White Privilege

 Our country is in an uproar. The on-going and growing threat of Covid-19 has kept me house-bound for 3 months. Millions of lives around the world and here is the USA have been severely disrupted. The swirling social unrest, first aroused to protest police brutality, has morphed into much more- some of which is very disheartening and inappropriate. Near the top of the list of matters to contemplate has been the topic “White Privilege”. I have reflected upon that topic and have once again become aware that I have indeed been (and continue to be) someone who has benefitted from White Privilege. I decided to make a partial list and to share it. Here it is.

EDUCATION I went to excellent Lutheran elementary and secondary schools. Neither one would have allowed my enrollment had I been black. To the best of my knowledge there was not even a black public school available within 10 miles of my home which I could have I attended had I not been white.

PROFESSION I became a Minister of Religion in The Lutheran Church. Had I been black I would have had the option to attend one very low-quality Lutheran College in Selma Alabama. But If I graduated from that school there is no way on earth that I could have served in any white church organization if I had not been white. I cannot conceive any of the positions that I held in the first 30 years of my ministry as being open to a black person-even if somehow or other that person had a PhD degree.

HOUSING I lived for years in rental housing in areas in which there was strong agreement that the owner would rent to whites only. When I bought my first home in Crestwood, MO it was in an area where all agreed that no house would be sold to a black person.

TRANSPORTATION Much of my transportation while in high school and college was via hitch-hiking. Had I not been white I would have stood in vain on the side of the road with the thumb sticking in the air. When I took public transportation, I could sit in front of the bus while the Blacks had to sit in the designated area in the back of the bus.  When I took the train to go to college I rode in the “whites only” coach. In the train station I drank from the “whites only” water fountain and used the “whites only” rest rooms Interestingly enough just a few years ago I was on an international flight from the Middle East through India. When I boarded the flight in Abu Dubai I noticed almost all the passengers were of a skin color other than mine. We had been aloft only a few minutes when the white flight attendant came to my seat. She said, ”Sir, I have an open seat up in first class. Why don’t you come sit there?” 

  

POLICE Fortunately I have not had not many encounters with the police. I think I have been stopped about 8 times and got 2 tickets for speeding. Each time the police were very professional. They never asked me to step out of my car. While I cannot prove it, it is my fear is that had I been Black it might very well have been more threatening. I suspect (but cannot prove) that I encountered White Privilege.

Thank God many of the privileges I enjoyed are now available to all. Unfortunately, that does not mean that all disadvantages for people of color have been overcome. I need only to look at the topics like education, profession, housing, transportation and police to see that there continues to be inequality in access.

I reflect on all of the above in this week of the 4^th of July. I thank God for the privilege of living in the United States of America. I make a vow that I will make an extra effort to do my part that the vision of our wonderful constitution, “to form a more perfect union”, might become a reality.

Generosity

Generosity Moment: No. 1

It was in the 1950’s. I was at Sunday worship in Hong Kong. The hall was packed with refugees who were fleeing the threat of death at the hand of Mao Tse Dung. The preacher Andrew Chui was someone who him fled as he had been an officer in Chiang Kai Shek’s military. But this Sunday he was preaching a powerful sermon  about the unlimited grace of God and our response.

I noticed an old woman sitting to my left in the row in front of me. She was obviously very poor -dressed in the cheapest totally black dress available anywhere. But she was paying very close attention to every word of the sermon; obviously being very moved by the message of grace and gratitude. Soon it was time for the offering. As the plate reached her I noticed her hand move to her right ear. There she carefully removed her small stud earing made of jade. She carefully placed it into the offering basket and passed it on to the next fellow worshipper.

Generosity Moment No. 2

The year was 1970. My son Tim was 10  years old. He had taken on a challenging job for a 10 year old boy. He ha in Ann Arbor, MI.. He had to do it not only on Sunday but also during the week because the church was running an early childhood program. But he was highly motivated and did his work faithfully.

His motivation came from his desire to have ping pong table for our basement. He had seen a used one advertised for just $20.00-which he did not have. So he resolved to shovel that snow at 50  cents  per time. He faithfully stored his hard-earned cash in a glass fruit jar carefully stored on a shelf in his bedroom

His earnings had come to $13.50 and he was excited because he was more than half way home. 

