As I sit and watch blood being drawn from the arms of people of various ages my mind wanders. This time I am only a spectator as I am there with my wife Jane who was making an autologous blood donation in preparation for her hip and knee replacement surgeries. I recall how now some 60 years ago I somewhat apprehensively donated my first pint. Then came the first gallon milestone. After that things got interesting because I was in Hong Kong with different protocols. Most of the Chinese colleagues were very poor, with barely adequate diets and quite understandably apprehensive about giving up any of their blood. Then our school accountant’s wife desperately needed blood. Of course, I donated. I was overwhelmed with the response. It almost took on some heroic proportion as the talk spread throughout the campus “Principal Kieschnick has donated blood. It went to a Chinese woman. And she is doing well!”
There was another surprise. Immediately after the blood was drawn the nurse asked me “”Now, do you want a shot of rum or or scotch?” I assume she was kidding me as I had always been told to avoid alcohol for 24 hours after donating. But she assured me it was okay, that it was the usual practice to make this offer to any foreigner who donated blood in Hong Kong. She went on: “We get most of our donations from British servicemen and the only way we get them to do it is to offer them a nice tot of rum after the donation!”
I no longer donate because the last time I did it took me an hour to fill that little plastic bag. But I do feel good about those several gallons I have given and wonder where (if anywhere) it still flows.
Later the same day I was relaxing at a bar with a delicious margarita. I observed a high school kid come in and fill out a summer work application form. He was all bright-eyed and ready to go to work. My guess is he would do almost anything offered him. I asked the bartender about the job prospect for a summer job. “Zilch!” he said. “We have a drawer full of apps from kids like him. Of course, we have no jobs but we hate to discourage young lads like that.” Today summer jobs for teens are almost nonexistent. That got me to reflecting on my summer jobs. One word said it all: SWEAT.
Most of my summer jobs were with construction companies and I was always at the very lowest end of worker competence. The tools most often given me were pick and shovel. I dug and trimmed and deepened foundation trenches. In San Antonio Texas! In the summer! In temperatures often above 100ยบ! My memories of my summer work are of being drenched in sweat. But I did work and I saved the money and I made it through college and I can still feel and smell the SWEAT.
BLOOD, SWEAT but NO TEARS. I had thought about tears because I had just paid more money for a complete set of tires than I had ever paid in my life and I was in the dumps over that. Then that margarita helped put things into perspective. I calculated that the 45,000-mile warranty on those tires will take me to age 87 so I had just bought my last set of tires and that is no reason for tears!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Little Drops of Water
I reflect with amazement. Today a little ditty I leaned in my first years of Lutheran elementary school back in he 1930’s kept running through my mind. I wondered how his little tune got to Teacher Bleeke who taught us first graders, especially since almost any song we would have been taught would have been hymns – in German.
I first turned to a source never dreamed of even in science fiction back in those days: Google. I found a version of the poem attributed to one Mrs. J.A. Carney, written in 1845. Then my wife Jane, also a graduate of a Lutheran elementary school found in a book entitled “Select Songs for School and Home” published in 1922. The Preface of the book tells us that the songs in the book were written at the express command of the Lutheran Church to come up with an English song book to supplement the German “Liederperlen”. Then in the late 1930’s (I think) a new all English songbook called “The Music Reader” became a standard songbook for Lutheran schools and it, too, (if memory serves me correctly) included this little gem.
Interestingly, the words change from text to text reflecting what I believe to have been concern for doctrinal and theological orthodoxy. And on this sunny day of 2011 it all came back to me in a version clearly etched in my brain. I will go with what I think is the original:
Little drops of water
Little gains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the beauteous land.
Little deeds of kindness
Little words of love
Make our earth an Eden
Like the heavens above.
And the little moments
Humble though they be
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
And why are those words and the accompanying tune ringing in my ears all day today? Because today I was nourished by those little drops of water and was sustained by those little grains of sand. My wife has been ill. Email brought the little drops of water in the form of get well cards; Then the mail arrived: more drops. This afternoon I was at the drugstore when I noticed a man looking closely at me. When I looked back he said, “Wow! I just want to tell you I really like that shirt you are wearing.” I went to pick up our dinner and the hostess said, “ Mr. Kieschnick, that shirt really looks good on you.” Then another drop: A friend contacted to say that she will visit Jane while I am not home next Tuesday. Little drops of water. Son David stopped by saying, “I brought these chocolate covered strawberries. I thought you might enjoy them.”
