all for the cause

Apparently, according to this pretty good article a former student of mine wrote for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Turkmenistan's president won the largest payout in horse race history. $11 million--not bad for a non-day job. And his tumble at the finish line of course doesn't diminish the fact that he won. No, it underscores the sacrifice he had in mind anyway. $11 million for just a very talented president? Pshaw, that money logically goes to the nation he serves, or 'presides' over, or dictates terms to, or, or, well--at least the day wasn't marked in horseshit.

For the record, I immensely enjoyed my 2+ years in this country and appreciate some attempts at their progress. JFK's mandate was that Peace Corps would provide relational humanitarian aid, an opportunity to extend a representational (hopefully positive) view of Americans, an opportunity for America to receive a representational (hopefully positive) view of a host country to PC Volunteers. Fully into its sixth decade of actualization, I think about this mission statement more than most (and the past fifteen years has offered an avalanche of mission statements). Fortuitously, Turkmenistan has remained 'real' to me in students that pass through the international school system; I sometimes lament that they know their country less well than I, or that an article like this supplies caricature more than cultural consciousness. Then I think, well, at least we're thinking about it...

Here's the RFE/RL article again, assuming the imbedded link didn't work (as I learned in Turkmenistan;) 

http://www.rferl.org/content/turkmenistan-berdymukhammedov-horse-fall/24972976.html

In Response to Mascots

I am a lifelong democrat,
And you'll make what you will of that,
But if you must define me, have some class,
Because, being a democrat,
Wherever else my head is at
It isn't in the body of an ass.

Mascots

In life (in jest) we’re myriad mascots’ pawns:

I’ve been a Roosevelt Rough Rider, a

Lincoln Lion, who’d mock a Hawk, a Gull,

a (what-the-hey?) Corn Cobber; and fellow

Christian college deigns to be Blue Demons—

what St Vincent has to do with demons,

you tell me! I was one, and wasn’t blue….

As coach, the mascot takes another role.

I’m Falcon now—a falconer, re: Yeats,

Achebe, and any dad who calls in faith

for fledgling pride to settle self: to fly—

by instinct, anyway—and then surmise

a flight’s surcease. A prospector for gold

in Hawley, Minnesota—go figure!

A Turkmen apparatchik in Lenin’s name,

nineteen-ninety-three, turned logically (as

any name seeks roots) to Maktumkuli:

I taught with nondescript but conscious zeal.

the lap-it-up, lapis lazuli students

in my class learned what they would, in any name,

and waved my paltry leadership away.

As should be. We’re myriad mascots’ bishops’

pawns, we’re what we’re predetermined to be.

But here is where I’d like to see responses

back—how was it as a Mahnomen Indian,

a Blues Brothers stump to Chief Illini,

a Pioneer, a Gopher (Uncle Greg),

whatever we were: how did that costume feel?

Childs' Play

By happenstance now, though only a touch,

I’m wrapping my story of Bogdan: bullfighter,

Moldovan, aged nineteen or so, inured in choices

inexorably his—or as juries may deem, not his alone.

The livestreams at large show only so much

of a wrestler whose story awaits several wraps,

a Chechnian Kyrghiz Cambridgian youth following

footsteps alight, tying unprepossessing knots of truth.

As symposia go, we glean from the Bogdans

grist for the mill: wrestling, bullfighting, coping

without, friend from afar, werewolf within, hoping

to plumb what tenuous track makes them them and us

more or less us. It’s childs’ play, maybe, the

toying with storylines of no less moment than

the bombing of Boston, the barks at the moon, and

querulous probes as to what we assume, what may be

true, what God only knows: bulls colorblind

charge shimmers and shakes of human design

and thereby remind: we run as well into that void.

Joshua means God is salvation

Elisha means God is my salvation

“Elisha left Jericho and went up to Bethel.  As he was walking along the road, a group of boys from the town began mocking and making fun of him.  “Go away, baldy!” they chanted.  “Go away, baldy!”  Elisha turned around and looked at them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord.  Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of them.  From there Elisha went to Mount Carmel and finally returned to Samaria.”  2 Kings 2:23-25

Oofta, as my beloved Grandma Loftness would oft say.  Oofta, I can’t be so trite, so tawdry.  Oh, but it did dawn on my crabbit mind, so I must.  Oh really?  Well, here goes:

Moorhead.  See, that’s the town where Joshua Paul Vold later Lamken was born.  September 19, 1969.  And now look at him.  Look at all that scalp.  How can you help but call him “more head”.  “You sure do have more head there, Joshua.  Is that where you were born?  Is that why you were born in Moorhead?  Huh?  Huh?”

Who would have imagined that precious little baby would someday have brain cancer and permanently lose his hair?  His parents, Joe and Marilyn, all they could do was delight in having a third son – and this one had blond hair, not like the previous two redheads!  They named him “God saves little one – Joshua Paul”.  And announced to the world: The country parson and his wife have added to the fold!

