THE IMMIGRANT ADVENTURE: The Quest to Belong

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.

[Note: the speech that follows was given in Frisian, which version is my blog entry of January 2012]

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 (middle 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. (Fortunately, she was blessed with understanding and later gave me a private lesson in the meaning of some vocabulary words.)

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 60 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 knowing 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 capital 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 grateful 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."

THE CROSSING: a family’s emigrant journey

[tr. from the Dutch diary I kept just before, during, and right after the journey of the Baron family when it emigrated from Opende, Gr. to Lynden, Washington in l948]

  Notes: I tried my rudimentary school English a bit now and again, such as in the “preface,” indicated by quote marks:

“In this book is written the travel to the USA made through the fam. Baron.  This travel is written through Henry Baron.”

Also, I’ve tried hard to retain something of the style of the original.

                                                                                    *-*

May 24, 1948;  Monday evening, 11:30 PM.  Opende

I’m sitting by the table that’s loaded with stuff.  Tante Janke is sitting behind a mountain of buns that she’s buttering.  I have no idea where we’re going to put all that.
Brother Sietze and I just went to pick up Jan Westra. It’s been a terribly busy day.  Handshaking all day long.
Fiancee Bouke and sister Lies are snuggled next to each other on the sofa.
Dad and Mom are getting ready.
Folkert and cousin Griet are sleeping on a bed in the barn, now their barn.
We’re staying up, except Griet and Marijke.
I’ll be glad when it’s 3 o’clock and the bus stands waiting for us.
Well, I’ve made a start:  the rest will simply follow, we hope. 
For now this is enough.

May 25. Tuesday morning.
We did not go to bed.  At twenty-to-three the bus stood by Boonstra’s. At 3:00 we took off.
The bus was not full.  Let me tell who all went along:

-the fam. Baron (7);  -the chauffeur, Oom Martin (1);  -Oom Roel and Tante Luts (2);  -Tante Anke (1);  Oom Andries and Tante Janke (2);  -A. Kuperus (1);  -Tollie (1);  -Albert Baron (1); -Henk Boersma (1);
-Jan Westra (1);  -Bouke Steiger (1);  -altogether 19 people.

The first consternation was Marijke’s vomiting.  The swaying of the bus must have made her sick.
At 3:35 we were in Leeuwarden.  It was almost light enough by then for the lights to be turned off.
Every now and again  Jan Westra would liven up the trip with a little harmonica music.  At 4:20 we were on the Afsluitdijk.  There’s not much else to tell about the trip.
At  5:40 we were in Alkmaar, so we made pretty good time—a good 60 km. on the average, which is pretty good speed for a bus.  
In Velsen by the ferry we discovered that the people from Stroobos who were returning to America stood behind us.   
At 7:30 we were on the outskirts of Den Haag.  There we dropped off A. Kuperus because he had some business to do there.  At 8:15 we were in Rotterdam at the Wilhelminakade.
                                                                           ***

As I am quietly writing all this down, the VEENDAM peacefully continues its journey.  We are now at sea.  Dad and Mom and the others are downstairs in their cabins.  I’m quietly writing in the tearoom, and Sietze is sleeping on a sofa not far from me.
Not much news right now, and it’s gradually getting time to start thinking about dinner.  It’s 6:15 now, and at 6:30 it’s dinner time, so I’ll quit for now.

May 26,  Wednesday,  4 o’clock.
This morning I had a slight case of seasickness.  This is what happened:
I had had a great sleep.  When we sat in the dining room and we were served our meal, I suddenly felt sick.  I couldn’t eat a bite, but I ran as fast as I could to the cabin and threw everything I had in me up into the toilet.  Not a nice start, I thought to myself.  But it didn’t turn out too badly, fortunately.  I went to bed for a while, and then got up again, and I was OK.  I still did feel a bit nauseous, but I sure had improved a lot.
Mom felt worse at first, though.  But when at 10:00 we sighted England and when at 11 or so the boat lay still (to allow the mail to leave and people to board), Mom struggled out of bed.  We went up to the deck, where Mom lay down on a deck chair.  We had a beautiful view of the English coast.  At 1:30 we got underway again.  We were enjoying dinner at the time.
Now we see nothing but water.  And it’s going to be quite a while before we see land again. Sietze and I spent some time in the smoking room where they were showing a sound film.  But we didn’t get much out of it because it was all in English.
Now I’m sitting at a writing table.  Outside it’s blowing a storm.  The boat is going 14 mph.  A fairly good speed.  Sietze is going down to get the camera because there’s still a piece of the English coastline visible.  I’m going to quit now because I’d like to see it, too.
We admired the last view of England’s chalk mountains.  Took a picture of it, too.  That’s fun to do.  Well, I’m going to drink my tea.  Till next time.

May 27,  Thursday morning.  8:30 AM.
All of us had a great night and now are almost ready to go for breakfast.  Oh yes, I should tell of my adventures of last night.  First what came before:
We had met an old Scottish lady.  She talked English, of course.  But we were able to talk together a bit, though it wasn’t easy.  We had had something to drink in the smoking room (where Sietze earned a $1 from her) and took her at about 10:30 to her cabin.  Then we went to our own cabin.  And then it happened:
I had to go to the lavatory.  At the conclusion of that ceremony I was going to wash my hands.  First I turned on the cold faucet.  Then the hot faucet.  And then it happened.  First everything worked normal.   But then all of a sudden the water began to spout out of the side of the faucet.  That scared the dickens out of me.  I adjusted the faucet so that the flow lessened a bit.  For a while I held it like that, but I realized I couldn’t stay standing there like that.  Then I discovered a bell  button.
I thought to myself, let me press that once, maybe somebody will show up.  But to do that, I had to let go of the faucet and the boiling hot water would spout in full force, and the stream was directed right at the spot where the button was.  Still I took a chance at it.  But nobody came.
Then I could think of nothing else to do but to start screaming for Sietze with all my might.  The first to appear was a steward and right after him came Sietze.  The steward said I should take it easy.  “Yes, but sir, take a look at this,” I stuttered.  The steward saw it all too well.  He abandoned us in a hurry to fetch an expert who set things right again.
But that isn’t all.  When after all this we were standing in the hallway, a man emerged from the lavatory dripping wet.  He had been on the toilet and then got the full shot from the piping hot water right on his brand new suit.  What an experience:  “What kind of an outfit is this here,” he said.
We had ourselves quite a laugh then.

