“Holy Places", The San Diego Padres, and the Holy Spirit

Next Sunday at my church I am leading an Adult Class which will discuss “The Holy Spirit.” Last night I spoke with my son John who is head of the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. There he teaches a course on Holy Places, places like churches, temples, cathedrals and others usually associated with the various religions of the world.

This semester he has a student who has signed a contract to play baseball for the San Diego Padres organization. At the beginning of the term he had explained to John that he wanted to be excused from attending some of the classes because he wanted to attend spring training. John agreed and assigned him the task of writing an extra paper on a topic related to the class content.

This week John received the paper. In it the student explained that he was indeed at spring training. He described a particular place. He wrote that it was just an ordinary large room. It was virtually empty.  It had only a large group of chairs. There were no pictures on the walls, no symbols or decorations on any of the walls. It was the place where the players gathered, sometimes the whole big squad of regulars and new recruits, at other times just the rookies. As he thought of sitting in that room he recalled his own story, his hopes, his fears. Then he became aware of the reality that each person there had their own story: a story of excitement, fear, stardom, boredom, fantasy, anonymity, last chance and fresh hopes. In that moment he thought of what made each of them unique and what connected them all as one. He said he came to a profound realization: ”This is indeed a holy place.”

And I agree. The more I reflect upon it the more I realize the truth of the statement that the Holy Spirit moves among us as it wills, dwells in our midst, stirs up our memories and our visions and our faith. It is indeed true that spirit, the Holy Spirit, the San Diego Padres and all the rest of us are all connected.

Afghan Refugee Family Saga: Three Strikes - But Not Out

The amazing family of 7 young persons who fled the Taliban and are now our friends here, continues to face challenges and to persevere.

We rejoiced with them 18 months ago when they found a wonderful 4 bedroom home to rent at the very good price of $2,100.00 a month. Now the owner has officially announced “I am selling the house.  You have three months to vacate.” So the search is on. A computer site listed a deal: “For rent :3 bedroom stand-alone home with 2 car garage in a desirable neighborhood.” The eldest, S, replied via email and then phone. It got better. The rent is only $900.00 a month. Then it got even \better: Utilities included. Then it got suspicious: the house interior could be viewed only after a $2,900.00 deposit was paid. Keys would be handed over after the by mail deposit was received. More phone calls, more emails, all to the Afghan woman. When I sent an email, made numerous phone calls there was no response. I explained  to her, “This is a scam! Do not send any money to the suggested Texas mailing address.” The owner had not responded to me but was  very persistent in calling the Afghan woman saying,  “Just send the money. Keep the house clean. Trust me.  I am a very religious and righteous person.” I finally convinced my friend to forget it. She cannot afford sending a check for $2,900.00 to a Texas address to rent a house from a guy she has never met, who won’t let her see the house and can’t explain why he is renting his place at well less than half of the going rate. I am convinced we dodged a scam.

I missed seeing the eldest son “A”. I was told, “Oh, we forgot to tell you. He is back in Pakistan. He is there for two reasons: 1. He wants to get married to an Afghan woman whom he met at the immigration center in Islamabad which helped the family get asylum status in the USA.” The second reason: “He has found a way to contact the smuggler who got our family our of Afghanistan. However, in the process our 5year old sister disappeared”. Now “A” wants to make contact with that smuggler and see if we can find our missing family member. “A” has now been somewhere in Pakistan but he does not have the money to pay for a phone call back to the States so we don’t really know what’s happening.

With wonderful assistance from a friend of mine who runs several McDonald’s we got work for three of the family members. They are very eager to work, are willing to go to school and work and do anything to  “get ahead”. However time schedules are very complicated. English language skills vary. Work ethics for them range from extreme dedication and hard work to something less than that. But then the reality is that in San Diego (at least at these McDonald’s) 95% of the employees are Hispanic, speak only Spanish at work and look out after their friends and relatives with whom they share work at the same store.  When one of the Afghan young men decided that he was being discriminated against, was never allowed to “work up front’’, spent week after week doing only the lowest and least satisfying work like sweeping the floors and cleaning stoves, he rebelled. He refused to obey an order. He was appropriately fired on the spot. Now all three are out of work.

