What One Of You? (from Luke 15)

I: The shepherd

“What one of you who murmur,
disapproving of the company I keep,
Who grumble at these sinners
drawing near that they may hear,
Who complain about the publicans
so hungry for my words and
Would not have me receive them
at my table —which of you,

If you were a hired shepherd, and
you lost one of your hundred sheep,
Would not leave the ninety nine
in the ambles of your wilderness
To go after the one who strayed
into the mountains?  Wouldn’t you
Be relieved to find your little one,
to lift him up, to carry him on
  your shoulders?

And who among you, coming home
with news to share with everyone,
Would hesitate to call your friends
and neighbors round to celebrate
The simple fact that you had found
that little one that you had sought
And could restore him to the good
folds of your pasture?  Tell me,
  would you not?


II. The housekeeper

So will the angels cheer in heaven, and
how much more their cheering for
The one returning soul than for
the ninety nine who never wandered?”
And even as the Pharisees
continued with their murmuring, he
Kept talking to them, questioning
and challenging them with parables.

“Imagine you are a woman now
with only ten coins to your name,
And then suppose you find one day
that you had lost one of your coins:
Which of you would not turn up the lights
and sweep out your entire house,
Looking everywhere until you
found that one lost piece of silver,

And in that coin would you not find
the grounds to dance, a cause to call
Your friends and neighbors, all of them,
to share the joy with you?  I tell you,
So do heaven’s angels sing and dance,
God’s very name pronounced
With celebration every time
a single sinner simply turns
  around.


III. The prodigal son

There was a man who had two sons
and the one who was the younger stood
Up to his father.  Father, he said,
give me the part of your estate
I would inherit now, as I
can’t wait around for you to die.
And so the father, still alive,
took what he had and gave it to
  his sons.

Then, with his share, the younger son,
who could have been a blessed one
And always had a place to stay,
within a week was out the door,
Taking a different road and looking for
a distant land, somewhere to waste
The substance of his portion, and
the road took him where he meant
  to go,

And there he lived in riotous
abandon, spending all he had,
But then a mighty famine came
and he became a beggar of the land,
An immigrant among the citizens,
consigned to work their fields
And feed their pigs, willing to line
his belly with the husks left for
  the swine.


IV. The road home

But when no one gave him anything,
he started talking to himself,
Questioning, remembering
how servants working for his father
Always had enough to eat,
and bread to spare, he said, and here
Am I, so far away from where
I was, with less than I need to stay
  alive.

I will stand, he said, and go back to
my father. Father, I will say,
I have sinned against the heavens, and you
have seen me.  I have turned away,
But now I fall before you, one
no longer worthy to be called your son.
Instead, I beg you, let me be
one of the hired servants in
  your fields.

And the son arose and started walking
back towards his father’s place,
But when he was still a long way off
the father saw the suffering of
His child and he was greatly moved.
He ran to him with open arms,
He fell on him with a strong embrace,
he held him to his heart and kissed
  his face.


V: The celebration

The son, just as he planned, began
to say, Father, I have sinned against
The heavens, and in your sight I am
no longer worthy to be your son,
But before he reached the begging part
to work as a servant in the fields
The father wiped his words away
and turned toward the servants he
  had hired.

Bring out my finest robe, he said,
and give it to my son to wear,
Let him have rings for his fingers
and put new shoes upon his feet,
And then bring out the fatted calf,
have it quartered, chopped and cut
Into the finest veal for our table
that we may eat and celebrate
  the day,

And then as they prepared the feast
and as the plates of veal were passed
The father rose and raised his glass
and gave a toast to all the house:
My son was dead, he said, but now
he is alive!  My son was lost
But here again, you see, my son
is found!  My little one is home
  at last!


VI. The older son

The older son, the one who stayed
at his father’s side and in his place
Was in the field while this went on,
and when his working day was done
At the cue of the setting sun he came
back home again, but as he drew
Up closer to the house he heard
the music and the sounds of
  people dancing.

And looking through the door he saw
that they had killed the fatted calf.
What is the meaning of this? he said,
pulling one of the servants aside,
And the servant said, your brother is home
and all of this your father has done
To welcome him and to receive
your brother safe and sound where
  he belongs.

This only angered the older son,
and he stood where he was looking in,
Refusing to enter through the door
and scowling at the celebration,
And even when his father came
outside to ask him earnestly
To enter in, to be part of
the party, the older child started
  arguing.


VII. The argument

Look, the brother said, how many
years have I been at your side,
Serving you, following your rules
and never breaking your commands,
And have you ever given me
as much as a suckling goat to share
With friends, a single night that my friends
and I might have a party of
  our own?

Yet here, no sooner had your boy
returned from his great carnival
Of whores, his share of your estate
devoured, for this son of yours
You’ve gone and killed the fatted calf!
And he despised his brother and
Continued with his murmuring,
but the loving father to his son
  replied,

My son, you are forever with me,
and everything I have is yours,
But it was right that we should have
this feast and celebration, for
You see, this is your younger brother:
he was dead, but turn around
And look, he is alive again! Your
brother was lost, and now he has
  been found!”

A preface.

The next post deserves a preface, for all of the various inspirations that went into it.

First, as noted previously, we have a smaller replica of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son in our home, and if you ever want to appreciate a painting, hang it in your living room and look at it for ten years.  Or for that matter, make sure you go to a church that likes to bring this parable up at every opportunity, from the pulpit, in bible studies, in Sunday School.

Second, I recently discovered David Ferry’s Bewilderment, an excellent collection of poems that won the National Book Award last year, and one of the poems he wrote was a powerful restatement of the Abraham and Isaac story.  It was really little more than an amplified translation of the biblical text, and yet he made the story fresh and more poetic than I had ever considered it to be.  I have lately appreciated reading and even crafting translations and restatements on several fronts (part of my various side studies of Eliot’s Waste Land and Sanai’s Walled Garden and Neruda’s A Poet’s Obligation, quoted in Thirty Birds), and I thought I would try my hand at restating my favorite parable.

Third, Dan, you have mentioned many times your thoughts of writing a book called “We the Pharisees.”  That seed, too, is in this poem.  I have been frequently shown how intricate this parable is, with its separable stories of the younger son, the father and the older son, and I had heard of course how the older son was likened to the Pharisees, but I had never appreciated how much Jesus drew them into the story from the start, confronting their mumbling and posing rhetorical questions and giving them premises that probably shook them to the core: Imagine you are a woman, or a field worker, or a decadent child.  And yet, as direct as he was, Jesus was inviting these Pharisees to his table too!  (This, younguns, is why we go to church - for those truths that impact us even after we’ve heard the story over and over.  Two weeks ago, that happened to me again when I was reminded of the faith of the thief on the cross: I’ve heard all the holy week elements repeatedly, but this year it jumped out at me that all this sinner had was a prayer, and it was enough!)

Finally, I approached this effort by relying most heavily on the King James Version, which is not my usual translation, but I have recently come to appreciate the stronger poetry in this text over, say, the NIV.  Try paralleling Psalm 23, for instance.   And while I gave Luke 15 a few enhancements, I tried to keep them as biblical as I could, often with the help of the annotations in my New Jerusalem study bible.  If anyone is interested I can give specifics, but generally you can check out Psalms 17, 23 and 149, Isaiah 40, Ezekiel 34, Zechariah 3, Matthew 18, Luke 2 and 14, John 10 and Revelation 21.

Read on!

Dan Dakota Man

With divine intention, I believe, roots go deep into the land.  A son was born to Joseph and me in North Dakota, Daniel Martin by name.  In 1967.  It happened generations after Sioux tribes established their non-establishments in Dakota, believing intrinsically that the land is not to own but to participate with as partners of nature.  Even so, the roots of the native Americans are there from pre-history.  Likewise, the Vold and Elstad roots are Dakotan, certainly beyond the happenstance of Joe and Marilyn with 4-year-old Jonathan trekking to Maddock, North Dakota in 1966.

