Staff Blogs

By Manny Lewis

In a world that often feels divided and disconnected, many people find solace and a sense of belonging in their faith and in the power of community work. But where exactly do these two intersect? Where can we find God in our efforts to build stronger communities?

For some, the answer may lie within the walls of their local place of worship. Whether it’s a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, these sacred spaces offer a sanctuary for individuals to come together, worship, and connect with something greater than themselves. Through prayer, meditation, and rituals, people are able to find comfort, guidance, and a sense of purpose that helps them navigate the challenges of daily life.

“In these moments of connection, empathy, and service, we truly find God and experience the transformative power of community.”

But the search for God and community work extends far beyond the confines of traditional religious institutions. It can be found in the acts of kindness and compassion we see every day. It can be found in the selfless efforts of volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to serving others. It can be found in the bonds formed through shared experiences, struggles, and triumphs.

God and community work can be found in the homeless shelter providing warm meals and shelter to those in need. It can be found in the community garden where neighbors come together to grow food and cultivate relationships. It can be found in the mentorship programs that empower young people and help them realize their potential. It can even be found in the simple act of lending a listening ear to someone who is going through a difficult time.

THE BEAUTY OF FINDING God and community work is that it is not limited to any specific location or organized group. It can happen anywhere and anytime, as long as we open our hearts and minds to the needs of others. It is in these moments of connection, empathy, and service that we truly find God and experience the transformative power of community.

“Through prayer, meditation, and rituals, people are able to find comfort, guidance, and a sense of purpose that helps them navigate the challenges of daily life.”

So, where do you find God and community work? The answer lies within you. It lies in the choices you make, the values you live by, and the actions you take to make a positive difference in the world around you. It lies in the genuine connections you forge with others and the impact you have on their lives.

In a society that often feels divided, finding God and community work is not just a personal journey, but a collective one. Together, we can create a world where love, compassion, and unity are the guiding principles. Let us seek out opportunities to serve, to connect, and to build bridges that bring us closer to one another and to the divine presence within us all.

By Emilie Bouvier

Two weeks ago I found myself in front of a beautiful art piece on the banks of the Wenatchee River in Washington state. I arrived at the Grunewald Guild just hours earlier for a week of teaching an art workshop on photography and spirituality.

Finesterre

I’ve heard pastors comment before that they sometimes find themselves preaching the sermon they themselves most need to hear. I find that is often true for me with my art practice. At least I know most certainly that spending a week interweaving some of my touchstone photography practices with justice-rooted reflection, spiritual grounding, and community-centered creativity was definitely what my spirit most needed.

“Practicing art in community can be powerful.”

Perhaps this is why this sculpture by the river captivated me as I arrived. The piece is formed from four trees. Cut as dead standing, they had then been steamed, power washed, and trimmed, highlighting smooth contours and remaining branches, their simplified intricacies standing starkly out from the dense green of the forest surrounding them. A metal band forms a circle around these pillar trees, with a couple of benches underneath.

Titled “Finesterre,” the piece is designed as a contemplative space, built from a sketch done by Grunewald Guild co-founder Richard Caemmerer. It is a piece that embodies art holding a sacred space for community to gather and creativity to flourish, with branches and bands outlining a place for longing and belonging in a tall stand of ponderosa pines along the Wenatchee river.

THE GRUNEWALD GUILD WAS a place that was new to me, though its landscape felt very familiar, just on the other side of a north cascade mountain ridge from Holden Village. The two are sister retreat centers in a way, with parallel values in community, simplicity, and spirituality. The Grunewald Guild has a unique mission, though, of being a small community for artists to create together.

Practicing art in community can be powerful. Creating and sharing art is rarely an isolated experience – even if one’s practice is mostly individual, like mine – as an art piece made and shared opens a space for connection and participation with others. Art shares through impressions and expression in shape, pattern, texture, and colors. It’s hard with such a medium to tell others exactly what to think or feel — yet these images and imprints open space for another to reflect and journey there.

“Creating and sharing art is rarely an isolated experience.”