Meantime the climate in our country has become more challenging. Racial and religious slurs are coming more frequently. Job applications are placed at the bottom of the pile. Yet they and we carry on. There is an unsinkable conviction, “America is the land of opportunity. We are blessed to be here. We are most grateful to all the people who are making great efforts and sacrifices to help us. We are determined to get our citizenship status and make a contribution to this country and to those who are supporting us. With God’s help we will not only survive but we will prosper.”

Moaning and Complaining: Lutheran Clergy

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I have known, worked with or heard of several situations in which pastors have flat-out failed to be effective ministers. So I am taking advantage of this blog to let all my frustrations shouted out.

1. Some pastors just don’t listen. A member of a pastoral call committee spoke with me recently. The congregation wisely decided to hold “cottage meetings” at which the members were to provide their input to the congregation committee in answer to the question “What are you looking for in the next pastor we are calling to serve us?” Unfortunately an interim pastor decided to attend those cottage meetings. She took over. For the full 90 minutes she lectured, she gave instructions she shared her personal experience. Not once did she allow the members to give their in-put to the question for which the group had been assembled. She just didn’t listen.

This need to talk rather than to listen is also often demonstrated by pastors who teach adult classes. Way too often these are lectures only. Opportunity to gather the shared wisdom and insight of the group is simply not considered. The message seems to be “You folks listen up! I know, you don’t”

2. Failure to Conduct Pastoral Visits to the Sick and Shut-ins. Some pastors are fantastic at this and give it a very high priority, but it seems to me the current trend is in the opposite direction. I have a friend who is a member of a Lutheran congregation (not mine). She has kidney cancer. She carefully informed her pastor of the date she was to have it removed. There was no hospital or home visit made. After my friend returned home there were new complications. This time her husband sent an email to the pastor. No response. No home visit. No mention on congregation prayer lists. I became so disturbed by this that I wrote a very careful non-blameful email to the pastor. No response to me nor to the ill member! And certainly no home visit

In the old German Lutheran congregation of my youth I learned the term “siel sorger”(sp) which means, “concern for the soul”. The pastor kept a careful record of those who were ill, those who had not taken communion for some time, those who had not been to worship for over a month. This was his (and it was always a male) priority list for home visits. Any suggestion that a process similar to this be instituted into today’s church life would be met with derision and the strong declaration that I was our of contact with today’s realities. Yes, I know the lay people can do a lot of this and I also know where the pastors have made zero effort to train, engage and encourage their members in home visits via e.g. Steven Ministries

3. Interim Clergy. These are clergy assigned to parishes which have a vacancy in the pastoral office and are in the process of calling a replacement. Again, there are some interims who do a great job, but by far the majority of cases about which I hear tell of great frustration, especially by congregation leaders. Too many interim pastors make the situation worse.

So that’s my moaning for today. And I thank God for all those pastors who faithfully listen, really make those pastoral visits and really help hurting congregations eagerly awaiting a new pastor.

Reflections On A Long And Blessed Life No. 48: College Teaching

I was surprised that immediately upon receiving my Master’s Degree I was asked to teach a summer course at Concordia Teachers College, River Forest, IL ( now Concordia University: Chicago) I accepted the request and thoroughly enjoyed teaching the course entitled The Use of Tests and Measurements in Lutheran Elementary Schools. The students were  all principals. They brought good questions and a variety of good insights. One much unanticipated result of this class was that I met the remarkable and capable principal of St. Lorenz Lutheran School in Frankenmuth Michigan: Mr. Walter Bleke.  Twelve years after my teaching him in this class it was Mr. Bleke who played a  big role in me becoming Superintendent of Lutheran Schools for the Michigan District and then four years later (again with his influence ) the head of Parish Education for The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

