TALKING

IT YMMIGRANTE-AVENTOER

2012-02-16T14:46:00.000-08:00

Foreword:

Emigration has fascinated many people: researchers, family members and descendants, the people who stayed behind, storytellers, and many more.

Hylke Speerstra is one storyteller who pursued the experience of the emigrant seriously. He traveled to three continents to gather the stories; then he wrote a book, It wrede paradys. It became an immediate best-seller in Friesland, and it sold well in the Dutch translation too. [I translated it later: Cruel Paradise.]

The book incited so much interest that the Leeuwarder Courant, Friesland’s main newspaper, decided to sponsor a symposium on the topic of emigration.

Researcher Annemieke Galema who wrote a book on the emigration wave of the 19^th century (Frisians to America, 1880-1914: With the baggage), author Hylke Speerstra, and I were invited to be presenters to an audience of more than 500 in the Harmonie Hall in Leeuwarden, in October 1999.

Part of my speech follows, in the language in which it was delivered, here offered for those who can still read the ancient tongue.

An English version follows the Frisian one.

IT YMMIGRANTE-AVENTOER: It longerjen om der by te hearren/The Quest to Belong

Ynlieding

Ik bin Hylke Speerstra en Pieter Sijpersma fan de Ljouwter Krante tige tankber foar de

ùtnoadiging,want ik bin o sa bliid dit evenemint mei te meitsjen. It ûnderwerp, emigraasje, leit my ticht oant hert.

Kearn

Ik ha myn noas omtrint myn hiele libben yn’e boeken hân. De bibleteek fan de“School met de Bijbel” yn De Pein yn de jierren 40 wie net sa grut. Ik leau dat ik dy hiele kollektsje fan boeken wol twa kear trochlêzen ha. Uteinlik is it lêzen en it ûnderwiis yn de literatuer myn berop wurden. Literatuer dat ús sjen lit hoe’t wy ús minsklikens en ûnminsklikens blike litte in ús deistich libben. En yn de literatuer fernimme je al gauachtich dat in minske om minske te bliuwen, fan hiel wat dingen ferlet hat. Ien fan de belangrykste is, wat wy yn’t Ingelsk neame, “a sense of belonging.” It gefoel dat men der by heard. Dat gefoel jout wissichheid. It jout tefredenheit. It jout “a sense of significance,” de oertsjûging dat jins libben wearde en betsjutting hat, en dêr kin in minsk eigenlik net sûnder.

No, de ûnderfining fan de emigrant set dat minsklik ferlet om der by te hearren yn noed. ‘t Is wol wier fansels dat de minsken somstiden, as se it gefoel krije dat se der net mear bij hearre, dat se net meitelle, dat se net mear akseptearre of respektearre wurde-- dat se dan flechtsje: hja emigrearje om dat minsklik ferlet op in oar plak te fersjen.
Mar faker, tinkt my, wurdt it beslút om te emigrearjen makke sûnder folle oantinken te jaan oan it ferlet om der by te hearren, oan “the quest to belong.”
Mar dat feroaret gau as de ymmigranten wekker wurde yn in frjemd lân mei allegeare frjemde minsken, mei in frjemde taal dy’t se net ferstean, mei in kultuer dêr’t se net oan meidwaan kinne.

Lit my in pear foarbylden jaan.

Nei ús oankommen yn Hoboken, NJ, yn maaie, 1948, namen wy de trein fan de iene ein fan ‘t lân nei de oare. Ik hie omtrint ien jier op de ULO west en hie dêr wat Ingelsk leard. Sadwaande tocht ik dat ik wat ôfwist fan de Ingelske útspraak. Op in stuit frege ik in man yn de trein: “We stop in Chai-cai-go?” Ik fûn it wol wat frjemd dat net ien oait fan Chai-cai-go heard hie. Mar wy stoppen wol yn Chicago, en dêr moasten wy oerstappe yn in oare trein dy ‘t ús hielendal nei de steat Washington bringe soe. No, ik wie sa’n bytsje de tolk fan ús famylje fansels. In man frege ús doe’t wy al moai op reis wienen, “Where are you going?” No, dat wiste ik wol en ik wie der suver grutsk op dat ik sizze koe fan “Seetle.” Dêr wie wer gjin minsk dy’t wiste wêr’t Seetle wie. Lokkich binne wy wol yn “Seattle” kommen, mar myn betrouwen yn myn kunde fan ‘t Ingelsk hat doe wol in lytse stjit krigen.
Wy wiene frjemdlingen yn in frjemd lân; de minsken seagen ús oan út nijsgjirrigens, wy besoargen har wat ferdivedaasje.

Dy earste simmer yn Washington ha ‘k yn de ierdbeifjilden en framboazenfjilden wurke mei in soad oare bern fan myn leeftyd. Dy waarden myn ûnderwizers yn de nije taal. Yn de earste wiken fregen se my wolris in boadskip oer te bringen oan de fjildbaas of opsichter. No, ik woe graach wat foar har dwaan fansels, dan hearre je der wat mear by, no? Mar ik hie noch gjin idee wat de wurden fan it boadskip betsjutten. Dus ik nei de baas mei it boadskip fan myn nije freonen, en ik sei sonder te witten wat ik sei: “You’re full of shit.” En in oare kear: “Move your ass.” “En ek, “Fuck you.” Ik fûn ‘t wol aardich dat myn nije freonen der sa’n wille fan hienen, folle mear wille as de baas fansels. Ik wie net mear op de ULO, mar ik ha in protte leard dy earste simmer yn it nije lân.

En wat ik hjir mei sizze woe is dat taal miskien de sterkste bân is dy’t ús as minsken oanelkoar ferbynt.

Lit my dêr nochris in oar soart foarbyld fan jaan.

Wy ha in lyts ploechje Friezen yn Grand Rapids, dy ‘t wy, samar foar de aardichheid, “de Fryske freonen by de iterstafel” neame. Om de 14 dagen ite wy middeis meielkoar om it Frysk der wat yn te hâlden. Wy binne omtrint allegear neikommelingen fan de earste generaasje fan Fryske ymmigranten. Us jierren rinne fan yn de 30 oant yn de 80. Wy binne allegear net fan ‘t selde berop en wy doche allegear net oan deselde polityk.

Wy ite meielkoar omdat wy sa graach de âlde taal fan ús âlders prate, ek al is ‘t mar gebrekkich. It bynt ús oan elkoar. Wêr’t wy elkoaren ek treffe, yn in winkel of op ‘e strjitte of by in konsert, wy groetjse elkoaren yn ‘t Frysk en dat makket mei-ien in bân.
En omdat yn Amearika it Frysk funksioneard as ús twadde taal hoecht it net suver te wêzen om ús it gefoel te jaan dat wy in “shared identity” hawwe, in djipgeande konneksje, dat wy by elkoar hearre.

Mar at der wat mis is mei jins taal as de taal fan it lân dêr’t je wenje, dan komt de konneksje yn gefaar of it is brutsen. En dat wie faak sa mei de ymmigranten.

Us heit, mei de âlderdom fan 52, hie it tige swier mei de nije taal. Doe ‘t er yn partnerskip wie mei in heareboer moast er fansels wol saken besprekke mei dy man, mar hy koe de wurden net fine. En ús heit wie in man dy’t oars noait om in wurd hoegde te sykjen, want hy wie in lêzer en in skriuwer en mocht o sa graach prate. No moast er de help ha fan syn bern om de wurden foar him út te drukken. Men kin je yntinke hoe frustreerjend dat wol wêze moast. Hoe koene de ymmigranten har thús fiele sûnder de taal fan it nije lân!

En ek as je de taal op ‘t lêst in bytsje yn’e macht hawwe en je der goed mei rêde kinne, mar dochs ist noch net hielendal geef en der sit noch in swiere aksent oan, dan lûkt de taal trochgeande oandacht nei it feit dat de taal jin apart set, dat je net echt ien binne mei de minsken fan it lân, dat je der eigenlik net by hearre.

Begripe jim no wat fan it konflikt dêr ‘t ik it yn ‘t begjin oer hie? It is “a struggle,” in wrakseling, sels-bewust of net, foar elke emigrant dy’t te âld nei in nije lân komt om de frjemde taal te behearskjen. It is de reden dat bern fan ymmigranten har faak sjenearje en besykje wat distânsje te lizzen tusken harsels en har âlderlike ôfkomst. It is ien fan de redens werom ‘t ik my hjir net mear sa thús fiele kin as yn Amearika, omdat ik gjin “native fluency” mear yn ‘t Frysk en Nederlânsk ha. En it betsjut ek dat de measte ymmigranten har noait hielendal thús komme te fielen yn har twadde lân.

Mar at taal dat “sense of belonging” dat wy allegear nedich hawwe yn gefaar stelt, wat wurdt der dan foar yn ‘t plak set?

Foar in soad ymmigranten hat dat de tsjerke west. De tsjerke dêr ‘t se nei preken hearre koenen yn har bekende taal. Dêr ‘t alles gemiensum is, dêr ‘t alles bekend oandocht. Dêr ‘t alles bliuwe koe en moast sa’t se altyd wend west hiene: de learstikken en útlizzings, de opfettings en gewoanten, de liturgy en de muzyk. Dêr ‘t se mei oare ymmigranten prate koene sûnder om wurden te sykjen. Dêr ‘t se wat te sizzen hienen. Dêr ‘t se meidwaan koenen. Dêr ‘t se har thús fielden. Dêr ‘t se oanelkoar ferbûn wienen, dêr ‘t se by hearden.

De tsjerke: in feilige haven yn in ûnbekende see dêr ‘t se bytiden wol yn ferdrinke koenen; in punt fan hâldfêst yn in frjemde wrâld dêr ‘t alles yn feroaring is.

Alle ymmigranten wiene net tsjerks, fansels. Dy hiene it faak noch slimmer mei de iensumheid. Se woenen fansels wol fryske selskippen oprjochtsje, mar dat slagge har mar op in pear plakken, yn grutte stêden dêr ‘t in hiel soad ymmigranten wennen.

Myn leitmotif yn dit taspraakje is “the quest to belong,” it longerjen om der by te hearren. De taal, sei ik, hie dêr hiel wat mei te dwaan, mar der wiene ek oare dingen.

Om as bern sa hurd mooglik mei te dwaan yn it twadde lân, moast men fansels op skoalle. Ik wie eigenlik al fan de legere skoalle ôf, mar heit en mem, op rie fan oaren, stjoerden my nei de 8ste klasse om de taal der goed yn te krijen. (At se dat net dien hienen, no, dêr doar ik eins net iens oer nei te tinken want dan hie myn libben hiel oars beteare kind.)

Dus, ik soe op skoalle. Dan mar mei mem nei de winkel om wat skoalleklean te keapjen. Dat koe net folle lije fansels, want de âlders sieten earst ferskriklik krap oan jild. Mar mem woe har Hindrik, nei pake Hoekstra neamd, wol knap yn de klean ha. Dat kreaze broekje fan wol mei in moai kleurich triedsje der troch koste wol wat mear as de gewoane katoenen broekjes, mar fuort dan mar, har soan moat dochs in goede yndruk meitsje.

Mar dat gie ferkeard fansels. Alle jonges hiene katoenen broekjes, en dêr stie ik yn myn deftige broek dêr ‘k wol mei nei tsjerke koe. As in nij boekemantsje op in frjemde skoalle yn in frjemd lân woenen je leafst sa ûnopfallend mooglik wêze. Mar ik hie de ferkearde broek oan. Alles wie mis. It wie omtrint sa’n spultsje as mei Josef en syn bûnte mantel. De kweajonges fan de 6de klasse ha der my mar raar mei pleage. Doe moast ús earme mem wer nei de winkel om in nije katoenen broek te keapjen.

Foar jongelju tusken de leeftyd fan 12 en 18 is de “quest to belong” foaral geweldich sterk en wichtich. Dat wie faak in probleem foar bern fan ymmigranten. Foar my yn de earste jierren ek.

Yn de 8ste klasse wienen ek in pear oare jonges fan Fryske ymmigranten. En dat wie oan de iene kant wol moai, want dan hienen je wat selskip. Mar oan de oare kant joech dat ek ferlies, want wat mear as je meielkoar as ymmigranten omgongen, wat mear as je apart stienen fan de oare bern dêr je byhearre woenen.

En dan de sport. As jonges woene je fansels hiel graach meidwaan oan sport. Mar de sport wie net fuotbal mar basketball en baseball, en dêr wisten je noch neat fan. Je stienen der wat helpleas nei te sjen, en de ûnderwizers hienen gjin tiid fansels om je der wat fan by te bringen. De “quest to belong” wie hjir ek wer frustrearre.

