What might have been!

     Cousins; there were several on my mother's side of the family...the Berghs.  Uncle Oscar did his part with 7 daughters and a son. My mother contributed four. There could have been many more. Uncle Martin died in a plane crash in his early 20s before he was married. Aunt Ella died unmarried in 1918 of the Spanish Flu. Aunt Margaret had a hear murmur so had no children and died about age 40. Aunt Huldah married a widower and they had no children. There were ten children in mother's family who lived to adulthood...the first two died as infants. Mother was third youngest.
      This brings us to Marie Cecelia, mother's oldest surviving sibling. Mother always called her Cecelia so that's the name I will use. Grandpa Bergh was a pastor in the Hauges Lutheran Synod. He established a congregation 4  miles south of Volga, S.D.. on land he owned, in 1884. Because there was a shortage of pastors he traveled to other congregations to preach. One of those congregations was 15 miles southwest of Balaton,  MN. Balaton is about 60 miles east of Volga and a train connected them.
Likely Cecelia traveled with her father to the congregation near Balaton where she met and married a local farmer, Alfred Folstad (My mother much later would marry a farmer named Albert Negstad.).
       In 1910 Cecelia gave birth to my cousin, Clifford Folstad.  A month after Clifford was born Cecelia died of uremic poisoning. Three years later Clifford drown in a cattle, water tank. In 1920, Cecelia's husband and Clifford's father, Alfred, died of the Spanish Flu.
     Long I've wanted to visit the cemetery where they are buried and today I did. Expecting a forlorn and forgotten place I brought materials to clean neglected grave markers. Much to my surprise, and pleasure, I found an exceptionally well tended cemetery. The church which once stood there was founded in 1900, so the Folstads are among the earlier burials and quite central. No upkeep was required of me.
    It was 97 degrees with a fierce south wind, the temperature I don't mind, blowing much dust in the air. There is a deep sense of satisfaction making the visit and it feels it feels like I've completed an important loop. My mother was ten when Cecelia died and, before her sister's untimely death,  she would go and stay with her. Had this family lived I may have been blessed with more cousins.

Takk for alt,

Al

Where the Folstads are buried.

Before.

After.

June 6, 1964

   It was a beautiful summer evening June 6, 1964, which, like 2020, fell on a Saturday. It had been a busy week. The previous Sunday I graduated from Augustana College. Six days later Joanne and I were married at First Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls.
    Joanne's bridesmaids were her sister, Mary, Jenine Peterson (Jordahl) and the late Maxine Amundson.  Groomsmen were my brothers David, the late Richard and David Halvorson. The late Pastor Mark Gravdal presided and Joanne's father, the late Rev. Dr. Oscar C. Hanson did the homily. Roger Hatlestad played the organ, Stein Mydske was soloist and the Augustana Choir Sang. The processional hymn was Love Divine. Stein, from Fredrickstad, Norway, was present at our 50th wedding anniversary and, accompanied by his wife, sang the solo  again: Kjaerlighet Fra Gud,
      There was neither time nor money for much honeymoon. Joanne had accepted a position as counselor at the St. Louis Park High School, MN., on the condition that she take an additional counseling course. She had a Master's Educational Psychology from the University of MN. This course was offered at the University Of S.D. in Vermillion, beginning the Monday following our wedding.
      Being self-quarantined on this 56th anniversary, and the third since Joanne's death, makes it unique. With the cemetery where she is buried so proximate to The Little House on the Prairie I chose to spend my morning there today. It was a good opportunity to tend her grave and several others. Naturally it reminded me of the depth of my loss but also of many memories of 54 years of marriage.

Takk for alt.

Al

Race relations.

On this day in 1851, an abolitionist newspaper in Washington, D.C., began publishing installments of a novel called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, had been appalled by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. “The time is come,” she wrote to the newspaper’s editor, “when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak.” Many spoke, but few spoke with such impact. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” — inspired by the memoir of Josiah Henson — became the best-selling novel of the 19th century and reached an even wider audience through theatrical adaptations. 
 Frederick Douglass wrote that the novel’s “effect was amazing, instantaneous, and universal.” 
     Washington Post

      Given national events following George Floyd's death it's appropriate to remember Uncle Tom's Cabin. There came a time when the novel came under heavy criticism for sentimentalism and stereotypes. Perhaps that is a helpful corrective but, in fairness to the author and novel, we should be careful of judging it on the basis of latter day values. President Lincoln is reported to have said to Stowe "So you're the lady who started the war."  That's likely apocryphal. But the book certainly did much to support the abolitionist cause.
    Prophet of Freedom, the biography of Frederick Douglass, which I recently finished, not only details Douglass remarkable life. It also lays out clearly the persistence and revival of white supremacy, after the War Between the States. This was most evident in the Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the South.  White supremacy is alive and well in all facets of American Life.
    We have much work to do and we best begin with ourselves.

Takk for alt,

Al

My city council representative wrote this for TIME MAGAZINE.

https://time.com/5848705/disband-and-replace-minneapolis-police/

Same, same...

   Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers was published in 1857, not even I was alive then. 😊 Those of you who have read this classic may remember that the context of the novel is the Church of England's Diocese of Barchester. The issues that arise in this fictional diocese are very similar to many of the issues experienced during my ministry.
   There's the issue of the role of music and liturgy for instance. Of course the big issue then, as now, is power and personality. Who will be in charge? When the new bishop comes, immediately there's division into two camps. There are those who like the way things were done and those happy for change.  "We've always done it this way."
    Trollope's a great writer, which goes without saying since his books are still popular. Some  of the scenes make me laugh out loud. Perhaps this should have been assigned reading in seminary. It would have been a good seminar text in preparation for congregational life.
     Obviously I'm a person of privilege that I have the leisure and opportunity to spend much time reading.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS It was on this day, June 4, 962, that I was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps. Two years and two days later, June 6, 1964, Joanne and I were married. It was my pattern to tease Joanne that I could always remember our anniversary date in relationship to the date of my discharge. Uffda.

Joanne eating Lutefisk

Realities in the land of grief.

    Wang Lung the protagonist in The Good Earth recognizes that his life is coming to an end. He walks on his land, lives again in the farm house, abandoning his mansion in town and studies the burial ground on land. He would be buried near his first wife, O-lan.
"Then he went into the enclosure and he looked carefully and he saw the place where he would lie below his father and his uncle and above Ching and not far from O-lan. And he stared at the bit of earth where he was to lie and he saw himself in it and back in his own land forever."

Buck, Pearl S.. The Good Earth (The Good Earth Trilogy Book 1) (p. 208). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition
   
       I. too, walk on the land and then visit Joanne in the cemetery. There I see the place where I will lie and my name and birth date on the marker with space left for the date I die.
 
."And in this the widow’s deep grief was softened, and a sweet balm was poured into the wound which she had thought nothing but death could heal. How much kinder is God to us than we are willing to be to ourselves! At the loss of every dear face, at the last going of every well beloved one, we all doom ourselves to an eternity of sorrow, and look to waste ourselves away in an ever-running fountain of tears. How seldom does such grief endure! How blessed is the goodness which forbids it to do so! ‘Let me ever remember my living friends, but forget them as soon as they are dead,’ was the prayer of a wise man who understood the mercy of God. Few perhaps would have the courage to express such a wish, and yet to do so would only be to ask for that release from sorrow, which a kind Creator almost always extends to us."

Trollope, Anthony. Barchester Towers (AUK Revisited Book 8) (p. 10). Andrews UK Ltd. Kindle Edition.

      Trollope has captured the movement of grief from acute to chronic.  "At the loss of every dear face, at the last going of every well beloved one, we all doom ourselves to an eternity of sorrow, and look to waste ourselves away in an ever-running fountain of tears. How seldom does such grief endure! How blessed is the goodness which forbids it to do so!"  The author is correct; the grief that begins as a knife stabbing in one's ribs subsides to a sure and certain ache. Yet, in the land of grief there is opportunity for satisfaction, meaning and even joy.

Takk for alt,

Al

The Good Earth

"Thus spring wore on again and again and vaguely and more vaguely as these years passed he felt it coming. But still one thing remained to him and it was his love for his land. He had gone away from it and he had set up his house in a town and he was rich. But his roots were in his land and although he forgot it for many months, when spring came each year he must go out on to the land; and now although he could no longer hold a plow or do anything but see another drive the plow through the earth, still he must needs go and he went."

Buck, Pearl S.. The Good Earth (The Good Earth Trilogy Book 1) (pp. 207-208). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

     Wang Lung is the main character in Buck's The Good Earth, who made his wealth on the land, except for some strategic looting in a southern city to which the fled to avoid starvation.  "But his roots were in his land..."  Now in his old age he needs to visit his land. Ah, yes, I can relate because today I was again on the land. I, too, in my old age find comfort in the land.
     With the combination of returning stability to Minneapolis and the comfort of Lisa's neighborhood community we decided it would be okay for me to return to The Little House on The Prairie. So I did yesterday and spent the morning walking in grasslands.

     The link below I recommend with a mixture of feelings. In most situations I support unions and unionizing. However, the division of accountability in unionized police departments stifle attempts to discipline and reform police. Read the link and draw your own conclusions.

There’s One Big Reason Why Police Brutality Is So Common In The US. And That’s The Police Unions. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/police-unions-history-minneapolis-
reform-george-floyd

Takk for alt,

Al

Thoughts of Syria!

     COMMUNITY!  Lisa's street is organized in a neighborhood watch arrangement. Last night a schedule was arranged so that two persons were always awake and on lookout. Shifts were arranged so that pairs took 2 hours of watch each. Everyone is linked by 'text' so if a car even drove down the street its progress and description was monitored. This neighborhood is about 10-14 blocks from where George Floyd died. With random acts of mayhem, no place is totally safe but there is some "herd immunity" because there are so many houses.
      As we prepared for the night I thought about Syria. What would it be like to live in a real war zone where there is no assurance of safety in your own home? How many places in the world are like Syria, where safety and security don't exist? What would it be like to have to flee your home only to be rejected at some national border?
      The Twin Cities were relatively quiet last night. Law enforcement personnel are doing an adequate job of enforcing the curfew without over-reacting and making things worse. That's no easy task.  Some good evening rains would be helpful. COVID, is almost certainly spreading via the protesters. June will probably be a very bad month with the spread of the virus...likely our worst yet.
      Well...on that cheerful note I'll sign off, grateful for so much to so many!

Takk for alt,

Al