In fact, according to the oncologist at Lutheran General Hospital in 1990, the cancer was there all along.  While Joshua was In the womb, gonad cells had moved up his body.  In many who have this type of cancer it is found in the sternum area.  But far rarer, Joshua’s cancer cells continued moving up into the cranium, finally landing next to the pituitary gland.  Twenty years after his birth, he chose not to have surgery, but opted for much chemotherapy and radiation.  And the cancer was put down.  Praise God!

But back to the banks of the Buffalo River.  Joe was called to serve the parish of Concordia-Scandia Lutheran Church when he graduated from Luther Seminary in 1968.  It wasn’t just a call out of the blind.  Obert and Lydia Grover were staunch members of Concordia, and Lydia was a first cousin of Berenice Loftness Elstad, my mother and Josh’s grandmother.  It wasn’t so unusual to be at family get-togethers in the Moorhead area, as Berenice’s sister Viola O’Day lived there.  It could have been an Easter gathering at Vi and Hank’s, and Obert realized Joe was about to become a pastor and Concordia was without a pastor.  Voila! 

Joseph and Marilyn, Jonathan and Daniel moved to the rural parsonage in the summertime.  They had an open house to share the joy of being amidst a family – not just Lydia and Obert, but Obert’s sister Alice and Ed Studlien, plus a host of other Norwegians who soon became dear to us.  Aunt Vi helped us get ready for the open house.  She had us pick armfuls of wild blue gentians in the fields near their Pelican Lake cottage.  Blue gentians were on the “do not pick” lists, but guess Vi overlooked that, or was ignorant of it.  Which is surprising – she loved nature, and was always teaching us about trees and birds and flowers.  It was good to have the O’Days so close to our new home, and we shared many happy hours meals and visits.

Joe and Marilyn started getting together monthly with other couples: Harold and Sally Horpedahl, Gordon and Sue Kassenborg, Allan and Helen Kassenborg, Dick and Mavis Wang, Lowell and Lorraine Erickson – well, actually, the men started bowling together and the wives decided to “surprise” them one night with refreshments, and that started a trend.  Good friends.  When the Volds found they were expecting a child, they asked nurse Helen Kassenborg for advice on a doctor and all other matters pertaining to healthy pregnancy, and when Joshua was born, they asked Helen and Allan to be his baptismal sponsors.

Josh, Jon and Dan had a big yard to play in.  Trees bordered the lawn, and separated the lot from the cultivated fields on either side.  The lot ran deep, all the way to the Buffalo River in the back, but we never made it down to the river that way because the underbrush was just too thick.  Jon planted a garden for a 4H project at the back of the lawn, and even that was difficult to maintain because of the huge weeds that wanted to overtake it.  And we weren’t farmers, with the right equipment.

Alongside the garden was an old chicken coop.  We tried to clean it up so it could be a playhouse, and it was of sorts, but the barn-ness was still pretty vivid.  One summer we had a gala Vold reunion.  All seven of the Vold brothers and sisters and all their families were there: Harold and Eunice, Connie and Del, Lois and Waino, Paul, Grace and Willard, Dave and Elaine.  They all stayed in the parsonage or camped on the lawn.  We graciously set up air mattresses and sleeping bags for the five of us in the chicken coop.  All was well, until shortly after midnight, when the mice started exploring.  We hightailed it into the house and spent the rest of the night on the living room floor.  So much for grace.  After a few hours of sleep, we all had pancakes for breakfast.

It was  a memorable party.  Hogstad aunts and uncles came from South Dakota, and Concordia Church was bursting at the seams that Sunday.  Lois, Joe and Marilyn sang a trio for the occasion.  Never again were all the Volds together in one place.  Their parents, John and Bernice, died relatively young; middle child Paul was mentally and physically challenged and in nursing homes, and Joe died in 1989.

Joshua was too little to even be a tagalong for his brothers’ forays in the neighborhood.  Dan and Jon would kittycorner across the field to the west to go over to Ericksons and play with Wayne and Dean.  One day the field was muddier than usual, and Dan lost his shoes.  Did we ever find them?  Can’t remember!

Another favorite trip of the big brothers was down the long driveway across the road from us to visit Lawrence and Julia Olson.  Lawrence was in a wheelchair but he loved having the kids visit, and always had candy for them, and stories.  And Julia was a great cookie-cook.

But Josh had adventures too, which he does not let me ever forget.  One day I put him on the carrier seat over the back fender of the bicycle, and off we headed to the Horpedahls, about a mile away.  Unfortunately, Josh’s heel got caught in the spokes on one sharp turn.  Josh will claim I just kept merrily biking along, but of course we stopped immediately – but not before there was an injury requiring days of soaking in a pan of water.  Josh, now tell me, are the scars still there?  He was a patient trouper, that two-year-old.

Every day I had to hike down to the Buffalo River, unlock a tiny house that held geological survey measuring equipment, and record and call in the height of the river.  That river separated the parsonage from the church.  It was pretty and twisty.  The Buffalo had its source north of Detroit Lakes, wound around through an area with palisades south and a little east of us which was Buffalo River State Park.  Then it headed north, and in our back yard started flowing northwest toward the mighty Red River of the North.  Marilyn and Joe had been involved quite actively in a few political ventures.  One of them was fighting the Army Corps of Engineers.  They wanted to straighten the Buffalo River, dam it to form a large lake near Lake Park, and supposedly have better flood control.  Straighten that beautiful stream?  No way.  And whether it was our letters or what, the campaign worked, and the Buffalo stayed crooked.