Now it’s 11:00 o’clock.  I’m writing this in bed.  We’ve had a wonderful fun day since I started feeling sick again.  But I quickly headed for the deck and lay in Coopman’s chair (he’s really a good fellow) and didn’t go down again for the rest of the morning.  But it didn’t get any better.   At about 10:00 I fell asleep and had a good nap for a couple of hours.  I threw up just a bit.  Sister Griet had a worse case and Mom was bad off too.  I didn’t go for dinner at noon.  I just stayed in my deck chair.  But around 3:00 I tried again and fortunately it went well.  I walked around a bit and gradually started feeling better.  Tonight I enjoyed eating in the dining room again.  Griet didn’t.
We’re really enjoying the Veendam.  The days fly by.  Lies seems to be enjoying herself, too.  Nothing bothers her—not seasickness nor homesickness.  You see, that’s how it should be.  Bouke has nothing to worry about.
Tonight we watched boxing a while with Chris Kooistra.  His brother Jelle was sick in bed too.  All in all the evening passed quickly, and now it’s 11:00 already.
Readers, listeners (in case someone should be reading this to you) I’m going to end this again for now and will try to catch myself a nice snooze.  “Good-night!”

May 29, Saturday evening.  10:30.
I better begin with the beginning again, and that’s of course this morning.  This morning all of us, except Mom, were present in the dining room.  We took Mom upstairs, so that’s a sign that she felt a little better.  But then the sea wasn’t nearly as tumultuous either.
I find the time racing along, so it’s clear that we’re not bored.  We’ve been playing games, such as ring throwing, table tennis, etc.
And now it’s night already again.  Pretty soon when I go to bed I’ll have to set back my watch another hour.  That’ll be the third time.  In Holland now it’s quarter-to-one.
I’m sitting in a very quiet spot here.  Everybody is sleeping peacefully while I’m writing at a writing desk.  Yes, we have a desk in our cabin.  Rather nice, eh?  I can hear the ocean roar below me.  Very interesting!  Well, people, tomorrow is another day, so “Cheerio!”

May 30, Sunday evening, Dutch time about 2 o’clock
So,  there they’re in deep rest.  My watch says 10 o’clock.  I’ve turned it back an hour for the fourth time.
This morning all of us except Mom made it to the dining room again.  They brought Mom some food in our cabin.  After that I played some table tennis and to the church service at 10:00 in the tourist class lounge. (We are first class passengers because the tourist class was full.) Well, it wasn’t a very good preacher, to be sure.  First we sang some hymns, then some scripture readings.  Then a short meditation, and after that the people could request some more numbers for us to sing together.  At 11:30 it was all done.
We didn’t do much in the afternoon.  This is a very strange Sunday, one we’ll not likely experience again for some time.  By next Sunday we’ll be a long ways from here.  The weather was beautiful today.
Two were missing at our table tonight, namely Mom and Marijke.  The little tyke was in need of sleep.  After mealtime we spent most of the night on the lower deck visiting Kooistra’s.  We did some singing, etc.  At 9:15 there was another service, but we didn’t go.  Dad and Mom did, though.
I’m the last one again tonight, so I better end this.  People, goodnight, and people in the fatherland, sleep well!

May 31, Monday evening, 10 o’clock
I just moved my watch back an half hour, so not an hour this time.
Well, I’ll make it short this time.  There’s not much news to tell.
It was a beautiful day today.  This noon there were nine of us gathered around the dinner table, namely our own whole family and Beverly and Elizabeth Commager.  Both of those are girls who talk English and don’t understand us, but still they’re always with us.
Marijke raises a fuss every night.  Last night was another really bad one.  There’s an old man in the cabin next to ours.  He’s bothered by all the racket and then he knocks with all his might on the wall.  And once awake, he told us, he can’t get back to sleep again.  Well, he turned in a complaint on us, and now we’re going to try something else.  Dad is going to sleep in our cabin and Griet is moving to 109.

June 1. Tuesday morning.  11:00 o’clock.
I’m sitting at a table here in the smoking room with Sietze.  A steward just brought us bouillon.
It went well with Marijke last night.  She never gave a peep.  But at 6:30 she started calling for Mom.  But Dad had her quiet in a hurry.
When I woke up this morning I heard the foghorn.  A thick fog hung over the ocean.  But at around 10:00 the sun broke through and by now the mist has cleared up to such a point that the foghorn is now silent.  Otherwise it sounded every minute.
The trip is coming along nicely.  We’re far past the halfway point.
Every night they deliver a paper to our cabin—“The Oceanpost.”  It includes the news of the whole world.
Well, I’ve told most of the news now.  Oh, yes, I forgot to tell that there’s a kind of theater on the ship.  They show movies there every day.
In the evenings at 9:15 there’s entertainment in the dining room of the tourist class.  Till 10:30 there wasn’t much fun. They played with cards with numbers on them.  Somebody called off certain numbers all the time, and when the number appeared on your card you’d have to put a red tag on the number.
Whoever had the completed card would get 50 cents.  But at 10:30 things got a lot better.  A magician was going to demonstrate his tricks.  The magician was a waiter from the first class.  All of his tricks were really worth seeing.  I’ll describe a couple of them.
He took two small balls in his hand—in the right hand a red one and in the other a white.  Then he made some motions, blew some air over them, and both balls disappeared.  Then again a white ball in his right hand and in the other a red one.  I couldn’t follow so quickly how he did that.  And so there were all sorts of tricks that made you watch with amazement.
It’s really interesting to see something like that.  It was 11:30 before we got to bed sound and safe.

June 2.  Wednesday morning
It’s 11 o’clock, and therefore 4 o’clock in Holland.  Right now I’m peacefully scribbling in the library or non-smoking room.  I just enjoyed a cup of bouillon with a cookie.  The service is fine here, to be sure.
It’s getting warmer, let me tell you.  Time for the jacket to come off.  The boat makes a lot more motion now, too, which means that Mom is getting worse again.
The voyage will soon come to an end now.  I believe we’re supposed to arrive in New York at 4:00 on Friday.
This afternoon at 5 we took a bath.  That was nicely refreshing.  Sietze didn’t feel like taking a bath.
I had a scare this afternoon.  I came to the discovery that my watch cover was gone and that only one hand was left.  What a pain!  And I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how that ever happened.  Anyway, nothing I can do about it now.  I put the watch away; it’s no good like this.  And the funny thing is that the watch was still running.
People, it’s a late night again.  So it’s high time for this “little boy” to get to bed!