So I resolved to swim in those little drops that make the mighty ocean, to savor the little moments, to drop a little water myself. And to share a grain of sand. In this moment I will revel in the mighty ages of eternity.
I first turned to a source never dreamed of even in science fiction back in those days: Google. I found a version of the poem attributed to one Mrs. J.A. Carney, written in 1845. Then my wife Jane, also a graduate of a Lutheran elementary school found in a book entitled “Select Songs for School and Home” published in 1922. The Preface of the book tells us that the songs in the book were written at the express command of the Lutheran Church to come up with an English song book to supplement the German “Liederperlen”. Then in the late 1930’s (I think) a new all English songbook called “The Music Reader” became a standard songbook for Lutheran schools and it, too, (if memory serves me correctly) included this little gem.
Interestingly, the words change from text to text reflecting what I believe to have been concern for doctrinal and theological orthodoxy. And on this sunny day of 2011 it all came back to me in a version clearly etched in my brain. I will go with what I think is the original:
Little drops of water
Little gains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the beauteous land.
Little deeds of kindness
Little words of love
Make our earth an Eden
Like the heavens above.
And the little moments
Humble though they be
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
And why are those words and the accompanying tune ringing in my ears all day today? Because today I was nourished by those little drops of water and was sustained by those little grains of sand. My wife has been ill. Email brought the little drops of water in the form of get well cards; Then the mail arrived: more drops. This afternoon I was at the drugstore when I noticed a man looking closely at me. When I looked back he said, “Wow! I just want to tell you I really like that shirt you are wearing.” I went to pick up our dinner and the hostess said, “ Mr. Kieschnick, that shirt really looks good on you.” Then another drop: A friend contacted to say that she will visit Jane while I am not home next Tuesday. Little drops of water. Son David stopped by saying, “I brought these chocolate covered strawberries. I thought you might enjoy them.”
So I resolved to swim in those little drops that make the mighty ocean, to savor the little moments, to drop a little water myself. And to share a grain of sand. In this moment I will revel in the mighty ages of eternity.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Mother’s Day 2011 Mental Images
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day 2011. Time for me to recall more images of my mother.
Mother as Writer: It seems very strange to write the phrase: “Mother as writer”. It was my Father who was the writer. It is I who was supposed to be the writer in our family. But this Mother’s Day I recall Mother as the writer: writer of letters. Mother never went beyond the 6th grade at that small Zion Lutheran School in Walburg Texas. Yet she learned to write as evidenced by the many letters she wrote me. They were always in a very clear handwriting. Even more impressive: I do not recall her ever making either a spelling or grammar mistake. They were simple, direct, descriptive, of few words but strong emotion. They not only brought news of the family but also messages of concern, affirmation and hope.. I was a missionary in Hong Kong at a time when church ruled allowed us to return home only after 5 years of uninterrupted service abroad. It was Mother who kept those images of home, of faith, or affirmation or connectiveness alive for me. She did it through her great skill a writer.
My father was called Teacher Kieschnick all his life. His three sons all went into the “teaching ministry”. Yet, one of my strong images of Mother is that of Mother as Teacher. I am not now thinking of her as a teacher of her own children but as teacher of other children-in the church Sunday School. She had plenty of reason not to be a Sunday School teacher. She had her own 9 children to care for. She herself never attended a single day of Sunday School in her life because as she grew up her congregation had no such institution. Yet, today, I recall her, in her sixties - with her classroom Sunday School pamphlets, materials for a flannel graph presentation and star- filled attendance charts on her way to teach Sunday School. She always said, almost differentially, “Well I can only teach the very little ones”. The very little ones were the ones to whom my Mother brought messages of love, forgiveness, faith and hope. She was indeed a ”teacher sent from God.”