There’s something sacred about this kind of exchange, I think – how in making and sharing art we can hold space for one another. And in our exploration, the creativity, joy, play, sorrow, connection can become “thin spaces”; we meet the holy one at those edges.

As I stayed up late prepping for class the next day – cutting photographic paper, prepping collage canvasses, laying out class materials, and looking over the readings – I found myself excited and curious about what would emerge. This to me is a part of the spiritual discipline – entering the creativity, community, and process of artmaking, trusting that God will show up.

Whatever creativity looks like for you these days, from art-based play to inspiring conversation and beyond, I hope the joyful spark of creative experience is one where you can encounter the stirring of the Spirit in your own and others’ experience and imagination.

For me, I’m excited to continue to keep finding windows of creating, reflecting, and sharing through artmaking as a part of my vocational life that keeps me grounded and connects me in community. I’m especially excited to share my new art workings at the Minnesota State Fair as the featured artist in the Fine Arts Building on Sunday, September 3 – so if your own spirit is sparked by conversations about art and faith, you can find me there. (And then be sure to support Salem Lutheran by visiting its State Fair booth and getting a Swedish egg coffee or meatballs and mashed potatoes afterward!)

By Jack Hurbanis

This summer, on the way to visit family in Slovakia for the first time since before the pandemic, I got to spend two and a half glorious days in Iceland. My traveling partners and I landed about a week after the summer solstice – meaning for the entire time, we never saw the sun set.

Glymur Waterfall

We got to visit Reykjavik, see bubbling sulfur-filled geothermal pools, relax in hot springs next to the freezing cold ocean, touch the point in which the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, watch a volcano erupt, and find the natural beauty that seems to hide behind every corner on this sparsely populated island.

The most awe-inspiring and challenging moment was our hike to see Glymur Waterfall.

“I came to learn there is no wrong way to do this beautiful hike.”

As a community organizer, it may not shock people that I like to plan ahead and be overly prepared. In our trip preparations, I researched hikes to do while in Iceland and that’s how I came across the hike to Glymur. I read countless reviews, looked at photos, and came to learn that there were dueling opinions on the best way to hike the 4.1-mile loop up and back down the 1305 feet of elevation change. After discussing with my hiking partners, we decided that we thought the arguments being made by the group of people encouraging site-seers to hike the trail counterclockwise were the most compelling and that’s the route we would take.

WE ARRIVED IN THE parking lot at 10 a.m. After stopping several times on the way to take pictures with roaming bands of sheep, we stared at the map written all in Icelandic. Wanting to take charge as an activity I suggested and planned, I looked at the arrows pointing to take the first right and confidently said “remember, the reviews said go counterclockwise, so we’ll take a left at the split and hike up from there.” For those reading this and who understand circles better than I do, going left at any point in a circle is in fact going clockwise – but my brain made the connection “counter” equals “opposite,” so we’ll go the other way. I didn’t realize my mistake until we were about 100 yards from the car.

Jack on his way up the mountain

I came to learn there is no wrong way to do this beautiful hike. I feel fortunate, after walking up and getting to experience mountains that have been carved out by streams of water for thousands of years, to have a gorgeous 650-foot waterfall revealed after crossing the coldest and clearest river I’ve ever seen. I could walk the second half accompanied by the rushing sound of the waterfall and increasing feelings of “wait, we just came from all the way up there? That’s so high!”

“One of my hiking partners remarked that three sheep were walking farther north along a small path and that if the sheep are going that way, it must be safe to follow.”

The only hitch was that if you hike the opposite way from what you researched, when they tell you there will be a log to cross on the first river cross and that you’ll have to wade through the second one, you need to also reverse these expectations as well.

When we arrived at the first river, seeing no log anywhere in sight, we figured this must not be the crossing site. This hike did not come with labeled markers, just a worn trail and the occasional post to keep your faith that other humans have also been where you currently are. This was the correct crossing site which we were supposed to gather from the two small metal rods on either side of the bank.