En de famkes. Ik hie al in each op leave, knappe famkes. Mar de measten fan dy leave, knappe famkes woenen net folle te dwaan ha mei ymmigranten. Want dy famkes hienen har eigen “quest to belong” moat je mar rekkenje, en omdat ymmigranten mar leech yn rang stienen, kearden de leafsten en de knapsten ús de reach ta.

De measte bern fan Fryske ymmigranten yn dy tiid kamen mei de 8ste klasse fan skoalle ôf. Dat wie mei my ek sa. It wie in swiere tiid en wy moasten heit en mem helpe. Mar dat betsjutte ek fansels dat je eigenlik gjin omgong mear hienen mei de jongelju fan je eigen leeftyd dy ‘t allegeare nei skoalle gongen. Dy tiid fan it ymmigrante-aventoer stiet my noch hiel helder foar de geast. Somstiden at ik mei de trekker yn ‘t fjild dwaande wie gong ik yn myn gedachten werom nei ‘t heitelân, nei de fjilden om ús pleats hinne dêr ‘t my elke richel en toarnbosk bekend wie, en nei de famylje en freonen dy ‘t wy net meinimme koenen. Ik wie der eigenlik sels oer fernúvere, mar dan koenen de triennen my samar ynienen yn de eagen sjitte en it djippe gefoel fan ûnwennigens koe dan eefkes swier op it hert lizze. Sadwaande miskien bin ik ek begûn oan famkes te skriuwen yn Fryslân en oare plakken yn Nederlân. Mar it giet net maklik in skarrel by in brief yn te stekken, dus dêr is op ‘t lêst net folle fan kommen.

“The quest to belong” yn it nije lân gie lykwols troch, foar de âlderen, mar ek foar de jongeren. En sa ‘t de tsjerke in hege rol spile yn ‘t libben fan de âlders, sa wie ‘t ek faak yn it libben fan de bern. Yn myn tsjerke--en ik gong letter nei in oare tsjerke as heit en mem—waard ik lieder fan de jongelingsferiening, in sjonger yn in mânljus kwartet, krige ik freonen dy’t net ymmigrantebern wienen, en waard stadichoan hielendal yntegreard yn it geastlike en kulturele en sosjale libben fan myn twadde lân. De tsjerke hat foar my altyd in hiele positive ynfloed west. En dat is er noch. En dêr bin ik tankbar om.

Der binne fansels in soad dingen dêr’t ik wol fierder op yn gean koe. Oer de konsekwinsje

konsekwinsje foar de ymmigranten wannear ‘t de tsjerke ek begjint te feroarjen. Oer de swiere jierren fan skreppen en skuorren foardat de takomst in bytsje ljochter begûn te lykjen. Oer de ambysjes fan de bern fan ymmigranten en it opmerklik sukses dat sa folle fan de earste en twadde generaasje berikt ha.

Mar wy hawwe Galema har boek en Speerstra syn boek en der komt aansens gelegenheid om fragen te stellen.

Myn lêtste wurd is dit, en ik woe graach dat heit en mem hjir by west hawwe koenen om it te hearren, foaral hjirre yn de haadstêd fan Fryslân, want it soe har hert goed dien hawwe.

Ik wit net wêrom ‘t ús heit en mem emigrearden. Ik fyn it o sa spitich dat it foar har, yn mear as ien opsicht, in emigraesje wie nei “it wrede paradys,” foaral omdat heit sa jong ferstoar foardat er de kâns krige om wat te genietsjen fan syn swier arbeidzjen. Mar myn broer en susters en ik binne har ivich tankbar dat hja dy reis makke ha, want dat hat ús libben ûnmjitlik ferrike. [Ik moat hjir noch wat beidwaan, dert myn frou om frege. Doe’t se my nei it fleanfjild brochtr, sei se: “Do moast dy minsken fertelle dat it har libben ek ferrike hat.” Wat leaf, net?] Emigratie iepene foar ús in nije wrâld fan ûnderfining en mooglikheden yn in lân dat wy no leaf hawwe. Mar it hat de bân mei ús heitelân ek sterker makke, dit heitelân, dêr ‘t de dyk it lân omklammet, dit lân, sa moai en sûnder wjergea mei har hiel eigen karakter. It lân dêr ‘t ús woartels lizze, dêr ‘t wy de omkes en muoikes en neven en nichten achter lieten; it lân dat ús noch altyd oanlûkt, want it foldocht ek no noch altyd oan ús eigen “quest to belong,” oan ús eigen longerjen om “der by the hearren.”

English version

THE IMMIGRANT ADVENTURE: The Quest to Belong

Speech given at a Symposium on Emigration, held in Ljouwert (Leeuwarden) in October 1999, featuring talks by Dr. Henry J. Baron and Dr. Annemieke Galema, and an interview with the author Hylke Speerstra.

________________________________________

Introduction

I'm very grateful to Hylke Speerstra and Pieter Sijpersma from the Leeuwarder Courant, because I'm really happy to be participating in this event. The subject of emigration is, after all, close to my heart.

Body

I've had my nose in the books practically all my life. The "School with the Bible" in Opende couldn’t boast of a large library in the 40s; I must’ve read through the whole collection at least twice. The reading and teaching of literature eventually became my profession; literature that reveals all the ways in which human kind practices its humanity and inhumanity. And in literature one soon discovers that a person, in order to remain human, has certain basic needs. One of the most important is a sense of belonging. A feeling that one is part of things. We need it for security. It gives us a feeling of satisfaction. It gives a sense of significance, the conviction that our life has value and meaning, for we cannot live without that.

Not really. But the immigrant experience jeopardizes that sense of belonging. Now it’s true, that sometimes, when people feel they don’t belong, they don’t count, they have no standing or they’ve lost it, they flee: they emigrate, to pursue that quest in another place. But more often, I think, the decision to emigrate is made without much thought of that basic need to belong.

However, it quickly raises its insistent cry when the immigrants wake up in a strange place where they don’t know anybody, don’t understand anybody, and feel estranged from the culture.

Let me give you some examples.

After our arrival in Hoboken, NJ, in May of 1948, we took the train from one end of the land to the other. I had had one year of ULO (high school)-English , and I thought I knew something about the pronunciation system of the language. So I asked a fellow passenger: "We stop in Chai-cai-go?" I soon discovered there was no such place, but we definitely would stop in Chicago. We transferred to another train there that would take us all the way to the state of Washington. When passengers asked us how far we were going, I announced confidently, "To Seetle." There wasn't a soul that had ever heard of "Seetle." Fortunately we did make it to Seattle eventually, but my confidence in what I knew of English plummeted dramatically. We were very much strangers in a foreign land, objects of curiosity and even entertainment.

I worked in the fields that first summer, picking strawberries and then raspberries weeks after landing in the new land. The many other boys and girls I worked with became my language teachers. During the first few weeks they would tell me to deliver messages to the field boss. Well, I was eager to please, of course, for that sense of belonging, you know? But I still had no idea what the words I was to say meant. So I go to the boss with the message of my new friends, and I say without realizing what I said: "You’re full of shit." And another time: "Move your ass." And “Fuck you!” I sort of enjoyed that my new friends got such a kick out of that, much more so than my boss, of course.

I wasn’t going to the ULO anymore, but I learned a lot of English that first summer.

The point is that language functions as perhaps our strongest bond of connection.

Here’s another illustration. A group of us meets every other week for lunch. We call ourselves, just for the fun of it, "the Frisian Lunchers." Nearly all of us are offspring of first generation Frisian immigrants. We range in age from 30 to 80-plus. Not all of us are in the same profession or belong to the same political party. For nearly all of us English is or has become our first language. We get together because we love to practice the language of our parents, even if it’s rather brokenly. It links us together. No matter where we meet each other, in a store or on the street or at a concert, our greeting is likely to be in Frisian, creating an instant bond. Moreover, because in the States Frisian functions as our second language, it doesn’t have to be perfect to make us feel that we have a shared identity, that we belong together.

But when language fails as the language of the land where you live, the connection is jeopardized or broken. And that was often the case with immigrants.

I remember what a struggle my dad had with the new language at age 52. How frustrated he would get when he had to communicate with the farmer with whom he was in partnership and didn’t have the words. And Dad was a man who never had to search for a word, because he was a reader and facile with his pen. Now he had to depend on his children to find the right words for him. It’s not hard to imagine how frustrating that must’ve been for him. How could the immigrants feel at home without the language of the new land!

When you finally gain some mastery over the new language and you can handle it well, but still it's not altogether right and there's still a thick, foreign accent, your tongue is a constant reminder that you don’t quite belong, that you’re different.

Does that explain my struggle I alluded to at the beginning? It’s a struggle, self-conscious or not, that plagues nearly every immigrant who came to their new country too old to fully master the new language. It’s the reason that typically immigrant children at a certain age would feel embarrassed by their parents and tried to distance themselves from their parental roots. It’s one of the reasons that I, because I don’t have native fluency in Frisian and Dutch anymore, don’t and can’t feel as much at home here as I do in the States. It’s an important reason that most immigrants never quite come to feel at home in their adopted land.

But if language jeopardizes their necessary sense of belonging, what then takes its place?

For many immigrants, that’s been the church... the church where they could listen to sermons in their own language... where everything was familiar. Where everything could and should stay as it had always been for them: the doctrines and interpretations, the points of view and practices, the liturgy and the music. Where they could meet and talk with fellow immigrants in their own tongue. Where they could feel at home; where they could belong. Church: the safe haven in a sea of change that sometimes threatened to swallow them; the point of stability when everything else was in flux.

Not every immigrant belonged to the church, of course. Those that didn't often had an even more difficult time with loneliness. They tried to establish Frisian societies, but that succeeded only in those large cities where many immigrants had settled.

My leitmotif in this talk is "the quest to belong." The language, I said, had much to do with that quest, but there were other problems as well.

To accelerate their sense of belonging as children, they would have to attend school, of course. I had finished grade school already, really, but my parents on the advice of others decided to send me to 8th grade to gain a full mastery of the language. (If they hadn't done that, well, I hardly dare think how differently my life might've turned out.)

So I went to school. But first shopping with mom for some new school clothes. We couldn't afford much, of course, for it was slim picking at first. But mom wanted her son, named after grandpa Hoekstra, to be well dressed. That good-looking wool pants with the nice-colored thread was a bit more expensive than the ordinary cotton pants, but OK, her son needed to make a good impression, after all.

But that turned out quite the other way. All the boys had cotton pants, while I was in my dressy pants that was good enough to wear to church. As a new young fellow going to a foreign school in a foreign land you want to be as inconspicuous as possible. But I wore the wrong kind of pants. Everything went wrong. It was a situation something like Joseph and the many-colored coat. The 6th grade boys teased me mercilessly. So poor mom had to go back to the store to buy new cotton pants.

For young folk between the age of 12 and 18 the quest to belong is especially an urgent and important one. That was often a problem for children of immigrants. In the first years for me too.

A couple of other immigrant boys were in the 8th grade with me. That was good for some company, on the one hand. But there was another side: the more you would hang out with other immigrants, the more you were separated from the other kids you really wanted to be a part of.

And then there was sport. As boys you really wanted to participate in sports, of course. But the sport wasn't soccer but basketball and baseball, and you knew nothing about those sports. All you could do was watch kind of helplessly, and the teachers didn't have time, naturally, to start teaching you some of the basics. So the quest to belong was frustrated here too.

And then the girls. I already had an eye for cute girls. But most of the cute girls didn't want to have much to do with immigrant boys. Those girls had their own quest to belong, to be sure, and because immigrants were pretty low on the totem pole, the cutest and best looking turned their backs to us.

Most Frisian immigrant children at that time were finished with their education after 8th grade. Though I wanted to continue, I too quit school. It was a difficult time for my parents, and as children we had to help out. But, of course, that also meant that you hardly had anything to do anymore with the young people of your own age who were still in school. I recall that time of the immigrant adventure still very clearly. Sometimes when I'd be working in the field with the tractor, my thoughts would wander back to the fatherland, to the fields around our farm where I knew every gully and thorn bush, and to the relatives and friends we had left behind. It would catch me by surprise, but all of a sudden the tears would come and a profound feeling of homesickness would momentarily weigh on my heart. Maybe that's why I started to write letters to girls in Friesland and other places in the Netherlands. But it's not easy to stick a date inside a letter, so that finally didn't go anywhere.