My college teaching then continued at Hong Kong College in that British Crown Colony.and at Concordia Seminary and The Lutheran Theological Seminary there. I taught Christian Education, General Psychology and Pastoral Theology. While not of essence to the content of the courses my strongest  memories relate to the language used in teaching. At first I taught in English with sentence by sentence interpretation  into Cantonese by Mr. Isaac Ma and Dr. Andrew Chiu. Both of them were outstanding interpreters and of incredible help in my teaching. The saddest and most embarrassing feature of my teaching is the  General Psychology course  I taught at LutheranTheological  Seminary in the Cantonese language. I spent hours in preparation and made it only with the wonderful assistance of Pr. Daniel Lee Wing Ching. Yet-even with his assistance my Cantonese was terrible. I messed up many of the tones of that language and must have said many incomprehensible things. The only text books available were translations from Russian and were all pure behaviorism in point of  view. Yet those students did not mock me (at least not to my face). They stuck in there with me and I hope even learned one little insight which later on helped them in their ministry.

Strangely enough my memory of  teaching at Hong Kong College has  an unusual twist. I had one student who resisted everything I said, often in a rather belligerent manner. I was told that he was a strong Communist supporter who was there to  expose the failure of the Christian witness. He endured me and I hung  in there with him. Some time later I learned that he had not only become a Christian but had decided to become a Lutheran pastor.

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Upon reflection I am deeply aware of the critical role that college/university professors play in the lives of students and in society. I am now blessed to have had a brother-in-law and a daughter who have been college teachers and currently have a son-in-law and son who are full-time college profs. These are honorable and worthy professions indeed. They are influencers and shapers of minds and of our world. I am grateful that for short periods of my career I was briefly numbered among them.

Reflections ON A LongAnd Blessed LIfe No. 47: Graduate School

  

As mentioned in an earlier Blog it was always my intention to get a graduate degree and I started my master’s program at Northwestern University the week after I graduated from college. But then I hastened to Tracy, California and my first teaching assignment at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and School in Tracy, California. The nearest university offering graduate work was the College of the Pacific (now University of Pacific) in Stockton. At that time, in my eyes, it was most famous for its wonderful 5’8” quarterback Eddie LaBaron who was a top football quarterback on offense, great safety on defense and punter on special teams. And the school offered a master’s program at an affordable price.

The entry process surprised me. I took standardized tests in General Knowledge and in Education. I scored in the ninetieth percentiles in both and that taught me a lesson. In a day when so much emphasis is placed on getting into just the right undergraduate school-I learned that sometimes it does not matter that much how highly the school is ranked. Concordia Teachers College certainly was never in a “top schools” list. I went there. Did my best. Got the most I could from the school and when it was time for grad school I had nothing to worry about. I think that is as true in 2017 as it was in 1951.

Since I was working full time I went to school in the summer and in the evening. My degree was in Psychology. The mid-fifties was a time when there was much emphasis on non-directive teaching and learning. One of my most disappointing classes was a class where the prof did no formal teaching. All learning was to be self-directed by the members of the class. My class did not do much “directing”. It spent most of the time arguing how the prof could assign a letter grade to students who only talked and gave each other feedback.

I had a good Philosophy course and an outstanding course in Statistics. And I was fortunate that the Statistics prof was on my thesis committee. I did my research across the LCMS elementary school system on what standardized tests were used, how they were used and what was done with the results. The most challenging aspect of that whole proves may simply have been in getting the findings into published form. It was all made possible by the incredible efforts of my wife Jane. When we were writing this she was the mother of a new baby. She did all the typing which was, of course, on an old manual typewriter. We needed two copies without any corrections on any page, all on paper of a particular nature and very strict unyielding rules on proper footnotes and citations. Because of everything else that was going on in our lives that entire thesis was written and typed by the two of us, typically beginning at 11:00 p,m., working until around 1:00 am and then going to bed so that we could be up and at work by 7:30 in the morning. Together we made it.

--> Interesting footnote: The week before my orals the US Supreme Court issued its famous Brown vs Board of Education ruling against school racial segregation. That became a significant area for the committee to address in asking me how that would influence Lutheran schools in he USA. Little did I know then that some years later I would be visiting all the black Lutheran schools of the USA south and later working for the Center for Urban Education Ministries which served many schools that were the first in the LCMS (Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod) to be truly racially integrated.