This groundwork must be laid, because the central figure of this narrative is not particularly enamoured with North Dakota, barely claiming to be a true North Dakota native.  But he is, he is, a Dakotan, by roots, by birth, and by God!

God may have tossed creation into being with a Word, with a big bang, with an evolutionary design but the Father/creator most definitely also is involved in the playing out of individual lives, whether those lives are stationary or on the move.  It didn’t just fatefully happen that Dan became a Dakota man.  God had a plan for that man and here’s how it ran!

In the state directly to the west of North Dakota, Montana, the call and urge to go to the seminary became strong for Joe.  He was a reporter for Dun and Bradstreet, having graduated from Concordia College with a political science major three years earlier.   Billings was our home for just one year.  A visit from college and army buddy John Haakenson pushed the still small voice of God calling into a clearer direction, and by August, 1964 Joe was finishing his reporting days and Marilyn was interviewing and accepting a teaching job in the Robbinsdale, Minnesota school district.  Off to the seminary it was!  But only for the theological education it would provide, not with the idea of “going into the ministry”.  That was not for him, regardless if his father was a Lutheran pastor, his oldest brother was a Lutheran pastor, and one brother-in-law was a Lutheran pastor!

The young family lived in a 39-foot trailer in Little Canada, Minnesota.   Fortunately several other seminarians lived in that trailer court also, so they could carpool to Luther Seminary across the northern border of St. Paul.  Teaching was an exciting challenge for Marilyn, and classes in Greek, systematic theology and the Bible stretched Joe’s always-searching mind.  Two years went by quickly.  They were pretty confident that after three classroom years at the seminary, a vocation would open up, perhaps in teaching for Joe, but he didn’t know.

What he did know was that by spring of 1966, there was a baby on the way.  How did that happen?  It had seemed that getting pregnant was not going to be easy, thus not an option, even though a sibling for Jonathan would be good.  And then….

Game plan had to change.  In that era, a woman did not teach late into pregnancy or six weeks after the baby was born; it just wasn’t done.  With Marilyn’s teaching employment in limbo, the family income was non-existent.  What to do, what to do??

After two years of seminary, the normal route was that the third year be “internship”.  Thus it was that Joe began to consider and be considered for internships, and the one he accepted was Maddock Lutheran churches in Maddock, North Dakota under the Reverend Elmo Anderson.  The Volds arrived in August and moved into the old parsonage, a large, square, drafty two-story frame house on the corner.  Next door was the new parsonage, a tan brick ranch house.  The church was three blocks south and downtown about four blocks away.  A tiny hospital was a block north of our house.  As a matter of fact, when we first arrived in town and stopped to ask directions to “the old parsonage”, all we were told was, “Go east on this street for two blocks, turn north, and you will find that house a block before you get to the hospital.”  Good directions!

Getting to know the folks in the Viking and North Viking parish was a delightful and absorbing task, and Joe plunged in with both feet.  He loved ministry!  He finally realized the eternal reward of standing alongside people in their hurts and griefs and joys, bringing concern, God’s Word and prayer to people needing to hear and needing to be touched.  This was where he belonged.  Preaching wasn’t such a strong gift for him, but entering people’s lives to minister and serve was.  The Call was taking on new form.

Meanwhile, the three Volds as well as many new friends plus Elmo, Norma, Joel, Robbie and Beth Anderson next door were eagerly awaiting the new baby due at Christmastime.  But he did not arrive until January 12, 1967, and that only, Marilyn is convinced, because she insisted Joe take her out riding on an unplowed field after an evening spent at the church in Bethel Bible Study.  However it came down, teeth-crunching bumpy ride or just IT WAS TIME, they came to the hospital and were given first-class treatment as the only expectant parents there.  I wanted to walk as much as possible during labor but that got old, and the final minutes of delivery I recall receiving laughing gas from the only doctor in town, Filipino Dr. Mimay, who was attending us. It is not surprising that Dan still causes us to laugh with his quirks and twists on life!

On the afternoon of Dan’s birth, Joe came to the hospital and duct-taped a baseball to the front of the nursery window with “Daniel Martin Vold” printed on it.  (I think Dan was the only baby born in Maddock that entire month, and he was the 39^th baby born in the whole state of North Dakota in 1967!)  Joe was setting Dan’s athletic propensity early.  Marilyn was getting acquainted with this very red-haired son, and diligently trying to get his right ear to stay closer to his head – seemed to stick out just a little too far.   But that didn’t last long, and he was perfect, anyway!

Within a day a huge blizzard hit the state, and the town lost electricity and as a result the old parsonage was really cold.  Marilyn and Dan had to stay in the hospital for a week until the storm passed.  That, incidentally, was a very stormy winter.  Uncle Dave and Elaine were supposed to come from Hatton, North Dakota the last Sunday in January for Dan’s baptism – but they couldn’t because of the snowy, icy roads.  In May the Volds took their first trip to visit Marilyn’s parents at their brand new home on Lac La Belle near Carlton, Minnesota, and that week, several people perished from icy snowy winds sweeping them off the wharf in the famous Duluth harbor, twenty miles from Grandpa and Grandma Elstad’s.

Grandpa Elstad.  Let’s go back to roots!  When George Martin Elstad was six years old, he was adopted by Rev. Ole and Mathilda Elstad.  George was the son of Mathilda’s sister, Lena and an Irish longshoreman Lena had met while visiting her sister Josephine in Duluth in 1904.  Soon after George was born in 1905, Lena met and married Christian Neuman, a house painter.  Ole and Mathilda were determined that the little boy not be raised in their “pagan” theosophist home, so George, even though he had been living with his grandmother Inga Jensen in a Minneapolis apartment, was adopted by Mathilda and Ole in 1911.  At the time the Elstad family had moved from the Osseo, Wisconsin Lutheran parish to the Lutheran church parish in Lodi, Wisconsin, but the family lived in the town of Morrisonville, ten miles closer to the state capitol of Madison.  There George had his first three years of schooling.   Then Ole was called to serve the church in Minnewaukan, North Dakota.  There were some whispers that they were forced to leave Wisconsin because George was the “love child” of Ole – that was a rumor his jealous brother John started.  John was on the old family farm near Franklin, Minnesota.  (Want to talk about returning to one’s roots?  George and Berenice Elstad moved to Franklin from Wadena in central Minnesota in 1952, as the principal job in the school had opened up.  Not only was Franklin the home address of the Elstads after immigrating from Norway, but Berenice’s parents, Andrew Loftness and Palma Nelson Loftness had grown up a stone’s throw away, on the Minnesota River which flowed right below Franklin.)

So George became a Minnewaukan boy.  Where is Minnewaukan?  Merely the next town over to the east from Maddock, toward Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.  Not only that, but the town directly to the west of Maddock, Esmond, was the home town of Thelma who eventually became the wife of George’s oldest brother, Alvin.  While at a church women’s meeting in Esmond, Marilyn was visiting with a lady who had gone to school with George in Minnewaukan.  She said, “We kids used to call him ‘bastard’.  Now that I think of it, that wasn’t very kind of us, was it?”

Maybe it isn’t surprising that George was also pretty lukewarm toward North Dakota.  He graduated from high school, went to St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and never came back to the state.  Of necessity he had to occasionally drive through it to reach the West on myriad camping trips, but the drive always seemed interminable to George.

Volds are more entrenched in the Dakotas.  Joe was born in Clark, South Dakota, where his father John was a pastor and where he and Sylvia Bernice Hogstad met and married.  Joe’s mother, Bernice, died when Joe was eleven, and his father died the first year he was at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.  After that, Joe claimed Carrington, North Dakota as his home address, as that is where his oldest sister, Connie Strand, lived.  Three of Joe’s siblings still live in North Dakota: Harold and wife Eunice, and Connie in Grand Forks; and Dave and wife Elaine in Hatton.  The middle child of the seven children of John and Bernice, Paul, was mentally and physically retarded, and he died in a nursing home in Northwood, North Dakota.  Bruce, Harold and Eunice’s son, is also a Lutheran minister, and serves in Carrington, North Dakota but started his ministry where his father also started, in Edgeley and Ellendale, North Dakota.