Mother as Spouse. I doubt if Mother could relate to today’s appropriate emphasis upon each person having an identity other than “spouse of”. In her lifetime that is simply the primary l way i n which she perceived herself. She was in her own eyes always “the wife of Teacher Kieschnick”. That meant that her husband was considered Minister of the Church and more. He was the congregation school principal, organist, choir director, spiritual leader, consultant on all matters of faith and Christian life - and Mother was "his wife “.
Mother would never even think that someone might seek her advice. If someone asked her opinion on matter of faith or church life, or raising children or proper etiquette, or societal affairs I am sure she would have referred the questioner to her husband. When she selected clothes for her children, when she was approving or distressed over the behavior of her kids, when she heard others make comments `on her children it seems to me that she immediately placed herself into a role Teacher’s Wife. In retrospect I regret that. She had great personal strength of character. She was an incredibly strong woman of purpose ,of pain tolerance, of insight into relationships. She did not need to “find her self esteem” in relation to her role in society - yet I do believe that that is what she did. In the process she humbly accepted: her place ”. It was a role she humbly accepted –and I wish to this day that she could have moved beyond that, to have seen herself as one with a strong self image, a vital role player in the life of others, a teacher and a leader. For truly that is who she was.
So on this Mother’s Day I recall and honor my mother; a writer, a teacher, a leader.
Mother as Writer: It seems very strange to write the phrase: “Mother as writer”. It was my Father who was the writer. It is I who was supposed to be the writer in our family. But this Mother’s Day I recall Mother as the writer: writer of letters. Mother never went beyond the 6th grade at that small Zion Lutheran School in Walburg Texas. Yet she learned to write as evidenced by the many letters she wrote me. They were always in a very clear handwriting. Even more impressive: I do not recall her ever making either a spelling or grammar mistake. They were simple, direct, descriptive, of few words but strong emotion. They not only brought news of the family but also messages of concern, affirmation and hope.. I was a missionary in Hong Kong at a time when church ruled allowed us to return home only after 5 years of uninterrupted service abroad. It was Mother who kept those images of home, of faith, or affirmation or connectiveness alive for me. She did it through her great skill a writer.
My father was called Teacher Kieschnick all his life. His three sons all went into the “teaching ministry”. Yet, one of my strong images of Mother is that of Mother as Teacher. I am not now thinking of her as a teacher of her own children but as teacher of other children-in the church Sunday School. She had plenty of reason not to be a Sunday School teacher. She had her own 9 children to care for. She herself never attended a single day of Sunday School in her life because as she grew up her congregation had no such institution. Yet, today, I recall her, in her sixties - with her classroom Sunday School pamphlets, materials for a flannel graph presentation and star- filled attendance charts on her way to teach Sunday School. She always said, almost differentially, “Well I can only teach the very little ones”. The very little ones were the ones to whom my Mother brought messages of love, forgiveness, faith and hope. She was indeed a ”teacher sent from God.”
Mother as Spouse. I doubt if Mother could relate to today’s appropriate emphasis upon each person having an identity other than “spouse of”. In her lifetime that is simply the primary l way i n which she perceived herself. She was in her own eyes always “the wife of Teacher Kieschnick”. That meant that her husband was considered Minister of the Church and more. He was the congregation school principal, organist, choir director, spiritual leader, consultant on all matters of faith and Christian life - and Mother was "his wife “.
Mother would never even think that someone might seek her advice. If someone asked her opinion on matter of faith or church life, or raising children or proper etiquette, or societal affairs I am sure she would have referred the questioner to her husband. When she selected clothes for her children, when she was approving or distressed over the behavior of her kids, when she heard others make comments `on her children it seems to me that she immediately placed herself into a role Teacher’s Wife. In retrospect I regret that. She had great personal strength of character. She was an incredibly strong woman of purpose ,of pain tolerance, of insight into relationships. She did not need to “find her self esteem” in relation to her role in society - yet I do believe that that is what she did. In the process she humbly accepted: her place ”. It was a role she humbly accepted –and I wish to this day that she could have moved beyond that, to have seen herself as one with a strong self image, a vital role player in the life of others, a teacher and a leader. For truly that is who she was.
