Thoughts on Generations: Mine and the Next

We spent the last month in Minnesota and Iowa making many visits to long-time friends and family. This year we have been on a sort of mission to see as many old friends and family as possible while we still have the health and stamina for long trips and the luxury of time to travel.  On this trip we saw several dozen friends and family - mostly our age, (give or take ten years), enjoying the kind of conversations one can only share with people who have come through the social and cultural milieu we have traversed together.  If you lived through the sixties you know what I mean!

My generation, those born roughly between 1925 and 1942, has been called the "silent generation"  - sandwiched between the "greatest generation" and the baby boomers.  We were children of the depression.  Almost all of those we saw on this trip grew up on farms or had working class parents who did not go to college, but almost all of us completed college or higher degrees and moved into white collar jobs and achieved relative financial security by the time we retired - though few of us got rich.  We mostly transitioned from small towns to urban settings and most of us followed the values of our parents - especially frugality, loyalty, and our faith traditions.

Was It Worth It?

 

 

Some years ago I was traveling in the back hill country of Jamaica, visiting the subsistence farmers with whom we had a goat project… a very poor area, though close in miles, far removed culturally and economically from the prosperous resorts on the beaches of Jamaica.

As we came around a corner we happened upon an old stone church which I knew was a Moravian church, because it was the Moravians who had come from Europe as missionaries to the Caribbean several centuries before.  So, I wanted to stop for a visit and learn a bit about this church. 

Inside the church I met an old Jamaican pastor who graciously greeted me and told me about his parish and the people in his flock – very poor people.  After a few minutes he said, “come outside, to the back of the church, - I want to show you something”.  What he showed me were several gravestones with some markings and dates – I don’t remember the details.  But he said, “These were the first Moravian missionaries that came to Jamaica more than 150 years ago. There is a whole family buried here”. 

They came here to bring the good news of the Gospel, but they died within a year or two from malaria – the whole family. They had not established a single congregation… did not accomplish much before they were struck down.  But within a year they were replaced by another family, and the work went on so that today there is a Moravian church throughout the Caribbean.” 

The old pastor looked at me and asked, “What do you think?  What is the meaning of their lives? Was it worth it? Was their sacrifice worth it?”  I did not answer, nor did he give me his.  But his questions stuck with me – and have come back to me many times over the years. I think about these questions now as I look back on life and a long journey of work among the poor in many places. 

Over the last months we have been remembering our time back in a village in Vietnam in the 60s, where Judy and I served with Vietnam Christian Service, spending our first year in the village of DiLinh in the highlands.

If we are honest about it, Judy and I would have to say that we didn’t accomplish much that was lasting in DiLinh.  It was an unstable time, a time of war when the lives on many of the Ko’ho, the mountain people we worked with, were severely disrupted by the bombing and fighting in the mountains in that area. We started the work, had some small projects, Judy worked in the local hospital, a daunting challenge to say the least, and I started a marketing project of local handicrafts. There were some agricultural projects, etc.

One of our successors, Ted Studebaker, of the Church of the Brethren, doing alternative service as a conscientious objector to war, was killed in 1969 when a battle engulfed the village on terrible night and Ted died in the same bedroom we had occupied during our time in DiLinh.  He had only served there for about a year but we heard that the local people had grown to love him for his bright and loving spirit. More recently others have gone back and looked for some evidence of the lasting effect of the work he (and we) did there but have not found many results of what any of us did over the years of that project.  Some might ask, “What did Ted (and we) accomplish?  Was it worth it?”

And this was not the only time I wondered if we were accomplishing much.. We all want to make a difference with our lives --- And so I came to think about that time in the highlands of South Vietnam as a "ministry of presence". Sometimes it is just important to be there.  Many of you know this if you have worked in medical professions or as pastors, social workers, or in our roles as caring members of families and communities.

I suspect that you often found that being with another who is suffering in mind, body or spirit, staying present with those who have suffered loss – being there is what is most needed at the time.  Later when I worked with Lutheran World Relief in South America, we developed a name for that approach - we called it accompaniment.

Looking back, I have no regrets about not accomplishing as much as our programs and organizations sometimes said we did. I do take much pleasure in having worked with organizations whose foundational values were based on the parable of the Good Samaritan. We knew we were to go to and accompany people in their need – we were asked to go and "be there", and see if there was something we could offer. 

So now, perhaps my answer to the old Jamaican pastor is, “Yes, it was worth it then, and still worth it now!”  What do you think?

Thoughts on parallel tragedies

Tragedy: a medieval narrative poem or tale typically describing the downfall of a great man;  a disastrous event.