So for Joe and Marilyn to come to Maddock, North Dakota to serve an internship, and give birth to a son while living there, was simply a matter of returning to roots!  I started off talking about the roots of native Americans but also alluded to the trekking that peoples do, whether moving to where the ground is more fertile and hunting more abundant, to escaping scourges of ice or enemy.  Dan has been a trekker.  He wrote his first novel as a picaresque story that started in Cut Bank, Montana but moved ever eastward, based partly on his time spent with a Concordia College singing group, “Found by Faith”, touring churches in the summer of 1988.  After graduating from Concordia, Dan served for two years in a “tent ministry” in Luck, Wisconsin.  From there he returned to Park Ridge, Illinois and finished his first master’s degree at DePaul University in Chicago.  More adventure was a thirst, and Dan joined the Peace Corps, spending two years in the remote former USSR country of Turkmenistan.  From there he moved – not back to the United Stated, but to Prague, Czech Republic irresistibly lured there by the lovely Katerina Vackova whom he met while teaching English as a second language at Wright College in Chicago.  And there, so far, the trek has stopped, as the Lamkens have lived in Prague (now in Roztoky, a suburb) for eighteen years.  Dan’s journeys now involve traveling to major capitols of the world giving seminars on the International Baccalaureate program.

A person with deep roots in a land can go anywhere and be an influence for good.  That’s Dan.  What a Dakota man!

Holy Saturday

NB: read/comment on Mom's post below before this one. I wrote this while she posted hers, and would hold off a few days if it weren't that this very day is the topic below. As symposiums go, the timelessness of themes should always trump the schedule of considerations. Thank you, Mom, for yours. Here's mine, very happy to have had Kirsten visit us this Holy Week:

Among the joys of seeing Kirsten on Good Friday, as she performed with the Lake Forest band in St Simon and Jude’s church, north of the Jewish Quarter (and a Mendelssohn opus aptly included), was the reminder that The Brothers Karamazov is the piece of literature most interwoven with today, Holy Saturday. Kirsten is starting to read Dostoevsky’s greatest novel—years earlier than the rest of us even knew it existed. She knows Alyosha—read ‘Joshua’ in Russian—is the seminarian who glues the book together, and all others, beyond the brothers themselves, have their archetypal roles. “The Grand Inquisitor” chapter is coming up, and what a day—Holy Saturday—to remember that most magnificent ‘poem’ as Ivan calls it, “an absurd thing, but I want you to hear it.”

For Holy Saturday does more battle in a day, with more than a test of wills at stake, than the 40 days Jesus spends in the desert, tempted voraciously by Satan. I’ve wondered what that reunion might be like, when Jesus ‘descended unto hell’ which can never by definition be familiar, acceptable, convalescent, ‘this too shall pass’. Reunion? Who knows? Does Satan show up in the lake of fire, tempt and taunt further, hiss rhetoric that only fallen angels can conceive? Does Jesus argue back, quote scripture, ‘look to the cross’ so-to-speak? Does the rich master of Lazarus weigh in, or deign to have someone greater than Father Abraham speak on his behalf? Does God the Father watch God the Son tread waters unimaginable, rendering the tears of Gethsemane a ‘drop in the bucket’? I remember in college a book entitled ‘How Big is Your God?’; today we should paraphrase: ‘How Hellish is your Hell?’, especially when your God and Savior faces it on your behalf?

When Tom Zahr ‘came forward’ at First Baptist Church, and Pastor Gimmi non-scriptedly asked why he did so today, Tom replied with an obvious tone: “because I don’t want to go to hell.” I’ve used—misused—that line for years as an all-too-facile outlook of why we do anything right or wrong. On Holy Saturday, Tom (if you’re reading), you’re right. None of us want to go to hell. And yes, there are myriad renditions of hell on earth, and none of us are in a position to assess their verisimilitude to what Jesus faces today. But today—today—Jesus descends unto hell on our behalf. And though we know Easter Sunday is coming (what literature studies calls ‘dramatic irony’—the audience knows what the stage players do not), we should not pass through this day without profound sorrow. Our Savior and friend is suffering there beyond measure. And like Tom knows, he’s doing so on our behalf.

To Build a Ship in Southern Minnesota

The large garage door rose slowly as the doctor maneuvered his Cadillac from the narrow alley into the space behind his downtown office.  His friends, newly married and new to the southern Minnesota community of twenty-two thousand, waited in anticipation for what he had to show them.  There in the  garage rested a long, mostly-finished keel of fine planks laminated together.   Tall, burly and balding, Dr. Daniel Halverson was building a boat from scratch and intended to eventually sail it to Norway, starting from the harbor in Duluth. 

To build a seaworthy ship in the center of the United States certainly demanded a dream and a commitment.  Dr. Dan had that, to be sure.  In the three years the young couple, Joe and Marilyn Vold, interacted with him and his family, he influenced them in many ways and his dream to complete a boat helped them build a metaphorical boat that sails surely even today.  The town was Owatonna, the place where their first son, Jonathan Andrew was born.  Dr. Dan delivered him.  And saved his life.

“Pennies from heaven!” had been a refrain  the couple heard  more than once from Dr. Dan’s wife, Maxine.  She was a pretty, smiling dark-haired woman raising their three children and presiding over their fine white-pillared house with a port cochere on the side and two dishwashers in the kitchen – “That way, I can just set the table from one dishwasher while putting dirty dishes in the other!” exclaimed Maxine.   She was also active in a number of community organizations.  But most important to Dan and Maxine was their church, St. John Lutheran, located about a mile from their house.   It was a former German Lutheran church, and just a few blocks from another large American Lutheran church composed of many Norwegian-background families.  Why the Halversons chose to be members of St. John after moving to Owatonna and starting his medical practice is uncertain.  They had met at St. Olaf College, not so very far from that city – well, pretty much half way between Owatonna and the Twin Cities.  Dr. Dan was chairman of the music committee at St. John, and the large church had recently acquired a huge pipe organ.  The only organist, however, was the church secretary who really did not want to take on the responsibility of playing the organ every Sunday – and on the radio, yet, for the weekly worship service that was broadcast.

The Volds were married August 25, 1961 in a Minneapolis suburb.  Just a few weeks before that, Joe had gotten his first “real” job, as a Dun and Bradstreet reporter assigned to the southeast corner of the state.  Although Marilyn did not want to leave her position as parish worker at St. Philip’s Lutheran in Fridley after being there only a year, it seemed imperative that Joe be located centrally for his traveling job, and that  location was Owatonna, sort of  between Rochester, Waseca, Blue Earth, Albert Lea and Austin.   Joe settled into the small apartment they had found above a print shop on the Straight River (and on the train tracks cutting through town from north and south) and Marilyn finished her contract at St. Philip’s, bunking with her college roommate in St. Paul for a week.  The bride and groom were glad to get together again in September to set up housekeeping in earnest.

Meanwhile, Marilyn had sent a letter to churches in the Owatonna area, asking if there were any openings for a church organist.  The response from Dr. Dan was immediate and gratifying, and the couple became “pennies from heaven!” for the music committee as well as the youth committee; they were quickly recruited to be sponsors for the Luther League because after all, they were young, they were new church college graduates, and why not?

That wasn’t the limit of the relationship with the Halversons, however.  A Great Books club was being started by them, and Joe and Marilyn joined in.  They met twice a month and had spirited discussions on ancient and more contemporary authors.  Maxine invited Marilyn to join American Association of University Women and soon they were a part of a quintet singing for various programs around the town.  Beyond that, the Volds enjoyed dinners at the Halversons home and even hosted them in the small house across town they soon moved into.

Before moving to that house, however, the little apartment on Bridge Street was a crucible for their first months of marriage.  Another newlywed couple lived in the other apartment.  One Saturday night when Marilyn was practicing the organ at St. John, the young man and two of his friends went out to get more beer.  They drove to the end of the block and made a u-turn to head toward downtown.  As they approached the tracks a train whistle was heard and the crossing gates began to come down.  But not before the neighbor decided to try and beat the train.  He lost.  The three men and the crumpled car were pushed into the Straight River.  Joe called the church and Pastor Ackerman hollered up at Marilyn working at the organ in the balcony: “There’s been an accident!  Joe called to tell you not to come home yet.”