So on this Mother’s Day I recall and honor my mother; a writer, a teacher, a leader.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Anger
My pastor took a well-deserved week of vacation the week after Easter and asked me to fill in for him while he was gone. As soon as I arrived at the church office on Monday morning a gentleman was waiting for me. He wanted my help. His brother had just called that he was being denied help at the local Vets Hospital. The gentlemen wanted my assistance for his deeply in need brother.
The story: This Afghanistan War vet was having terrible headaches. He could not keep food down. He was disorientated. He could not get assistance at the Vet Hospital. “Go to the local emergency room!” he was told by the admissions staff. There was very little that I could do for him, but the good news is that the vet was finally admitted.
After those processes were completed and his record pulled up more of the story emerged. He had indeed needed treatment for a brain injury. A doctor had made a previous recommendation for treatment, but then “the system somehow lost the diagnosis and he had never been treated.”
I get angry when I continue to hear stories about our vets who do not get appropriate treatment, especially for post traumatic stress syndrome. The soldier in this case was next to his best friend when that friend took a bullet and was killed. He filed a report and was immediately sent back on duty. No one ever offered him any counseling. Now he is finding it very difficult to cope and even more difficult to get assistance for his own wounds, physical and psychological.
This afternoon I called on the eldest member of our congregation, one of the most gentle of men that I have ever met. But he was agitated. He had just learned of one of his friends (also an Afghanistan vet) who had given up on getting medical treatment due him as a vet. He’d had to finally secure his own private health insurance in an effort to get the assistance he needs and deserves.
That’s why I am angry. We ask our young military people to make incredible sacrifices for us and then, when they need our assistance to get back to some kind of a normal life, we fail them.
This brings me to Wheat Ridge Ministries, which provides resources particularly to churches who want to support returning service personnel. Especially helpful are the recommendations in the book “Welcome Them Home Help Them Heal”. If more individuals and organizations will follow the great processes outlined in this booklet it will do much more than reduce my anger. It will give those who need and deserve our support both assistance and healing.
The story: This Afghanistan War vet was having terrible headaches. He could not keep food down. He was disorientated. He could not get assistance at the Vet Hospital. “Go to the local emergency room!” he was told by the admissions staff. There was very little that I could do for him, but the good news is that the vet was finally admitted.
After those processes were completed and his record pulled up more of the story emerged. He had indeed needed treatment for a brain injury. A doctor had made a previous recommendation for treatment, but then “the system somehow lost the diagnosis and he had never been treated.”
I get angry when I continue to hear stories about our vets who do not get appropriate treatment, especially for post traumatic stress syndrome. The soldier in this case was next to his best friend when that friend took a bullet and was killed. He filed a report and was immediately sent back on duty. No one ever offered him any counseling. Now he is finding it very difficult to cope and even more difficult to get assistance for his own wounds, physical and psychological.
This afternoon I called on the eldest member of our congregation, one of the most gentle of men that I have ever met. But he was agitated. He had just learned of one of his friends (also an Afghanistan vet) who had given up on getting medical treatment due him as a vet. He’d had to finally secure his own private health insurance in an effort to get the assistance he needs and deserves.
That’s why I am angry. We ask our young military people to make incredible sacrifices for us and then, when they need our assistance to get back to some kind of a normal life, we fail them.
This brings me to Wheat Ridge Ministries, which provides resources particularly to churches who want to support returning service personnel. Especially helpful are the recommendations in the book “Welcome Them Home Help Them Heal”. If more individuals and organizations will follow the great processes outlined in this booklet it will do much more than reduce my anger. It will give those who need and deserve our support both assistance and healing.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Holy Thursday: Communing With the Saints
Communing PLACES: This Holy Thursday marks exactly 70 years since I had my first holy communion. It was around the simple wooden altar of Zion Lutheran Church, Walburg Texas. In the years that followed I repeated the experience thousands of times at hundreds of other holy places. From cathedrals in New York and Helsinki to store front chapels in Hong Kong. From quiet secluded sanctuaries to the floors of bustling hotel meeting rooms. From among the olive trees of the Garden of Gethsemane to a rustic chapel at Yosemite National Park. From places of somber meditation to arenas filled with the jubilant sound of a thousand hymn singers. From places with names like Zion, St. Paul, Good Shepherd, and St. Thomas to Calvary. Always the PLACE in that moment was holy ground.