Sometimes there is no logical resolution to a tragedy and the story leaves us with deeply felt feelings and questions but few words to explain what we should think or say.  The following is NOT about what happened in Boston this week, but about another of perhaps several tragedies that happened in the same time frame. We pray for healing and peace for all involved in Boston and in Wisconsin.

My sister Jean wrote this from Wisconsin last week. 

Spirituality and Our Life Stories

Logically, many of the people I have conversations with these days are of my own generation...  former colleagues from my years of work in many places, long time friends, cousins and siblings, and people we meet in the churches we attend and the community in which we now live.  Also it seems to be that, so far at least,  most of those who are reading my book and finding it interesting, are of a mature age. 

I had hoped and perhaps somewhat naively thought that the themes of the book, with stories of service from various places and cultures around the world, might appeal to young people who are exploring careers of service.  But they are busy people, these young ones, and have many other things to read and do.  We have made the book available to some of those who are entering the Young Adults in Global Mission program of the ELCA.  (Lutheran Church)

I do try to communicate with and keep connected with some young people - especially our own kids and grand kids, but we seem to spend a lot of time now with "old people".  Unfortunately there aren't many youth in the churches we visit and relate to, and a common lament we hear is about the diminishing numbers in the churches and the departure of the next generation after ours,  and the next... the generation of our children and grandchildren. 

An Easter Journey

The last two weeks are a bit of a blur.  We began a trip to Oregon two days  before Palm Sunday and arrived home in Sheridan, Montana a week after Easter Sunday, having traveled almost 4000 miles, including a round trip to Minneapolis. As I traveled those long miles - east and west - to the coast of Oregon and back through Montana and the Dakotas I was reminded that the first title I had selected for my book was to have included the words "the endless journey" in it. That referred, of course, to the spiritual journey, and does catch a bit of the truth of our spiritual journeys.  

Now I am thankful that this road trip has finally ended.  It was a good and salutatory journey to the funeral of Maurice, our brother-in-law - the husband of Romell, Judy's sister ... a celebration of his life and a necessary time of remembrance, feelings of connections and thankfulness for family, good conversations and pondering about the meaning of life and of Easter -even thinking about the subject of doubts on this day when the Gospel text was about Thomas, the doubter.  

The Easter season continues, of course. We got this message on Easter Sunday from Jenkin Thomas, our long-time friend in London.

"May I wish you Happy Easter in my mother tongue, Welsh, namely "Pasc Llawen". "Pasc" is the Welsh for Easter and in the Welsh language the adjective follows and does not precede the noun. "Pasc" is of course derived from the Judaeo-Christian Latin name for the feast.

It always strikes me as odd that in Anglo-Saxon lands the biggest feast of the Christian year should be entitled "Easter" in distant commemoration of "Eostre", an Anglo-Saxon spring fertility goddess."

Something else to ponder but not something to keep me awake  at night. As I sit and take in the springtime sunset over the mountains in our Montana valley home, it is a peaceful feeling that lingers with me now.  Good to have made the trip and it will certainly be good to sleep in our own bed tonight.  

Peace be with you,

The Meek shall inherit the earth.

The following will not be totally clear to readers who have not been involved in Vietnam over the many years since the war in the 60s and 70s.  Nevertheless, a word of orientation. 

Richard Fuller, who writes this short message, has lived in Viet Nam for many years  and was a part of Viet Nam Christian Service in the 1970s and worked in the same project Judy and I worked with in the 60s.  Grace Mishler, about whom this is written, follows in the tradition of the service done by the  Church of the Brethren, one of the historic peace churches.  It is the only Church denomination I have been with in services that make a regular practice of foot washing.

I don't personally know either of them, but have become acquainted through the wonders of email and the internet.  I think Grace epitomizes the model of the spirituality of service and a good example to reflect on this day.  From what I can gather, Grace is blind.. but she has a great vision of service to the poor.  I have slightly shortened Rich Fuller's original message for clarity to readers of this blog..

Saigon, Easter Sunday, 2013

Today, as the question of how much hope the world has these days, I want to share my congratulations to Grace and with all of you, folks of good will.

This quiet, humble unsung heroine is the first "Brethren nun" as she calls herself I have ever met. She has chosen to help design a curriculum for social work students at the National University in Thu Duc to assist the disabled, including the blind, a part of society usually left behind in a nation's quest to develop economically.

Thoughts about friends in hospice

Two people who have been important in our lives are now in hospice. Their names are Paul Longacre and Maurice White. When we hear that word ­– hospice, we immediately know what it means – among other things, caring for and honoring one who is dying and an acceptance and letting go of this life.  The word brings forth the feeling of imminence – something hanging threateningly over one, ready to happen. But perhaps the sense of finality also elicits a reaction of mystery and wonder – a goodly reminder that the earthly journey will end soon enough for all of us.