That was only fuel for the fire.  How could a person calmly practice knowing – or not knowing – what had transpired?  She headed across town, taking a detour around the scene of the crash.  Crowds were gathered on the riverbank and along the street.  Marilyn wandered through the small huddles of horrified onlookers, searching for her husband.  Was he part of the tragedy?  She didn’t know.  Finally, though, they found each other and collapsed in grief for their new friends and neighbors.  The triple funeral the next week was incredibly sad: young lives, so senselessly snuffed out; one couple not married but pregnant. 

Not long after that Joe and Marilyn learned that they were expecting a child.  They continued spending time with the church youth, and one event was tobaggoning.  Shortly after that seemingly innocuous activity, they lost the baby.  Dr. Dan assured them that they would be able to have another, even as he mourned with them over the miscarriage.

With renewed joy, by spring of 1962 the couple knew a baby was again on the way.  By then they  were in the little house on Mineral Springs Road, way on the east side of town.  The owners were an elderly couple living next door, who told them of the Mineral Springs “legend” – how two brothers came looking for a place to build a hospital, and finding the hot springs at the end of their road, decided that is where their hospital should be.  But the town fathers would have no part of it; “Owatonna already has a hospital!”  And so, the Mayo brothers took their dream forty miles east and set up shop in Rochester.  The rest is history!

The morning of November twelfth dawned and the baby, already overdue two weeks, was ready to be born.  Joe took Marilyn to the hospital – and headed to St. Paul for a Dun and Bradstreet meeting.  He didn’t return until late afternoon, but no baby had yet appeared.  Labor intensified through the evening.  Maxine Halvorson couldn’t stop pacing; her husband should have been home hours ago.  She sensed problems, and sat down at her piano and played a hymn about fighting and winning the battle.  Her tears flowed.  Suddenly, at 11:33 p.m., she felt a wind blow through their house, and a sense of divine peace came over her.  She knew with certainty that a life-and-death battle had been fought and won.

It was true.  The baby had refused to come down the birth canal, and finally Dr. Dan went in with instruments to pull the child through.  His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times and he was blue.  Quick work and timing saved the child, and Jonathan took his first squalling breath.  A new and precious ship was launched on the sea of life, aided by a big Norwegian doctor who believed in dreams and ships and making big plans for journeys.

Hanging from the center of the rafters in every church in Norway, in the old days, was a model of a ship.   That main gathering place of every church building is still called the “nave”, which means “ship”, because of the shape most churches had.  Through the centuries the church itself has been called a “ship”.  Both literally and figuratively, many years later, Marilyn recalled and sang “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me” as she was struggling to reach a barnacled shoal in a wide bay of the Mexican coast.  That hymn surely talks of the church, and we, the individuals as part of it, as a ship, a vessel being piloted over “tempestuous seas”: “unknown waves before me roll, hiding rock and treach’rous shoal; chart and compass come from thee.  Jesus, Savior, pilot me.”  So it is perfectly in order to refer to a new baby in the church as a ship beginning a portentous expedition. 

Years later, the Halvorsons did set sail in their “Kon Tiki” from Duluth, and crossed the Atlantic to their beloved fatherland of Norway.  Years later, including now, Jonathan Andrew Vold continues his journey as an attorney, poet, father to Kirsten and Andrew, and beloved son.  He lives much closer to a body of water – Lake Michigan – that could take the launching of a seagoing vessel.  For now, he is content to kayak along the shore and spot myriads of birds for his photography and poetry books.  Dr. Dan would have appreciated knowing him and how he affected one of the many babies he delivered.

Welcome to the Symposia

After hours of discussing great songs with John Elstad this weekend, Josh and I have invited John to join our conversation on the blog.  Welcome, John!  We look forward to getting your list ---and Kathy's too ---and even Dylan's?

Precedence

In light of the events that have transpired in Steubenville, Ohio of late, I am compelled, not to comment so much on the event itself--we're inundated with it, worldwide--but to reflect upon our society and culture, such as it is.

My heart goes out--certainly to the unnamed West Virginian girl so severely victimized one night last August--but also to the extremely misguided high school football players in focus during this trial. There were two on trial, but so many more involved with the sickening acts that took place at a sequence of parties that night. But yes, my heart does go out to the young man who, upon hearing the deserved judgment, broke down and cried 'my life is over'... My heart also goes out to this small town that has to figure out how to move forward in a positive direction from this horrendous spotlight, and hopefully not attempting to twist perception in favor of any part of what was wrong with this turn of events, but to rise up and rebuild a foundation that would not condone the destructive, thoughtless "culture" that led to that awful August night.

I'm not interested in pointing fingers, playing the blame game,...God knows there's always enough of that to go around, and especially in a case like this. But for this moment, I'll try to put myself in the shoes of any parents of those kids that were so thoughtlessly, carelessly involved in the events of that night. And immediately, what I've likely been feeling since those events came to light was a growing sense of emptiness in the pit of my stomach, the gnawing question plaguing me... 'Where did I go wrong?' My hope is that I can quickly stop internalizing these emotions to be able to humbly, lovingly stand beside my child, whose hell is only just beginning.

Since I am not one of those parents, all I can do for them is pray, and hope that the right people are in place to reach out to them and their children, and to help them understand what it means to value life and to take responsibility wherever we can to uphold the precious blessings we have in our lives and through the lives of all others God places around us. This IS my prayer being raised to God at this moment. In this there is penitence as their needs to be for what we have done that does not uphold life as God wills for us. But as importantly, there is renewed focus, beyond the mire we so often find ourselves in, and toward THE LIGHT, the SOURCE of LIFE, the flawless example of LOVE we can only fully know through God.

And this is the answer I know I can always rest on and within which I will continue to grow, spiritually.

But this will not be everyone's answer...at least not now, not in the moment. Those kids, their parents, that town,...yes, our society as a whole, needs to ask and answer the question...'Where did we go wrong?' And when you think about it, this is the Lenten question in general that makes Holy Week and Christ's victory on the cross that much more meaningful. So much to say on this, but for now, back to Steubenville...

What was it that led to the events of those parties that allowed this girl to be treated so horrendously? What was it that created an atmosphere of celebration and hilarity at this girl's expense? And what caused the events to be photogged and videotaped for posterity as if this was something to hold on to and worse, to share irrevocably with the rest of the world? And what provokes a community to then deny wrongdoing on the part of its own, even in spite of all evidence that can only be considered undeniable?

Rewind...what was it that led to the tacit approval of these parties? The purchase of the alcohol? The idea to lace someone's beverage with sedatives? The pervasive attitudes that these behaviors are acceptable? The sense of entitlement that all too dismissively, unrestrictedly allows that 'kids will be kids'...even to extremes such as these?

Where did we go wrong? There's no simple answer to this--a wide array of factors are involved. But it's safe to say that influences exert themselves on our kids from the moment they're conceived. And because of this, parenting, then, is the most important job in the world! Everything starts for our kids at home, first in the mother's embodiment of a child's first home and then in the larger home and family structure that helps that child build in their understanding of love, of nurture, of grace, of relationships, of responsibility,...of values,...of divinity.

Yes, being a mom or dad IS the most important responsibility we can take on. It's also the hardest, most challenging job we can have, and potentially, with wisdom, grace, and love, the most fulfilling, most enriching job. And yes, we, as parents, drop the ball, but like any other moment, we are given opportunities to let our kids know that our mistakes offer a chance to learn and grow together, accepting each other for who we are in spite of our flaws, and to take joy, energy, and inspiration in the light we are each specially given by God.

The cautionary point that every parent should be constantly aware of is that the moment we lose our focus on our kids and the blessing they are to us, and the responsibility we have over them... The moment we give in to our being too tired to listen, too busy to share, too distracted to laugh, too overwhelmed to console, too preoccupied to guide--these moments, built up, aggregately lend toward our kids removing themselves from us and any notion that we care, and into compromised situations such as those kids in the Steubenville area found themselves.

