickets to the Goodman Theater, which staged very good plays. Or we would just walk around the Loop, find our way to Lake Michigan and then hold hands, madly in love, staring at the Buckingham Fountain. “Eating out” would be very simple until we had been together for over a year and Jane’s father came to town and took us to Berghoff’s in the Loop for a fancy dinner that included not only great food but also wonderful, romantic violin music

Intimacy options were limited. But love finds a way. Our first kiss was behind the college gym. The Catholic Monastery not far away had massive grounds with secluded trees perfect for smooching.  Old-fashioned vows of chastity were self-imposed until our wedding night.

In our senior year we had a date that could have turned out to be very embarrassing. Cousin Blondie Doering’s mother was visiting. She arrived in her Buick. After all of us going out for ice cream we stopped the car in front of the dorm, but Blondie who had been driving said, “Here, you to take the car for the rest of the evening.” I slide behind the wheel of the car with the engine running. By11:00 we were in the secluded parking lot of a near-by Forest Preserve. A policeman arrived and informed us that the park was closing and we had to leave. I attempted to start the car, but simply could not find the starter. Sweating profusely, I looked everywhere and was still fruitlessly searching when the officer returned. “I warned you two. Now get going or I will arrest you!” I was in a car in Illinois with Texas license plates. I had no ownership papers and I was unaware of where the starter was. In my panic I stomped my feet in every direction. Somewhere I hit a starter button (under the clutch?). The car started! The officer gave us one more incredulous look and sent us on our way back to the college dorm.

And we have been hitting starter buttons and heading on our way together ever since.