Going On

Friday, March 19, 2004

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

The visibility of stars on a cold winter night is one of the added benefits of the upper Midwest in February. If you head out on a run, as I did, with snowshoes on, and get out in the middle of a brightly moonlit field, the snow crisp and virgin under your tracks, remembering the blizzard you drove through on the way home now cleared away by the swift change in temperatures, you get both the sense of brutal nature and vast distances, but then the warm cloying closeness of sweat under jacket and misty breathe that beads and freezes under the facemask. You're cozy in the midst of something palpably other. I wonder if astronauts also feel this in their spacesuits as they float in a vacuum.

Madison also affords long, scenic views across wind-swept lakes, the biggest being just down the hill from our apartment complex. So the view of the stars is not only long and high but also expansive.

Saturday, February 15, 2003

Last weekend was my ordination. Anyone needing the full text necessary to print an ordination worship bulletin, I'm inserting here my stab at it. Unfortunately, I can't host it here as an actual file, so if you like it and need it, simply e-mail and I'll send it as a Word document. For those interested, followed the basic pattern as printed in the occasional services, used the LBW setting for the remainder of the service, picked some of my favorite hymns (wish more congregations sang these hymns on a regular basis). Had the organist play a Bach Fugue at the end which was especially nice and calm and quiet prior to going out to the reception. Thanks to all who helped and attended.

Liturgy at the Ordination
of Clint Schnekloth
February 9th, 2003

The Word

Prelude Praise to the Lord, the Almighty C. Phillips
Welcome
Opening Hymn LBW #230: Lord, Keep Us Steadfast
Apostolic Greeting LBW, p. 57
Kyrie
Prayer of the Day
First Reading: Romans 11:25-32
Psalm 95 (sung responsively, cantor begins) LBW, p. 260
Gospel: John 21:15-17
Sermon Pastor Andris Sedlins
Apostle's Creed LBW, p. 65
Hymn of the Day LBW #396: O God, O Lord

The Ordination

P: I present for ordination to the holy ministry of Word and Sacrament Clint Allan Schnekloth, who has been prepared, examined, and certified for this ministry and who has been called by the Church to the office of pastor.
C: Thanks be to God.

Sit
P1: According to apostolic usage you are now to be set apart to the office of Word and Sacrament in one holy catholic Church by the laying on of hands and by prayer.
C: Thanks be to God.
The peace of the Lord be with you always.
C: And also with you.

Sharing of the Peace
Sit

The Lord's Supper

Offering Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ J.S. Bach

All offerings at this service will be donated to
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services

Stand

Offertory hymn, Let the Vineyards LBW, p.67
Prayer Merciful Father...
The Great Thanksgiving
Words of Institution
The Lord?s Prayer LBW, p. 71

Sit

Distribution of the Lord's Supper
Prayer
Blessing & Benediction
Dismissal
Postlude ?Fugue in G Major? J.S. Bach
You are invited to remain seated for the postlude
---
Please join us in the C ommons for coffee, cake & ice cream following the liturgy.

and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30)

Ministers Address the Newly Ordained

B: The God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever.
C: Amen.

Ministers and newly ordained face the congregation
B: Will you, assembled as the people of God and speaking for the whole Church, receive Clint as a messenger of Jesus Christ sent to serve God's people with the Gospel of hope and salvation? Will you regard him as a servant of Christ?
C: We will.

B: Will you pray for him, help and honor him for his work's sake, and in all things strive to live together in the peace and unity of Christ?
C: We will.

B: Let it be acclaimed that Clint is ordained a minister in the Church of Christ. He has Christ's authority to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments, serving God's people.
C: Amen. Thanks be to God.

P2: Our Lord Jesus Christ says: "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." (John 20:21-23)

P2: And again: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. (Matt. 28:18-20)

P3: St. Paul writes: I receive from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new testament in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Cor. 11:23-26)

B: Before almighty God, to whom you must give account, and in the presence of this congregation, I ask: Will you assume this office, believing that the Church's call is God's call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament?
O: I will, and I ask God to help me.
B: The Church in which you are to be ordained confesses that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God and are the norm of its faith and life. We accept, teach, and confess
the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds. We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions as true witnesses and faithful expositions of Holy Scriptures. Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and these creeds and confessions?
O: I will, and I ask God to help me.

B: Will you be diligent in your study of the Holy Scriptures and in your use of the means of grace? Will you pray for God's people, nourish them with the Word and Holy Sacraments, and lead them by your own example in faithful service and holy living?
O: I will, and I ask God to help me.

B: Will you give faithful witness in the world, that God's love may be known in all that you do?
O: I will, and I ask God to help me.