Communing PEOPLE : I recall those 12 nervous teenagers with whom I first communed and wonder where they now are, here or in heaven. I recall the multitudes of others who shared with me those precious elements: my sainted parents, my children now scattered around the world, the black saints who welcomed me as the only white in the assembly, those with whom we now share full communion in denominations with names like Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Moravian. I recall people next to me at the rail who exuded the scent of exquisite and expensive perfume and those who came in their sweat-filled work clothes. I recall an ancient Chinese grandmother and the tense bodies of GI’s on R&R from Viet Nam. Always with those PEOPLE we heard the words “For You.”
Communing PRESENCE : Today I recall that every place with whatever people there was always bread and wine. There were always words. But there was more. There was the PRESENCE. Yes, it was the PRESENCE of mystery, of prayer, confession, reflection and resolve. But beyond it all was a greater Presence. For in with and under the forms of bread and wine was the very REAL PRESENCE of the One who said “This is My body; This is My blood.”
Prayer:Dear Lord, as I commune in this holy season make the place holy, the people blessed and your presence experienced. Amen
Communing PEOPLE : I recall those 12 nervous teenagers with whom I first communed and wonder where they now are, here or in heaven. I recall the multitudes of others who shared with me those precious elements: my sainted parents, my children now scattered around the world, the black saints who welcomed me as the only white in the assembly, those with whom we now share full communion in denominations with names like Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Moravian. I recall people next to me at the rail who exuded the scent of exquisite and expensive perfume and those who came in their sweat-filled work clothes. I recall an ancient Chinese grandmother and the tense bodies of GI’s on R&R from Viet Nam. Always with those PEOPLE we heard the words “For You.”
Communing PRESENCE : Today I recall that every place with whatever people there was always bread and wine. There were always words. But there was more. There was the PRESENCE. Yes, it was the PRESENCE of mystery, of prayer, confession, reflection and resolve. But beyond it all was a greater Presence. For in with and under the forms of bread and wine was the very REAL PRESENCE of the One who said “This is My body; This is My blood.”
Prayer:Dear Lord, as I commune in this holy season make the place holy, the people blessed and your presence experienced. Amen
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
A Quiet Little Boy from a Quiet Little Texas Town
I may have reached my 83rd birthday, but in my heart I still see myself as a quiet little boy from a quiet little Texas town. The town, in fact, is Walburg,
Texas. The sign near it reads “87 Friendly People and 1 Old Grouch”. I actually was born and lived in a simple house about a mile from the general store and where the saloon used to be. In the nineteenth century the community was populated by immigrants from the Czech/German border. Half of us spoke German and were Lutherans. The other half spoke Czech and went to the Catholic Church. We seldom interacted and intermarriage was a major challenge to our long held traditions. The tradition served us well. Church on Sunday, chicken salad sandwiches and homemade ice cream for birthdays, shivarees at weddings, and bar-b-que and beer for every important occasion. Quiet enough - and I was just another quiet boy in the community, at least that was my remembrance of it all until I did a bit more reflecting on my morning walk today.
I remember the excitement back in the 40’s. It was in the days of the famous outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. I shiver in remembering the story of how some one close to me was walking along the country road. A car with two strangers in it (a man with a distinctive hat and a girl) had stopped and asked for directions. Upon reflection we all knew it was Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and we waited in dread for the day they would come rob the Walburg State Bank!
They didn’t survive a shoot-out with the law shortly after this. But some years later there was a tragic disruption to the still quietness of Walburg and its sleepy bank. A couple of armed robbers did indeed rob the Walburg State bank one quiet Saturday morning. They were serious. My uncle Reinhold who ran the bank did all the robbers asked for. Yet they shot at him with the bullet just grazing his head. Closer to home - my sister Mimi had entered the bank for a simple Saturday morning transaction. When ordered to lie face down on the floor she complied. Yet as one of the robbers was leaving the bank he stood over her and fired directly into the back of her head. By the grace of God she survived. The cops said that the ammunition seems to have been old. Today almost 40 years later she has occasional seizures and the doctors tell her that they are the result of that terrible incident in that quiet little town. And when a highway patrolman stopped the robbers’ car down the road a ways they fatally murdered him.
