How Little We know About You, Ukraine

 

We know more about Ukraine now than we did a few months ago, what with daily broadcasts and news reports about the Russian invasion and unjustified war.  We empathize and cringe as we hear of the death and suffering of both soldiers and civilians.

I was in Ukraine only once, probably fifteen years ago.  A vivid memory is from Lviv, the biggest city in Western Ukraine, which has recently been the target of Russian rocket attacks.  Then, as I took a walk on a wide promenade, I enjoyed hearing groups of Ukrainians belting out folk songs - a peaceful scene in that post Soviet era.  I have been trying to imagine what life is like now for those people, and especially for the population in Eastern Ukraine, the Donbas region.

Andrey Kukow, the most famous and supposedly the best living Ukrainian writer, helps my imagination.  His book, Grey Bees, is set in pre-invasion Ukraine, the time after 2014 when Russia began supporting pro-Russian “separatists”, and a prolonged stalemate developed along a 450-kilometer front with Ukraine’s military.  Kukow takes us to a tiny village in the "grey zone" between the opposing factions, as we follow the life of Sergey Sergeyich, one of only two residents who remain, in the middle of distant bombardment that sometimes comes too close to home, snipers, and only the very rudimentary essentials of life.  No electricity for the last three years, and thus no communication, no shops and shortages of all kinds.  His only neighbor is Pashka, who is his nemesis since school days, but with whom he now has to develop friendship.  Sergey’s only pleasure is his bees, an apiary of six hives. 

 One reviewer wrote, “Sergey is at once a war-weary adventurer and a fairy-tale innocent.  His naïve gaze allows Kukov to get to the heart of a country bewildered by crisis and war, but where kindness can still be found.”    

He takes his bees to Crimea for the summer to get away from the noise of war so they can produce honey in a peaceful setting.  People he meets along the way, his interaction with Russian authorities, a Tartar family, a woman who befriends and helps him, and ex-soldier suffering from PTSD who attacks him and others, all help us imagine a life in the midst of a war that he didn’t ask for but survives. 

I like this quote at the burial of Akhtam, a Crimean beekeeper who he had met years ago at a convention. “… all sense of lightness arose in his head, as if it were empty, not just thoughts, but everything that weighs on one’s life, of memories and experiences that pile up over the years and bring a pain that threatens to squeeze tears from one’s eyes”. 

This book helps us know just a bit more about Ukraine and Crimea.  It is a story with many layers of truth about survival, compassion, simple living, history and everything grey.  Indeed, there are many shades of grey in life, both here and there.  I recommend this book. 

 

A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith

 

 

I have read other books by Timothy Egan, and really enjoy his writing style and the research he puts into his subjects.  As the New York Times book review put it, “Egan has a gift for sweeping narrative… and he has a journalist’s eye for telltale detail”.  This book is part spiritual pilgrimage, memoir, history lessons, and travel adventure.

Egan grew up in a family with a complicated history with the Catholic Church, but as an adult has not gone to mass for many years – nor confession, though tried the confessional in a Catholic cathedral in France along the way. (It didn’t go well).  He expresses a profound disillusionment with the church, due largely to history, the treatment he has personally experienced and the scandal of widespread sexual abuse of young and vulnerable youth by priests over the last decades. 

The story is about his thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest trends of our time, the collapse of religion in the world that created it, and he notes, a similar trend is happening in North America where 71% of those ages 18 to 24 say they have no religion. In England only 15% of the people are Anglican and more than half have no religion at all. France apparently is even more secular.

He sets out to walk the Via Francigena, starting in Canterbury England, then through France, Switzerland and Italy.  When he gets to Rome, he hopes to meet Pope Francis, for whom he has great admiration. Egan is trying to make an honest search to see what he believes.  He says, I’ve come to believe that an agnostic, as Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert put it, is just an atheist without balls.  Time to decide what I believe or admit what I don’t.  He quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury, who asked, “How can you understand the world, without understanding religion?”