Then Missionary Heinz -visiting form Hong Kong arrived as a visitor at our home He recalled his work among those very poor refugees escaping Mao Tse Tung-fleeing for their lives. He  especially talked of young kids who lived in make-shift huts on the hillside. He explained that they did not have the money for school fees so were growing up unable to read or write. He told of how each morning they lined up in front of a truck operated by Lutheran World Relief where they were given a glass of milk-which was their total breakfast. Tim listened very carefully and I noticed he was very quiet.

After a while he left. He went to his room and returned with that jar of his hard earned cash. He handed it to Missionary Heintz and said, “Here, take this. Help those kids get enough to eat.”

Tim is now 60 years old. I know he still tithes. Just last December he caed and said that he and his wife had calculated their annual earnings an were now writing checks to the charities of their choice. He was paying is tithes and asked me if I had a favorite charity which he could help support.

Scars

The magazine “The Christian Century” has an interesting little writing competition. At regular intervals the magazine selects a single word. It asks writers to submit an article of less than 1000 words on that topic. This month the topic was simply PLATE. The next topic is SCAR. I decided that my reflections on that topic did not merit space in the magazine, but I did want to write on that topic and post it as a BLOG. So here it is.

I have what I will call a scar in my body which I think is unique. I was actually unaware that it was in my body until I was in college. There I played football. I fell and broke my ankle. When the Dr. looked at the x-ray. He immediately saw the fracture. However, there was another scar that interested him more. He asked me “Do you know that you have a pin embedded in the flesh of your ankle?” I did not. He explained that the x-ray clearly showed a full-length pin 

firmly embedded there. “It is not a needle,” he said. “There is no eye. It is a metal little pin about 2 inches long. It seems so firmly in place that I think we will just let it stay right there.”

I have no idea just when I stepped on that pin as it could have been at almost any time in my life. I went barefoot at least 10 months of every year. My feet and toes were often filled with stickers, or were punctured by nails, step edges or cactus. etc. I do not recall ever unsuccessfully asking Mother to try to remove something sticking in my foot. When I told Mother about this, she was concerned that the pin might move. She even imagined it moving all the way to a vital organ and causing mortal danger. I never worried about that.

It was about 10 years later. I played some basketball with my Chinese students in Hong Kong and injured my ankle. When I had it x-rayed once again the Dr. was not so concerned about the bad sprain, but he did excitedly point to a little 2-inch long mark on the x-ray. “That is a pin!” he exclaimed, “Looks like it has been there a long time.”

And since I tend to do things in threes, I repeated this experience one more time. So now I assume that pin still happily resides there after some 80 years. It is an invisible scar until it shows up on x-rays and I am happy to just let it rest in peace.

There is a second much more obvious scar. It is on my right side of my abdomen just below the waist. It is a reminder of when I had appendicitis at about age 7. That scar experience very nearly cost me my life. I had a punctured appendix. The puss and other materials completely swamped the whole area. This was before penicillin. The doctors were surprised that I survived. I just remember three things about that ordeal of almost 90 years ago. My dad and Uncle Reinhold Leschber took me to King’s Daughters Hospital in Temple. Mother really wanted to be with me, but she had to stay home with the 4 other little ones, including an infant. The ether was terrible. A small nurse told me she would wait for me to grow up and would then marry me and I believed her. And my mother told me that after that experience I became a slow runner. “You used to be the fastest boy of your age”, she said. “Now you are among the slowest.” I don’t need to look at that scar these mornings to be reminded that I have indeed slowed down a lot.

When I looked for it this morning, I found that my third scar has actually disappeared. It was right there above my right eye near my hairline for decades. I was maybe 10 when I needed to cut a string. I went to the kitchen, got the big ten-inch knife, pointed it upward through the string and pulled hard. The knife was sharp. It went right through that string, all the way up to my forehead just above my right eye. The gash was substantial. The blood flowed freely. Embarrassed and scared I ran and showed it to my mom. My Aunt Maddie happened to be visiting. She joined the Mother in the decision “Let’s not bother Dr. Weidemeier. We will just patch it up. Put some monkey blood (mercurochrome) on it and it will heal.” It healed. The scar remained for decades.