We can't entirely control how our kids grow up--more and more, there will be outside influences in their lives that will have their impact; and hopefully, they will value our input enough to regularly seek our counsel regarding these external influences. That takes work and focus, but the joy in knowing that they continue to look to us in this way is immeasurable. Perhaps one of the best things we can teach our kids through our own example is encapsulated in one of Pope John Paul II's teachings: “Never tire of firmly speaking out in defense of life from its conception and do not be deterred from the commitment to defend the dignity of every human person with courageous determination. Christ is with you: be not afraid!”

If Christ and the love Christ has for all of us becomes the guiding influence for our kids as it is for us, we'll find that we won't have to spend gut-wrenching moments on questions like 'Where did we go wrong?' Pray for Christ's presence with those parents and leaders around Steubenville who've been battling with that question for more than half a year now. May God's love and grace fill them and lift them and their kids beyond this mire.

Lives of Lent

I never was ware of the Ides of March—

  what Dad would call mud days in slushy slew

    and where he’d be buried in quick démarche,

      and why that would captivate me and you.

It’s here again twining the lives of Lent:

  birthdays of spring sons; unction for Julie,

    the niece who now joins her heaven-sent

      uncles and father, her smile, Sarah Lee.
It’s mud days, and tangibly leading us

  on is the Gospel of John—raise that dear friend—

    the Gospel of Luke—speak, Lazarus!—

      vanquishing dogmas for dogs whose sole end
    is to lick our soul sores through uncertain days,

       mud-luscious, forlorn, and worthy of praise.

Remembering Julie Beth

Her sister was the first of us to die,
The first, in any case, who had a name
That we remember: precious Sarah Lee,
The first of eighteen cousins to become
An angel, waiting for the rest of us
Somewhere over the rainbow where the saints
Go marching in --- and now we say goodbye
To Julie Beth, the second of the Strands
To meet her maker.  I just wish that we
Could have been there among the folks who came
To see her off.  They may think less of us,
Remembering cousin Julie from afar
And calling ourselves family, if they
Take time at all to wonder who we are,

But Julie Beth, we will remember you
The way we knew you, with a happy smile
And an infectious laugh, warmth in your eyes
And color in your cheeks, a North Dakota girl
Who moved to Arizona but returned
For family reunions when she could
(More often than some closer cousins did),
One of the older cousins, and yet one
Who held on to the ways that she was young
And free, who came out quietly
To where we were and stood as one of us,
Full of that Norwegian salt and grace
Beyond all reason, finally assured
That we would meet again at Sarah's place.

Boxed Inward

In discussion the other day with a brother, an older friend of mine, an artist, who had asked me, once again, about the bandanni I wear about my head, wondering if anyone makes comments about it or 'teases' me about it...

('Teasing?' I thought,...'Really?' I haven't been teased, that I know of, for the solid majority of my life--which perhaps has at least a little to do with the 'speak softly and carry a big stick' mentality attributable to the namesake of my elementary school, Theodore Roosevelt; but this runs along a tangent that can be addressed at a different time...)

In any case, my old friend decided to take a jab, "No one thinks you're an Arab" [unexpectedly pronounced 'AY rab'] "toting a machine gun around or anything?" 'Well, of course,' I whipped back, 'because all Arabs' [pronounced correctly, as both jab and point of instruction] 'carry guns, right?' After a couple of quick chortles, I decided to respond to his question for real... In short, if people ask, I've no problem explaining that: a)this pale old nuked head of mine needs protection against even the slightest hint of UV rays; and b)I choose to protect others from having to look upon the most recent scars on aforementioned head.

But then, still wondering about and wanting to respond (non-confrontationally, of course) to his comment about that segment of Middle Eastern culture, the dialogue took a more theological turn, which actually happens fairly often when with this friend... I have no problem discussing my life and experience with people who express interest because it's who I am,...it's part of the divine light with which God has specifically blessed me.

The conversation turned to our response to life and to each other and how, by one of the harshest failings of human nature, we create walls around our selves... We box our selves inward--both to protect from exposure of our selves to others, and to protect from the impact others may have on our selves, and this feeds into all sorts of angst and bias--skewed perspectives about our selves and each other--which is actually quite destructive to our ongoing, lifelong development in a number of areas, especially in our respective relationships with God.

And here's where family theology comes into play... If we choose to see our selves and each other as part of God's creation--as children of God--then we are essentially brothers and sisters, even before we would further define the nature of that relationship. And whether others choose that same perception or not is not necessarily relevant--it's primarily a focus we can take into our interactions that can help break down those walls which we naturally build against each other.

And as we find we are in dialogue with a brother or sister in Christ, this can quickly tear down numerous walls toward the most fulfilling kinds of interaction. But even when this is not the case, that person we are talking to is still a brother or sister, and no matter who that brother or sister is, they are still as much in need of divine love, grace, and hope we know through Christ as we are.

And this is not, then, a matter of us cramming our views down another's throat, or assuming an opportunity to take some presumed moral high ground--it's simply a matter of taking steps, sometimes many, to continually break down those barriers, those walls that may prevent another from seeing that light as we are able. The beauty is that, if we approach our interactions with other brothers and sisters in humility, God may surprise us with light that can come to us from that brother or sister, with or without intentionality on that other's part. Don't be swayed by the anxieties and prejudice that consumes others, but share the light given you, and be open to truth and inspiration from the light given by God to these brothers and sisters you open your self to.

It all starts with perspective. Don't simply think outside the box--break down the walls of the boxes we find our selves in... Allow our selves, in prayer for growth--in Christ, in divine light, presence, wisdom, and Spirit--the chance to eliminate the barriers between our selves and others of God's chillun'!


I am forever thankful for the light I share and know with my direct brothers and sister, our families, our extended family, and those who have guided us all along!

Shalom! Emmanuel!!!

Peregrinations

Everyone, in time, walks a dog

and sniffs out modicums of what

God has always guided us to know:

We are free, we are bounded merely

by the stuff that seems to reckon with

mortality. We are leashed, thereby, with

mind meanderings that tell us we are free!

—to scrunch what’s bound to do us in, to run

in lines that may parallel railway tracks or may

cross them unawares, to leap as wantons will

away across small streams, to tear into the

nebula of nothing worth a second nosing,

(let alone the threat of snarfing poison)

whatever ills our masters’ litter leave

us here—along our lowly paths—or   

there—in will-o-wisp despair—we

are abominadoggedly free. So be!

Because that anvil can’t suffice, I’ll walk

the dog again today and leash myself to

other points of view.  Everyone, in time,

walks a dog; by corollary everyone then

meets the local unknown; by extension,

then, everyone is better known because

of this unknown mélange; more circum-

section, then, admits to reasons why we

walk and why the block that at the same

time ties us to our own, sometimes bids

us be alone:  pleasantly, predictably, one

with other ones—alone and not alone—

I’ll walk my dog with kindred souls who

walk their dogs alone, traversing blocks

beyond our own, then circle back to that

which doggedly we’ll call home.  Did we

ask the dog? Well,.. that’s another poem!

Stillwater family

wayward dog walking
music making with my kids
reading posts like this

thinking in haiku
Passion comes from pathos--ours
balmed at Golgotha

psalmed in waters still
without which life cannot live:
Passion is this flow

Psalm 23

Josh, you have hit on the beauty of this being a Symposia - we can have more than one symposium going at the same time.  I was just thinking on the way to work this morning that I wanted to share something related to our Stillwater namesake, but I was hesitant because it felt off topic.  But your post reminds me that there is no off topic here.

My something is a mini-bible study that I have been preparing for our confirmation students.  This year, they are memorizing the 23rd Psalm, and I came up with a quick and easy way to help them along.  And anyone can join the class! Just remember seven P words, and you too can memorize with the best of them.