There are many stops on the Via, visiting sites where saints, according to the church, did miraculous acts, some of which sound like fairy tales, but devoted pilgrims along the way and common people pay homage.  He did have a startling and unsettling experience when he visited the crypt of Santa Lucia de Filippini, one of the ‘incorruptible’ saints, who, though she died in 1732, her body has not decayed.  He looks into her eyes that are half open, and a minute later he looks again, and she is slowly opening her eyes wider. 

His children join him for parts of the journey, a son and a daughter, and for the last part of the walk into Rome, his wife Joni.  As they spend time on the trail and around meals, they have time to talk, maybe as they haven’t talked before.  Wondering about religion and myths related to miracles his daughter asks, “are Catholics required to believe this stuff?”   But again, “her question is the result of my negligence as a parent, leaving my kids somewhat spiritually illiterate”.  He doesn’t want them to close the door to spiritual curiosity, and wishes they were open enough to allow themselves, as Pope Francis said, “to be surprised, and not foreclose on the idea that a great faith, though flawed, can contain great truths.  Both of his children say they are basically skeptical and, thus, agnostic.

It is in the personal and family stories, juxtapose with the exploration of Christian history along the Via Francigena, that I relate to my own feelings of not having been adequate in helping my own kids discover the truths of the faith.

In the end, in Rome, he visits many sites with supposed relics, a piece of wood from the cross, a bit of bone, the heads of Peter and Paul – not all believable, he thinks.  But he says, the VF has helped him to believe in the resurrection, even though he grew more disgusted by the powerful custodians of this life-affirming event. (Corrupt popes, religious wars, killing heretics, etc.)  But the evidence from the first century, the many people who swore they had seen the risen Christ, and chose death rather than recanting, is a compelling argument.  Other encounters along the way, including a Lutheran pastor in Geneva (a graduate of St. Olaf College), helped him move toward some closure on this, the central tenet of the Christian faith. 

There is no epilogue to this book, where the pilgrim writes about how the pilgrimage changed his life, though he met many people along the route who told him of the changes it had made for them.  I have a number of friends who had walked the Camino de Santiago, starting in France and going through Spain, and they testify to the meaning of the pilgrimage for them.  I have let the years go by and now no longer would have the stamina for a long walk, but I do enjoy short walks in nature with time to reflect and commune with God. 

Tim didn’t have the one-on-one meeting with Francis that he hoped for, but he did attend an audience with others in St Peter’s Square.  Several words land on him like a tap on the shoulder:

“Never yield to negativity. Keep your eyes on the beauty all around you…. And you must always forgive.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hands

 

When I look at the back of my 84-year-old hands, veins protruding and weathered by too much exposure to the sun, I am reminded of my dad’s hands.

Dad’s hands were always scoured by the elements, tan and rough even in the midst of winter.  He was a farmer and every day of his life he worked with his hands.  It was hard work he did; milking cows by hand, pitching hay and manure by hand, pulling a calf out of the mother cow – gripping his hands tightly on the rope.   He had to have strong hands; he had no other way to make a living. 

One winter day out in the woods he was splitting posts and the hydraulic wedge came down hard where dad’s hands were too close to the edge.  Blood spurted from the amputated finger. He was alone in the woods, and with excruciation pain he made his way to the house and found a rag to wrap around his wounded hand.  Then he got in the pickup and drove fifteen miles to Zumbrota to get medical attention, driving with his good hand on the steering wheel. 

He had a strong handshake with those big-boned farmers hands.  I shook hands with dad whenever I left or came home from college or a trip.  That was before I went off to Latin America and found out that in most of the world friends and family give abrazos when greeting or saying goodbye.   In our rural Norwegian Lutheran culture, we weren’t raised to show affection with a hug, but we eventually adopted the practice. 