June 3.  Thursday evening.  10:30.
I’m alone in the cabin.  Sietze and Lies are still in the tourist class where they’re enjoying a jolly party.  They have singing and readings, etc.  Really fun.  Griet and Marijke are asleep.
I have the chance now to catch up on this diary a bit.
The dining room was beautiful tonight.  They had the whole place decorated.  And there were all kinds of goodies on the long table and a decorative centerpiece with the words “Au Revoir!”  Well, I thought to myself, that might be a long time before you see me again.  But let’s hope for the best.
Griet and Marijke are lucky.  I picked up 6 balloons for them from the dining room.
In the meantime the boat just keeps on steaming along.  The foghorn blasts continually because it’s very foggy again.
A lady stopped me a moment ago to ask me if she could use my mouth harmonica.  Well, I didn’t understand her too well because she said it in English, but I did figure out what she meant.  I told her that Lies had it in her pocket and I didn’t know where she was.  Well, if I then would be so kind to find her?  And she dropped an American quarter in my pocket.  Well, at that point I couldn’t very well refuse her, right?  So I went to the lounge, and sure enough, there they were!  I got the thing and went back upstairs.  But they sure had a lot of fun in that lounge.  The lady was still waiting, so I gave it to her.  Tomorrow morning she is going to return it.
I must have sent at least 10 picture postcards of this boat to the Netherlands today.  Really!
Now I‘ve never said anything yet about my best friend.  His name is Casperd Coopman.  He is 55.  He is Belgian by birth.  Lives in Hawaii, I think.  I believe he is a priest.  Blue eyes and always jolly.  There you have him—my friend.  He’s an awful lot of fun.  I often play table billiards with him—for the championship.
Dear folks, I’m just about talked out.  Dad and Mom better not know that I’m still here, because I was supposed to go to bed early tonight, and now it did get late again.
So, till tomorrow!  Dididididadida!

June 5. Saturday morning.  7:30 PM.
I’m writing at a table in the dining-smoking car of the train on the way to Chicago.  Dad is in the dining car sitting next to a man, waiting for something to eat while Sietze and I are in the connected smoking car.
I will try to recall all the recent experiences.  I’ll make it short. 
Yesterday morning, Friday the 4^th of June, we really kept our eyes peeled.  There was something new to see all the time. First, all the airplanes that came circling overhead.  Then the small and big pleasure and fishing boats, etc.  Around 10:00, a harbor pilot boarded ship.  An hour later the customs people.  Something new going on all the time—a sign  that we were reaching the end of our voyage.
At 12:00 we had to eat.  When we finished at 12:45, we lay motionless in the water.  We were on the Hudson River.  But after 15 minutes we were moving again.  In the distance we could see the Statue of Liberty.  In another half hour we were there.
At the dock of the Holland-America Line we saw the Nieuw Amsterdam.  Yet another half hour and we were finally at our destination.
Meanwhile Dad had to show the papers, etc., so that around 3:30 we could finally leave ship. But that still wasn’t the end of it.
More next time.

                                             TRAIN TRIP:  NEW YORK-CHICAGO-SEATTLE-BELLINGHAM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          June 6, Sunday evening, 9:15.
I’m in the smoking car again.  Not far from me lies Sietze because we are going to try to sleep here tonight.  We’re now on the way to Seattle.  But first I have to catch up.
When we stepped off the boat, we walked to a large area where all the First Class passengers gathered with their baggage.  A lady from the Seaman’s Home took us there.  We must have waited there at least two hours before they inspected our baggage.  It was then that we experienced the inconvenience of not being able to speak the language.  When our turn came up, though, things went very quickly.  Fortunately we didn’t get a real tough customs inspector.  We saw the Kooistras again too.
A brother of Oom Gilbert took us to the Seaman’s Home.  He was going to take the Nieuw Amsterdam to Holland the next day.  He also in part arranged the train trip for us.  The Kosters had already left.
We spent about an hour in the Seaman’s Home.  We bought a few things there, such as candy and bread, etc.  Then on to the station.  We left New York around 7:45.  It got dark before long, and then we had to try to get to sleep.  That wasn’t easy, but eventually you get used to everything.  Of course, you don’t sleep nearly as well as in bed.
We woke up early the next morning.  It gets dark early at night and light early in the morning here.
At first there wasn’t too much to see but when we got closer to Chicago the landscape improved.  I won’t say much about it because then I’ll never finish.  It’s better to experience and see it for yourself than to describe it.  We haven’t seen any mountains yet.
On Saturday, June 5, at around 5 o’clock we arrived in Chicago.  We had to transfer to another station, and there they told us that we could depart at 11:15.  So, a wait of 6 hours.  That’s a long wait.  How to spend all this time?  Well, we ate first.  It was almost 7:30 already when we finished.  We still had to take care of some things then, like tickets and information.  We also bought some candy, drinks, timetables, etc.  (Yuk, it’s miserably hard to write on the train.)  We did some window shopping and looked at a tape recorder and went into one of those booths where you can take a picture of yourself.  That works like this:   You deposit a quarter in a slot.  Then you see a bright light.  When you’d hear the quarter drop, they snap the picture.  Then you’d hear all sorts of sounds inside the machine and within 5 minutes you’d have the photo inside a neat frame on hand.  Unfortunately I didn’t have a quarter left.
Mom and Marijke slept.  At 10:30 a lady came to bring us to the train.  First we bought some apples, and then to the train.  That was quite strenuous, because we had quite a load to carry.  All of us were relieved when at last we sat safe and sound in the train.  This then would be our “home” for a few days.  By now we really began to look forward to the end, but there would still be lots to see before getting there. 
What a strange Sunday we had, like one I never experienced before and maybe never again.  Sunday on the train.  We stopped often.  I don’t like that.  But we knew the time of our arrival, and that is Tuesday morning at 7:30.  We took food along out of Chicago and in the train we bought our drinks.  In Milwaukee we bought some candy.
We didn’t get bored because there was a lot to see.  Beautiful scenery.  And you won’t believe the number of cars we saw—thousands of them.  We’re not used to that.
Sietze and I decided to sleep in the smoking car at night.  It’s quiet there and we’re able to stretch out.  But it took quite a while before we could settle down.  People kept coming in and then it’s hard to go to sleep.  But at last we went ahead anyway.  The people just kept sitting around and we got sleepy.  This is the first night that we slept well.

June 7.  Monday, 2:00 o’clock.
We can’t stop looking.  The world is beautiful here.  High mountains with eternal snow.  It’s simply indescribable.
Now and again it gets completely dark.  That’s when we go under a mountain.  Sometimes fairly long, sometimes short.  Or we twist our way up a mountain.  I’m looking right at the mountains now, covered with evergreens.  A beautiful sight.
It’s very warm outside here.  That’s not for me.  It makes you sleepy.  I better quit for a while now.
Till the next time.

OK, here we are again.  It’s evening now, 8:30.  The clock’s set back another hour.
This afternoon we enjoyed the beautiful scenery around us.  Mountains and more mountains.  High ones with snowy peaks, and smaller ones too.  And the train just kept twisting through it all—now climbing a mountain and then again going through it for a ways.  We had a great time!
Gradually we’re getting closer to our goal.  The three days which at first we dreaded haven’t been bad at all and have gone rather quickly, it seems to me.
The train is way late; I hope it’ll do some catching up tonight or else we won’t get there by 7:30 in the morning.
We did some singing a little while ago.  A couple of ladies liked that so we roared ourselves hoarse to the accompaniment of the mouth organ.  I’ll put down my pen again for now.  Till tomorrow.  “Good Night!”