Jack and his friends following sheep along the river

One of my hiking partners, a friend who I’ve known and lived with since the first day of college, remarked that three sheep were walking farther north along a small path and that if the sheep are going that way, it must be safe to follow. Seeing no flaw in that logic, we walked for an extra mile and a half along this beautiful river I later learned is called the Botnsa.

After arriving at a waterfall that was not the one we were looking for, we turned around and decided just to try our luck crossing at the original spot – which led us directly to the reveal of Glymur. It was almost unsettling not being able to hear such an enormous waterfall until you could suddenly experience the rush and see the cavern it has carved out. While there was really no danger in slipping and getting pulled under as the river crossing was mostly shallow and had no strong currents, it was similarly unsettling to realize I was 500 feet upstream from the mouth of Glymur without knowing.

The descent going clockwise was more difficult than it would have been if we had gone counterclockwise, but after four hours and nearly seven miles of hiking we made it back to our car and headed off to lunch laughing about how long it took us to realize such a simple mistake and that we actually think the hike was better the way we did it.

BY THE TIME you are reading this blog, my time on synod staff will have ended. With the upcoming transition and my heading off to become a full-time law student, I’ve reflected on my Glymur hike and have thought about how the best things in life don’t have a wrong way to do them.

Jack and friends crossing the river

I’ve made many plans in my life, sticking to them maybe 33% of the time, and sometimes the mistakes are what have allowed me to get to have incredible experiences. In just a year and half as Congregational Organizer for Environmental Justice, there are about a million things that didn’t go as planned, but that didn’t stop us from filling a room at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to fight for more investment in energy efficiency upgrades, or from hosting our first Minneapolis Area Synod EcoFaith Summit at Diamond Lake Lutheran, or from being part of the coalition that passed 100% Clean Energy by 2040 in Minnesota.

“Sometimes the mistakes are what have allowed me to get to have incredible experiences.”

I am excited about my future plans and to see how they go awry, and I know the Minneapolis Area Synod EcoFaith Network is going to continue making great plans and even better adaptations.

By Nicholas Tangen

July 11 is the feast day of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the father of western monasticism and the writer of the Rule of St. Benedict (RB), a text that has served as a guide and ground for monastic communities over the centuries. Not many Lutherans pay attention to Benedict’s feast day and there is still enough anti-monastic juice in the Lutheran tradition that I suppose this makes sense. But as a Benedictine Oblate and a Lutheran, I have found incredible wisdom and practice among monastic communities, and I was grateful to gather with other Oblates last weekend for a retreat at St. John’s Abbey.

Okay, so first, what is an Oblate? My friends jokingly call it a monk with benefits, or cosplay for the monastically inclined. But in reality, it is someone who has vowed to live their life guided by the Rule of St Benedict while living outside the monastery – something like a lay monk.

“The experience of morning prayer, the intentional practice of offering God the first fruits of our day through the psalmody and silent reflection, captured my heart.”

Benedictine Oblates come from many traditions and backgrounds, Catholic and Protestant, lay and ordained. But what unites them are vows of humility, stability, and conversion of heart.

I first learned about Benedictine spirituality from a Spiritual Director who noticed my desire for a whole-life-encompassing faith practice and thought the monastery may have something to teach me. I came to the Lutheran church in my 20s and was transformed by the promise of God’s grace and liberation. The theology of the cross, the commitment to God’s action and grace, and the deep rootedness in Scripture took hold of me and assured me I was indeed a Lutheran.

But while the Lutheran church’s theology captured my attention and devotion, I struggled to find guidance in my church for how my life would be lived differently day to day in light of God’s grace. So, when my Spiritual Director told me about the Benedictines and the Rule that guided their life in community, I was intrigued.

WHEN I WALKED INTO the St John’s Abbey Church on my first visit, I was immediately enthralled by the slow and steady reading of Psalms – the monastic community dressed in black cassocks praying together as one voice, one community. Early morning light poured in through hundreds of brightly colored stained-glass windows, and the rhythm of prayer and silence, prayer and silence, filled the space with wakefulness and attention. The experience of morning prayer, the intentional practice of offering God the first fruits of our day through the psalmody and silent reflection, captured my heart and let me know that I had found a community to learn alongside.