"The quest to belong" in the new land, however, continued, for the parents, but also for the children. And as the church played a role in the life of the parents, it often did likewise in the life of the children. In my church--and later on I attended a different church from my parents--I became a leader of the young people's society, a singer in a male quartet, became friends with non-immigrant young people, and gradually became completely integrated into the spiritual and cultural and social life of my second country. The church for me has always been a very positive influence. And it still is. And I'm grateful for that.

I could, of course, go on to talk in detail about a lot of other things. About what happens when the church changes too. About the years of hard work for most immigrants before the future began to look a little brighter. About the ambitions of immigrant children and the remarkable success achieved by so many of the first and second generation. But we have Galema's book and Speerstra’s book, and we're still going to have a discussion period.

Let me end on a personal note; and I wish that my dad and mom could’ve heard me say this, especially right here in the capitol of Fryslân, for I think it would’ve warmed their hearts.

I don’t know why my parents emigrated. I regret that for them, for the most part, it turned into "it wrede paradys," especially because dad died before he had the chance to enjoy the heavy labor of his hands. But my brother and sisters will always be grateful that they did, for it has enriched our lives immeasurably.

[I must add something here too, at my wife’s request. She said on the way to the airport where she was dropping me off, "Tell them that your wife is happy too." Wasn’t that sweet of her?]

Emigration opened up a New World of experience and opportunity in a land we have come to love. But it also intensified our connections to the Old World, our fatherland with its unique beauty and identity; the place of our roots, of the family we left behind: uncles and aunts and many cousins. We’ve kept coming back to all of it because it still fulfills for us our own "quest to belong."

A Child's Christmas

2011-12-20T11:48:00.000-08:00

This is a story for children of all ages.
It may exist in different versions, by different titles, with different settings.
I’ve never seen an author’s name.
It goes something like this:

It’s early Christmas morning.
It’s still dark. And it’s cold.
Father John pulls his hood a little tighter around his ruddy face.
He shuffles his way through the fresh snow toward the church.
There’s still much to do before the first Mass.
He smiles at the spotlight shining on the crèche in front of church.
He is so proud of the nativity scene. It’s the most beautiful in town.

But then the smile changes into a frown.
Father John sees something terribly wrong:
the Baby Jesus is missing!
The old priest cannot believe his eyes.
He hastens his step to have a closer look.
But it’s true: the crib is empty! Only some tufts of hay are left.

The priest is upset and angry. With quick little steps now he enters the church.
Someone stole the Christ Child! Who and why?!
Someone who was jealous?
Now the day is ruined. People will point at the empty spot.
Maybe some will laugh.
The priest grows red with shame and indignation.
Then he runs up to the church bell rope and begins to pull with short angry jerks.
The people must know that the Holy Infant has been stolen.
They must begin at once to look for the lost Baby Jesus!
And they will find the thief who has done this unholy deed!

The anxious priest hurries outside again.
Here and there people have come outside.
They wonder why the church bell is ringing so early and with such an angry sound.
“Someone stole the Baby Jesus, someone stole the Baby Jesus!
Find out who stole it and bring it back at once!” cries the priest.
Then, as fast as he can, the old priest begins to run up one street and down another.
To everyone in sight he shouts to find and bring back the missing baby.
At last the priest nears the church again.
And there, just ahead of him, he sees a little boy pulling a bright red wagon behind him.
His eyes grow large and his pace quickens.
On that wagon he spots something familiar.
And now he sees it clearly: it’s the Baby Jesus!
The priest runs to the little boy, grabs him roughly, and demands:
“What do you think you’re doing with the Baby Jesus on your wagon?!”

The little boy looks at the angry priest, smiles up at him, and answers:
“Well, Father, you see I got this wagon for Christmas.
And I wanted to give Baby Jesus the first ride for his birthday present.

The old priest does not move now. He looks at the boy for a long moment.
Then a big smile lights up his flushed face,
He bends down to the little boy and gently asks:
“My son, may I help you pull the Baby Jesus?”

                                             from Talking with God, available at Schulers
                                                     and Baker Books in Gr. Rapids, ebooks,
                                                     Amazon, and at exxelpublishing.com

A Christmas Story

2011-12-10T12:54:00.000-08:00

Note: the story that follows was written quite a while ago by a good friend, Herman de Jong. He has passed on now, where, in heaven above, he's in rapture by the pure, perfect music of Christmas.
Since it was originally written in Dutch, I've translated and adapted it for this Blog.

“From Heaven Above”

It happened a long time ago and far away: 1944, in Holland. I was 12, and it was the day before Christmas. My best friend was Johnny who had become my neighbor a few months earlier. Our parents became friends too, even though the Lefferts were Roman Catholics and my parents were Reformed.

Johnny had invited me to come to early mass with him on Christmas Day. I wanted to go, of course, and begged my parents for permission. But my father didn’t like the idea. To be friends was okay, but to attend each other’s church was more than friends had the right to expect from each other. Mother finally persuaded Dad to let me go, since I would be back in time to attend our own church service.

At five o’clock on Christmas morning, Johnny and I ran through the flurrying snow. Johnny was wearing a new pair of high shoes for the special occasion, while I wore my ordinary wooden shoes; Mom said they’d be warmer. Since the snow packed well this morning, we decided to see who could pack the most snow under his shoes. We slowed down, and carefully, step by step, we tried to get as much to stick as possible. I kept winning, since snow sticks better to wood than to leather.

But Johnny didn’t like losing. He kept trying harder and harder, until it dawned on him that I was winning because of my klompen. “I could easily beat you if I had klompen too,” he said. I didn’t agree, of course. In fact, I challenged him to give me his shoes and I’d show him I could still beat him.

So it happened that on the way to early mass, two cold but proud little fellows sat down in the snow to exchange their footwear. But before we could continue the Christmas Day competition, a large Catholic family caught up with us. One of the girls called out, “Hey, Johnny, you better hurry, ‘cause the service starts in five minutes and you still have to change to your choir robe. We’re late too, ‘cause Mommy overslept.”

We ran the rest of the way till the cathedral loomed straight ahead through the early morning shadows. Black figures hurried over the white snow and then under the yellow glow of the gas lanterns that lined the sidewalk. “You have to go through the big door,” panted Johnny, “I have to go through the door of the sacristy ‘cause I have to sing in the choir.”

I followed the crowd through the big doors and landed in the narthex of the packed church. Behind an ornate railing stood a group of Protestant visitors, jostling each other for the best view of what was to come.

As for myself, I stood close to the entrance and watched people dip their hands in a little bowl and then quickly make the sign of the cross. Without thinking, I decided to participate too, but the tall man with a terribly long nose (I can still see the drip hanging at its end) hissed at me: “Keep your hands out of there, you’re not Catholic, are you?” I have always wondered whether “Mr. Nose” was Catholic or Protestant.

Thoroughly frightened, I quickly pulled back among the visiting Protestants and wormed my way gradually to the railing. Just in time too. A Santa Claus type stood before the altar and bowed so low that his nose must have nearly touched the floor. But I didn’t see Johnny anywhere. All of a sudden I remembered that he was still wearing my clogs. At least his feet were warm; my toes in Johnny’s icy shoes were freezing. I wanted to jump up and down to warm them a bit, but the memory of “Mr. Nose” kept me quietly standing in place.

I almost jumped, though, when the organ suddenly started. The music was terribly loud; no wonder--I was standing right under the pipes. The people in the sanctuary rose and began to sing. I didn’t recognize the tune, but I remember clearly what a tremendous impression that music made on me. The sound seemed to climb along the whited walls, higher and higher, only to cascade down again and rejoin the leading melody. I stood entranced, and I shivered, more from the music, I think, than from the cold.

That must’ve been my first experience of beauty—an aesthetic experience, as they call it. I don’t remember much of the mass itself. I didn’t understand the strange language nor the strange rituals among what I thought of then as the Santa Claus figures. Besides, I was too cold, and the whole service seemed much too long. It was what happened toward the end of it that I have remembered so clearly through all these years.

The organ played again, very softly now, and then a clear girl-soprano voice rang through the cathedral. I noticed that all around me people began to listen with rapt attention to the beautiful melody of “From heaven above to earth I come.”

I held my breath. The pure, delicate voice of the singer seemed to fill that whole immense cathedral. It seemed to float through space like a fine-bodied swallow. It bounced off the walls and as the notes went higher it seemed to disappear into the vaulted dome and out into the outside air until it became an angel choir of glorious music. I don’t know how to explain it exactly; it’s hard to find words for such feelings. But it filled me with such great gladness that I wanted to run with the shepherds over the hills around Bethlehem, arms flailing like a windmill, faster and faster, to see Jesus, my Jesus.

After the service I waited for Johnny at the door of the sacristy. “How did you like it?” he asked. He didn’t wait for my answer but pulled me inside. Beneath a candle-lit statue of Mary we exchanged our footwear. I followed his example when he crossed himself. “You didn’t need to do that,” said my friend, “you aren’t Catholic, are you?”

A couple of days later Johnny was terribly sick with pneumonia. He had kicked off my klompen and in his wet socks had followed the bishop into church. And there he had stood, on the stone floor, throughout the long service.

I moped around the house, feeling guilty about Johnny’s illness and resentful that my best friend had to get sick during Christmas vacation. We prayed for him at mealtimes, and I noticed that Dad’s prayers became increasingly more urgent.

One day, Mrs. Lefferts, pale and fatigued from many nights of interrupted and uneasy sleep, stopped by. Johnny wanted me to come over. “Is Johnny getting better, then?” I asked eagerly. Softly she answered, “With God all things are possible. Please come along quickly.”

I didn’t know what to say at first when I got there. Johnny was so weak; he could hardly speak. After a while I told him about the girl’s solo and how beautiful I thought it had been. “That was no girl,” whispered Johnny, “listen to this.” As he began to sing, very softly, I heard the same voice, the same melody. I couldn’t believe it. When he finished there was mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Well?” he asked. His voice was so soft now, I hardly heard him. But I tried to tell him something then of what I had felt during his singing that Christmas morning.

When I finished, he reached out a thin, pale hand. Impulsively and self-consciously at the same time, I took his hand in mine, and I whispered that I prayed for him and that I was sure Jesus would make him well again. I felt the pressure from his hand as he whispered back, “From heaven above to earth he came….”

Jesus did make Johnny well again. We stayed friends for a long time till finally we moved too far away from each other. But I’ve never forgotten Johnny. And I’ve often thought that the whole Christmas event became real to me in that breathless moment when I followed that graceful swallow far beyond the cathedral. It was at that moment that I knew without the slightest doubt that Jesus came as a Child for me and that as a Man he had to die for me. And when in bygone years I sometimes had to struggle through thoughts and experiences that shook my faith, I always returned through my memory to that place and to that moment when my white-knuckled hand hung on to the wrought-iron railing, and a gentle Savior made me hear again that pure girl-soprano voice: “From heaven above to earth I come!”

Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

It looks like God blesses some more than others.
Some rarely see a doctor or a psychiatrist.
Some enjoy a happy marriage and family, achieve professional distinctions, have many stimulating friends, and lead an exciting and rewarding life.
Others are seldom without pain, want but never find a suitable marriage partner, never graduate from that mundane job, rarely enjoy the attention and company of others.

Yet those more blessed are not necessarily more grateful.
In fact, it may be more difficult for the highly favored to experience true gratitude.
For gratitude is not the invariable consequence of health, happiness, and prosperity.
Genuine gratitude is, rather, a condition of the heart.

I remember a short film I’ve seen several times, a poignant documentary that gives us a glimpse in the life of Leo Beuermann, a twisted dwarf of a man.
At first glance Leo strikes one as grotesque in his deformity, plagued by so many physical disabilities that one is likely to think of him as both helpless and hopeless.
But he was neither.
He lived each day with courage, dignity, and faith.
Though his afflictions were many and severe, he lived out of a grateful hearty that was constantly tuned to the mercy of God.

Gratitude is more than a prayer of thanks on Thanksgiving Day, or any other day.
It is essentially a way of living, a life style impelled by the heart’s response to the constancy of God’s goodness and grace.

We need to pray for such a heart, as did George Herbert centuries ago:

Thou that hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more—a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

from "Talking with God"

I Believe

2011-11-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

I believe.

But why?
Because I was baptized, raised in a Christian home, educated in Christian schools, studied the catechism, was active in church youth groups, and included prayer and Bible reading in my formative years?

Perhaps.

But life’s journey is often rough.
The fabric of faith gets torn.
It can unravel.
More than once it nearly did.

Yet I believe.
For there is beauty beyond description of tongue or pen.
And there is evil no human power can overcome.
And there were Dante and Milton and Shakespeare.
And Bach and Mozart and Handel.
And Mother Theresa and Smedes and Yancey.