June 9.  Wednesday.  9:30 PM.
I’m sitting here in the front room by Oom Gilbert and Tante Jeanette.  We’ve just finished eating.  Late, right?  But it isn’t like this all the time.
Let me start by telling about yesterday’s experiences.
At 7:05 on Tuesday morning we arrived in Seattle.  First we saw a huge airport with all kinds of airplanes, large and small.  A lady was waiting for us at the train station to help us.  Oom G. and Tante J were not there.  I’ll tell you why pretty soon.  The lady took us to the waiting room.  Then she called Oom G. and Tante J.
Let me tell you now why they weren’t there.  There were other reasons, too, but they are of lesser importance.  They had gotten confused by the three brothers Koster who went here for three weeks of vacation.  They left New York before us and therefore arrived before us too.  And the agreement was that all of us were going to get picked up together from Seattle.  So that’s how things got tangled up.
In spite of all that, we got here OK.  Dad and Mom talked with Tante J. a while on the telephone.  They were going to pick us up in Bellingham. So, we bought tickets, etc., and then on to another station.  At 8:30 we were on the train.  The last lap is always the toughest.  I think that’s true.  I got a headache and lost all my pep.  I tried to sleep and succeeded for a little while.  We thought we’d arrive at 11, but it turned out to be 11:45.  That was a long time.  We all were glad to be here.
It was unbearably hot on the train besides.  We did get to see some nice scenery again.  But all of us were very happy to finally get there.
When we got off the train we spotted familiar faces at once.  Oom G. and Tante J. as well as Meindert Tjoelker with his wife.  Then in the cars and off.   We  drove through Lynden.   It looks like a nice place to me.   Nice  surroundings, too.  At 12:30 we arrived at Oom G. and Tante J.  There we were treated to a wonderful dinner.  Tjoelker and wife also stayed for dinner.  It tasted terrific after such a long trip.  Since Friday we had not had a warm meal.  We really received a very warm welcome here.  It couldn’t have been better.
And now I will record the experiences ahead of us in the other journal.  Thus I have reached the end of my story.  The handwriting wasn’t always the best, but the boat and the train share the blame for that.

Readers, I hope you’ve enjoyed this,  then the effort of the writer is rewarded.  So this is then the conclusion of this diary.
“End of this little daybook.”

 

.

  

Christmas Eve: a Ratfink Story

(My children will remember many a bedtime Ratfink story I would share with them.  They are no longer at a bedtime story age.  Occasional nostalgia attacks make a parent miss those times.  But maybe we can gather around the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, and revisit our Ratfink.)

It was Christmas Eve, and Ratfink was home all by himself.

Ratfink had always lived alone, ever since he had run away at age 16.

But he couldn’t run away from the world, though he had wanted to.

Instead he lived in a simple cabin, close to the woods.

It was quiet there and private, a place where he could be himself: a loner with a chip on his shoulder.

Except that a month ago, his private domain had been invaded by another loner.

A big burly bearded brute of a man with one eye and a bad limp had set a little old house-trailer only 200 yards away from him.

One-eyed Sam had a terrible temper, especially when he was drunk, and that was nearly every day.

One early evening he had been roaring and raging around his place when he spotted Ratfink coming out of his cabin. 

He had come swaying toward Ratfink, cursing and threatening to skin him alive if he set one step on his yard.  Then he sicced his pit bull on Ratfink, and the big dog had come flying, fangs bared and the kill-look in his eyes.

Ratfink had just managed to get back inside his cabin and slammed the door shut when the dog had thrown his full weight against it. 

But the door was sturdy and had held. 

More fury than fear had made Ratfink shake.

His whole body shook, and his hands rolled into fists.

Nothing could make him more incensed than to be cursed and yelled at as if he were a stupid cow.

It’s what he had tried to escape, and now the worst of all plagues had moved next to him.

Now it was Christmas Eve, and Ratfink sat close to his woodstove, cleaning his gun, the gun he used now and then for hunting in the woods. 

The gun he intended to use on his neighbor’s dog, should he ever be threatened again.

He cleaned and polished in the light of the kerosene lamp he had placed close to him.

Then he heard a fierce barking, coming closer, closer, then right at his cabin’s front door.

The rage rose in Ratfink again. 

He quickly re-assembled his gun, slid a bullet in the chamber, and cautiously advanced toward the door.

But the barking had now changed to whining and whimpering. 

The dog was scratching on the door, as if begging for someone’s attention.

Ratfink paused, puzzled.  He wondered if it was Sam’s dog and what it was trying to do.

The dog’s whimpering and scratching was becoming more urgent.  When it barked, there was no threat in it.

Ratfink opened the door just a tad, his gun at the ready still, his rage now mixed with curiosity.

He saw the hated pit bull now in the moonlight reflecting off the snow.

The dog did not attack but turned toward the trailer, barked, turned his head toward Ratfink, as if pleading him to follow, then ran ahead a ways before stopping again, waiting for Ratfink to come.

And Ratfink did come, his gun cradled in his arm. 

He did not want to come. 

He hated that dog and he hated one-eyed Sam even more.

He’d just as soon shoot both and have them out of his life for good.

Yet he followed the dog to that dilapidated trailer, as if compelled by another force that negated his will.

The pit bull led him to the trailer’s open door.

Ratfink paused there, wondering if he was walking into a trap.

He remembered Sam’s threat of skinning him alive if he set foot near his place.

Now he was about to go inside, and he held his gun in firing position, just in case.

The dog had preceded him and now stood whimpering by his master’s body, slumped on the floor near his chair, a handgun and an empty whiskey bottle few feet away.

Ratfink took in the gory scene and hesitated.

He could just leave and pretend he knew nothing.

Sam would die, or maybe he was dead already, and that would be that: good riddance.

He half turned to follow the impulse, but the dog was already at the door, barring the way.

Then this other force, so strange, seemed to surge deep inside again.

He bent over wild Sam, checked for a pulse, found a faint one, and saw the blood oozing from his chest.

Now the other force took over fully: Ratfink took out his pocket knife, cut away the shirt, uncovered the wound, cut a strip of shirt, placed it over the bullet hole, took off his own flannel shirt, folded it several times into a narrow band and bound it tightly over the wound and around Sam’s chest.

There was no telephone; and there were no other neighbors.

Sam was too heavy to carry; only one thing to do, and that was to drag him.

Ratfink grabbed a blanket off the nearby bed, rolled Sam onto it, and began to drag him toward the door.

Then he ran to get his pickup, backed it up to the trailer, and somehow wrestled Sam onto the flatbed where he covered him with all the blankets and burlap bags he could find.

When the pit bull had jumped in too, he raised and locked the gate in place.

The nearest hospital was 17 miles away.

He had no idea he would make it in time.