Dad died at the age of 84.  The last years of his life his hands had become weak and shaky, as have mine now.  The few letters he wrote were barely distinguishable.  Such a contrast to the good penmanship he learned in grade school.  The Palmer method taught how to write using the whole arm, not just the fingers.  He had a good hand for writing cursive.

One of the last acts of his life involved his hands.  My sister Jean came home that last day, and when she entered the bedroom, he removed mom’s wedding ring from his little finger where he had worn it the last fifteen years since her passing.  He gave it to Jean and said, “you keep this”.  We all had tears in our eyes.  One of his last words was, “beautiful”.

That night dad died, his hands lying across his chest as if in prayer.  I don’t know if he was praying at the last, but he was a praying man, in his own way.  His hands were boney and wasted at the end. 

 

Conversations in A Waiting Room and Other Places

 

In Flannery O’Conner’s short story, Revelation, the doctor's waiting room is the setting for the interactions between a cross section of early 1960s white Southern society. The story is full of symbolism and representative diseases of the body, the mind, and the spirit.  What is so interesting is the verbal exchanges and non-verbal judgements and “sizing up” of the situation, especially by the main character, Ruby Turpin. One has to read the story to get the flavor of the subtle undercurrent as well as overt resentments, self-righteousness and racism expressed in the dialogue. It is fascinating!

Having just spent the better part of a day in a medical facility waiting room, I noted little interaction and conversation between the many patients in the over-crowded room.  But I did find myself “sizing up the situation” and wondering what the stories were of some of the individuals, - yes, I must admit making undue judgements of some of them.

I have been in enough waiting rooms in the last several years to know that people just keep to themselves, not even conversing much with a person who may have accompanied them.  Mostly people in such public spaces are focused on their digital rectangle – I saw none who had brought a book or other reading material.  But signs of pain, discomfort and frustration are soon apparent in random comments and pacing behavior.  After several hours impatience is my primary emotion.  

I am reticent to engage others in even superficial conversation in such settings, perhaps out of fear of intruding on their privacy.  I only noted one good example of empathy from a young woman who several times went to an older lady sitting in a wheelchair, apparently in pain, and the lady did appreciate it. 

In an August 25th article in the New York Times, David Brooks examines why people in America are so insular and under-socialized. Maybe even lonely and not interacting with other people because of false assumptions.  He references a social scientist, Nicholas Epley:

“One day Nicholas Epley was commuting by train to his office at the University of Chicago. As a behavioral scientist he’s well aware that social connection makes us happier, healthier and more successful and generally contributes to the sweetness of life. Yet he looked around his train car and realized: Nobody is talking to anyone! It was just headphones and newspapers.

Questions popped into his head: What the hell are we all doing here? Why don’t people do the thing that makes them happy?”

He discovered that one of the reasons people are reluctant to talk to strangers on a train or plane is they don’t think it will be enjoyable. They believe it will be awkward, dull and tiring. In survey only 7 percent of people said they would talk to a stranger in a waiting room. Only 24 percent said they would talk to a stranger on a train. But the research does show that of the people who initiate conversation, the majority feel good about it. 

 

Being in a waiting room tests my patience.  I resist the impulse to think of the time spent as “wasted” given my age when each day is supposed to be savored because I don't have that many left to waste.  So, I reflect on recent experiences and being aware of my feelings about the kinds of conversations and interactions that give me a good feeling.  For example, the fellowship hour after worship services at our church is a mixed bag.  As an introvert I tend to like quiet encounters and wonder if I am “interesting enough” so as to not waste someone’s time talking to me.  But getting to know one another is an important part of building community.

 

I really should be more attentive to listening to and engaging with others who may want to go a bit deeper or have a story they want to tell– perhaps a false hope – but that most often starts with a simple and mundane question like “How’s it going?”  And then listening. 

 

Blue Birds

 

On our most recent camping outing to Blue Water Lake, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves right next to a tree with a hole where a Blue Bird pair had decided to nest and raise a family.  All day long these hyper responsible adults were bringing worms and insects and dropping them into the open mouths of their hungry offspring.  We got a few pictures though they were very fast and didn’t stop to pose for us.