I write this BLOG on May 13 the day my Mother would have turned 118. She would remember all of this and then sum it all up with “God always took care of you, Melvin, and you needed that!”

Graduations - Past and Present

May is the month that I think about graduations, especially in the year 2020. It was on May 10, 1945 that I graduated from Concordia Academy in Austin, Texas. So, this marks the 75^th anniversary of that wonderful event. I was honored to have Mom and Dad drive from Walburg to attend accompanied by my Aunt Elizabeth from Austin and a “sorta” girl friend from Thorndale. I still remember the theme of the guest speaker: “He (Christ) must increase. I must decrease.” The party afterward was not very extravagant a trip to an amusement park where I invested 25 cents to hit some balls pitched to me by a machine. It was a wonderful miracle that I could graduate from this boys-only boarding school, a school devoted to training future ministers of the church. The national church paid for the tuition and parents were responsible for room and board. This was a major challenge to my father who was a teaching minister in the Lutheran church working for an extremely low salary. In fact, one reason I was able to attend is because my eldest sister Erna gave up a college scholarship to become a secretary and thus provide some assistance in paying for my school fees.

A second graduation took place in late May 1950 from Concordia Teachers College (now University) River Forest, Illinois. This year marks the 70th anniversary of that event. Again, Mom and Dad scrounged up the money to drive from Texas to Illinois to attend. More important to me than graduation is that just before we went to the ceremony, I handed Jane Scheimann an engagement ring which she has now been wearing for 70 years. I do not remember who the graduation speaker was or what his theme was. I do remember that after the event Jane’s folks (including her very old grandmother) and my parents and went out for dinner to celebrate both what was and what was to be.

As I reflect on those years of 1945 and 1950, I also recall the May of 1920, the year my Father graduated from that same Concordia Teachers College and this year, obviously, marks exactly one hundred years of that celebrated event.

There have been many, many graduations to attend since then. As I served both as a principal and the as superintendent of schools, I am sure that I have been the speaker at more than 50 graduations including speaking at three university graduations. My guess is that none of those grads remember that I was the speaker-much less what I might have said. 

Graduations in 2020 will always be remembered as the graduations that never had any real ceremony. As I write this blog we are still in the midst of the Covoid-19 epidemic and all “live” school graduations have been canceled. It gets personal because our youngest grandson Antonio was due to graduate from New York University and our “adopted” Afghan refugee “granddaughter” was scheduled to be at a ceremony at the University of California San Diego. That too, will not be held with people in attendance.

All of this causes me to just stop for a few minutes and let my mind and heart reflect. Thank God for all teachers who lead students to the point where they can graduate. I am thankful for all who study and use their gifts to learn and thus increase their ability to serve. And I don’t want to forget those millions of young people around the world who will not only not graduate but will continue to be illiterate because we still do not have universal worldwide education. In the context of all that I will open a bottle of champagne in the quiet of my house and Jane and I will salute all graduations, ours and others, both past and present!

COVID 19 Alcohol

I really don’t need to watch TV to be reminded that alcohol has become an issue during this terrible epidemic. I have seen/heard at least half a dozen TV commentaries on this topic. There is growing evidence that the consumption of alcohol is greatly increased as people deal with all the stresses with which we all now live. One item I found especially interesting was that it was stated that people who are in AA feel less stress than heavy drinkers who have not yet joined AA. They explained that AA participants have learned how to respond to the urge to drink and resist it. Other heavy drinkers have the same stress but unfortunately often resort to heavier drinking. 

 But I don’t need TV to tell me that alcohol related questions are being asked. Here at La Costa Glen we have a weekly in-house TV hour when the Director deals with issues raised by residents. Since the facility now brings all our daily food to our rooms and even offers to go buy our groceries the question arose: “Can you buy me some vodka or wine? “The answer was “No, but we are working on that as we know that many of you have asked that question.” Two days later we got the answer. Residents can order wine from the dining room service. There are two choices and the limit is 2 bottles. (And I noticed that the prices charged have been raised quite a bit from what we paid when we just ordered that wine while we were having dinner.)