Before jumping in the cab, Ratfink got an impulse to look up to the clear star-lit sky.

One star, directly overhead, seemed to glitter more brightly than the others.

For the first time in a long time, Ratfink felt clean and good.

He almost smiled when he remembered it was Christmas Eve.

What have you done with the Child?

                                                    

Aukje dropped a couple of oranges, a few chocolate bars, and two dried sausages in her daughter’s large weekend bag.  Each time when her girl took off again after her days off, there was a surprise from mom between the clothes.  Well, okay, they both played a part in the game.  In the evening, the telephone would be sure to ring with Femke’s thanks for the goodies.
Now she came rushing down the stairs.  “What time is it, do I still have time for a cup of tea?  De bus won’t wait, of course.” There was just enough time.
“How about Christmas, are you going to be able to come home?” her mom asked.
“I do have off; I have to work both old and New Year’s.  To be honest, I’ve told Aart and Bram that they’re invited to eat with Guy and me on Christmas Day.”  She followed up with a hesitant: “Otherwise they can come with us over here, if that’s okay with you.”
“Who are Aart and Bram?”
“Two of my students.  Bram has no family and Aart’s parents kind of abandoned him.  He’s 18, but he won’t advance beyond the age of twelve.  On top of that, he always wets himself at night.  I’m not sure you’re up to that, mom.”

Aukje thought about her nice, clean beds.  A big strange fellow like that and then wetting everything!  Her daughter always did something weird like that.  Still, at Christmas time one really should do something for another and that’s why she said mildly: “Your friends are welcome here and we’ll manage with the bedding.  We will celebrate in our own way, of course.  A tree and something extra with the coffee and the dinner.”

She remembered last year when Femke called and asked how they had spent the day.  She hardly took time to listen to her mom, because she was so full of her own experiences of the day.  A group of twenty, all colleagues and friends.  One had put twenty-five guilders on the table. The meal consisted of stamppot, sauerkraut, and for each a small slice of sausage, and with the coffee a small piece of coffee cake.
“We had a good time, mom.”  She could still hear her say it.  The money that was left they sent to a children’s home in Brazil.

“I have to go and I’ll let you know what we’re going to do.”

Aukje walked along to the bus stop and waved her daughter goodbye.

Full of thoughts she walked back to the house.  What would Folkert say when they’d sit in church with three total stangers?  Guy, Femke’s friend, had been over only once before.  They couldn’t understand him.  Femke translated and so they really didn’t have a conversation with him.  He did his best to learn Dutch.  That wasn’t easy when you only know Portuguese and a bit of English.  Fortunately he could play a little chess, with Folkert winning both games, so that helped some.

The girl had been in a good mood lately.  But she could come up with some strange reactions.  To mom’s suggestion that they spend an afternoon at Klaske’s, the other daughter, she had reacted mockingly: “Sure, let’s make the rounds of admiring Klaske’s house, garden, and kitchen.”

The two little girls of Jurjen and Klaske had had a lot of fun with aunt Fem.  She really knew how to give them a fun time.  To the other children she seemed different.  That was no doubt because she worked with the handicapped in the big city.  City life in Utrecht was a lot different from life in a small village.

Lately she took offense at nearly everything.  When dad said that the foreigners had landed in the butter here, she could retort sharply.  “Didn’t those poor wretches have a right to a better life?  To shelter and freedom?” 
Don’t say anything, Aukje thought, that’s how they could maintain a little peace.  She could easily put up with that for a couple of days.

She, Aukje, had made excerpts from books which Femke had to read for her exam.  Needlework was the most difficult course for the girl, but mom was always in the background and had managed to help Femke get a good mark.  And now, she had so much trouble to simply let the child go her own way.  Sometimes she would get one reproach after another flung at her.
“You want me to become a duplicate of you and Klaske.  Marry a nice boy from the town and a year later push a child in a stroller.  And you knitting socks and jumpers.  Yuk!  Yuk!!  I don’t think it’s responsible to bring children into this dirty, miserable, egotistical, racist, and whatever I can think of besides, kind of world.”
Aukje was thinking that it would get better with time.  When she’d meet her true love, who knows but that she would change.  That it had to be that Guy fellow, Aukje could not really take seriously.  She would just have to wait.

And indeed a telephone call came from Femke.  She and Guy would come in the afternoon before Christmas Day and would stay one night.  The other two boys declined and would be taken care of by colleagues.  Aukje didn’t mind that one bit.  Now they would be more or less with their own.

In the morning they went to church well in time.  The church towers sent their happy celebration sounds across the village.  The church filled up.  The choir was already seated in front of the pulpit and the grand Christmas tree beamed its light over the congregation.
It was a beautiful, joyous service.  The people that walked out with them afterwards were in complete agreement.  The choir had sung the Christmas cantata so beautifully.  And the soloists, they gave you the shivers.   Femke and Guy walked silently along with them, arms tightly around each other.

But once they were home, she exploded: “So, you found it beautiful!  Not I!  I asked myself: what have the people done with the Child who was born two thousand years ago.  Who for three years showed the people how to treat their neighbor.  You can read it every day in your Bible.  And what do they do here in church?  They’re turning it into a big sweet chocolate truffle, that’s what I thought of it!  Nice singing, some nice poems, and a sermon about peace and love.  Where do we find that today?  Peace?  Do you know what’s happening in the world today?  All those refugees without shelter, warmth, or food?  No, they don’t know about that in this little hamlet.  Dad told us yesterday at least three times that he painted aunt Aal’s kitchen.  Isn’t that great!  My, my, what you don’t do here for another.”
Aukje looked anxiously at Folkert.  His face turned red, the veins stretched taut, and yes, there it came.  “You and your big mouth!  Are you going to read us the riot act here?  Shouldn’t it be up to us what we like?  This is where we live and relate to the people around us.  You….”
 “Oh sure, stay comfortable in your little corner and let others starve.”

Then Guy pulled her with him out of the room.

“Couldn’t you bite your tongue for once, you just spoiled our holidays.”
“Oh of course, you always want to keep the peace, but I’m not going to let me be told off in my own house.  Glad they didn’t take a couple of dim-witted bed wetters along.  That’s all we needed.”
“Quiet, they’ll be able to hear it!”
“So?”  Folkert grabbed the paper and Aukje got busy in the kitchen.  The beautiful church service was now entirely forgotten.  They drank their coffee silently.

Close to twelve the door opened quietly and there stood Femke on the threshold with a tear streaked face.  “Guy tells me I have to apologize.  He says…you live here, it’s different than by us…you lived through the war…had a business, the household, I don’t have the right to…. Each has to take care of the place where he’s settled, Guy says.”
Ït’s okay, dear,”Aukje says warmly, “come in, your stomach must be growling by this time.”

At first, dad doesn’t say much, but in the late afternoon Guy won the chess games.  Or…uh…did Folkert let him win?