1. PERSON.  This is a Psalm about God as a person, and not just any person but one with whom we will never be in need: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

2. PLACE.  And not just any place, but a place to rest, to be refreshed, with green pastures and still waters: He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

3. PATH.  We already heard how he leads us by the still waters, but there is more.  We will be on the right path as long as we are following the shepherd.  He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.  (There is a tie to one of our new testament lessons here.  The kids had just read Acts 17:11, about how we can ask for anything in Jesus's name and he will answer.  Same thing with our paths: they will be right if we walk them in his name.)

4. PRESENCE.  And on those paths, even if it sometimes gets dark and scary, God is with us, Emmanuel!  Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me.

5. PRAYER.  Up until now we were talking about God as a third person, but suddenly we are talking to him directly, as our shepherd.  Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  (There is a tie to the kids' other lessons here, too.  Through their old testament studies they had been learning about the continual U-turns of God's people.  And this is the perfect U-Turn, bringing our attentions back to God.)

6. PREPARE.  In turning, we find the shepherd preparing a table for us, and not just any table.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

7. PROMISE.  Most translations use the word "Surely."  We not only get a hint of heaven here, we get it emphatically, as a promise.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

And that's it.  And I don't even care if the kids remember the exact words anymore, as long as they can talk about the person of God, the place of rest, the path that's right, the presence of Emmanuel, the prayer of U-turns, the table being prepared and the promise of forever.  Amen?

The Symposia's 200th post...

--a stone approached and passed with neither pomp nor circumstance, but at the very least a nod acknowledging where we've been and what lies ahead, yet most importantly, the once-again captivating realization that the present moment is something of divine beauty we ought never to ignore.

EMMANUEL!!! Thank God for all blessings! SHALOM!

Keep the comments comin'

Indeed, that is where my list is--back about eight posts ago, when Josh launched this project. As you journey there, stop in to poems by Jon and KC, passions and a poem ensconced in a comment there. I could post my list anew--you'd see "Sweet Chil' of Mine" an uncanny 4th time (I think for quite different reasons!)--but I'd rather promote the comment function on this blog.

But since everyone is adding an eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, I'll add this newest latest masterpiece by Beats & Rice -- their message to 'stand for something' is, well,... worth watching!

The lists are building...

Hey, Joe! (which, incidentally, is a possible Hendrix addition to my own list o' favorites!)

Great list, Joe! Your tastes in music are really well-rounded...I'm sure a lot moreso than mine were when I was your age (musical styles and genres were not as diverse back then during the paleolithic age). Excellent comment on your Beatles selection! And with RHCP, I've been debating which of theirs to include on my own list, and 'By The Way' is a fine choice!

And, we've got the first shared song--GnR's 'Sweet Child o' Mine,' also on Annie's list! Along with that one, 'Patience' is another I might include on my own list... I'm diggin' this project!

One thing I'll say since the issue's already come up in two list submissions--our lists are not meant for everyone else's critique or approval... Allow these lists to have primary value for yourselves--if a song consistently hits you a certain way, great! You know more and more the ones that endure for you and why--so for those songs you choose to share with the rest of us, share them unabashedly! And, Joe, perhaps like your dad, I know there are songs I will choose not to share with everyone else for whatever reason, even if they consistently inspire me, and that's fine...they just go on a different list.

And, again, the list I put together in response to Jon's and Annie's submissions--I already know the list I come up with by the reunion will be substantially, maybe even completely different... Let your lists simmer 'til summer...

Enjoy the process, evrabody!

Josh

Joe's top 12

Hello, this is Joe, I had a discussion with my dad about whether I should write this as a comment or post it. Since everyone else except my dad is posting their top 10 songs and I want my favorite songs to be seen, I decided to post it. I'm afraid most of you won't like this list, but this is just my list of the songs that I can't get enough of no matter how many times I listen to them. My big problem is, that I am never faithful to any music genre, I listen to pop, rock, metal, and even classical music. The only music I don't like is Dubstep, I don't consider most of it music.
My list is a little weird, because some bands or artists have many great songs that didn't make my top 12, but I put them in brackets, to show that it is hard for me to decide the best song from that artist. By the way,  Sweet Child O' Mine wouldn't be in there if I wouldn't learn it on guitar. By learning it on the guitar and bass I got to know the song better and realized how great of a composition it is. Some of the songs are not a very good composition, but I love them so much that I had to put them in my list. I am sorry for my bad grammar and word use, but I haven't written anything very meaningful in English for two years. I am also writing this for practice.

1. Aerosmith - Jaded (Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way)
2. Guns n Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
3. Red Hot Chilli Peppers - By The Way (Scar Tissue, The Adventures Of Raindance Maggie, Californiacation, Can't stop)
4. Flo Rida - Club Can't Handle Me (I Cry, Whistle, Wild Ones ft. Sia)
5. Taylor Swift - Sparks Fly (The Story Of Us, Red)
6. Calvin Harris - We'll Be Coming Back ft. Example (Feel so close)
7. The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun (No way am I going to write out all of the great Beatles songs)
8. Boston - More Than A Feeling
9. Foo Fighters - Walk
10. The Knack - My Sharona
11. David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes (The Man Who Sold The World)
12. Maroon 5 - Payphone (Moves Like Jagger)

Well, that's my top 12, please feel free to comment and let me know what you think about my top 12 (although I know that from song four you probably hate my list). Thanks a lot Josh, because I have been wanting to do something like this for quite a while.

Josh's Juke Box 2013

(posted by Jon, at Josh's request - you guys can post these directly you know)

WOW...  I'm not even close to ready on this...I've got at least 5 CDs worth of music from which my 2013 list will evolve...  I'm still letting this simmer 'til the reunion, when I'll have my official list (actually burned to CD)...  Alright, then, this'll be interesting, and I'd invite both of you, Annie and Jon, to see if your list changes by the reunion.

So, if pressed today, my list would have to include the following:

1. Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky
2. Smashmouth - Walkin' on the Sun
3. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
4. Miles Davis - All Blues
5. Radiohead - Optimistic
6. Prince - Purple Rain
7. Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
8. Stevie Wonder - Big Brother
(8.5...  Rufus - Tell Me Something Good)
9. Pretenders - My City Was Gone (and no, Jon, since I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, the fact that he uses this as his theme song hasn't ruined it for me...it's a great song!)
10. Ravel - Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2
11. Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack - Sabbath Prayer
12. Black Sabbath - Planet Caravan
13. Bob Marley & The Wailers - Jammin'...

...see, I had to even add a song after my list was compiled, and I know I'm well over a CD's worth...(the Ravel song alone will take up about a fifth of a CD).  But all of these are songs I've consistently re-started at least once or twice whenever I've intentionally listened to it...

I know that whatever of these I don't include on this year's disc will inevitably go into another year's compilation.

And btw, credit to Dan for this idea by first inspiring me to choose between two Aerosmith songs as a favorite--'Walk This Way' and 'Sweet Emotion,' both fine additions to my own compilation--from which, I overrode the choices and opted for 'Last Child'...

Jon, I thought your list would include ZZ Top's/Leon Redbone's 'La Grange'...another I'll be adding to mine...

Lovin' this project--again, let's see how these lists change by the reunion, and invite the kids to join in as well!

Thanks for the inspiration!


Josh

Anne's Juke Box 2013

OK, I'm in, too.  Here's my working list for 2013.

1. Serenade No. 10 for winds in B flat major- Mozart (I liked your idea, Jon)

2. Sweet Child O Mine- Guns N Roses

3. Suspicious Minds - Elvis

4. When You Say Nothing At All - Alison Krauss with Union Station

5. Since You Been Gone - Rainbow

6. No Woman No Cry - Bob Marley and the Wailers

7. Old Apartment - Barenaked Ladies

8. Crash - Dave Matthew Band

9. Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne

10. I'm the One Who Wants to Be With You - Mr. Big 

Great idea, Josh :)

(and you guys can't make fun of my choices even if a lot of them do lack pedigree).