Yes, I believe.
For there was a cloud of witnesses in the place I worked.
And a great company of saints in the church I worshipped.

But most of all, I believe, because one starlit night,
a Baby was born, pure and perfect, whose name was Jesus.
It’s the power and glory of his Life, and Death, that changes mine.
It’s the Truth of his words I wish to live by.
It’s his Way that leads through the valley to God that I must walk.

This I believe.

Veteran's Day: More WWII Memories

2011-10-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

In a few weeks it will be Veteran’s Day.
A day for all to remember and honor those who paid the ultimate price exacted by freedom.
A day to weep for the evil among us that chooses war rather than peace, that chooses to destroy life rather than to make it flourish.
And a day to pray that “war may be no more,” and that peacemakers may be blessed.
***
One day the young boy saw planes falling out of the sky. And bodies falling out of the plane. Because there was war in the sky too.
Dozens of bombers were flying high overhead, escort planes circling around them constantly like sheepdogs.
Then he saw the German planes suddenly appear out of nowhere and racing fast to get to the bombers before they’d be spotted. Three got tangled up into dogfights with Allied planes before they could penetrate.
He stood there, hardly breathing, as he watched the planes chasing each other, like a dog chasing a rabbit, shooting at each other, and then one got hit and there was smoke and the plane came tumbling out of the sky and he saw a parachute come floating down too.
But then he watched with horror as two enemy fighter planes got to a straggling bomber. The bomber crew didn’t have a chance.
He saw puffs of smoke and the bomber went out of control and no parachutes came out and the plane looked like it was going to come down right on top of him and two other bombers now were hit too and hurtling down, and he stood frozen to the spot as the first plane plunged into the ground less than a mile away.
Twelve Allied Air Force soldiers were buried in the churchyard of his town.
***
Years later the boy, now adult, visited Margraten in the southern part of the Netherlands.
He walked among the 8300 American soldiers who lie buried there, young vibrant lives cut down by a crazed enemy that sought to destroy the freedom of others.
He wept for those lost lives and their loved ones who never held them again.

And then he remembered the young boy who one day after the war, on his way home from school, encountered an old white-bearded gentleman walking toward him, asking directions to the cemetery to visit his son’s grave.
And he remembered the belt buckle he had found in the burned-out wreckage of the airplane that he and his friends sneaked into when the German guards weren’t looking.
He had kept it for a long time. And every time he had held it in his hands, he remembered the feeling and the smell of death inside that ruined hulk.

For that’s what war is all about: death.

Childhood Memories of WWII

2011-08-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

I woke up that May-day morning
from intimations of immortality
to the sounds and sin of World War II.

Behind me were five years of hazy bliss
of much innocence and memories few,
before me lay five years of fear
and a life-time of experience
whose recollections have the power
to haunt me still this year.

I remember now the bright-blue, spring-sprung sky
smeared suddenly with swastikas on gleaming wings,
the angry droning of a thousand warplanes
silencing the sounds of music from hedge and trees.

I remember now that father prayed that day
for God to help us all, to save our land.
But Hitler’s mighty forces had their way.
My little world became unsafe, and fear
moved in, a pallid and unwanted resident.

I remember now the man wanted alive or dead
for whom we made a hiding place.
One day the Germans came to cross our land.
My friend and I stood watching through the glass
when I saw a strange expression on his face,
when I saw a revolver in his hand,
to shoot himself, I wondered, or the enemy?
The soldiers skipped our door, thank God,
but I was terrified.

I remember now my mother on her bicycle,
side bags bulging with papers from the underground
she would deliver on her special paper route
while I feared constantly that she’d be caught
and we would never see her face again.

I remember now the deadly dogfights in the air,
the Allied bombers smoking, hurtling down
so close to us, I thought we would get hit.

Later friends and I sneaked inside the burned-out hulk,
where I smelled death of the 12-men crew,
found buttons, belt-buckles, a first-aid kit,
a half-burned boot, mementos of the men
who were buried in the village churchyard
far from their native soil.

I remember now the power of the flying bomb,
the German V-twos sent to London
as a hoped-for coup d’état.
This one fell not far from us
and left a crater deep and wide
enough to drop a house in.

I remember now the protest day when
farmers spilled their milk upon the ground
instead of shipping to the factory.
And Germans eager to retaliate
grabbed some townsfolk here and there,
and lined them up; they were shot and killed,
all sixteen of them, execution-style, then
thrown into a mass grave, as of no account.
One was a boy only four years older than I was.

I remember now on liberation day
when the forces of the underground
came to pick up collaborators with the enemy,
including dad and son whose land lay next to us.
When these refused to come outside,
their captors tossed a hand grenade.
Then they went in and found
the father dead with a bullet in his head,
the mother dead from the hand grenade,
only the wounded son survived; his hands were bound,
and then he stood before the crowd
whose wartime anger, long pent up,
was now unleashed; some slapped his face,
others spat upon him, all taunted him
who had just lost his dad and mom;
and these were good Christian folk.

I remember now the day
I met a man from far away,
walking down the main street of our town;
his hair was thin and white, his beard was long.
He asked how he might find the way
to the gravesite of his only son.
I showed him where the churchyard was,
but I did not invite him home with me,
I did not seat him in our best chair,
find the prettiest cup and saucer on the shelf
and make some tea for him.
I did not invite all the war’s survivors
of the town to come and thank this man,
thank this broken father for what his son had done;
for I was too young then and did not think of that.
But I would like to thank him now,
and all the others who gave more
than what we ever have a right to ask.

We learned while very young
that there is evil in the human heart;
the dreams of innocence were shattered,
we always looked through broken glass.
Even after 70 years, our vision has not been restored.
For some there’s only hope, grounded in faith,
that there will be a day, when face to face
we will know as we are known,
and shalom will have come at last.

Summer Beauty in the Mountains

2011-07-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

This memory goes back to a mid-summer day in July.
I still hear the words:
“Dad, when I die I want to be buried here.”

She startled me out of my reverie that summer day, high up in the Cascades.
I turned to her and saw a vigorous, vital youngster full of the spice of life.
But her thoughtful face expressed a peace and wisdom far beyond her nine years.

Our family had hiked up a mountain trail.
We had come as strangers,
our ears tuned to the sounds of cars and commerce,
our eyes trained to spot traffic signs.
But nature slowly embraced and re-educated us.
As we moved away from the din of highways, we began to listen to the sounds of birds calling to birds,
of woodpeckers drumming on dead trees,
of water sometimes trickling and flowing down like lace,
sometimes rushing and leaping out boldly into space,
shattering upon rocks below in a rainbow spray.
We began to note the variegated shades of barks and ferns,
the spirea growing in the underwood,
the occasional canopies of devil’s club and clusters of columbine.
We began to smell the forest scents of stately firs and decaying plant life.
And we began to walk more softly through a hushed cathedral of evergreens,
to speak more softly,
till at last we were quiet altogether,
yielding to the peace and silence all around us.

When we reached the edge of trees and ferns, we saw before us at some distance the snowfields rising to a flattened dome.
Though we were surely not mountain climbers,
there, above the shadows of forests and sounds of tumbling streams,
face to face with a mountain,
we felt something of the mountaineer’s wordless exhilaration.

Another trail invited us to climb higher, and soon we came upon a scene that took our breath away:
we had reached the alpine meadows,
a gentle slope ablaze with colorful drifts of wild flowers and heather,
dotted with patches of lingering snow.
We stood in the presence of great beauty,
inside a garden of our Father’s world,
where we felt the awesome mystery and majesty of God Himself.

There in the mountain meadows,
a place of tranquility among rugged mountain peaks and hanging glaciers,
a profound silence wrapped around our souls.
And in that silence, the voice of God spoke:
of the foolishness of pride,
of the insensitivity to the invisible relationship between self and nature,
of the propensity to let the world be too much with us and within us.
And, at the foot of a mighty mountain,
it spoke to us of time and the frailty and transience of human life.
But the voice induced no fear, only conviction and serenity.

The thought of death, too, held no terror.
Perhaps death terrifies most when we feel most distant from the essence of life,
when we are most preoccupied with the trivial,
when we are most alienated from the mystery and majesty of God,
when we are most inattentive to the creative forces that make mountains and wild flowers,
when we are most resistant to God’s Spirit which, in Christ, would make us new.

But here we experienced the voice of Him who says:
“Be still and know that I am God.”
And that voice filled us with peace and awe.

My daughter and I looked at each other.
Then she looked away, at nature’s profusion around us, and she said again,
“I’d like to be buried here when I die.”

And I knew what she meant.

Unbroken

2011-07-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

I grew up in WW II, the enemy and its readiness to kill in view nearly every day.

Maybe that explains my life-long interest in war literature and film, each well-crafted tale reinforcing and deepening my revulsion to war.
War, I’m convinced, must have all the devils dancing in hell with glee, confident that it will turn many a warrior into a devil too.

No book has brought that home to me as painfully and unforgettably as did Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

Were it fiction, it would still have been a memorable read, though I would’ve dismissed some characters and events as simply too incredible. But it is fact, and fact, we know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. In this case, it took me into the heart of darkness so relentlessly and graphically that I could hardly disentangle myself from its terrors between readings.

Yes, war is about death-defying acts of courage. About giving one’s life for another. But also about taking a life from another. About danger and fear so unremitting and intense that it can inflict life-long psychic damage. About demonic acts of cruelty that destroy one’s dignity and break the human spirit.

More than anything, of course, war is about people. Like Louis Zamperini, an Olympic long-distance runner, becoming a long-distance bombardier in the war against Japan. If it’s possible for one to die many deaths, Louie does: on bombing missions, crashing into the vast Pacific, drifting in a leaky raft for nearly fifty days, falling into the brutal hands of Japanese prison guards who inflicted daily beatings and torture and near starvation.

But somehow Louie survives, in a badly damaged body, and with a plague of horrific memories that unravel his spirit. His descent into the depths of inhumanity has been too steep and prolonged. Neither the adulation of the nation, nor the love of family, nor the love of a beautiful wife can put Louis Zamperini together again.

Only the love of God can – and does. Profound and inexplicable. And unforgettable. As it always is when grace makes its amazing entry.

At the end, this reader, too, felt blessed.

Beyond Expectation

2011-06-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

Now that he has risen,
our eyes can conquer
fear.

Raise heads
and with the trees
reach out a hand.

It will come soon:
in windlessness and fire,
birds over land,
an almighty Dove.

Wait, and your voice
will be understood.

                  -Jan Dotinga
                    translated from Frisian -- hjb

When a Daughter Marries

2011-06-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

[Summer is a time when for many young lovers wedding bells ring.

It’s been a few years since our youngest daughter’s wedding feast.

And the weddings of her three older sisters are an even more distant memory.

But this is what I remember, now dedicated to all the parents who will be “giving their daughters away” this summer.]

(An awful phraseology, really, but that’s a topic for another time.)

When a daughter marries, you smile and laugh a lot.

Partly from tension, of course.

But mostly from relief.

For all the hurly-burly of the preceding months (Adam and Even never knew what they were missing) is at last culminating in a peaceful ceremony of beauty.

The families are there.

Friends have come.

The dresses all fit, and the colors complement.

The music is melodious and joyful.

Bride and groom are radiant.

The vows are spoken, and no spurned lover appears at the last moment to object.

You smile with relief: it’s going well (though much too quickly) now.

And you smile and laugh because this is a festive occasion – this is a wedding feast!

Though the wine doesn’t flow like it did in Cana, the spirits are high, the talk is animated, and currents of warm affection float everywhere.

The Creator’s gracious gift of love is celebrated!

But there’s another reason you smile and laugh a lot: you try to cover up.

For when a daughter marries, what you really want to do is cry a little.

You try not to, of course, for fathers don’t cry.

So they smile and laugh a lot.
But she’s flesh of your flesh, after all, and after all these years rather firmly attached.

And it hurts to part with what is part of you, to let go, to let your flesh unite with other flesh.

But it is the way of love: for man and woman to leave father and mother and to cleave unto each other.

God made it so, and it is right and it is beautiful.

And therefore parents say Amen to it; in fact, they would have it no other way.

Still, even the most beautiful things can hurt a little.

Maybe it’s especially the beautiful things that make you cry.

There’s something else you do when a daughter marries: through your smile and through your tears you breathe a prayer.

Up to this moment, bride and groom have experienced the delights and frustrations of romance: tomorrow their history of husband and wife will begin.

You breathe a prayer of thanks that it will begin in the Lord.

For in our time, marriage is a fragile institution.

The strains and tensions of this age wreak their havoc all too often.