Together they brought the young folk to the bus around seven o’clock.  The goodbyes were good, but at the same time a relief.  Aukje didn’t like to have it this way, wasn’t it after all your own child?  But on the inside she felt that the girl was becoming estranged.
They still took a walk through the quiet neighborhood.  In corners and in gardens, also on people’s yards and in almost all the homes lights burned in the Christmas trees.  Light, peaceful light.  In their house it had stormed seriously for a while.  They would not soon forget it.
When they entered their own street again, Folkert said: “Not such a bad boy, really, that Guy, though he’s a foreigner.  I’m thinking all the time what the girl threw at us: What have you done with the Child in those two thousand years?  She is right, we have done nothing with it.”     

                       -Wytske Bakker; my translation from the Frisian

The Lord of Marriage

 [Note: August is a month for weddings; we married on the 7th, 60 years ago.
   This selection from Talking with God was recently shared, in part, during the wedding
    of our granddaughter Lucy to Ami in their home state of Washington.
    I dedicate it to all 20017 wedding couples; but even after 60 years of marriage, the
    prayer still blesses us.  May it do so for others too.]

I don’t know how many weddings you attended, Lord.  In Galilee, I mean.

I’d think, though, after that sensation in Cana, you’d be a popular wedding guest.

Fathers of the bride would vie for your services. 

After all, turning water into wine would knock a big chunk off the total wedding tab.

But we don’t read of any repeat performance.

Maybe you sent your regrets to all the invitations?

I hope you still get invited to lots of weddings.

There’s been a spate of them again this summer.

And I hope you sent regrets for none!  For what’s a wedding without the presence of the Lord of wine, but especially the Lord of Love?

Where does love come from if not from the Maker of man and woman, whom he meant to become one flesh.  And when He gave one to the other, I can imagine that the Creator himself threw Adam and Eve a Garden Party that’s never been equaled in extravagance of sheer beauty and loveliness.

So when bride and groom vow to love each other, to honor and respect each other, to serve and support each other—what would be the weight of all those wonderful words if not said in the name of the Lord?

I hope you were the unseen Host at lots of weddings, Lord.

But when a wedding is over, marriage begins, even when there’s a honeymoon.  Two lives trying to become one.

Not exactly like two streams coming together to form one river.  Not exactly like two lumps of clay kneaded into one.

More like a pair of horses harnessed together to pull the same carriage.  Or two people trying to row the same boat as a team.

That takes some learning!

That’s when those wedding vows get tested.

For Lord, you do not expect the two to cease being uniquely themselves, but that they, as themselves, learn to be husband and wife who are building a relationship, and a life, which reflect the Lord of Love and Life.

Remind them, Lord, that truly loving each other must be learned anew each day, a love that will override the differences that inevitably surface, that will not be waylaid by personal pettiness or a fault-finder’s tongue.

We long for an ideal world where all vows are kept, Lord, where the temperature of love is constant, even when moods swing and the piled-up frustrations of the day are not left behind.

But Lord, you know that we seldom manage to be ideal people for very long.

Dear Lord, keep strong the wedding vows of love pledged in your name.

Help to ward off the invading plagues that can unravel the fabric of a solid marriage, like jealousy, insecurity, inattention, insensitivity, and distrust.

Help all be faithful in what they promised to each other: to honor and respect the other, in word and deed; to serve each other with a giving heart; to support each other when pain and burdens impose their weight.

And Lord, help those who are married to build a life together that’s marked by concern not only for each other, but for others too: a life of compassion for those who suffer, of fervor for seeing justice done, of ardor for the cause of peace, of longing for shalom.  T
Thus may their love flourish and their light shine!

Lord, hear our prayer.

THE COMFORT BIRD

The good news, finally, is that my translation of De treastfûgel/De troostvogel is published and available.

In 2014 and 2015 I wrote an extensive number of excerpts of The Comfort Bird for this blog.  I’m delighted that readers can now enjoy this remarkable true story in toto.

The publisher, Tom Bijvoet of Mokeham Publishing, wrote extensively about the book and this publishing venture in Dutch, the Magazine.

Click the link here, and I think the articles will entice you to get your copy of the book and enjoy the amazing adventure.

Comfort Bird info from DUTCH magazine

The book is available from the publisher, at various locations in Ontario (and if you Google title and author, you'll find it's available in other countries as well), from Amazon, and locally at the Calvin College Campus Store.

The Journey of Advent

Christmas comes and goes with a predictable regularity. 
Decorations go up; decorations come down. 
Trees are strapped to the tops of cars; trees are dumped on the curb, awaiting the garbage truck, or recycled. 
Presents are bought and wrapped; presents are exchanged and opened. 
We know the routine.
 And the danger is that Christmas itself becomes merely routine.

That’s why we have Advent—a time to wait, to anticipate, and ponder.

“The season of Advent reminds us that there is something on the horizon, something holy, the likes of which we have not seen before.
It’s possible to miss it, and then to realize what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s back fade in the distance.
So in the Advent season we need to stay put, to linger in the darkness, to ponder, to watch, to wonder, to wait for the light.”  [Jan L Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas]

It’s a time to wonder how it all began:

In the beginning was … God.
I don’t know where…I don’t know how…
But there was God.
And God had a Son…somehow; one only Son.

One day God made the heavens and the earth.
Wow!  I don’t know how…I don’t know why.

And then he made life…and he made us...
In his likeness…incomprehensibly.

Everything he made was good.
Even the will to choose was good.

But what we chose was not.

We don’t know why we chose the bad, then…and ever since.
God had made the sun shine on the earth.
But there was darkness in the human hearts,
and every inclination was stained with sin.
Till God’s heart was “grieved” and “filled with pain.”

But in God’s anger, he loved his children still.
He knew they needed him, even when they denied it to themselves.

Then he or the Council in heaven decided something I cannot get my mind around:
To have a virgin conceive a child…I don’t know how…

A Presbyterian pastor once tried to catch something of that mystery in a parable.
It goes like this:                                                        

Once upon a time, when the pain of mankind had become unbearable and the human cry could be heard all the way to the throne of God, before the presence of God a congregation of the heavenly host gathered to plead with God on behalf of the pilgrims still on earth.

They met to elect representatives on earth who had suffered most, who out of the pain they had endured could most eloquently communicate to God the terrible human dilemma and need on earth.

“We want someone,” they said, “who can explain to God what it is to be despised and hated. 

We want someone who can describe for God what it is to be starved, beaten, tortured, robbed, maligned and killed. 

We want someone who can explain to God the loneliness of a person when he is rejected by his fellow humans.”

And so they chose a Jew….

But they decided that they also needed someone to explain to God how hard it is for human beings to do the right thing, and how easily they slip into sin.  So they chose, to accompany the Jew, a convict, a prostitute, a liar, and an unfaithful husband.