We prefer all blue Mountain blue birds in Montana.  These are Western Blue Birds, and have less blue, especially the female, and are also pretty.

I looked up Blue Bird on the internet and found there are many legends, spiritual meanings, songs and photos of these wonderful birds.  One of Paul MacCartney’s best songs is “I’m a Blue Bird” – a very charming tune. 

Although the beliefs of different Native American tribes are varied and diverse, bluebirds are generally seen as positive creatures wherever they appear, often due to their bright and joyful color as well as for their pleasant song.

Being in Navajo and Cochiti country, I found out that bluebirds represent good fortune, fertility and prosperity to these Native Americans.

According to a Cochiti legend, the sun’s firstborn was named Bluebird, and bluebirds were associated with the rising sun since they woke people in the morning with their song.

The bluebird was also important to the Pima and represented growth and tradition. The Pima also have a story that tells of an ugly bluebird who was ashamed of his appearance and wanted to become more attractive.

Many of the modern interpretations of bluebird symbolism match some of the older beliefs, and one example sees the bluebird as a symbol of contentment with what one has in life rather than always seeking more.

Bluebirds can remind us to value what we have rather than spending our whole lives chasing more – because sometimes, what we have in front of us is more precious than we realize.  

We certainly enjoyed being their neighbors for a few days. Though we are not serious bird watchers, we got much pleasure watching and listening to this Blue Bird couple at Blue Water Lake State Park here in New Mexico.

 

 

 

 

Going Home

 

Judy and I just completed a 3,200 miles road trip to the places of my roots, and where Judy was born too, though she doesn’t like to admit it.  While the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history was raging, and drought persisted, we headed toward Minnesota in early June. 

Driving from the West of the United States through the Texas panhandle and the great plains of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa, we viewed the progression from drought and the arid lands of the Southwest to the increasingly verdant and lush green landscapes of the Midwest.  In Minnesota and Wisconsin, the roads are often lined with trees, like walls of green as fields of grass, row crops, and wooded meadows are displayed around us. I am always amazed at the transformation from desert and mountains to the humid foliage of the Midwest in summer; even Oklahoma starts to green up about halfway through, though dry land farming seems to be suffering this summer in Western Kansas and Nebraska.

The large cities continue to extend their urban sprawl as houses and commercial developments are built on rich farmland, sealing up that soil forever.  We drove many miles of blue highways going and returning, passing through small towns with scattered evidence of a better life in the past; shuttered motels and stores, along with Trump signs and flags, pointing to the divide between urban and rural America that we have read about. 

In Iowa you don’t see livestock on the pastures anymore.  Pigs, chickens, and cattle are grown under huge, enclosed buildings in animal factories, while in states further West thousands of beef cattle are confined in large feedlots under the blazing sun. It was 107 degrees the day we drove through Kansas coming home.  On our return trip we fought high winds all the way from Minnesota to New Mexico, which, some say, is an indicator of global warming.  

A trip home always prompts many memories.  This is especially true when I visit the place where I was born and grew up, a small farm near Kenyon, Minnesota.  I was born on that farm in 1938; in the same house my grandmother, Ellen Solberg, was born in 1880.  Judy and I returned to live there for a dozen years after we came back to the States from Ecuador.  We later we moved to Montana to give Judy a chance to live in the State of her youth for about the same length of time. Equity, I guess.  We built a new house, now almost 30 years ago, and planted trees that now extend 60 feet up toward the sky.  A veritable jungle has overtaken the old farmhouse, and the people who bought our acres and the adjacent farm are in a constant battle to keep ahead of mother nature, mowing the grass and undergrowth that continually tries to take back the land.  So far, mowers on small tractors are winning the fight, though in the “woods” where I played, and we grazed the cows in the summer, trees and brush have completely taken over. 