In my morning walk reverie today I also recalled a little encounter that I would never have expected, growing up in Walburg. In the mid 1950’s I found myself being an educator in Hong Kong. I had been there only a few weeks when on a Wednesday night I was walking home from teaching a class. Even though I was a newcomer it seemed to me that there was extra excitement in the air. The streets were crowded, the tension palpable. When a gentleman made a threatening move toward me with a brown bottle he held in his hand I wondered if he had been drinking. I soon learned that that bottle was filled with explosives and he was threatening me. The building I had just exited had been in the middle of a street riot. Some in my class never left the building. Bullets streamed through the window. Tragically the wife of the Swiss Council General who just happened to be driving through the area was shot and killed. When the police rounded up the rioters they marched them to the police compound a block from our apartment. When they were just below our windows the police forced rioters to run quickly because in the process they all lost their wooden clogs, one less weapon to take with them. Within a day things had settled back down and Hong Kong had rest until the Red Guard movement in the 60’s - but that is another story.
Another story far from quiet Walburg found me in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4,1989. My two sons and I left the square just as the army moved in and the tanks were still a few blocks away. Hours later we stood with weeping students on the Beijing University Campus as they returned from the morgue with the names of their slain friends. A hastily painted sign over the university proclaimed “Tiananmen Bathed in Blood. The Whole World Weeps.”
And so the memories wash over me. It has been and continues to be a blessed and full life, especially in the context of a quiet little boy who grew up in a quiet little Texas town.
Texas. The sign near it reads “87 Friendly People and 1 Old Grouch”. I actually was born and lived in a simple house about a mile from the general store and where the saloon used to be. In the nineteenth century the community was populated by immigrants from the Czech/German border. Half of us spoke German and were Lutherans. The other half spoke Czech and went to the Catholic Church. We seldom interacted and intermarriage was a major challenge to our long held traditions. The tradition served us well. Church on Sunday, chicken salad sandwiches and homemade ice cream for birthdays, shivarees at weddings, and bar-b-que and beer for every important occasion. Quiet enough - and I was just another quiet boy in the community, at least that was my remembrance of it all until I did a bit more reflecting on my morning walk today.
I remember the excitement back in the 40’s. It was in the days of the famous outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. I shiver in remembering the story of how some one close to me was walking along the country road. A car with two strangers in it (a man with a distinctive hat and a girl) had stopped and asked for directions. Upon reflection we all knew it was Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and we waited in dread for the day they would come rob the Walburg State Bank!
They didn’t survive a shoot-out with the law shortly after this. But some years later there was a tragic disruption to the still quietness of Walburg and its sleepy bank. A couple of armed robbers did indeed rob the Walburg State bank one quiet Saturday morning. They were serious. My uncle Reinhold who ran the bank did all the robbers asked for. Yet they shot at him with the bullet just grazing his head. Closer to home - my sister Mimi had entered the bank for a simple Saturday morning transaction. When ordered to lie face down on the floor she complied. Yet as one of the robbers was leaving the bank he stood over her and fired directly into the back of her head. By the grace of God she survived. The cops said that the ammunition seems to have been old. Today almost 40 years later she has occasional seizures and the doctors tell her that they are the result of that terrible incident in that quiet little town. And when a highway patrolman stopped the robbers’ car down the road a ways they fatally murdered him.
In my morning walk reverie today I also recalled a little encounter that I would never have expected, growing up in Walburg. In the mid 1950’s I found myself being an educator in Hong Kong. I had been there only a few weeks when on a Wednesday night I was walking home from teaching a class. Even though I was a newcomer it seemed to me that there was extra excitement in the air. The streets were crowded, the tension palpable. When a gentleman made a threatening move toward me with a brown bottle he held in his hand I wondered if he had been drinking. I soon learned that that bottle was filled with explosives and he was threatening me. The building I had just exited had been in the middle of a street riot. Some in my class never left the building. Bullets streamed through the window. Tragically the wife of the Swiss Council General who just happened to be driving through the area was shot and killed. When the police rounded up the rioters they marched them to the police compound a block from our apartment. When they were just below our windows the police forced rioters to run quickly because in the process they all lost their wooden clogs, one less weapon to take with them. Within a day things had settled back down and Hong Kong had rest until the Red Guard movement in the 60’s - but that is another story.