It soon got more personal. I drink at least one glass of wine a day (often two) and lately Jane has joined me. So, the question was raised, “How long will my wine last?” And I had to remember that we were not allowed to leave these premises to go buy things. The first to reach out to me was Kris. He just asked if he could bring some wine to the front gate and have those people deliver it to me. I assured him that would work. Within 48 hours the gentleman from the front gate was at my front door with two wonderful bottles of wine. Before that arrived, my daughter Elizabeth had asked about my wine supply. Then some wonderful messages appeared in my email followed by the gentleman from the front gate again at my door, this time with a full case of much better wine that what I usually purchase. My very discerning and empathic son-in-law Jim had it all carefully selected and sent on its way to my apartment door. Again, the same gentleman from the front gate delivered it to me with a very wry smile on his face.

This great flow of blessings raised a new beautiful challenge: where can I store this good stuff? I have a liquor closet of three shelves each four feet long. It has the accumulated alcohol of 13 years and the shelves had not been orderly arranged since they were first utilized. With all the time I have on my hands I decided to rearrange that mixture of alcoholic delights. That was a good decision, especially since it brought back so many good memories. I found three bottles of after dinner drinks from Sweden. They were given me by my neighbor Gordon when he decided to clear out his liquor cabinet. I found a bottle each of Arrak, Tokaji Aszo, Blossa Gloog,and Brandy Gloog. I have never tried any of them. Memories of son David now departed for five years were stirred when I found some triple sec from him and when I thought of David’s last years when he would call and say, “Dad, let’s go out and have a couple of beers and a couple of  hours of good father-son conversation.” The full bottle of Chaves Royal was brought by my friend Mahesh who lives just a few doors down. The empty spot next to that used be occupied by another good Scotch provided by wonderful friends Irene and Ruth who moved away from us way too far and now live near Philadelphia. There was just enough Kahlua for one more Black Russian and memories of wonderful moments of sharing those with friend Helene in Manhattan. Way in the back I found a bottle of very good Japanese sake and another of a strong Chinese mao tai, all carefully brought to me through international customs by former student Kam Chu

All these memories made the task of getting everything in order a pleasant couple of hours. And in the midst of it all I reflected, “You know, Mel, your father taught you to enjoy a good beer. Your wife taught you to appreciate a good before dinner cocktail. A good Lutheran wine maker in Lodi, California taught you how to appreciate a fine bottle of wine, and your son taught you how to have a drink to enhance conversation. And the ever watchful (afraid we would drink too much) 

much) eye of my Mother trained me to drink responsibly." I do not think that even once in my life I drank so much as to be considered inebriated. So, I raise a glass to all, and I am sure I will make it through the corona epidemic in good shape.

Holy Week 2020

Every Holy Week is, of course, unique. But 2020 is really very different from any previous one. The corona virus has us all under virtual “house arrest”. We have all been asked to stay in our apartment except for when we take our walk on the premises. Since it has been raining for the last few days Jane and I have just been walking the corridors-and we are careful to even then wear our face mask and to very careful about maintaining social distance. Since we have not been off campus for more than 2 weeks yesterday I went down and ran our car engine on idle for 15 minutes just to make sure the battery remains charged. We continue to be exceptionally well served here by the La Costa Glen Team. Daily food delivered is excellent. In between meals we have visits that bring us hot chocolate and ice cream. And yesterday we had the gift of a beautiful houseplant named kalanchoe delivered to us and every other unit in this building. 

I suppose it is a blessing of Holy Week to be home alone and to have extra time for recollections and meditation. Maunday Thursday brings back very special memories of Holy Communion. It was on Maunday Thursday 1941 that I received my First Communion. I also recall with deep emotion taking the Lord’s Supper while in Hong Kong. I recall especially one service at Concordia Church. As I worshipped I looked around and saw how I was surrounded by people of all ages, some extremely poor, some relatively wealthy. Most were Chinese but there were also Americans, a visitor from New Guinea and another from India. My mind went around the world and I imaged thousands of fellow Christians all over the globe sharing the meal on exactly this same day. Very inspirational.