God’s children are subject to that too, for they too are vulnerable.

Life can get messy; and marriage is part of that life.

That’s why you pray for a union that will be steadily sustained by the grace of God.

And in George Eliot’s words, you pray that this young couple may be joined for life:

“to strengthen each other in all labor,

to rest on each other in all sorrow,

to minister to each other in all pain,

to be one with each other in the silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting.”

The Merry Month of May

2011-05-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

If I were a poet, May would have been a busy month.

A poet, we know, is irresistibly moved by the mysterious muse

to express the inexpressible.
To find words for feelings that lie too deep for thought.

And the month of May often fills the heart.

If I were a poet my pen would have caught the transient,

fragile beauty of the flowering crab, “where the bee sucks,”

and whose pink-red petals dazzle my every May.

If I were a poet I would have celebrated in un-Hallmarkian verse

my brother’s birthday and all those days and ways

in which, as close friends, we spent time in gut-aching laughter,

serious thought, stimulating talk, and mutual affection.

If I were a poet I would have found on Mothers Day

true words of thanks for all the caring and sharing

and praying and self-giving of good mothers everywhere.

If I were a poet I would have captured through imagery

and sound and rhythm the many feelings of my heart and

my spirit’s prayer on our daughter’s birthday, who lives

her life more than 2000 miles away.

If I were a poet I would have composed a dozen sestinas

for all those who, capped and gowned, in pomp

and circumstance, celebrate a cerebral siesta after much

hard learning and weariness of the flesh.

If I were a poet I would have exclaimed in psalms and hymns

and holy sonnets the glorious mystery, truth, and power

of Ascension, and Pentecost to follow.

Even then, I doubt that I could have struck the human spirit

with the fullness of the awesome wonder those two events entail.

And if I were a poet I would memorialize the lives

sacrificed in too many wars.

I would in graphic detail depict the sins of slaughter,

the price of freedom, the specter of mass death.

My conscious memory began with war, ironically

in the May time of the year.

Those memories, mild as they are, still have the power to haunt.

If I were a poet I would poignantly pen my pleas and prayers for peace.

But I’m not a poet.

Still, May was busy anyway.

And now, at Merry May’s end, I am content to sit

under pale moonlight and “let the sounds of music creep in my years:

soft stillness in the night…the touches of sweet harmony.”
For something as “full of the spirit as the month of May,”

we need a Shakespeare.

Now, there’s a poet!

Behind the Mask

2011-05-18T12:07:00.001-07:00

We walk behind invisible masks.

It’s safer and therefore more comfortable that way.

Each of us has secrets we try to disguise.

Michael Jackson knew it well, even in addressing another:

All along I knew you were

a phony girl

you sit behind the mask

and you control your world

So take off the mask so

I can see your face.

But an honest face can tell the truth.

We need masks to disguise the truth.

The truth of our insecurities, pretenses, secrets of the heart, depression.

Maybe it’s especially the teenager who dons the masks,

tightly guarding what cannot safely be shared with others,

tightly protecting self from hurts, misunderstanding, taunts, humiliation.

There’s a wall in a local Christian high school that gives a glimpse of what’s often behind the mask.

It’s called the “Speak Wall.”

It started in a chapel service where 18 students volunteered as guinea pigs.

They shared with fellow students what they had not shared before:

the fear of ugliness

the fear of not being cool enough

the ongoing grief for a lost father

loneliness

worry about the future

and other preoccupations that disturb young lives.

A hallway wall was dedicated as an invitation to other students to drop their mask.

It soon began to fill up.

Notes, signed and unsigned, about repeated suicide attempts.

A note about scars, empty pill bottles, and a tear-soaked pillow.

A note about missing the love of a good family.

A note about the pain of lost childhood innocence.

A note with the question: “Why did God give me diabetes?”

Another: “I need to break my addictions.”

Another: “I’m pretentious.”

Another: “I’m covered by a blanket of regret.”

Among these poignant and disturbing notes, student responses of understanding, encouragement, sharing, promising prayer.

Within the school, this hallway has become a kind of sacred ground.

Students and staff approach it in silence, then stop to read.

Then they go on to classrooms, the gym, the locker room.

But there’s a difference now.

There’s more awareness of the other, a growing sensitivity, a greater readiness to reach out, an increasing feeling of acceptance.

Is it possible that school can become a safe place to drop the mask?

And home too?

And church?

When War Came

2011-04-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

I love May.
I always have.

Maybe it is because of the new life-ness of spring that suffuses nearly
everything.

Maybe it is because it is the month of my birth, and May birthdays
are still a sweet memory.

But there's another May memory that entered my life at a very
young age.

It is not a memory of innocence, but of evil. The shadow of that memory
has dimmed over the years, but it has never faded altogether.

This is that story:

Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived in a farmhouse.
There were cows in the barn attached to the house, chickens in
the chicken coop, pigs in the pigsty, a horse in the horse barn,
and bees in the beehives.

The boy was happy, for all was well.

But shortly after the little boy had his 6^th birthday, something very
frightening happened.

His birthday had been wonderful. The early day in May had been warm,
like a summer day. All growing things were rushing to show off their colors
and smell and beauty. The little boy loved this time of year, when the cattle
were back in the fields, farmers were plowing, and all the children were playing outside.

But one morning in this beautiful springtime, the little boy woke with a start.
He heard voices outside the window of his bedroom, many voices, talking
loud and fast, as people do when they are excited or afraid.
And then the boy heard something else: the droning of an engine,

a great big engine not far away.
Maybe that’s why there were people outside talking so much, even though it

was only breakfast time.

The boy was curious and for some reason felt fear flutter inside.
He quickly got dressed.

Nobody was in the kitchen. Everybody must be outside, he thought.
When he came outside, he saw his Dad and Mom, and his brother and
older sister gathered in front of the house, busy talking to a group of neighbors.

And the noise of the engine was much louder now.
But the boy didn’t see an engine. Everybody was looking up at the sky.
When the boy looked up too, he saw where the awful rumble came from:
hundreds and hundreds of airplanes darkened the sky, like a huge swarm

of locusts he had heard his Dad read about from the Bible.

The boy ran to his Mom.
He could tell by her face that something very serious was happening.

“What’s wrong, Mom? Why are all those airplanes in the sky?”

His Mom took his hand and pulled him closer. Her voice trembled
when she said simply, “It’s war.”

The boy was too young to understand fully what that meant,
but he knew it was something that was very bad.

He heard people talking about the dirty Germans who had invaded
their country and were bombing the big cities in the south.
It was the first time the boy began to understand that there were
enemies in the land, in his land, enemies that would make life dangerous.

From that day the boy’s self-conscious life began, and he would
never again feel completely safe in the world into which he had been born.
For the next five years, fear would be a constant companion.

The family gathered around the table for breakfast that morning
later than usual. Everyone waited quietly for the father to pray
the morning prayer. They listened to every word as the father
prayed earnestly for God to protect them from the enemy, to bring
back peace, and to be especially near those who were fighting or fleeing

for their lives.

No one had expected a war, though many had not trusted Hitler.
No one knew what this war would mean for the little country of the
Netherlands or for all the other countries of Europe.
But on this day, May 10, 1940, a dark cloud of an enemy air force
had appeared in the sky, and even the young boy had a bad feeling
that the cloud would only grow bigger and darker.

Silent Saturday

2011-04-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

sleeping
out of the draft
fallen on the lee side of the grave
the flags are lowered
the sails now slackened
the feet are covered
at last at rest

sleeping
out of the draft
fallen on the lee side of the grave

but unobserved
through granite walls
a genial breeze begins to play
all the trees pick up their tiny ears
the fog undulates itself into new shapes
wind, mumbling, slowly strolls
across the graveyard
a grave's about to burst
before the rising sun

Tiny Mulder
(tr. from Frisian by hjbaron]

Good Friday

2011-04-22T07:25:00.001-07:00

He must take this last step,

the last step of love,

the last step of life.

Now life slips from each limb,

finds refuge in his still-beating heart:

stretching from pole to pole,

high as heaven,

low as hell,

now overflowing,

heavy as the world,

the world of sin and misery.

See.

He takes his heavy heart,

and, slowly, laboriously,

alone between heaven and earth,

in the awesome night,

with passionate love,

he gathers the sin of the world,

and in a cry,

he gives ALL:

“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Death of an "ordinary" man

2011-04-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

I went to a memorial service last night.
It was a reminder that we often learn to know one too late.

And that’s a great sadness.

Reinder came from Friesland to this country when he was 19.
There had been limited chance for an education.

But he took with him a curious intellect and a fine capacity for learning.

And a great love for his Fryslân and its ancient language.

He went to work in his new country, got drafted, sent to Korea, and reached the rank of corporal. He was a good soldier; love for his adopted country grew.

And also for his sweetheart.
They married, after military service, and for 55 years shared life together.

Until death did them part.

Reinder and a brother, in time, built a business together.

The brick and stone-laying company did well, for their work was first-rate.

But life was not all business.

A growing family generated its own priority busy-ness.

And so did church, for the Lord’s work had first place in Reinder’s heart.

But his heart was large.

There was room for the deep roots of a Gardener’s passion.

He knew when to plant, how to grow, until the garden’s abundance could feed the family and be shared with friends.

But the flower garden became his specialty and love.
Ever hungry for greater expertise, he earned the title of Advanced Master Gardener through the Michigan State University extension program.

Eager to share his knowledge and his skills, he reached out to local gardening groups.

His prize-winning dahlias led him to help establish a Dahlia Society.

His love for neighbor led him to the ministry of Horticultural Therapy for released prisoners.

His reward? Their growing sense of confidence and dignity; and their love and respect.

Much of this I had not known.

I knew Reinder only from our “Frisian lunch group.”

I learned that his emigrating family and mine had sailed on the same ship, the Veendam, in 1948, though we did not meet then.

He was a thoughtful man, calm and deliberate in speech and manner.

Though he was a man of few words, I discovered that he was an avid reader.

What impressed me most were the facile use of his native tongue, and the rich store of knowledge he had accumulated about his beloved Friesland.

But there had been so much more to know.

Not long ago, this large strong man who had never been sick was laid low.

Attacked by an aggressive lymphoma, he declined rapidly.

But though his voice was nearly silenced near the end, his mind never faltered.

He knew and could bless his family as they gathered around his bed.

He could whisper of his love for them and his love for Jesus.

He was at peace, ready to meet his Savior.

Last night, in the church he had been a part of for so many years, now packed to capacity, I watched and listened as his friends and family testified.

I began to see a person I had not known.

A man who had fed on the writings of theologians and historians.

A man whose integrity and gentle spirit had blessed many.

A man who had been a leader in his church, active in nearly every aspect of its ministry.

A man whose delightful writing had often entertained his readers.

A man respected for his wisdom.

But especially a man whose faith, devotion, and love for the Lord had deeply touched those closest to him.

The gratitude for the life of this man and deep love shone on the faces of his children and others who spoke of him.

It was profoundly affecting.

In his death, Reinder blessed me, as I should have been in his life.

An “ordinary” man?

Is anyone “ordinary”?

It’s a great sadness when we think so.

No Hell for Rob Bell?

2011-03-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

She asked the question, softly: “What about my mother?”
Then she began to cry.
She had tried hard not to; her Chinese culture had not encouraged a public display of very personal emotions.

But her heart was too full, her feelings too charged.

Ming was in the U.S. for a year as a visiting scholar. As an English professor, she had received a leave from her university to make a special study of the connections between the Bible and Western literature. Shortly before her coming, Ming had been baptized as a new Christian believer. She had much to learn about the faith, and she was eagerly making the most of it.
She learned about heaven, and it had thrilled her soul. A peace past understanding had always been her deep hope. An unfailing goodness was her heart’s longing. Heaven promised that and much more.

But she learned about hell too. She was told that without faith in Jesus, one would be doomed to spend eternity in hell. And that shook her to the roots.
Ming had lost her mother not long before she came to the U.S. Her parents’ only child, Ming had been very close and very fond of her mother. Very protective too, for she knew of her father’s mistreatment. Her mother had been longsuffering in a loveless marriage. She had been kind, gentle, loving, peaceful, faithful. She had little reason for joy in her life, but her goodness to her husband, to her daughter, and to others had been a genuine dimension of her character. She was everything that Ming held in high esteem, that she treasured, that she loved with all her heart. She was still in mourning when I first met her.

Now, as a Christian, she was deeply troubled.

A Christian friend had told her that her mother would not be in heaven.

As a Buddhist, her mother had never been introduced to Jesus Christ; her sins had not been forgiven.