As the committee moved off toward the throne of God, a little child spoke up.

“I am too young to argue with God,” the child said, “but I have a question for him.  Ask God if He’s ever been a child himself.”

So they took the child along too.

When they arrived at the throne, God listened to them patiently, and asked a question of his own:

“What would you have me do?”

They held council together and agreed that God should become a man if only for a season.  And the little child said,

“Then first he must be a child.  Let him know our dependence on others.  Let him know how it feels not to belong.”

Another member of the committee spoke up and insisted that God must be “a real man” and not just a divine being in human disguise.

“He’s not to put on his heavenly robe when he gets tired or sick, or hurt…let him be thrown in with shady people and seedy publicans and super patriots.  Let him know human injustice.”

Then someone else shouted for attention.  It was not enough, he said, for God to live as others lived.  If he was truly to partake of the human condition, God must learn what it is like to die.

After the committee had departed, God weighed the demands carefully.

And then one day, he appeared on earth, under exactly the conditions that had been prescribed for him.  [Rev. Herbert Meza, First Presb. Church, Texas City, TX]            

 “He came down from heaven,” the creeds and hymns tell us.

C.S. Lewis says this can almost be transposed into
“Heaven drew earth up into it:
and locality, limitation, sleep, sweat, footsore weariness,
frustration, pain, doubt, and death are, from before all worlds,
known by God from within.
The pure light walks the earth; the darkness -
received into the heart of Deity - is there swallowed up.
Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?  [Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer]

Advent begins in the dark, says Fleming Rutledge.

The authentically hopeful Christmas spirit does not look away from the darkness, but straight into it. The true and victorious Christmas spirit does not look away from death, but directly at it. Otherwise, the message is cheap and false.  [Fleming Rutledge, "Advent Begins in the Dark."]

The message begins with the Annunciation.

“ [For] The moment was on her unaware:  
-the Angel in the room, the impossible demand,
the response without reflection.  Only one
word of curiosity, echoing Zechariah’s How?
yet innocently voiced, without request for proof.
The teen head tilted in light, the hand
trembling a little at the throat, the candid
eyes, wide with acquiescence to shame and glory—
“Be it unto me as you have said.”    [Luci Shaw  “Announcement”]                     

 “Alone again, the chosen one knelt trembling,
shaken to silence, stunned by blazing light,
 . . . mesmerized by that unfolded plan, those words…
…weeks spread into months,           
…questions festered into doubts…
Faces turned away when she stepped into rooms
or slipped into the synagogue alone on her side
across the room from Joseph. …

Her parents too turned away,
not believing the unbelievable.  What could she say?
What should she do?  Where should she escape?  [Marie Post “Mary”] 

Luke writes:                           
 “At that time Mary … hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zacharia’s home and greeted Elizabeth.” [Luke 1:39-40]

“She shared her feelings with Elizabeth      
who recognized her coming as a sign…
… Excitement filled their talk
As though each babe was calling to the other.
High dreams of Israel’s hope burst into song:
the joy, the mission granted to a mother.
Children to be prepared for great events
that those who bore them might not comprehend.
How much it meant to share the faith, the fear,
the anticipation with a trusted friend.”       [Thomas John Carlisle, [“Beginning with Mary”]

And what about Joseph?  That mystery man of whom the Bible tells us so little.
Matthew’s family tree account does not list him as the father of anybody; he is simply referred to as “the husband of Mary.”
Mary pregnant while betrothed to Joseph, but Joseph was not the father.
It fills us with wonder: Jesus as part of the human history of this world, but he encounters us as One from the great beyond of God.

Mary needed faith and courage, yes; but Joseph needed it no less.

“Once, I was just a young man
who loved a lady.
I cherished a young man’s quiet fantasies
of her unwavering adoration.

Her body, bowed,
clothed in her best blue homespun,
trembles now before me
tears tumble down unto her wringing hands
as she wrenches out the words

‘I am with child.’

My face burns with a fire;
dreams shatter loudly
like brittle crystal
in my mind.

The explanation
  the annunciation—
Oh God, how can I believe?
The cruel realization of the agony of obedience
 crushes my heart.

I will be forever a marked man
both blamed and mocked
for the child I’ve been given to love
is not my son.”       [Joan Rae Mills “Joseph”]  

Matthew says Joseph  “was minded to drop her quietly.” 
But then the angel came and explained what he needed to know.

“And the angel spoke and made an effort
with the man who clenched his fists
and murmured, “What has changed her so?”
But at that the angel cried Carpenter,
dost thou not yet see that the Lord God is acting?
Because thou makest boards, in thy pride,
wouldst thou really call him to account
who modestly out of the same wood
makes leaves burgeon and buds swell?

He understood.  And as he now raised his eyes
very frightened, the angel was gone.
Joseph pushed his heavy cap slowly off. 
Then he sang praise.      [Rainer Maria Rilke, “Joseph’s Suspicion”]

Imagine Mary’s joy with Joseph’s acceptance:

“It was from Joseph first I learned

Of love. Like me he was dismayed.

How easily he could have turned

Me from his house; but, unafraid,

He put me not away from him

[(O God-sent angel, pray for him).]

Thus through his love was Love obeyed.”           [Madeleine L’Engle “O Sapientia”]

She would need that love to keep her steadfast, for there came, when least advisable, the jarring journey to Bethlehem, when birth was imminent.

It took faith and courage to take God seriously.
It did for Abraham.  It did for Moses.  It did for Jonah.  It did for Daniel.  It did for Joseph.
And it did for Mary.
She needed God to hold her hand, and Joseph too.         
Especially when there was no bed for rest, for sleep, for giving birth.

Mary and Joseph -  what did their hearts cry when they saw the lowly birth bed?

Our heads spin with incredulous wonder when we read that at the end of that taxing journey from Nazareth, Mary’s son, the Son of God, when the time had come, was born in a barn and laid in a manger.

Imagine that young Mary, facing giving birth to a first child, far from home, without a midwife or a mother hovering nearby, ready to deliver unto an ignorant but needy world the mystery child that had grown within her for nine months!

Thank God, Mary was not all alone:

“The Child's first cry came like a bell: 

God's Word aloud, God's Word in deed. The angel spoke: so it befell,

And Joseph with me in my need.

O Child whose father came from heaven,

To you another gift was given,

Your earthly father chosen well.

With Joseph I was always warmed 

And cherished. Even in the stable

I knew that I would not be harmed.

And though above the angels swarmed,

Man's love it was that made me able

To bear God's Love, wild, formidable,

To bear God's Will, through me performed.      [Madeleine L’Engle:  “O Sapientia”]

And when Mary looks upon this God-child, what is she thinking?