Prayer frames and animates the daily life of monastics. It’s the very breath of the Benedictine community, and that practice is one embraced not only by professed monks but by Oblates and other lay people connected to the monastery community.

This regular and daily prayer reveals that God is present in every moment, in every part of our lives, and in the lives of our community members. It attunes our attention and prepares our faculties to notice and celebrate the activity of God in our homes, our churches, and our neighborhoods.

When I first attended a Lutheran church, I was afraid to admit that I didn’t know how to pray because it seemed so private, so individualized, and so undervalued. As an adult, I could find all kinds of opportunities to learn and discuss history, theology, and social issues but struggled to find anyone who would teach me how to pray or model a life of prayer. The Benedictines taught me to pray, and more than that, showed me that Christian community is sustained by shared and individual daily prayer.

Through the Benedictine community I’ve discovered and sustained a practice of the Liturgy of the Hours, that regular time set aside in the morning, at midday, and evening to pray, praise, and reflect on God’s activity in my life. It has transformed the way I move through my daily work, recreation, and relationships. It has grounded me in the presence of God in and through every moment of my life and the life of the community I belong to.

“The Benedictines taught me to pray, and more than that, showed me that Christian community is sustained by shared and individual daily prayer.”

And my connection to the Benedictine tradition has reminded me that there is such beauty in the diversity of Christian practice. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “… there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6 NRSV).

What are the practices and traditions that have animated your own relationship with God and community? What has prayer looked like in your own life and practice? How do you attune your attention to God’s presence in your work, recreation, and relationships?

Thanks be to God for this beautiful variety and the myriad practices and communities that contribute to Body of Christ here and now. And thanks to St. Benedict whose Rule continues to offer wisdom and guidance to those yearning for life and seeking good days (RB Prologue v1). Amen.

By Bob Hulteen

Social location makes such a difference, … even in the church, it seems.

Having grown up from fifth grade on in a North Dakota ALC congregation, I had never heard the names of Richard Allen or Absalom Jones. Neither school nor church provided information about these two faith leaders from the Revolutionary War Era.

But, I hadn’t lived in D.C., and attended an LCA congregation, for two weeks before the names of Allen and Jones were included in educational events or the intercessory prayers of the people. These two were discussed as essential church leaders, perhaps with some weak ties to Lutherans of the time (though I have trouble finding those connections).

With their courage to resist attempts to make these former slaves sit segregated in the balcony at St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Jones and Allen led a walk out of that congregation. They started the Free African Society , which served as a precursor to the founding of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) by the Rev. Richard Allen, who had formerly been a deacon in the Methodist Church, … even when being ushered to the balcony.

Absalom Jones went on to be ordained in the Episcopal Church, pastoring the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Phillie in the very late 1700s. (The keynote speaker for the 2023 Bishop’s Theological Conference, Dr. Catherine Meeks, is the executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing in Atlanta.)

Pastor Ingrid Rasmussen expresses appreciation for the relationship with St. James AME.

LAST SATURDAY I joined 15 members of my congregation to celebrate the 160^th anniversary of Mother Saint James AME’s ministry in the city of Minneapolis. Having existed in several locations throughout the city (often moving due to “expansions” in transit, including the development of the interstate highway system), St. James is now located in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis, just a few blocks from Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.

Pastor Ingrid Rasmussen of Holy Trinity was invited to share a message during the anniversary commemoration. She shared the joy of shared breakfasts with the Rev. Marchelle Hallman, a recent pastor at St. James. This relationship led to shared events between the congregations, including a merging of the choirs for a couple joint worship services and a shared congregational book study. Pastor Ingrid reflected on the many blessings that grew from the seed of those Denny’s breakfasts.

Presiding Elder Stacey Smith shares her gratitude for the ministry of Mother St. James AME.