Nostalgia invades our minds as we reminisce about the good life we had there, with the next sentence being “well, we just couldn’t keep up with it, could we?”  I think about the place as well as the people who lived there when I grew up, and we remember the neighbors and our connection to Holden Lutheran Church and the rural life we enjoyed during the years of our return.  A quote from one of the audio books we listened to on the road caught my attention; home is not just a place - it is the people we choose to love. 

We visited some of those we love; spent quality time with my siblings and stayed with Judy’s sister in Minneapolis.  At an Aaker cousin’s reunion, we joked about how we all now look so old, sharing stories about our most recent health issues as well as memories of our grandparents and parents.  With sadness we found that one cousin has Alzheimer’s.  And though we are astounded at how quickly life has sped by, there was much joy in spending time with four generations of our progeny: daughter Lani, granddaughter Leslie, and the “cutest kids in the world” great granddaughters, Zalina and Lyonna.

We made a visit to our friend and former pastor, Mike, who is dying of cancer, and is determined to live well in his remaining time in the assurance of his faith and die knowing he was a faithful servant.  We stayed a night with Ken, a house mate at Luther college decades ago.  Now 90 years old, he has just gone through the tribulation of losing his wife, Deanna, who succumbed to the awful disease ALS. Those conversations were 80% listening.  As it should be. 

Some day we will return home again, to where many loved ones lie in the earth in Holden’s cemetery.  

We have already picked out the place

Gazing up at the window of the bedroom
of my youth.

                                   The “new” house we built, and trees we planted - a worthy legacy.

 Vern, me, Lois and Jean sharing memories
of growing up on the farm.

Waiting for the Will of God

We have finished a five-week discussion of my book A Spirituality of Service, and the last session was on the chapter titled "Waiting for the Will of God".  Participation of members from St Luke Lutheran in Albuquerque was lively and enriching, making it easy and fun to be the facilitator.  I am reminded that a chapel talk I gave at Luther College ten years ago was based on this theme and story.  This was the first post I made on this blog when I started it ten years ago.  So, because this topic is fresh in my mind and it elicited such enriching discussion, I am reposting it along with a very gracious comment from a longtime friend and colleague, Greg Rake.   

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word, I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning (Psalm 130:5, 6).

As we came into this beautiful building today those of the class of 1962 and before may have tried to orient ourselves as to where the old C. K. Prues gym/multi-purpose building stood, the one that burned down 50 years ago during my senior year. The floor of the auditorium stood almost exactly on this spot. It was the place where we attended daily chapel. Try to imagine about a thousand folding chairs on that gym floor filled with students and faculty every day for chapel. 

 I probably listened to about 4-500 chapel talks during those years. I don’t remember any specific details of those meditations, but I do recall the deep commitment to faithfulness and the passion for service to church and society that was expressed by those many pastors and teachers who shared their knowledge, wisdom and life stories with us students, often in chapel talks.

Memories of encounters with those and other caring and questioning mentors along the way influenced me then and continue to do so to this day as I have tried to live out my life of faith and service in the world. It was during those college days when questions about what to do with our lives and what kind life we wanted it to be were spinning around in our heads. And, indeed, there seemed to be such a wide-open expanse of time and possibilities ahead. The question then was this: What is God's will for my life?, and certainly that question, the discernment of God's will for my life, did not get resolved in one fell swoop! No, it continued on throughout my career and journey of faith and service and showed up in the most unexpected times and places around the world.

And now we can hardly believe it - 50 years have sped by. And so I think back on and remember some of those I met along the way here at Luther and others whom God kept putting in my path to remind me to watch for the will of God.

Some of those people on the path were long-term relationships - others were brief momentary encounters. Let me tell you of one such fleeting encounter many years ago.

One sunny morning some years ago I was walking on a trail in the Cuchumatane mountains in Guatemala. As I walked through pastures and fields to visit farms and homes of the Indian families who participated in a sheep project that had been of much benefit in this area I came upon an old woman sitting on a stone wall. Her deeply wrinkled and leathery brown face displayed the effects of many years exposure to the direct sun of this high altitude.