W.H. Auden expresses something of Mary’s possible ponderings in

“At the Manger Mary Sings”:

“Oh shut your bright eyes...
what can you discover
from my tender look but how to be afraid?
...Close your bright eye.
Sleep.  What have you learned from the womb that bore you
But an anxiety your Father cannot feel?
Sleep.  What will the flesh that I gave do for you,
Or my mother’s love, but tempt you from his will?

...Little One, sleep.”                                                  

On this journey of Advent  we’re made to think on these confusing and awe-inspiring events: the annunciation, the public stigma, the exhausting trip to Bethlehem, and all of it finally ending in a smelly stable.
The Bible says simply that Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

That pondering also inspired this next poem:

Mary Midrash II                    

“I’m glad I was young when he was born

and understood so little of what was to come.

The terrifying angel tried to comfort me, and for a while

I believed this child of mine would do great things,

might overthrow the Empire, might be crowned our king.

Though when I held his mottled newborn self

all that seemed preposterous fantasy.  It’s good

that I was young, for even as a child he’d glance

and all my imperfections would come clear to me.

I’m glad that terrible angel didn’t say

how different from my other sons he’d be

how solitary and far away he’d sometimes seem, not lonely

yet alone, though everyone desired his company.

I’m glad I didn’t know how many times I’d ponder,

press my arms across my breast, stilling a fear or ache

for this one, to whom I could offer much less than he could take.

I’m glad I didn’t know how much I’d see his suffering,

how many times my mother’s heart would break

even before that awful day he died.  I’m glad I started young,

had time to catch on slowly, understand, try to accept

that it is I who have bequeathed to him, this son divine yet

also of my kind, not his godliness or holy joy, his peaceable

nature, inner light.  No, from me came vulnerability,

his human body, human heart, the painful human part.”    [Barbara Van Noord]                                     

But back to Joseph… 
this God-chosen man, this man who was faithful
in spite of the gossip in Nazareth,
in spite of the danger from Herod.
This man Joseph, who listened to angels...
What was he thinking as he looked down on this Little One?

“Back in Nazareth I’ll make a proper bed for you
of seasoned wood, smooth, strong, well-pegged.
A bed fit for a carpenter’s son.

Just wait till we get back to Nazareth.
I’ll teach you everything I know.
You’ll learn to choose the cedar wood, eucalyptus, and fir.
You’ll learn to use the drawshave, ax, and saw.    
Your arms will grow strong, your hands rough—like these.
You will bear the pungent smell of new wood
and wear shavings and sawdust in your hair.

You’ll be a man whose whole life centers
on hammer and nails and wood.

But for now,
sleep, little Jesus, sleep.”     [Ron Klug   “Joseph’s Lullaby”]       

Born in the darkness of the night.
Like the world that received him not.
Like Herod’s heart and a thousand Herods after him.
A world where children are murdered still,
where young girls are raped and trafficked,
where starvation and epidemics and terrorism stalk the vulnerable,
where human life is devastated by floods and earthquakes,
where parents divorce, and close friends are dying of cancer.

But this little Christmas baby came to be the light of this world.

That means he came to change the world, and that is dangerous work.

His life would lead him not only among the hungry and the heavyhearted,

not only among the prostitutes and the prisoners,

not only among the sick and the suffering,

but also among the powerful and the proud,

among the victimizers and the crucifiers.                                       

Jesus came to change this world, through three years of ministry,

and through you and me

who embrace not only the Christ-Child of Christmas

but who follow him as Savior in all the dark places

that are desperate for light.

That is the challenge of our Christmas faith.

And in this Advent Season,                      
we ponder the mystery, and the Glory!                                                    

We listen to the words of the apostle John:
“This is how God showed his love among us:
He sent his one and only Son into the world
that we might live through him. …  

Dear friends, since God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another. …
If we love one another, God lives in us
and his love is made complete in us.”      [John 4]

Advent is a time to listen to that Son who came among us,
listen to the Christ who said, “Follow me.”
And, of course, we’d rather not.
We’d rather pretend that doesn’t include me.
But hunger is real
and misery, and hate-filled faces.
So is confrontation.
So is injustice.

But once you know who God calls you to be,
you’re not content with sitting in corners.
There’s got to be some alleluia shouting,
some speaking out, some standing up
some caring, some sharing
some community, some risk.

Discipleship means living what you know.    [Ann Weems  “Christmas Trees and Strawberry Summers”]

And if we remember that, Christmas is going to be much more than a jolly gathering around the manger, singing “Sweet Baby Jesus,” for the truth is that there’s a cross in the manger.

Loren Wilkinson makes a similar point, I think, in the following poem.
(Whidbey Island  is one of nine islands north of Seattle on Puget Sound.  Note the imagery of beach and rocky shore and woodlands.)                     

“Christmas:  Whidbey Island 1975”

Not in the waves, nor in the wave-torn kelp;
Not in the heron by the lake at dawn,
Nor in the owl’s haunting of the woods,
Nor in the rabbits’ browsing frightened on the lawn;

Neither in the widening whirl
Of sea-shell, galaxy or cedar burl
Nor in the mushroom’s bursting of the humid ground,
In nothing of his bright, sky world
May God the Fathering be found,
If not found first in Bethlehem
In prickly hay, on hoof-packed earth,
Where a girl, cruciform with pain
Grips manger-boards in child-birth.

There, in the harsh particular,
In drafts, and stench of cow-manure,
The squawls of Christ, Creator, sound:
Where God let go of God-head in a child,
There only will the God of life be found.

Now: If we upon this wave-shaped bluff
Stand in the straw at Bethlehem,
Then God shines out from everything:
The agate in the surf, the withered flower stem;
The fish that gives its body for the seal;
The flash, the fruits that form each common meal;
The dance of pain and love in which our lives are bound;
If God was flesh in Bethlehem,
In all the world’s flesh will Christ be found.
                                    ***

Soon we’ll be singing “Joy to the World.”

And what about joy?

Did joy come to the world long ago,

even when the Christmas cradle gave way to Calvary’s cross?

Yes, because after that Black Friday, a quiet change began:

Life erupted out of death.

Lives were changed.

And out of the life and love of Jesus,

hope was born. 

Hope which tenaciously clings to the hearts of the faithful 

and announces in the face
of any Herod the world can produce
and all the inn doors slammed in our faces
and all the dark nights of our souls
that with God all things still are possible,
that even now unto us
a Child is born!                                           [Anne Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem]

Into the impenetrable darkness of our night,                                

the Child is born.

The Morning Star appears.

The people who walked in darkness                       

have seen a great light.

Joy to the world!

For Jesus has invaded our lives,

wielding his peace like a sword,

giving his life and living again

for love of us.

For, as we read in Isaiah:
“he was sent to preach good news to the poor,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives,
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
… to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve…
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.     [fr. Isaiah 61]

At the end of our Advent Journey, we approach Christmas:

God came to live among us -
Oh come, let us adore Him!”