Ming had received the verdict as a sword-thrust into her heart.
She had often wept during sleepless nights.
She felt that she would never be able to put that vision of her dear mother in hell behind her, that she could never be at peace about it.

Hence the agonizing question: “What about my mother?”

There was a time of silence between us.
I felt the depth of her anguish.

I felt the need for reflection, for weighing the words she was waiting for.

And I was keenly aware of my constitutional aversion to reach behind the mystery of the hereafter.

At last I tried.

“Ming, what happens to us after our physical death I think we should leave to God. I don’t think God expects us to make final judgments about a person’s eternal destiny. That is God’s domain.
But I know that God is merciful and loving; that he gave his only Son to prove it.
And I know that Jesus loved the sinner, even the sinners who crucified him.

If he loved even those, would he not love your mother?

And didn’t he teach us that blessed are the poor in spirit; that blessed are the meek; that blessed are the merciful; that blessed are the pure in heart; that blessed are the peacemakers?

When you read the Sermon on the Mount, think of your mother. And then trust Jesus with all your heart that his Father will deal rightly with all he has made, in life and in death. Trust his mercy, and his immeasurable love.

And be at peace.”

I think that is what Rob Bell is saying too, in his latest book.

Not that there is no hell; we can all think of fiends who belong there.
It’s much harder for us to think of non-Christian saints in Satan’s home.

Ming has been back in China for a year now.
She’s still struggling at times with an absent mother in her life, but even more with thoughts of her mother in hell.

Still, there is more peace too as she is learning to say, “Your will be done,” with the faith that, though we cannot know God’s will, God’s will is perfect.

Writers and Readers

2011-03-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

Writing is an interaction with the page, or screen.
It stares at you, or you at it.
The page is blank, inviting words, the shape of thoughts that have to be mined from a deep interior where the meaning and the mysteries of the outer world are stored.
But it's messier than that.
Meanings are often inchoate, to be wrestled with before articulation.
And mysteries: how uneasily approached, how difficult to render.

But gradually the blankness of the page disappears under the words that try to signify, if only to the writer.
Should the writing be shared with others, the hope is it will signify also to those, the readers.
As every writer knows, sometimes it doesn't.
But when it does, the writer feels joined to community, yielding a sense of connectedness, of belonging to an uncommon humanity that takes seriously its moral and spiritual quests and meanings.
And that gives a grateful heart.

The reader responses below to Talking with God... fill that grateful heart.

      ...a golden bowl full of prayers (Rev. 5:8) that are like casual conversations with a friend, except that the friend is called “Lord.”

     The book breathes the notion that religion is for all of life, and that nothing is unimportant in the eyes of God.

     It teaches us how to pray in a more natural way.

     Here is a devotional that is unlike most I have read.

     ...the book is a "master piece". You centainly have a speical gift of writing. The book was a blessing for both of us.

     That observation—that speaking with God requires integrity of heart and mind—serves throughout as the key to his intimacy with his Father. Thus, these are truly adult conversations. They are not sentimental or Pollyanna exercises.

     This collection is a true gift to “God-seekers.”

     Oh, my, what can I say? Your book is beautiful! Your tone, subjects and sensitivity speak to the faith that I hold...

      Fear and Mourning really touched me ---a blessing where I am emotionally at this point of my journey.     Talking With God is filled with such "unexpected gifts of grace," closely-observed moments of the spiritual life that surprise us as much with their beauty as with their honesty.

     Talking With God is sincere and unafraid, a much-needed reminder of what faith really means in this age of cliche and polemic.

     It is a book that does not judge or condemn, rather it engages our minds to think, contemplate and explore.

    It zeroes in on the great central themes of the Christian faith.

    He faces both the mysterious parts of God's revelation as well as life's painful dilemmas.

    Henry Baron makes it clear throughout his musings, reflections, commentaries and prayers that he's talking with and not to God. What a difference that little preposition assumes and expects. It's his embrace of that assumption that makes this book such a treasure: we can talk with God about anything and all things.

   Baron writes relational stuff. No pie(ty) in the sky.

   Readers will find themselves speaking to their Father God with that same naturalness they learn from these pages of fluid, sacred conversations.

   It reminds us of the important things in life and brings healing to any wounds we may carry, giving us permission to feel and heal.

...a frankness about life which makes me nod in agreement and ... a talent in connecting words so beautifully that they become meaningful and wonderful to God's children.

I have been amazed at the sensitivity of these talks with God. I have been blessed and enriched by them. Henry Baron has an unusual grasp of the human condition. His talks with God are insightful, honest, raw, disquieting and comforting at the same time. Christians have all kinds of wonderings, questions, doubts, hopes, fears. These talks with God give voice to all of these things. I recommend it highly.
Noble simplicity. Just the right words, usually short words, simple words, but just the right words.
Henry introduces us to a new genre of prayer--honest cries of the heart.

                               [for complete reviews, see www.exxelpublishing.com and Amazon]

Sometimes the wrestling with words to truthfully render elusive thoughts and feelings and memories and
questions is worth its sweat and tears.

The Back Attack

2011-03-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

The back demons that had been lying low for the last six years or so launched a sneak attack more than a bad week ago.

I don’t know where they had been hiding all that time; I thought they had left, defeated at last.
They hadn’t. Are they ever?

Had they retreated to their hibernation lair? But I don’t think demons hibernate.

They scheme, they plot, they gather their arsenal, they sharpen their daggers, and they wait, they wait. Wait for just the right moment when their victim is working out and congratulating himself, if not on his athletic prowess, then at least on all fitness systems functioning smoothly.

With a sinister grimace the lead demon launched a soft musket ball. At least the initial impact was soft, making itself felt in the lower back over the succeeding hours, but gently enough to be dismissed easily.
The next day a bit less easily. Gradually I surmised that the musket ball had more likely been a delayed reaction armor-piercing incendiary. The fire was spreading. My panic button flashed.

Those who’ve been under a back-stabbing attack already know what was to follow.
Yes, the torture instrument was readied and, like some medieval torture box, steadily and unrelentingly encased around the lower back.

It became apparent all too quickly that the demons had fitted the inside with spikes that would pierce different parts of the body, depending on the body’s movements. At times they would touch a raw nerve, triggering a wave of spasms.

The victim heard the demonic laughter over his own pain-driven outcry when that happened. Because the sharpened spikes would penetrate the same “wounds” again and again when motion would precipitate, each motion became necessarily minimal, tentative, experimental, as if I were moving through a mine field.

It was a torment getting there, but once in bed flat on my back the feeling of bliss came flowing back. As long as I remained immobile.

And that was the demonic objective: keep this booby down!

But when nature calls in the middle of the night, the booby must rise.

One painful little motion at a time, until the body must actually rise to get up on two legs. It’s not something I wanted to try again after the first heroic attempt.

Easier and less painful to walk barefoot on burning coals.

Or sit down bare-bunnied on a giant Arizona cactus.

It became a grim, teeth-grinding battle between the booby and the spiky demons, for nature was urgent.

When I finally sat on the edge of the bed, I felt like I’d reached the edge of disaster. The spike belt was tightening around the waist.

And now I still had to try to stand up.

Trying it that first night, and many nights, and mornings, thereafter, I felt as if my upper body had separated from the lower, and now I had to fit the jagged edges back together, each edge wired by the back demons to a touchy nerve. It required an irrational act of courage of the kind that belongs right up there in JFK’s Profiles.

But the booby got up, more or less, each night, each morning, for a Calvinist simply cannot let the demons of any kind have their way.
His faithful helpmeet was needed to get the socks, etc. on the aching body parts.

Total immobility was best, thus his movements were minimal, his small steps extremely measured.

Yes, he learned that demons can teach a man to “walk circumspectly.”

But during all his waking hours there was no place of comfort.

After ten days or so, the demons held council. Their verdict: a slow retreat, and “we’ll catch him again another time.”
There are a couple left.

I can feel their presence.

They’ve probably been assigned to the clean-up task, packing the torture devices and gathering the ammo before moving on to the next victim.

Hamlet said: “Readiness is all.”

He never had a back attack, I think.

Flying: dreams and nightmares

2011-02-24T12:38:00.000-08:00

I think it's true: flying is for the birds.

Unfortunately, humans think they need to get places faster, following the crow's flight.

So we hop (shuffle?) on a huge aluminum bird, and dream of good things to come.

Mostly, they don't.

Like a recent flight from Grand Rapids to Seattle, via Minneapolis, of course.
The weather turned on us, and we simmered on the tarmac in MPLS for more than an hour.
Minneapolis can be a cold place, but not in August.
And the nearly 200 hot bodies on the 757-300 kept breathing in stale air and emitting hot air,

for only one of the plane's A/C's was working.

I tried shallow breathing and briefly considered requesting the lowering of an oxygen mask.

Eventually we turned our tail end to the thunder, rain, and lightning, and went airborne.

By that time everybody needed a shower, another reason for shallow nose breathing.

I'd like to stop here, in mid-flight, for the situation is about to get worse.

But we were not treated to supplemental oxygen, nor to parachutes.

So we keep flying, but I'll make it short for unpleasant memories' sake.

You see, the stale air eventually became acrid with smoke.

Flight attendants scurried about, re-seating people in emergency exit seats that suddenly had become uncomfortable for them.

The captain's voice informed us of an emergency, requiring him to land at the nearest airport.
We were over Montana, not exactly rife with commercial airports.

But from our altitude of nearly 40,000 feet we could, perhaps, safely coast to Spokane, WA.

And we did, met by a spate of emergency vehicles.

The airport at after 10 at night was pretty much asleep.
There was nothing to eat.

And the substitute plane from Seattle wouldn't do the pickup till about 3 in the morning.

We became campers of a sort that night, but not happy ones.

But there's always hope for a better return flight, right?

Right!

The return flight started auspiciously when Delta called around 7:30 in the morning to tell us that our flight was confirmed and would leave as given at 12:20.
It’s always nice to be confirmed, isn't it. But our son with whom we had been staying was not able to access boarding passes online for us out of Seattle, and that was an omen.
Still, we trusted our itinerary info from Delta, and confidently strode up to the Alaska kiosk when our son dropped us off at Seatac. Delta told us on the itinerary that they would use Alaska Airlines to fly us to Minneapolis. Our son told us how good that was, for Alaska doesn’t use the terrible 757-300, comfortable for sardines only.
However, the kiosk “told” us to go find an agent. We did. That agent went in search of another agent. That other agent promptly closed her counter to other clients after taking one look at our schedule and her screen. We stood there in bemused expectation, wondering what sort of misadventure was awaiting us this time. We stood there a long time, as she made phone calls, punched keyboards, and kept staring at her enigmatic screen.
Finally, she confided the sinister details: since we had landed – by virtue of unacknowledged equipment failure – in Spokane rather than our scheduled destination, Delta had mistakenly re-scheduled our return flight out of Spokane as well. Hence, Alaska had no seats for us.
She invited us to go for a walk with her. She led. We followed. She walked all the way to Delta, elbowed her way through the waiting crowd, got the ears of an agent, and then another agent. Eagerly she looked him in the eyes as she asked, “May I leave this in your competent hands?” Then she left, looking much relieved.
I looked at the agent’s hands, felt some doubt, but made the intentional choice of courting optimism.
It took quite some time. Yes, what a good thing our son had dropped us 2 ½ hours before scheduled departure.
At last the man smiled at us and said, “This will work in your favor.”
That sounded good to our ears, though it was especially our wearying feet that needed favor. But what was the favor?
I was hoping FIRST CLASS, of course.
“It’s a Delta flight that leaves at 1:10 and will still get you there in time to catch your flight to GR. But we have no seats left in coach, so I’m putting you in FIRST CLASS.”
And I said, “Ah, some compensation at last for the troubled flight coming here.” But inside I hurrahed a lot louder. And we looked at each other with an expectant smile of much pleasure to come: priority boarding, wide comfortable seats, drinks, dinner on plates, maybe fillet mignon, luxury for almost 3 hours!
Who said that life isn’t fair, eh? It was smiling on us right then and there.
The man with the competent hands handed us the first class tickets. Without even looking at them, I stuck them securely in my pocket where no one could snatch them away.
We joined the long security check line, not minding much at all, and even hoping the PSA personnel would steal a glance at our ticket long enough to notice that we were FIRST CLASS –bound. That should be enough for them to think twice about making us open a bag for individual inspection.
On our way to the gate area, we passed a number of enticing eating places. We smiled somewhat condescendingly in their direction, relishing the fact that we were bound for more sumptuous dining, free!
After reaching the gate area, Ruth had to make one of her not infrequent visits to a resting place nearby. When she returned, I said, “Follow me.” As has been her well-practiced custom, she obliged readily. I led her to a nearby Delta Sky Club Center, where only the very elite hang out. In my hands I held two small tickets, a Day Pass given some time ago after another misadventurous Delta flight. I had remembered to stick them in my billfold for this trip, though I had no illusion that we would actually have time or occasion to take advantage. But here we were, a fitting prelude to our forthcoming first classiness.
We settled in comfortably, helped ourselves to a buffet of minor goodies, making sure our appetites would not be unduly compromised. I fiddled eagerly, but vainly, to connect my gadgets to the free Wi-Fi; only our son may have the answer why my i-pake and netbook are allergic to unfamiliar hookups. After much time-wasting, I comforted myself with the thought I would have another chance in FIRST CLASS, where everything would be perfect.