Buenas días, Señora, Como está usted? “Good morning, madam, how are you?” I asked.

She smiled, showing her few remaining teeth. “Buenas días, señor! Estoy esperando la voluntad de Dios!” “Good morning, sir. I am waiting for the will of God,” she replied.

I was curious about this greeting and stopped to chat. She told me that she lives alone. “My husband died three years ago, and I have no one to take care of me now.”

“What about your children?”

“I have none,” she said. “I live up there,” as she pointed up the steep slope behind me, “on the other side of that crest.” And I could imagine the humbleness of her abode.. very little of the material things of this world, a dirt floor, a thatch roof, adobe walls.

She carried a piece of kindling wood and a small bag of food. She told me that she was out looking for food and I supposed that this old widow went around to her neighbors each day asking for help in her old age. And surely her neighbors would have shared with her as is the custom in that Mayan culture.

As she spoke about herself and her life, tears welled up in her eyes. “I am 83 years old, and I’m waiting for the will of God,” she repeated. In Spanish the word esperar means both to wait and to expect. I wondered for a moment if she was actually expecting to be called by God that very day—but I rather suspect that her attitude was just an openness to the Spirit of God every single day of her life.

Then she looked right at me and said, “Dios es Grande!”

I agreed—“Yes, God is Great.” I felt comforted and assured that the Spirit was right there hearing her real and sincere supplication to God—to take her to be at God’s side—or just waiting to see what was God’s will for her that day, a habit of a life time.

I was warmed and touched by that brief and poignant encounter on the path that day. Was it because her tears were so authentic and not intended to solicit my pity? She was not asking anything of me—not begging nor preying on my guilt and asking for sympathy. No, instead she was giving something to me—something deep within her—a simple and primitive campesina faith in the goodness of God.  

 As I departed I said, “May God bless you,” and she responded—“And to you-Gracias.”

Walking on up the path that morning I thought about waiting for the will of God in my own life, thankful for her testimony; a reminder to me. And since that brief encounter on the path her image and witness to me has come back into my consciousness many time over the years, perhaps the prompting of the Spirit.

The old Mayan woman had shown me her faith that morning and I am sure I was more enriched by her than she was by me in that chance encounter on a cool December morning.

When I am on a trip, I am not always on the move. There are many pauses and stops along the way. Sometimes I become impatient with the pace. I found this to be especially true in Latin America with regard to time. Politeness and relationships are more highly valued than promptness and the achievement of an agenda. Taking time to chat, to listen, to be quiet and to wait patiently are important values.

This was not easy for me. But the prayer of waiting for the will of God may be just that—sitting still in the presence of God, allowing the Spirit of Jesus to pray within me—watching for the will of God.

In writing about waiting prayer, Sue Monk Kidd said:

[Waiting prayer] has little to do with petition and intercession and getting God to fix things. . . . We place ourselves in postures of the heart, in the stillness that enables us to become aware of what God is doing so that we can gradually say yes to it with our whole being. . . . Attentiveness is vital to waiting. The word wait comes from a root word meaning “to watch.” To wait on God means to watch keenly for God’s coming. Watchers and waiters were nearly synonymous.[i]

Earlier I said that I do not remember the specifics of all those chapel talks I heard as a student here at Luther, but that's not quite true.

At the conclusion of each of his talks, campus Pastor Gordon Selbo always finished with this question: “And what about you?” He wanted to bring the point of the message and the Scripture text right back to us and challenge us to ponder its meaning and application to our lives.

So, I leave you with that same question. What about you? What about you as you wait and watch today, these days, this year and the years to come for is the will of God for your life?

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[i] Kidd, Sue Monk, When the Heart Waits, San Francisco, Harper, 1992. pp 129, 130. Used by permission.