Presiding Elder Stacey Smith, the chief executive of the Minneapolis-St. Paul District of the Fourth Episcopal District of the AME, during the celebratory program thanked God for the faithful witness of the Mother St. James congregation. Elder Smith governs a district that includes Minnesota, much of Iowa, and some congregations in Canada. Minneapolis Area Synod staff have had the honor of participating in a couple of the assemblies for this district, held here in Twin Cities, talking about environmental concerns and shared futures.

“Mother St. James AME has been a cornerstone of the African-American community, providing ‘hope during this challenging era.’”

St. James was founded in 1863. Think of that. While the Civil War raged, a faithful group of African American leaders started a church in what is now downtown Minneapolis, originally in the homes of Paul Brown and other free men and women of African descent. It has been a cornerstone of the African-American community, providing “hope during this challenging era,” as the celebratory program explains.

Seemingly every era has been “challenging” for the AME church in Minnesota. A few weeks earlier, community historian Greg McMoore of St. Peter AME, Minneapolis, shared data about how the Black community was divided with the construction of I-35, increasing the challenge to support African-American-owned businesses in South Minneapolis. He also shared about the burning down of an AME congregation in Hastings, with evidence that it was at the hands of nationalist groups.

Still, Mother St. James and other AME congregations persisted.

RECENT TRAGEDIES STRIKE too close to home for us as Lutherans. In 2015 Dylann Roof was welcomed into a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Twenty-one-year-old Roof opened fire during a closing prayer, killing nine members of the congregation that had offered him hospitality. Murdered were the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, the Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson. (Pinckney and Simmons were graduates of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.)

Dylann Roof had been confirmed a few years earlier in an ELCA congregation.

Somehow, Roof had gone through theological education in a Lutheran church and still felt that starting a race war was acceptable behavior. In other words, he had gone through years of confirmation and was still okay murdering people on account of their race, … in a church. While many might disagree, I think we all have to own that.

“While many might disagree, I think we all have to own that.”

Following a resolution passed at the 2019 Churchwide Assembly, congregations of the ELCA are encouraged to observe June 17 as the Commemoration of the Emanuel 9. It is a time for confession, lament, and commitment to change. The Churchwide staff has prepared resources to help congregations with worship planning. The horrific tragedy of Mother Emanuel and the rise of Christian nationalism in congregations near and far calls us to take a hard look at whether our faith practices are adequate to prepare us to resist this growing threat.

160th Anniversary Program

The ELCA already has full communion partnerships with six denominations, as well as ongoing bi-lateral conversations with six other denominations, including the AME. This relationship in this age seems to be especially important. So often institutions talk about wanting to diversify themselves. Just as often, it seems, this means inviting individuals into the already-existing culture of the institution.

A bi-lateral relationship with an existing denomination that has its own history and culture allows people to engage in conversation with relatively similar amounts of power. Each body can bring its own cultural assumptions to the table, looking for shared commitments and perspectives. And, there are many between the ELCA and AME.

Might this be a time for the natural development of healthy relationships that offer the opportunity to live into the calling of being the Body of Christ, existing for the sake of the world?

By Pastor John Hulden

It’s the middle of summer. Have you been to a lake yet?

Looking back on my just completed two weeks of vacation, water played an important role in my time away. At an Airbnb in Detroit Lakes, there was swimming and a pontoon ride, as well as a bike ride around Lake Detroit most every morning. In Moorhead — besides eating a dilly bar at the best DQ in the world — I did more biking up and down the bike paths along the mighty Red River of the North. Then I took the train to northwestern Montana to spend a week with my Mom at our little lake place next to a crystal-clear lake. Nothing beats jumping into a cold mountain lake after a sauna!

“The green spaces around Bde Maka Ska on that warm, beautiful day last week were full of folks BBQing, laughing, lounging, and playing volleyball, soccer, and frisbee.”

Back in Minnesota on the Fourth of July, we visited friends who live near Bde Maka Ska in South Minneapolis. The green spaces around Bde Maka Ska on that warm, beautiful day last week were full of folks BBQing, laughing, lounging, and playing volleyball, soccer, and frisbee. In the water were swimmers, waders, splashers, and too many floatation devices to count. Along with our grandson, we even got to see a turtle waddle into the water next to one of the swimming beaches.