When the time drew nigher for eventual boarding, I glanced at our seating numbers. I was assigned to A 6 and Ruth to A 3! Well, surely the nice person at the Sky Club desk could speedily straighten that out. I marched my documents to her. She took one look and blanched. I had seen that same look on the Alaskan’s face. She started punching, screening, calling, conferring with her colleague at the desk. It took a long time. She called a supervisor to come and help, but no one came. At last she handed our precious but confused seating assignments to her colleague, and told him she was out of there, unable and by now very unwilling to spend any more time on this vexing phenomenon.
The colleague’s explanation came in bits and pieces: we should not have been assigned to first class b/c we had coach tickets. BUT THE MAN WITH THE HANDS SAID THERE WAS NO PLACE FOR US IN COACH, THEREFORE THE ONLY OPTION WAS FIRST CLASS! No, we could not be seated in first class, we would have seats in coach. BUT COACH WAS FULL! Your seats are 25A and 25B.

There was no time left to contest; no time left to buy some eats to hold us till home arrival time; only time to join the long line of coach-bound victims.
Thus instead of a one-time treatment befitting a baron and his spouse, we became sardines on yet another B757-300, munching not on mouth-watering appetizers and fortifying steak and lobster in capacious surroundings, but in straight-jacket positions on pretzels and cookies from the teeny-weeny Delta packages denoting the airline’s munificence.
Fortunately, we both had, in our circumstances, much-needed literature to read: I “The Christian Atheist” and Ruth “Love Mercy.”
When we finished, we switched.
I think it’s easier to reach a slight degree of sanctification when grandiose dreams of the high life have collapsed into a coach seat on a 757.
We hungered and thirsted for a china-served dinner and cloth napkins and a glass of Merlot.
Instead we “suffered” a bit, more ready to identify with the suffering subjects of those books.
And we made it all the way home, on time!
Hungry, weary, but safe.

I do have something I’d like to say to that Delta agent with the competent hands, though.

The Quest for God (1)

2011-02-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

The quest, was it more urgently prevalent in the middle ages?
Did the Enlightenment sidetrack the quest?
Or is it built into our DNA, either to be acknowledged or denied?
Though nearly 70% in our country say they believe in God, atheism is also on the rise.
But in spite of selfism, consumerism, and materialism, does an unfilled need continue to persist?
Sometimes even undeniably?

Maybe Edwin Arlington Robinson had it right:

"The world is not a prison house; it is a spiritual kindergarten

where millions of bewildered infants

are trying to spell G-O-D with the wrong blocks."

Simon Tugwell in The Beatitudes stimulates my reflection too:

"It is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry."

A Chapel Service

2011-01-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

I sat in the back row, letting my eyes go over the staff that had gathered.
I noticed the age range. Many had obviously worked at Bethany Christian Services for a long time.
Others, more youthful, had only recently come onboard.
But all, young and older, men and women, were here because of their commitment to the work of mercy and compassion.
They had been invited to come and listen to the story of a co-worker, the story of extraordinary danger and breath-taking rescue. The story of God's grace.
I had heard the story more than a year earlier. As chair of the CALL (Calvin Academy for Life-long Learning) Public Events Committee, I had invited Dona Abbott, the Director of Bethany Christian Services for Kent County, to speak at our Noontime Series on the work with refugees. She took this young Vietnamese woman along who, as Refugee Service Supervisor, had her own story to tell.
The story of how a 17 year-old girl had escaped Vietnam on a poorly maintained fishing boat.
The story of how she had been spared, wondrously and unbelievably, from falling to her death, from being snatched and carried off by pirates to a fate worse than death, from being raped by camp guards.
The story of how she came to understand and believe later, safe in America and with a Christian family, that God had been present in her treacherous escape, enfolding her in his safe-keeping arms, and that he had a purpose for her life--to help others out of love and compassion.
The story of this Buddhist-raised woman stirred something in me.
Enough to seek her out after the presentation.
Enough to tell her that I would like to write her story.
Now, a year and a half later, I listened to her share the story with her colleagues.
Not only her story, but also her vision of a Christian orphanage in Vietnam, for which she has been praying and working and raising funds.
And I saw that they, too, her fellow workers, were deeply touched and inspired.

Afterward I wondered.
Had it been it the Spirit nudging me to talk to My-Yyen the first time we met?
Is that why the story was written and now finds itself in a book (Through Dark Places: True Stories of Human Tragedy, Faith, and Miracles)?
For that is how it was discovered by a Bethany reader, and that's how this chapel gathering became an occasion.
And that is how many there present wanted the book for themselves, to encounter the awesome presence of God's work in the lives of his choice, including the life of a young Buddhist girl who had never heard of God.
And that is how others who read her story may share in the blessing that her life has become, a life impelled by gratitude and servanthood.

That chapel blessed me too.
The Spirit's nudging will do that.

Epiphany Hymn

2011-01-11T15:02:00.000-08:00

Dear God, We Are Your Singers

Dear God, we are your singers on this earth

we sing of peace, we sing of joy and light

we bring glad tidings of a Savior’s birth

to all who cry and suffer in the night.

We sing to those afflicted and in grief

we would lift up the brokenhearted ones

we sing of love, of hope, and of relief,

of restored lives and blessed innocence.

We sing to those chained in a prison cell

we sing the ancient prophet’s freedom song

we sing deliverance from a Satan’s hell

to all the lost who for salvation long.

We sing, we shout for all the world to hear:

take off your rags now, and put on the new

for night has ended, and the Lord is near

all that God’s promised will at last come true!

Therefore we sing, from sea to shining sea

with steadfast faith and with a holy mirth

let’s clear away the remnants of debris

and let’s begin to build our God’s new earth.

text: hjbaron [based on Isaiah 61]

tune: Genevan 124 [ PH 521: God of the Prophets]

At year's end.

2010-12-31T11:43:00.000-08:00

Old Year's Day is meant, I think, for busy human beings to find a chair in a quiet corner, and think.
Think back on the year that was.
Think back on the person who was alive in it--yourself.
Think back on the things done, and not done.
Think back on the places seen, and the things discovered.
Think back on the new people met, and the "old" people lost.
Think back on the things that troubled body or soul, and that seem to have no end.
Think back on the good things that filled the heart, and be glad.
Think back on family and friends who entered the dark places of life, and saw little light.
Think back on a suffering world for which Jesus may be weeping still, and pray.
Think back on agents of goodness that reached out to arms outstretched, and give thanks.

We can only think back, for all our yesterdays are history.
We cannot think ahead, for all our tomorrows are mystery.

But we do have choice.
We can choose to make our life mean something, today and tomorrow too.
During these waning hours of 2010, it's good to remember the words of Jimmy Carter:

"I have one life and one chance to make it count for something.
I am free to choose what that something is, and the something I have chosen is my faith.
My faith demands...that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference."

Maybe a difference for all the tomorrows to come.
In God's name.

a thought

2010-12-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

People quarrel about all sorts of things.
Sometimes quarrels turn into heated arguments, then into warfare.
I don't like disputes when they turn serious, when they begin to hurt, when words turn into weapons.
But it happens.
It even happens among Christians, especially when they forget their name.
And when it happens in churches, in assemblies, at synods--I die a little.
Then I think of G.K. Chesterton, when he said:

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.

Ah yes, so let it be!

Christmas and the Great Event Organizer

2010-12-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

222 TALKING WITH GOD

Note: shortly before the final layout of Talking with God was decreed permanently and irreversibly, it became necessary to cut three pages; I chose these three.
Our character, the Great Event Organizer, knows how an incredible event of cosmic proportions should be planned.
Or, he thinks he does.

Another Christmas?

I know you’re planning something special this season, Lord.
Well, I have an idea, ‘cause this is going to be the biggest and best celebration ever, right?
So this is what we’re going to do: a spectacular celestial fireworks!
Shooting stars streaking all over the sky!
Lightning flashes that make the whole globe glow!
Claps of thunder that will get the attention of even the most jaded!
It’ll be the kind of annunciation no one can ignore.
What do you say?

Just one special star?
I wonder if anyone will notice!

And an angel?
Well, that’s not how I’d do it, but an angel can be pretty special too.
Send it flaming down through the sky, blazing like a meteor, so that all eyes go up.
Then let it hover about a mile or so above ground, and give that angel a mighty voice that cleaves the night sky when it announces the birth of God on earth.

Say, have you thought of waiting 2000 years, when television cameras can catch this fiery flash from heaven and make the whole world watch in wonder?

The time is now; okay.

What? No universal annunciation?
Just one angel appearing to a young girl in Nazareth, of all places?
With no witnesses?
What’s the use of that!
Who’s going to believe her?

Okay, listen God, I have another idea:
send your best angel choirs down to give
heavenly Christmas concerts in every major population center.
Send the biggest ones to downtown Jerusalem and Temple Square!
Let the light of their wings radiate through the whole city
as a fitting symbol for the "light of the world."
Let their music waft through every cobblestoned alley and silence every speech.
Make the whole world listen and believe!

Good, you will send a choir.
But only one?

Where?!
To a forsaken field far from town?
To a bunch of tone-deaf shepherds?
Why?!
Who is going to believe an ignorant, superstitious shepherd?
Dear God, what kind of production planning is this?
I mean, let’s shoot for some results here!

Well, let’s talk about the blessed event itself, then.
This is going to be special, right?
Of consequence for the whole world, right?
The birth that is going to make the Big Difference for ever and ever?
So, let’s see.
No celestial pyrotechnics in earthly skies, you said.
A big mistake, I think, but you’re the Boss.
At least let’s do the Birth Day right, okay?
I know the palace is out—too bad but Pilate wouldn’t understand.
I think I can find a mansion fit for a king, though.
I’ve got connections, you know.
I know a rich young ruler with a beautiful pad.
Or Nicodemus of the Sanhedrin,
or Joseph of Arimathea—all well-heeled and prominent.
I can arrange for the peasant girl—yes, Mary—to get a special invitation;
just leave everything to me.

Not in Jerusalem?!
In Bethlehem!!

I don’t get it.
So, what are we going to use—Herod’s palace?
I didn’t think so.

Bethlehem—that rather limits the options, doesn’t it.
No Hiltons or Hyatts there yet.
You sure you don’t want to wait a couple of millennia?
We could have flashing neon signs all over; and CNN.
Well, let me see what I can do, though I must say you make it rather difficult.
I’ll pick the best place there is.
And I’ll arrange for the best doctors in town.
I’ll take care of a complete layette too.
Plus we’ll need a town crier or something.
And how about a fancy carriage with white Arabians for the temple ceremony?

What?!
No room in any inn?
Not even for the Heavenly King?
What kind of start in life do you plan to give your only Son!

A cattle shed?!
Is this supposed to be some kind of divine joke?
No doubt it’s going to make many laugh themselves silly.
For who’s going to bow their knee to a deprived infant in a smelly barn?

Oh, the shepherds—of course.
And who’s going to believe that this underprivileged baby is the Savior of the world?

I mean, dear God, do you know what you are doing?

your ways are not my ways...
therefore, whoever humbles himself like this
child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And whoever welcomes a little child like this
in my name welcomes me.

To ponder: What can we learn from God’s "different" ways?

The words of Job

2010-12-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

Maybe one powerful reason that Job was strong enough to survive the loss of everything but his soul, when even his life had become loathsome to him, was what his life had stood for, what the quality and the worth of his very being had meant to others.
Job never heard the words of Jesus: "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
But Job lived by them.
He honored the great commandment: love each other.

"I delivered the poor who cried out,
The fatherless and the one who had no helper.
The blessing of a perishing man came upon me,
And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;
I was eyes to the blind,
And I was feet to the lame.
I was a father to the poor,
And I searched out the case that I did not know.
I broke the fangs of the wicked,
And I plucked the victim from his teeth."
-Job 29: 12-17

"For God so loved the world...."