Another story far from quiet Walburg found me in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4,1989. My two sons and I left the square just as the army moved in and the tanks were still a few blocks away. Hours later we stood with weeping students on the Beijing University Campus as they returned from the morgue with the names of their slain friends. A hastily painted sign over the university proclaimed “Tiananmen Bathed in Blood. The Whole World Weeps.”
And so the memories wash over me. It has been and continues to be a blessed and full life, especially in the context of a quiet little boy who grew up in a quiet little Texas town.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Diversity, Rigidity, Opportunity
Attending a national conference of colleagues is not necessarily highly inspiring. However, the one I attended last week was stimulating, affirming and thought provoking. More than 2,300 teachers and administrators in Lutheran schools from around the world were in attendance. It began with a day-long consultation of global leaders. It was great to hear reports from schools in Canada, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hanoi, New Guinea, India, Australia, So. Africa and Palestine. That is where the variety came in. Hong Kong International School has nearly 3,000 students with another thousand on the waiting list even with an annual tuition of some $25,000. At the other end of financial spectrum are the Lutheran schools of India which serve the still discriminated against lower caste families (even though the caste system is supposed to be a thing of the past.). These students often do not even have a desk for each student. Then there was the report of emerging Lutheran colleges from the highland of New Guinea to the concrete wall-enclosed containment of Bethlehem, Palestine where the Lutheran university there is the largest building project in Bethlehem since the days of Herod the King. An added bonus was to listen to the various dialects in which the reports were given, from Australian English to the heavily German-accented English of South Africa. Even a sometimes jaded old teacher like me could not help but feel admiration, gratitude and enthusiasm for the many ways in which the Lutheran church’s traditional commitment to education and schools at all levels is manifested in wondrous new venues and contexts.
It was not all good news. Lutheran schools in the major cities of America are becoming an extinct species. While there used to be hundreds of them from the Atlantic to the Pacific now they are missing from the city limits of even major cities like Los Angles and Detroit. One reason for their demise is the inability of some of those urban folks and other leaders to image new models for emerging contexts. When Marlene Lund of the Center for Urban Education Ministries gave a detailed list of options for faith-based American urban schools there was almost no-one there to listen. Some stayed away because they simply did not want to consider any option not based on a 19th century model. Rigidity is leading to rigor mortis.
It was then that I saw an opportunity. Many Lutheran jurisdictions are selling off Lutheran schools properties in the city, often generating millions in revenue. I challenge the leaders involved in these transactions to invest the money from the sale of any urban church properties back into a Lutheran neighborhood school operated on any one the models presented by Lund. Hope could be be made available for many city kids and their families for whom a good education today is a denied reality.
What is required is a movement from rigidity to a grasping of the opportunity to an inspired new vision, a vision which is now being brought from outside the borders of the USA to the very heart of the cities of our land.
It was not all good news. Lutheran schools in the major cities of America are becoming an extinct species. While there used to be hundreds of them from the Atlantic to the Pacific now they are missing from the city limits of even major cities like Los Angles and Detroit. One reason for their demise is the inability of some of those urban folks and other leaders to image new models for emerging contexts. When Marlene Lund of the Center for Urban Education Ministries gave a detailed list of options for faith-based American urban schools there was almost no-one there to listen. Some stayed away because they simply did not want to consider any option not based on a 19th century model. Rigidity is leading to rigor mortis.
It was then that I saw an opportunity. Many Lutheran jurisdictions are selling off Lutheran schools properties in the city, often generating millions in revenue. I challenge the leaders involved in these transactions to invest the money from the sale of any urban church properties back into a Lutheran neighborhood school operated on any one the models presented by Lund. Hope could be be made available for many city kids and their families for whom a good education today is a denied reality.
What is required is a movement from rigidity to a grasping of the opportunity to an inspired new vision, a vision which is now being brought from outside the borders of the USA to the very heart of the cities of our land.
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