Annie

New Kid in Town

Hey everybody! So here's my first contribution:

Sonnet LXXXII


She used to hold me closely in her wings,
And tell me that she’d keep me safe from harm.
O, Meadowlark, I long to hear you sing,
To feel your feathers brush against my arms.
But as the days have turned to months and years
,I find myself forgetting how she sounds.
That spiteful voice- I somehow long to hear
Is buried in my thoughts, but can’t be found.
I’ve tried, so long, to put her out of mind,
To make the pain release me from its grips.
Do I move on and leave her voice behind,
Or do I wait to hear it from her lips?
That cold goodbye that I have never heard,
When Meadowlark did leave her baby bird.

Jon's Juke Box, 2013

Hey Josh, I’ll step up.  But first, I vote for something other than the “agin and agin” project.  I like reaching back and getting nostalgic, but I’m hoping my list won’t sound too much like “aging and aging.”

I also like the thought of redoing this from year to year, and I’ll add the “2013" label to this year’s list even though the closest I get to current is from the last century.  Half of the songs are from my high school days, which was, after all, the best four years of music ever.  For some balance I’ve also thrown in something from 1813.

For the record, I could easily come up with a good list of TuneYards, Frank Ocean, Jack White, Ray LaMontagne, Janelle Monae, Arcade Fire, Muse, The Black Keys, ... then again, it will be good to see how well some of these can endure.   Stay tuned for my 2026 list.

Anyway, this was a fun challenge.  Here’s what I’ve got for now:

Jon’s Jukebox, 2013:

1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No 7 in A major, Allegretto
2. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
3. Radiohead, Paranoid Android
4. Eagles, Hotel California
5. The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go
6. Talking Heads, Psycho Killer
7. Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Released
8. Tom Waits, Picture in a Frame
9. Randy Newman, Rider in the Rain
10. Bob Marley & the Wailers, Could You Be Loved
11. Police, Invisible Sun
12. Stevie Wonder, Love’s In Need of Love Today

The Music Project

So, now that several of us have gotten fully immersed in this 'Songs To Listen To Agin 'n' Agin' project (name subject to change, of course), I see more clearly: a)how difficult it will be to try to pare my 5+ CD list into one CD, and have been plenty tempted in defining my own 'rules' to allow more than one CD's worth of such songs; but also, b)how much less meaningful it would be, for me and for any/all of us participating in this endeavour, if any one of us would submit more than one CD's worth of music. The challenge, then, that I submit, is to keep it narrowed down to 1 CD of those songs, and across all genres...

Hold on,...I'm pausing for one of the songs on my list, now playing, that I can't help but move to...(I'm lovin' this project!...and this particular song will definitely make this year's list!)

This year's list, you ask?

Yes, so the caveat on this project that I'm recommending is as follows... Keep your list pared down to one CD for this year, but for those willing to continue in the inspiration of this project, there is value in sharing annual additional lists like this in subsequent years.
-This way, whatever you decide not to include on this year's compilation can be held over for consideration for next year's...
-This way, if I'm considering several songs from any one artist or group, I know that I can choose one of them this year, and save the others for later compilations...
-This way, if I choose to put on a 10-minute song on this year's list, I know that what I'm giving up to allow that this year can be included on next year's list...
-This way, if, after this year's submission, you decided you'd rather have included something else in place of one song, you can make sure it's added to next year's list.

Our tastes do change along with our interests and motivations--this should be an ongoing project. I would suggest not repeating songs from one year to the next, but if any one song so drives you, why the heck not? The key is that this project is for each of us individually, and in hopes that our input may inspire each other in some way.

An idea on the table... What say all of you?

Mom's Passions

So the mother of all (who read the Symposium, anyway) has passions too - really! Jesus, Dick, children, grandchildren, music, writing, making a home, rural life, biking, scrapbooking, reading.....
Jesus: Ever since I met Jesus face to face between some trees on St. Olaf College campus one evening in 1955 - I was there for a leadership training school getting prepared to be Luther League president - my committment has stayed with Him. What is amazing is that He stays with me, and there have been real awful lows - sins - that could have abolished that relationship. But Jesus does not let go, and I can't count the times he has rescued me, sometimes from myself. He simply makes life purposeful and I love to be able to talk to him anytime, whether in language I ken or those words and songs of the Spirit. Ah, I love you, Lord!
Dick: and I love my husband dearly. I look at him, and ponder the miracle of God bringing us together. Why on earth did He allow me to have a man like Dick, fun, smart, faithful, to name just a few attributes. I think of Dick as my "redeemer-kinsman" like Ruth regarded Boaz in the Old Testament - Dick redeemed me from a life I did not enjoy where I felt empty and certainly lonely. And what a treasure I received instead.
Children: It really is true that "happy is the (wo)man whose quiver is full of offspring". I am so extra-blessed by each of these four children who are raising their own children with love and sacrifice and integrity. My heart swells over a daughter who creates lovely art - and sells it, while guiding five ebullient kids; over sons who write poetry and give sermons and manage the law in a servant capacity and teach and bring the family together for nightly prayers and songs and play games like Scrabble and basketball and make music and laugh.
Grandchildren: Why should I be surprised? Grandchildren are an unmitigated delight. Each so unique, each with separate interests and abilities. They are like petals unfolding to the light of the world, already making their mark in this Earth-garden. I just love them!
Music: Making music is my passion. I'd rather make music at the piano or organ or autoharp or with my voice than listen to others make music. And plain old practicing is fun too - always has been, trying to make beautiful what starts deplorable. I am so thankful for mentors: my dad, my daughter, my friend Marlys with her incredible sense of rhythm, all the teachers, the great composers, the musicians of today. I love it that when you sing (or play) you pray twice!
Writing: Word-crafting is a gift, I know, and I delight in it, and that all my children also have that gift.
Making a home: Since early days I have loved to organize. I remember creating "homes" in the bushes in front of our Hallock-house, or along the ditch in Wadena. I'm still at it, and frequently changing things around to improve traffic flow or make comfortable the eye. It's fun to do that as we come to a new (for us) condo in Mesa, trying to make it our own for a few months. In our beloved Wisconsin log cabin, I am passionate about getting rid of stuff, simplifying the look and the life, letting more of the beautiful logs show - and living out the Biblical injunction to "not store up treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, but rather store up treasures in heaven - wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." Jesus, be our true and lasting home.
Rural life: In 1998, Dick and I started looking for a place to retire. We traveled to Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, and considered the Great Smokies. Then I got thrown from a horse in Wisconsin, and the doctor and nurses started selling us on moving to this state. Our search was over when we found "Windmill Creak", a farmsite with a windmill, a creek, 22 acres, woods, barns, pastures. Only one thing was lacking, one thing only: we could not bike out of that lovely hillside home. No problem; the truck hauls bikes to trails nicely. Meanwhile we love to work on the land, and the resulting pile of logs will last for years feeding into our stone fireplace and basement woodstove. And then - ah! - the hot tub overlooking the valley at the sunset end of the day. What could be more perfect!
Biking: I am convinced there is no better way to see the country (USA, France, Holland, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria to date) than from a bike. With my peripheral neuropathy and Dick's knees, biking turns out to be the ideal aerobic exercise too. We do love it. At the moment we are looking forward to a bike/barge trip on the Seine and canals out of Paris, in May.
Scrapbooking: How could I have forgotten that one? I don't do great charming designs for scrapbooks, but I am diligent in getting mainly photos into "the book" in a timely manner, and take great joy in the family seeking them out. Okay, so they are really just looking for their own pictures; who wouldn't? We have the record; that's the important thing. Where these many scrapbooks will go after my demise is not my concern, but I hope they will be used somehow. Since Brian turned 12 in 2007, it has been a special delight to make a book for each new grandchild who turns 12. And the books on my parents were works of love.

Reading: Have to have something to read, all the time. I particularly enjoy novels based upon historical periods, and Christian novels. My new Kindle - and "Inspired Reads" from which I can daily download new novels for FREE (thanks, Jan Pelzer!) have been enhancements to my reading passion that began in the sixth grade with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

These are my passions, and like Jon says, my life is not over yet. Who knows what is ahead? 