And did it flood!  The year Jon was in second grade in Glyndon, the river crept up to our yard.  To get to school a neighbor had to come with a boat so Jon could meet the school bus on the other side.  And I was quoted on the front page of the Fargo Forum citing the above-flood stage of the Buffalo River which would feed into the above-flood stage of the Red River within hours.  The rich, rich Red River Valley where we lived, was not without peril, but it also was enriched by the silt and topsoil created over aeons of floods – to say nothing of the Ice Age that formed Lake Agassiz thousands of years before we migrated there.

But let me digress.  We didn’t migrate to the Red River Valley.  I was born there!  Yes, 140 miles to the north, almost right on the Red River, was my birthplace, Hallock, Minnesota, right south of the Manitoba Canada border.  We loved ice skating on the south branch of the Twos River which flowed into the Red.  Big occasions for the first eight years of my life were trips to Moorhead to visit the O’Days.  Mom had gone to Concordia College in Moorhead, so it wasn’t too surprising that I also chose Concordia for my college.  And it is where Joe and I met and fell in love.  I remember one very cold winter day, strolling hand in hand with him in the middle of the frozen Red River between Fargo and Moorhead.  Oh yes, the Red River and its tributaries played prominently in our life!

This was Joshua’s first home.  Joshua the theologian.  Let me close with what just happened to be my devotional reading for today.  It included Jeremiah 17:7-8.  Is this right riverbank on, or what??

“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.  They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water.  Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months or drought.  Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”

Marilyn Jaeger

Inferno

She leads us through the maze

of rooms and officers-

a labyrinth that never seems to end.

But where’s the minotaur?

I wonder glancing at the woman,

my Virgil, in a green sweater a size too big.

she finds the room and sits across from us.

you squeeze my hand; I guess I’m glad you're here,

but I’d rather fly-

I need an escape from this reality,

a pair of candle wax wings

to remove myself from the beast’s path.

Virgil makes you leave my side

and I’m left to sit on the lumpy couch

in the 9th layer, not so cold, but burning hot.

I begin my journey out,

diving into the layers of this horror,

until I’m forced to reach my epiphany:

In the silence of the room, at the

center of this labyrinth, I realize

that I’ve done no wrong.

From here, Virgil and I begin to ascend,

back through the labyrinth,

Leaving my wax wings behind.

The Choice

This is a poem I wrote earlier this week, prompted by something like a Spirit Week at work--Purple Week, created to help us focus on the Purple Promise, which is a FedEx customer service-based initiative, by which we are encouraged to make every experience outstanding. The inspiration for midweek was to create a poem celebrating this commitment to be submitted to our district management, from which one would be chosen as a proclamation, at least to the rest of the district. The following was chosen to that end, and I had received good accolades for it from the Midwest District Manager and from a number within our Carol Stream terminal.

I like the commitment, this Purple Promise; and I'm enjoying this opportunity working for FedEx more and more...there is something about this company that drives me! But the poem, as you can see, relegates anything specifically corporate to the final lines, focusing much more on the spirit of the initiative and what it means to me on a wider scale. Enuf, tho, let's get to it!


The Choice

We rise to each day with a choice to make
Whether to give or whether to take
To live good or be bad, to think right or act wrong
To shout out in anger or sing a new song

Whatever we choose makes a frame for that day
Guiding our thoughts and the things that we say
To smile or to frown, to build up or cut down
We impact each other, our choices resound

The choice to excel in all that we do
To turn wrong into right, and old into new
To make each experience the best it can be
To strive for that mark for both you and me

This choice is often the one most clear to us
But also oft the one most arduous
We tend to choose the easier, faster route
Despite how it impacts all others throughout

Yes, choosing excellence requires commitment
Prompting us to see how others may be
Affected by all the choices we make
But that choice, when taken, will drive our achievement
Giving more pride as we all take that ride
Seeing us in this for everyone's sake

At FedEx we call this the Purple Promise
May we all make this choice to take it upon us!

--Josh Lamken

Society of English Majors' Lament

Version #1 was somewhat pathetic, but Dick liked it (well, he was here as the action played out last night) - PLUS, he thinks poetry must rhyme (collective groan from all English majors allowed).  So, I'm not a poet, and am open to massive revision ideas.

Society of English Majors’ Lament

                By Marilyn Jaeger

Daughter Anne and I chatted on the phone at two,

We agreed that English majors have a calling too.

They know the lore, they mind the literature,

And hanging up, I felt pretty snug and sure.

Women’s club was due to meet up here by six,

They brought pot luck; I just had snacks to fix.

A dozen came laughing, with wine first on the plan.

Oh!  Kriss brought a friend, a one-pound newborn lamb!

“A triplet, the mother pushed her away from life,

Bit off her tail – see! – almost clean as a knife.

I call her Bernice, as in ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’”

 (That’s F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of a girl from Eau Claire.)

                Berenice, my mom, I love her to my core.

                This Bernice story? Never heard of it before!

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!