Object of Charity

Throughout my life I have been the blessed object of charity, well beyond my deserving or anyone’s imagination. It begins with the early memory of me as a five-year-old kid at our church/school picnic. My uncle gave me a quarter. That amount was huge, enough for five ice cream cones or a hamburger, a cone, a candy bar, a strawberry soda pop and then another cone.

When I was in high school preparing to teach in the church I received a most unusual gift. A bride from my home church had gone through the ritual of that time to pass around the bride’s shoe and the guests would put in coins as a special gift for her. She decided not to keep it but to send it to me to help with my tuition.

When I was in college I did not have the money even for a bus ticket from Concordia Chicago to Texas at Christmas time. So on December 23rd I was busy as a bar tender at a Christmas party at the Oak Park Club. When I got to my dorm after midnight there was a check from another uncle for $100.00, a full term’s tuition at that time!

My first assignment after college graduation was as principal of St. Paul’s Lutheran in Tracy California. At Christmas the parents of my students gave me the cash to spend Christmas with my fiancé teaching in Michigan. When we returned a year later as a new couple the pantry shower held for us caused our kitchen to overflow with goodies. This was followed by chicken for the fryer, tomatoes to can and an occasional six-pack to enjoy.

The gifts kept coming. One night at my next parish in Glendale, California we went to a dinner at the end of which a big television was rolled into the room. It was our first TV ever.

From there we went to Hong Kong where colleagues and parents of students even out of their poverty were most generous with gifts of many kinds, including, for example, two freshly laid eggs a grateful mother sent from her meager little operation in gratitude for the education her children were receiving. Just before we boarded a flight to the USA to take to a hospital my wife who was suffering from a cerebral aneurysm, my 12-year-old son came running into the house. “Dad, the woman at that little shack of a store at the end of our street heard that Mom was sick. Here, she sent an orange for Mom and a bottle of beer for you!”

When a long recuperation period for my wife was demanded, the generosity we experienced more than matched our anxieties. The faculty wives of Concordia Chicago baby-sat a couple of times a week. Mabel Warnke who had visited us in Hong Kong provided a refrigerator and meals twice a week. When the editor of the church’s periodical realized I did not have an overcoat he literally took his off his back and placed it on my shoulders.

It goes on to great lengths which overwhelms me (and might bore the reader): “The green fees are on me”; Gift cards like “dinner for two at the steak house”; “I’ll host a meal at Ghaddi’s in the Peninsula”; “Just take those hearing aids. I have been looking for someone who could use them”; Next month Jane and I take off for 3 weeks in China, all First Class and all paid for by friends, old and new!

Probably most amazing of all is that when I get all these undeserved gifts the donors have never made me feel like “an object of charity”. I have never felt like an object, but always like a person who reflects in gratitude, wonder and praise to the Giver and the givers of all these good and perfect gifts.

Four Strong Women

I have been blessed to be in a family line that has included many very strong women. Lately I have reflected upon just 4 of them.

Great Grandmother Friedrich grew up in the post-Civil War sparsely settled ranch and farmlands of Texas. She raised the vegetables, the hogs, the calves, the chickens that kept her family fed and nourished. At one pint she noticed that the number of chickens in her coop seemed to be diminishing at a rate faster than what she had been slaughtering them. Then she noticed that this reduction seemed to occur during the night. So one night she stationed her self in the back of the chicken pen armed only with a very strong flashlight. Sure enough: In the middle of the night a figure appeared in the doorway. As he stepped in she flashed the light upon him and recognized him as a young farm worker who lived in one of the huts on her farm. He was, of course, as startled as she. He stammered, “I am lost. Can you tell me the way to Giddings?” (a nearby town). Immediately Great Grandma stared him down and said, “You (expletive deleted) know the way to Giddings as well as I do. Now get out of here because if you come again I will have something stronger than a flashlight on my hand!” From then on the only chickens that disappeared from her hen house were those that ended up in her frying pan.

Aunt Elizabeth became a widow responsible for two young children when she was just in her thirties. She managed it all by raising chickens and marketing them and the eggs they produced. In her old age she lived alone. One night a young man (possibly on drugs) appeared in her room. He was armed. He demanded she go get him money. She refused to budge. Instead she started a conversation. She reminded him that somewhere he must have a mother who loved him and who would be disappointed to see him robbing an old defenseless widow. She kept the conversation going as the would-be robber became more reflective, decided not to pursue the robbery and was about to leave. At that point Aunt Elizabeth said “No, wait. Sit down. We are going to have a prayer.” And so she prayed for the young man, his mother and his future. She was never intruded upon again.

My Mother had to be physically strong. She bore nine children. One summer she “put-up” 800 quarts of vegetables and fruits to feed us through the winter. She washed our clothes without a hot water heater, wrung the clothes dry by hand and hung them up on wash lines. Then she starched and ironed basketful after basketful of them. She nursed us all through red-eye, measles, mumps, whooping cough, scarletina, poison ivy, broken bones and broken hearts.