Christmas is on the calendar, and we rejoice.
Better still that Christmas be in our hearts.

More Sinterklaas

2010-12-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

The young boy dreamed of being Sinter Klaas some day. He would ride his magnificent horse from town to town. He would stop wherever he wanted, especially where the people seemed poor. He would just walk into someone’s home. The parents would be startled at the unexpected visit but they would smile, and the children would stare, awe-struck, fear and excitement in their big eyes. But he would make them laugh and squeal as he would tell his helper, Peter, to hand out the presents. He would watch their faces shine as they’d take the wrapping off and discover a toy or some goodies and of course something warm they’d need in the winter time. Then Peter would scatter handsful of pepernoten (gingernuts or balls) all around, the children would whoop and go diving after them while Sinter Klaas and Peter would quietly make their exit. It was a wonderful dream, and the young boy was sorry when the morning light ended it.

One day his older brother Sietze asked him if he could keep a secret. Of course he could! All right then, he could come along; they would go shopping. Eagerly he followed, brimming with curiosity what his big brother was up to now. They went from one store to another. Sietze bought masks in one store: a Sinter Klaas and a black Peter’s face. He bought pepernoten and chocolate letters in another, games like a set of dominoes and checkers in yet another, and a fancy pair of girl mittens in the last one. He had everything wrapped as presents except the pepernoten.

The young boy was flabbergasted. On the way home, his brother explained. On the eve of Sinter Klaas they would dress up as the kind old saint and Peter and pay a visit to several homes in their town. But not a word to Dad and Mom! They were not to know about it because they probably wouldn’t allow it. So they would have to hide all the purchases carefully.

The boy was impressed. He asked no questions, not even where the money had come from to buy all the stuff. He was all too eager to be a part of his brother’s grandiose scheme.

Two days later brother Sietze was able to persuade his parents to let their two sons “run an errand” in the late evening for an hour or so. Sietze had hidden all the treasures in a nearby ditch earlier in the day. Now they stealthily retrieved the bags, donned some clothing articles Sietze had gathered to resemble an appropriate costume for each, put their masks on, and stuffed the presents in the big burlap bag. The two were on their way as Sinter Klaas and Peter. Alas, on foot. Sietze had not asked for permission to borrow the farm horse for the occasion.

The young boy walked his dream, though in the role of the saint’s helper. But behind the anonymity of the mask, he watched the expressions of those whose homes they visited. He saw the smiles and the surprise on the faces of his brother’s friends when presents were opened. He scattered his pepernoten with abandon. And his heart soared!

When the bag was empty at last and all the pepernoten gone, they made their way home in the dark along the back paths, for it was wartime and past curfew now. It was winter and it was cold. But the young boy didn’t think of war or danger, nor did he feel the cold. There was the warmth deep inside of him with the memories of cozy living rooms and happy faces and the joy of scattering pepernoten all around.

Sometimes dreams come true. Or almost.

Sinterklaas

2010-12-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Of course, everyone knows about the old bearded saint on horseback.
But not everyone lived in the land where Sinterklaas feels most at home,
where children went to bed in excited anticipation of the saint's visit and gifts.
Maybe they still do.
Dec. 5, yes; and it's coming up.
And hence, this story--a recollection of sorts.

The boy lived in a land that was sometimes visited by saints. At least one saint, anyway. His name was St. Claus, or better known in that small northern country as Sinter Klaas.

On December 5 each year he’d come riding on his beautiful Arabian horse, his long white beard flowing down to his waist, his red robe a bright symbol of cheer under the pale winter sun.

In the daytime he would be everywhere—in parades waving at all the little children clutching their mama’s hands; in children’s hospital wards, bringing presents and telling Zwarte Piet (Black Peter), his helper, to throw an extra handful of pepernoten (gingernuts) on their beds; walking slowly on city streets, his tall staff tapping the cobblestones, his eyes always searching for children who needed a kind word.

But the young boy knew that the busiest time for Sinter Klaas came after the sun went down. Then he would visit every home, at least the homes where children lived, where he would surprise and delight everyone with presents. But he couldn’t get to every home before the children’s bedtime.

So, before going to bed, the young boy would fold his clothes carefully and leave them neatly by the bed. Then, under the warm wool blankets, he would think of Sinter Klaas coming in the night, stealing softly up to his bed, pick up the pile of clothes, stuff them full of presents from his bottomless bag, and hide the clothes throughout the house. Soon, his eyelids grew heavy, and thoughts of good things to come turned into sweet dreams of a kind old saint who didn’t rest till he had made all the children happy.

For some reason he would wake up earlier than usual the next morning. He would look down to the floor for his clothes pile.

Nothing.

His heart jumped, for now he knew that Sinter Klaas had indeed come. He’d be out of bed in a flash, shivering in his underwear in the unheated bedroom. But he didn’t mind much because the most exciting adventure was ahead: finding his clothes and the surprises hidden inside.

He’d look in the kitchen first where the stove was hot and beginning to melt the frost off the windows. Maybe Sinter Klaas had been extra kind and hidden most of his clothes in a warm place. Yes! He found his short pants (for young boys don’t wear long pants there) under his own chair by the kitchen table. His hands quickly examined its contours. There was something inside, wrapped, for it crinkled when he touched it. He eagerly reached for it, unwrapped it before taking time to put his pants on, and hauled out a warm winter cap that would cover his ears as well as his head.

Now he was most eager to find his stockings, not only because his bare feet were getting cold, but because he knew that Sinter Klaas liked to put candy treats inside the long wool stockings that young children wore in wintertime. After a bit of looking, he found one stocking on the kitchen shelf behind the stove. It felt toasty warm to his fingers, but the bag of sweet licorice and piece of nougat inside made him even happier. He quickly stepped into his stocking and continued the search for his shirt and other stocking. He could find nothing more in the warm kitchen, so with one bare leg and no shirt he ventured back into the unheated living room. He couldn’t find anything until at last he spotted his blue shirt wedged behind the family pump organ. This time he took the wrapped present out and first pulled his shirt on. Then he hurried back into the warm kitchen to open it. He beamed when he unwrapped a tall gingerbread man. He broke off a little piece and stuck it in his mouth, though he knew he should eat his breakfast first. But wait, there was more! His very own checkers set! Wow! Maybe he could take it over to his friend’s house to play a game.

Now there was only the one stocking left. His toes were really cold by now, and he had to go badly.

He searched more frantically now in the unheated living room and bedroom, looking into corners, on shelves, in drawers, in the closet, but nowhere did he find his warm stocking;

He decided he couldn’t hold it anymore—he’d have to go to the toilet first. He slipped into his wooden shoes in the hallway, opened the door to the cowstalls, and awkwardly clomped along the gutter behind the cows that led to the inside outhouse. He hurried in, closed the door, and then he saw the lost stocking hanging right above the toilet seat. He stopped and stared a moment, wondering: did Sinter Klaas himself have to use the toilet during his visit? Did saints really have to go to the bathroom too? And had he forgotten to take his stocking back inside the house? Strange. But then eagerness to know what was inside took over again, and for the moment he forgot why he had come here. He snatched the stocking down, reached inside, and hauled out a small box with an H on the outside and a dark chocolate letter on the inside. Immediately he forgave Sinter Klaas for hanging the stocking in the family outhouse. Maybe he’d done it to be funny. But he’d been good, for the young boy liked his presents very much—every one of them!

When and Where?

2010-11-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

November 10

Think of this at the end of the day:
25,000 children under the age of five died from hunger and hunger-related causes
over one billion people will go to bed hungry
over one billion people will have lacked access to safe and clean drinking water
nearly 5000 children died because of water-borne disease
over 40 million people are displaced from their homes and lands
over 14 million children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS
5500 people will have died that day of AIDS
thousands of children will have died of malaria.

When, Lord, and where, Lord, did we see you?

Launching

2010-11-29T10:32:00.001-08:00

November 26

To launch--a universe, with constellations, planets, life, people.
At the launching pad, a Creator? Or Nothing?
From inanimate to animate by Mystery? Or Science?
Eons later, still trying to figure it out.

To launch--a baby, a new-born life with heart beating, blood circulating, limbs moving.
At the launching pad, parents.
Everyone, watching in wonder.

To launch--a poem, with a dance of the imagination and the strong beat of a feeling heart.
At the launching pad, a truth-seeker, a language lover, a burden-bearer.
A few, observing, pondering, responding.

To launch--a world, a life, a poem, a story, a ship, anything.
Purpose-driven, with unknown destinations.
With unknown consequence.

To launch a book--one with much thought, hard questions, and currents of gratitude:
Talking with God...
At the launching pad, a God-seeker.
Holding to the light on Thanksgiving Day before family and friends
a volume of prayers and reflections and meditations.
Purpose-driven, with unknown destinations.
Its consequence known only to God.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

November 23

Confession: my life is not a constant litany of praise.

For some of us have more than others, and when I look

at those whose burdens look much larger than their blessings,

I feel they need my prayer more than you need my praise

for all that’s good and right with me.

Then my moments of grateful adoration often turn into

contending with a God of inequalities.

It’s the all-night struggle at the Jabbok that still engages

me more than the green pastures where sheep do safely graze.

Serenity eludes me in a world where beasts of prey

transform green pastures into bloody killing fields.

Dear Lord, I want to revel more

in all that’s good and Godly and gracious,

even when I smell the sewers

and see the fissures of this broken world.

-from Talking with God...

Average

2010-11-29T10:29:00.001-08:00

I'm neither tall nor short.
I'm average.

I'm neither brilliant nor dumb.
Maybe, though, I was born in Wobegon.

I'm neither a leftist nor a rightist.
But I wonder: is the middle of the road a good place?

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist.
Yes, of course: a realist...I think.

I'm neither an idealist nor a cynic.
Just keeping hope alive.

I'm neither always merry nor a constant scowler.
Just trying to smile more.

Average?
Is anyone?

Sometimes there's the echo of a voice from the past:

"I will drink life to the lees.
...this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star...
...my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset...
Made weak by time...but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find...."

Ulysses: he was not average.

Autumn

2010-11-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

Monday, November 8, 2010

Autumn

as Mildred Zylstra put it in her “Autumn” poem:

The lily bulb is buried deep in earth.

Onion-layered skins, brown-tissue thin,

Will crumple off.

Green shoot emerge, tall stem,

White bell will ring out joyfully

In blue spring sky

With tongues of gold.

This fragile sheath of skin,

Brown-spotted, wrinkled flesh,

Will shrivel up.

What flower, with what form

Will blossom forth in unknown joy

In new spring sky

Only the Gardener knows.

-from Talking with God

Why can't I

2010-11-29T10:17:00.001-08:00

November 3

I know a man of 80 who biked from one ocean to the other.
He pedaled up steep mountain grades, mile after mile.
He pedaled into winds strong enough to make trees sway.
He pedaled when the pelting rain lashed his cheeks and nearly took his sight away.
He pedaled when the summer sun shimmered on the desert and parched his tongue.
He pedaled when the rising sun painted the sky in
He pedaled, all the way, from coast to coast.
Why can't I?

I know a man who learned to carve in his retirement.
Birds at first, and horses.
But later, with finer tools and more creative skill, a Beethoven bust.
And Mozart playing the violin, and a whole nativity set....
Each so finely detail-crafted that it takes your breath away.
Why can't I?

I know a man who writes three books at once.
Words keep gushing from the deep wells of imagination.
No parching droughts or lengthy rewrites.
Award-winning, compelling reading--all of them.
Why can't I?

Well, yes, at last I have a book.
But it's a "different" book.
Talking with God it's called.
It seems that Enoch did that easily.
And so did Tevya.
Why can't I?

Someone said, "Be perfect."
Why can't I?
Because my wife would have none of it?
Maybe.
Because we know of only one who could?
I think so, yes.

Re-start

2010-11-29T10:05:00.000-08:00

Having been made aware, on November 28, that the blog I started has a different URL than my book, Talking with God indicates, I begin again.
I'll try to import blog entries from the henrybaron.blogspot.com to this one.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

in the making

There's bad weather in the making this morning--tornado watch, warnings of damaging winds, and heavy thunderstorms.
Life's in the making too, all the time. And we're part of it.
But there's also my book that is in the making, and that's pre-occupying.
My brother's book is made; I picked up 20 copies from the local printer yesterday, my eyes being the first to behold the final product that had been in the making for a long time.
Yes, I checked out my three stories in "Through Dark Places" first.
In a few weeks I'll be holding my own "baby" in hand.
All that He made was good.
All that we make is not.
But we try, as our life continues to be "in the making."