I’ve been thinking and thanking ever since about public spaces.

WHILE DETROIT LAKES has a great public beach (across the road from Zorbaz), the rest of the shoreline is prime real estate. Most of the small fishing cabins have been torn down and replaced long ago with massive year-round “cabins.” It reminded me of Lake Minnetonka.

In Moorhead, where we lived for 16 years before moving 11 years ago to the other edge of Minnesota, the city’s leaders are contemplating a re-do of their downtown along the Red River. The citizens of Moorhead voted for a tax increase (!) to help re-think and re-frame their 1970 era downtown that is bookended by two public parks.

“I’m grateful for the forward-thinking, inclusive-minded leaders from years ago that argued and fought successfully for public access to the lakes in their cities.”

At that Montana lake I adore, we look across to a public campground. But there too, most of the small fishing cabins have been replaced by cabin-mansions. One of the property owners used prime lake shore for their tennis court — where I’ve never seen anyone with a racket and a tennis ball.

When I think of the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I’m grateful for the forward-thinking, inclusive-minded leaders in Minneapolis and Saint Paul from years ago that argued and fought successfully for public access to the lakes in their cities.

It made me wonder as I biked around a lake, and along a river, for what should I argue and fight? Is there an issue, a problem, an opportunity that might not benefit me today, but instead provide a clean, public space so generations to come can laugh, swim, eat, and play?

By Jack Hurbanis

After years of dreaming about it, earlier this year in March I made the decision to accept an offer from Mitchell Hamline Law School and begin my time as a law student this fall.

This idea started during my senior year of high school when, as a part of my government class, attorneys from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office came into our class for a week and led us through a mock trial. I volunteered to be the lead defense attorney after no one else raised their hand. I spent the week learning from practicing lawyers about what it looks like to defend someone in court. On Friday, we began our court proceedings with the lawyers acting as the judge and in the end, I successfully convinced a jury of my peers that my client was innocent.

The defense team, including me, won the automatic A grade promised to whichever team secured their desired verdict. The bell rang and I went to move onto my next class but before I could, the two lawyers pulled me aside and told me to “consider law school one day”.

“I wasn’t prepared for the single question I have gotten from 90% of people when I tell them I’m going to law school.”

Fast forward seven years and I was beginning to tell friends and family that the idea I had been considering outloud and in my head was becoming a reality. What I wasn’t prepared for was the single question I have gotten from 90% of people when I tell them: “Law school, I hear that’s tough. Are you worried?,” with a tone that I’ve just told them that I’m entering the NFL draft having ended my last football experience in 5th grade — eight days after practices started.

For the most part my answer has been, “Kinda, but not as worried as I thought I was going to be.” My career has included time spent as a community organizer, political campaign manager, country club line cook, film school student, large event planner, and bagel shop cashier — and I’m hoping each one of those stops along the way will make this next one just a little bit easier.

So, thank you to every person I have gotten work with since I started as the Congregational Organizer for Environmental Justice for the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (I don’t get to use my absurdly long job title for much longer, so I am trying to get as much use in as possible) because you have helped prepare me for my next step.

By Maya Bryant

Yesterday, while deep cleaning my car to get ready to sell it, I heard high-pitched chirping coming from nearby. I chose to ignore it until it got so irritable that I dropped my towel and Windex bottle to find the source.  

Near my right front wheel was a baby robin, barely old enough to fly, screeching at me. It looked like it had fallen from the nest and hurt its neck. Its head was at a weird angle, and its legs didn’t move when it tried to walk. I was upset, of course, but there was no way I could kill this poor creature even though I knew it would probably not recover from paralysis.  

“While I worked the baby robin would try fruitlessly to fly away, stumbling around on the sidewalk and into the grass.”

So, I put on some rubber gloves and moved it out of the street, which somehow caused even more shrieking until I gently set it down by my front step. It stared at me in shock and tried to fly away, but it couldn’t. I sat with it until it fell asleep and went back to work.  