This year we will not be meeting physically with anyone except our spouse. All services will be via Zoom on the Internet. Our pastor and his team are doing an outstanding job. I know we will set up our own little altar with wine and bread and we feel at one with millions. On Good Friday the traditional 7 Last Words will be reflected upon by 7 different congregation members and as each one of those sentences is recalled we will extinguish one of 7 candles we will have next to our computer altar.

I hope I wake up early enough on Easter morning to do some reflection on Easters past. I want to recall the enthusiasm, joy and determination with which we built our Easter egg nests in Walburg when I was a youngster. I recall vividly walking around our pasture and going to the wooded area behind our church to find just the right cut of grass and flowers (especially newly picked Texas bluebonnets) to make our Easter Egg nests, all arranged in the order of our siblings’ ages Then on Easter morning there would be a hard boiled colored egg or two placed there by mother. Sometimes there was even a chocolate egg! This will be the first year in memory when there will be not a single chocolate egg or rabbit around our house on Easter morning

While I might miss those chocolate rabbits I do know I will recall how my Father always got up early so he could ring the church bells just as the sun rose. Then a little later he would be at the church pipe organ on full volume and accompanied by a trumpet we all sang “Awake, my Heart With Gladness (in German)”. Then I want to shift my focus to the thousands around the world who this Easter will be mourning family members who succumbed to the corona virus. There will be so many sad memories. I do hope and pray that through the tears there will be a vision of a new day of a resurrected eternity, of peace and health and celebration.

Pre Covid-19 My Childhood Diseases

PRE COVID-19 MY CHILDHOOD DISEASES

It is now more than 2 weeks that Jane and I, like millions of others, have been doing this newly named practice of “social distancing” in an effort to limit the spread of Covid-19 caused by the corona virus. It has brought to mind all the children’s diseases of my childhood. Since I was one of 9 children born into my family in the 1920-30’s we had virtually all of the common childhood infectious diseases. I wish my Mother were still with us to go into more details. My memories of having these diseases are clear that I had them, but the details are very hazy. I will recount what I do recall.

MEASLES. In the early 1930’s there was no vaccine to prevent this disease so we all got the measles. I clearly remember the red rash. It spread all over my body, itching like mad. The rash covered my entire body and there was not much we could do about it. I do not remember hearing that it was lethal. However, I have read that at its worst in one year it affected some 20 million people worldwide with a death toll of 100,000. Then a vaccine was discovered and widely administered so that the USA had as few as 63 cases a year. Then false rumors regarding the vaccine stated to spread. Some parents became afraid, refused to have their children vaccinated and now we are back to some 2000 cases a year here in our country.

MUMPS. All of us Kieschnick kids got the mumps. I just remember the terrible throat ache and my Mother’s deep sympathy as she told me she felt sorry for me but there was nothing more she could do for me.

WHOOPING COUGH-SCARLETINA-RED EYE. We all had them all. My memory of Red Eye is the most vivid. Lots of puss was secreted from the eyes. After a night’s sleep we were unable to open our eyes as they were sealed shut with puss. Mother would give me a very damp hot rag. I would lay that over my eyes and the puss would be dissolved and my eyes could open.

I do not recall going to the Dr.’s office. I do recall that if we needed a doctor to come to our house Dr. Wiedemeyer would show up with his stereotypical black bag and provide compassionate diagnoses and treatment. If a drug was prescribed it is amazing to recall that there was a drug store and pharmacy in the little town of Walburg with its 50 citizens. Mr. McGuiness would fill the prescription and we were well taken care of. 

It is now 80+ years since all of the above occurred. An over-riding recollection is that of my Mother. Here she was with 3 or more children down with one of these sicknesses after another. She tended to the 3 or 4 of us who had them at the same time. Most likely she was pregnant with another child on the way. She went to the garden to get the vegetables for the day, to the chicken coop to kill a chicken for the fryer. She carried water to the clothes washing machine out in the shed, hung them out to dry and made absolutely sure that Dad had a freshly ironed white shirt to wear to school. She was amazing and I lift my heart and soul to her in grateful memory!