“Kind Words,” for the people of FMSC

This is what I wrote
and what I need to say.

The blank page seems to
stare at me and dare me
to put the pen down
and the blank faces
make me want to walk away,
but this is what I felt
and what stirred inside of me:
that a landscape wasn’t
what I made of it,
but that I could be a part of it,
that a sunrise was not
glorious by my
declaration or explanation,
but by my exclamation,

and this is what I wrote,
what I need to say,
what you should read
and receive, hear and
take.  And I give you
what you deserve, no less,
and it would be wrong of me
to leave these pages blank
or simply turn away, failing
to notice the spirit in your faces,
the stories in your eyes,
the ministry that humbles me,
so this is what I wrote,
and what I need to say:

that the strength of community
is not in its complexity
or composition, complexion
or composure, but in its
unity, coming together as one,
and that the needs of society
are what each one of us
needs to survive.  When I was
hungry, you fed me.  You,
society, are more than blank faces,
you have color in your cheeks
and muscles at the corners of
your mouths, and words to move me,
and this is what I wrote, what I need to say.

"Your ministry," I wrote,
"inspires me, and
thank you," I need to say,
"for letting me be a part of it."
Which is all that I was,
and all that one might ever write
or say, but all, I want to add,
that a ministry should ever be,
inviting me of all nations
to be made a disciple,
showing me what it takes
to feed my world.  Amen?
Anyway, this is what I heard
and what I need to pray.

Community.  Come.  Unity.
Society.  Our common needs.
And Ministry.  Inviting me.
Amen and amen:
Kind words were what they
asked of me, and I
did not make these words up,
they were given me
like a landscape or a
sunrise, stirring
and glorious and
calling for exclamation!
So be it, truly, truly, this
is most certainly true,

And that is what I wrote
and what I need to say.

A Passion for Words

(Mom’s other email, in response to my January post.  I asked if I could post this for her, and she said yes, but I am obviously running behind here.  (And yes, Josh, I will get to answering your call for all time favorite songs - which does goes right along with the passion theme, by the way.))

This is terrific, Jon.  All of us readers of Stillwater should now step to the bat and add our passions - a good exercise indeed.
 
Why do I think the following fits?  It was a devotional from Luther Seminary a few days ago; love the use of Dickinson's poem to expand on WORDS.  Certainly a passion of yours, and of all of us in the Symposium!  I'll try to write my own in the next days as we journey southward.

Luke 4:14-21 (NRSV):  14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.  15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.  16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,  17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:  18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,  19 "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."  20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  21Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

     A word is dead
     When it is said,
     Some say.
     I say it just
     Begins to live
     That day.

Emily Dickinson's little poem expresses the Biblical understanding of the Word. The Word is a lively, active reality that enters the world and accomplishes its work. When Jesus finished reading the words of the prophet Isaiah in his hometown synagogue and sat down, I imagine everyone expected him to expound on the text, or say a few words about the prophet. Instead, Jesus says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Can you imagine the audacity of that claim? Jesus declares, "Today, right now, in your ears, in front of your eyes, this word has become flesh. Not in some abstract, generic, ethereal way, but in a concrete, fleshly, specific way. I am the One, I am the good news you have been waiting for." Such audacity was too much for the hometown crowd and they tried to throw him over a cliff to shut him up. But it was too late. The word was out and about, already doing its work.

Think of the words you have spoken (both good and bad) that have shaped your relationships and your reality. Think of the Good News words we hear Sunday after Sunday: "In the name of Christ and by his authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins." And "the body of Christ, broken for you; the blood of Christ, shed for you." Those are powerful, active words that accomplish God's will in our lives. Words are powerful. When you receive them, expect to be changed. When you speak them, handle with care!

Almighty God, we thank you for your life-giving and life-changing Word. May we use our words in ways that allow life and love flourish in our midst. Amen.

Ron Baesler
Messiah Lutheran Church, Yorba Linda, Calif.
Master of Divinity, 1976; Doctor of Theology, 1995

Yes, it is a special day

(Mom’s email, posted with her permission.  She also gave me the go ahead to post an earlier email, which will follow.)

Dear children,

I see the date on the laptop and say, "Yes, it is a special day anyway." For I had convinced Dick yesterday that Valentine's Day was a much more important day than my birthday, because V-day is a day of love (and I wanted to take my beloved out to dinner). What a con-man, (girl), right? But we did have a nice dinner at the Thai restaurant that you also became acquainted with this week, Pete.

Anyway, on this day of love, I give thanks TO and FOR each one of you my children. How blest I feel with
you six and your accouturements! I do pray for each one of you daily by name, so with Jeanne and Laura and all the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, and Gesa and Parul, plus Peter Haakenson and those for whom I am godother - that becomes a long prayer! And a precious one - each day praying for a different Biblical virtue for you.

During this good week with Peter here, we touched on the religions of the world and their similar aims. Then it hit me anew today. Read the Jesus story again. And again. There is nothing, no one, like him. Get reacquainted through one of his gospels or all. No other prophet, no other "god" in all history can touch that life. Why us? Well, I just read today about him not wanting any of the sheep he has created to be lost. Still many unanswered questions, but when isn't there?

So - to end this good week, we go to Tucson for the weekend with Pelzers. Lunch this noon, a hoedown tonight, and some kind of exploring tomorrow. We got back on our bikes yesterday and pedalled to Red Mountain, which is considerably farther north than it looks from our place! And hills, leading to the Salt River. We're glad to have it a little warmer again - wasn't fair that Pete came in cold and rain! That's not the Mesa we know!

So thank you - bless you - might this day for you be full and touched with etermity! Love, Mom

Rare post, but I'd like to get into that goal of a post a month... Hey everyone! Josh here...

This is not so much a post as it is an invitation to participate in a project thus far discussed between Jon, Kirsten, and me relevant to (go figure) MUSIC!

The invitation is to compile a list of songs you can listen to agin 'n' agin--songs that, for whatever reason, consistently inspire you enough to repeat it several times over. So, for instance, my compilation will inevitably include Led Zeppelin's 'Misty Mountain Hop' as a song that always inspires me to crank up the volume, play air guitar a la Jimmy Page (at least when not driving), and belt out the lyrics a la Robert Plant (or to attempt it, anyway)...

We had discussed parameters on this, including: time limits on songs included, compiling only enough songs to fill up one CD, limiting it to rock 'n' roll, allowing only one song per artist/group... The conclusion we arrived at, tho, in discussion about this once again last night, is that any such parameters would be too restrictive, and may not allow us to provide a true reflection of that which so inspires us. (So if I include 3 songs by Steely Dan or a particular favorite by Charles Mingus or a Prokofiev work, it's because these are artists/composers that have inspired me for years!)

So the only parameters I feel are worth putting on the table are to be true to yourself--don't feel compelled to include something because you feel something of a particular artist/group ought to be on that list... For instance, I've got several CDs worth of songs that fit the category, but none of them are from the Rolling Stones, even though there are plenty of songs by them that I love listening to.

Secondly, once compiled, whether it's one CD worth or several, recommendation is to let it simmer. Play the list back "agin 'n' agin" to see which ones continue to hold your appeal.

And at the very least, let's set a date by which those of us interested in accepting this invite should have their compilation defined (again, whether on one CD or several). I propose the family reunion (at the farm, not in ND).

Have fun with this! This is something for you to do for yourself, and if/when you choose to share your compilation with the rest of us, it's not meant to be subject to everyone else's criticism. It's altogether likely that some songs will wind up on several of our compilations, and that's fine (and fun!)

Lastly, some thoughts based on the list I have compiled thus far (without sharing any more of what I may/may not include). I'm finding that the motivation to include certain songs will often vary from one song to the next--once I let my list simmer and listen through it "agin 'n' agin" I'm going to note the various reasons that certain songs made the cut, not for justification purposes, but for my own self-reflection.

It's an interesting exercise, and I hope that as many of you as possible will accept the invite, and further that you would have no reservations about sharing your list...and inspiration!


Enjoy! And any further ideas suggestions in this regard, please share!


Josh