While I worked the baby robin would try fruitlessly to fly away, stumbling around on the sidewalk and into the grass. Eventually, it stopped trying. Eventually, it died.  

IT’S A SEEMINGLY irrelevant story about a life ending after barely beginning. And maybe it is. But I can see many things in those short hours with that baby bird. So many metaphors and anecdotes, so many parables and hymns. 

But all I could think at the time was, “How sad. It never got to fly.” And this was Juneteenth, no less – a day celebrating the actual freedom of all enslaved Black Americans.  

The freedom to go where you wanted and do what you pleased whenever you wanted to would be a wonderful aspiration. How nice it would’ve been to see that baby robin fly. But some robins never get to. Some robins end up like this one, with fear and death, as is nature. Nature is not “nice;” it is honest and soul-bearing, but it is not “nice.”  

“But some robins never get to fly.”

From author and science professor Isaac Asimov: “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” 

Death is as natural as life. Everything that begins, naturally, must come to an end. What is unnatural is trying to stop them from coexisting. Our time is limited, and we must cherish it when we have it.  

And so, life continues, or doesn’t, in whichever direction it takes us. I’ll leave you with that.  

A window

By Bob Hulteen

I have a long-time friend named Larry Kiewel.

I finally met Larry in person a couple months ago.

For about 15 years, Larry was an acquaintance at a distance who was always just an email away. We first got in touch when I was editor of the Metro Lutheran. Larry would occasionally respond to an editorial I penned or a news story that I included. He seemed to appear as an email in my Inbox just when I needed … either to offer support on something controversial or to challenge me to think more broadly or take a deeper dive on a piece that really just skimmed the surface of a topic.

We would sometimes write back and forth a few times a month. Sometimes we would go months without contact. It was an electronic friendship; we knew each other just by virtual Windows (I’m now accepting my fate as a PC user).

Well, that’s not totally true. Along the way we found out that my family sold our flock of sheep to his college roommate’s family … in 1963. There were other ways our shadows may have crossed over the years. But, we never met in person.

Do you have a friend who opens windows for you to other perspectives, whether actual neighbors or neighbors from afar?

WELL, WE FINALLY MET a couple months back. Larry and his wife have moved off the farm and now live in St. Peter. We got together for coffee at a favorite haunt of his, not too far from Gustavus Adolphus College. I arrived first; were any of those already there Larry? It’s always awkward when trying to meet an unknown person in a popular spot.

When he did arrive, we immediately started talking. And we talked. And we shared poetry – Larry shared his, I shared my dad’s. We talked faith communities, and theology, and sheep, and farming, and writing, and children, and cancer and COVID, and, … and, … and.

“Our similar lives – including all the divergences – just meant that there was depth to mine and angles of vision to share.”

What a gift to have met a friend. I suppose it could have gone badly. Maybe the computers could have been a buffer that created comfortability that wouldn’t be there IRL. (Do people still use that phrase for “in real life”?) But, our similar lives – including all the divergences – just meant that there was depth to mine and angles of vision to share. Our shared hope that the divide between urban and rural communities could be healed provides a strong grounding.

I still love getting emails from Larry. They brighten my day. He is a gifted writer/poet; his turns of phrase make me sit back in my chair to think, to contemplate – something I don’t do frequently enough, I suspect.

With his permission, I am going to share a poem he recently shared with me, written for his brother and cousins in a monthly letter he sends to them. I hope you like it as much as I did/do:

I Have a Window

It is required that a poet have a window.
What a wonderful metaphor.
It separates me on the inside
From a world on the outside.
I see the school bus and the garbage truck.
I see the woman two houses down
receive her E-bay bounty from
UPS and Fed-Ex and even Speedi Delivery.
I see baseball, football, and volleyball
all in their season.
I know all the neighborhood dogs
and the schedule of their particular owners.
All of this, while I sit
quiet and warm on the inside.
Perhaps a window is the definition
of being a poet.
Separated from other worlds
the poet gives a view.
Sometimes of the inside
Sometimes of the outside.
I, the poet, have a window
on being a window.