One image stands out for me. Somehow or other the very large pasture surrounding our house, barn and sheds caught fire in the midst of a dry Texas summer. The parched grass and broom weeds were blazing and heading toward our home. Dad was not at home. Mother marshaled us. She got out 5 cans holding 5 gallons each and old burlap bags. I can still see my mom lugging two enormous cans each holding five gallons of water. She ran to the edge of the fire some 100 yards away, wet down the burlap bags and beat down the flames at the edge of the on-coming conflagration. Then she ran back refilled those cans, again she lugged them to the fire, instructing us to join her. She repeated this until the fire was extinguished. I still see her, not only struggling with those heavy containers, but after the fire breathing very heavily, completely exhausted, sweating, black with ash and sighing after saving our home from destruction.

My sister Mimi had already proven herself by rising to be first the head nurse and then the widely acclaimed administrator of a community hospital. Then one average Saturday morning she walked into the small Walburg State Bank to make a simple transaction. In the midst of this, two angry men walked in, armed and aggressive. They ordered Mimi to lie face down prone on the floor. She did. They ordered the teller to turn over the cash. He complied and still they fired at him with the bullet grazing his head. One of the robbers stood over Mimi straddling her body. Then just before exiting he fired and blew the skull off the back of her head. Ambulances arrived, emergency care was provided. Contrary to every prognosis and due to Providence, old ammunition, and the strength and determination of one very strong woman, Mimi recovered enough to advance in her profession and receive statewide acknowledgment of her skills and leadership. Then recently she had “ a medical incident”. The attending physician who had not really studied her medical history said to her “Hmm, this activity seems to be the result of some severe trauma to your brain. Do you have any memory of something like that happening?” She remembers, of course, but it has not kept her from being one more of those strong women who continue to be for me much-valued models and inspiration.

Blog: Sounds, Silence, Community

SOUNDS: There are so many sounds I just love to hear. The Dr.’s voice “Mother and baby are both fine” The grandkids in the room next door just having fun together. The key opening the front door as my teen-ager returns from her date. The Hallelujah Chorus. The roar of the crowd at a home game with my team scoring the winning run. The plop at the bottom of the cup after a long putt. The intimate whisper that says, “I love you” The very personal sounds of satisfying sex with one’s spouse. The train whistle in the dark distance. The hustle and bustle of people, cars, buses, policemen, hawkers of central Hong Kong or downtown Manhattan. Soft and gentle or raucous and lively, I love sounds.

SOUNDS: There are so many sounds I hate to hear. A parent yelling putdowns to her child. Heavy rock metal. Your flight has been delayed. The stock market is down 500 points. A religious zealot telling me that “if you just…” The answering machine telling me I have 21 messages. Unfortunately the test results came out…” The talk show host who just won’t shut up. The alarm clock after what seems like just minutes since I fell asleep.

SILENCE: There is a silence I love. I walk in silence under the majestic redwoods of Muir Woods. The TV is off, no one speaks, no cars are within earshot. The rare quiet of the sanctuary before the prelude. The loud couple at the restaurant table next to ours has just signed their credit card. Parent-teacher conferences are over for the day and I sit at my desk alone. I stand alone at sunset over my parents’ grave in the Texas country church graveyard. I lie awake at 2:00 am and just reflect and all is okay.

SILENCE: There is a silence I don’t like. I wait for the phone to ring with good news, but there is no ring. I make a presentation to a class, ask for reaction and no one speaks, I ponder a tragedy, I ask, “WHY?” and can hear no response from anywhere. I do something well and await some affirmation but no words reach my ears. I seek for just the right words to say to someone in pain but come up only with silence.

COMMUNITY: I reflect upon SOUND and SILENCE as I read about David Brooks new book, “The Social Animal”. From it I learn an essential truth: In all my sounds and silences there is a part of me that is seeking a “connection, a closing of the loneliness loop, an urge to merge a community. In all my sounds, in all my silences, I am never completely alone. I am connected with nature, with others, with the eternal.

I Am Glad The Tears Still Flow

For the second Sunday evening in succession I felt the tears roll down my cheeks. I was surprised to find myself so emotionally affected by a television program. Both times I had been watching 60 Minutes. The first time the copious tears rolled was as I watched the images of children injured in Iraq and the efforts of one American woman to get them new legs, to correct terrible facial scars, to bring healing to body and soul. Those kids, damaged and repaired, touched me at the heart of who I am.

The second set of visuals was entirely different. They were of older men and women, some with scraggly dirty beards; others with clean clothes and eyes that betrayed bewilderment and disorientation, aloneness. These persons, too, had been in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They were adults, veterans from the US military. The other thing they all had in common: they were homeless, living on the streets of America. I became deeply aware that I as a citizen had asked them to go to war for me and now I, as a citizen was playing a role in the homelessness, dispair, inadequate physical and mental health resources. And I wept.

It reminded me of years ago. I was at a Lutheran School Principals Conference in New York. Tough times for principals and some had had to let staff go. One principal recounted how he had let an ineffective teacher go. “It was rough”, he said. “She really needed that job but the kids were not learning”. Then he added words I have never forgotten “I am glad it still hurts”

So when I find myself crying because a fellow human being is hurt, or sick, or disfigured or homeless or lost, my heart aches a lot. In the midst of the flowing tears I hear a tiny voice whispering, “I am glad the tears still flow”; for if those tears ever stop then I have stopped being fully human.

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.”

Blood, Sweat & No Tears

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 100º! 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!