B: Almighty God, who has given you the will to do these things, graciously give you the strength and compassion to perform them.

Stand
Prayers of the Church
B: ... Lord, in your mercy,
C: Hear our prayer.

Hymn Veni Creator Spiritus LBW #473
Ordinand kneels
B: The Lord be with you.
C: And also with you.
B: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
C: It is right to give him thanks and praise.

B: Holy God, mighty Lord, gracious Father, we bless you for your infinite love in Christ our Lord, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. We thank you that by his death your Son has overcome death and, having been raised by your mighty power, has ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. We praise you that Christ has poured out his gifts abundantly on the Church, making some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, to equip your people for their work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

B: Eternal God, through your Son, Jesus Christ, pour out your Holy Spirit upon Clint and fill him with the gifts of grace for the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

B: Bless his proclamation of your Word and administration of your Sacraments, O Lord, so that your church may be gathered for praise and strengthened for service. Make him a faithful pastor, a patient teacher, and a wise counselor. Grant that in all things he may serve without reproach, that your people may be renewed and your name be glorified in the Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever.
O: Amen.

Stole is placed over shoulders of ordinand
P1: Receive this stole as a sign of your work, and walk in obedience to the Lord Jesus, serving his people and remembering his promise: ?Come to me all who labor

A heartfelt thank you to everyone present here today. Some of you traveled many miles to be here, and that gift alone makes it a special day. Thank you to Pastors Peter Marty, Ron Huber, and Jennifer Henry for hosting and assisting; to Pastor Andris Sedlins, our preacher; to Bishop George Carlson of the South Central Wisconsin Synod, our ordinator; to Melanie Moll, our organist; to Hans Schnekloth and Dave Holtz, our offering collectors; to Harris Schneekloth for setting up the reception space; to Karin Hanson and Jana Moss, as well as the Ruth Circle, who graciously volunteered to help with the reception; to the members of St. Paul Lutheran Church who have continued to support me in preparation for ordained ministry in the Church of Christ; to the members of St. John?s Lutheran Church who have called me into the ministry; and finally, to my family, John & Cynthia Schnekloth, who gave the beautiful gift of a red stole symbolizing Pentecost and used at ordinations, Mildred Schnekloth who helped in many ways with the reception, and Amanda Grell, for input and constant support. Much more could be said here by way of thanks. ?The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit? (Philipians 4:23).

Sunday, February 02, 2003

Kites on Ice

After a morning of worship leadership (Now the Feast and celebration) and an incredibly expeditious congregational meeting (finished in one hour flat, unanimous votes), Amanda and I hopped in our 1993 Ford Taurus (it's still green and has only a bit of rust on the driver side door) and rumbled over to Kites on Ice

What is kites on ice, you ask? It's something the Twin Cities should have thought of first, but then you realize Madison needs something with which to trump the Twins. The Twins do have Winter Carnival, after all. In fact, they build gorgeous ice sculptures, run half marathons, and do all in their power to stave off winter blues. So, cheers to the Twin Cities.

But Madison has Kites on Ice, and this makes all the difference. Lake Monona is completely frozen over here in early February, seems like probably five feet of solid ice, and so Madisonians (Madisonites) gather at the Monona Terrace, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Wisconsin native, and they set up a large flying grounds for kites out on the ice. People ski or skate while being pulled by kites. Others put up large art kites that are simply staked into the ice and fly all day. Others fly the equivalent of kite blimps, Genies and animals. Others fly kites that explore the science of kites, large 30 foot tall spinning wheels. And then there are the stunt kiters, of which I had been aware but not too aware. Apparently there are now four string kites that can be controlled with the precision of a model car, stop and turn and twist at a moments flick of the wrist. Unlike other kites, that, when aiming towards the ground, must swoop out of the dive in an arc and therefore avoid earth much like a plane would, these four string kites stop "on a dime". They can dive and instantly stop, and then hover, inches above the ground (or in this case ice).

Beautiful. Now imagine hundreds of these kites hovering in the sky, and a thousand or so people milling around out on the ice, that is, standing on top of the lake itself. That is a picture.

Saturday, January 25, 2003

A New Job and the Peace March in Washington

The first week of new work at St. John's quickly coming to a close. Started on Tuesday with a full day in the office, orientation in the morning, unboxing and shelving of books in the afternoon, council meeting in the evening. This kind of a day at work at a church is not overwhelming- there's a kind of flow to it that allows moments to discover books in boxes you didn't know you own, this a familiar experience for anyone who is a mildly compulsive book collector.

The second day met approximately 140 people in an eight hour time span, and I learned maybe 40 names, at best, which isn't bad, all things considering, but by the time we broke out into confirmation small groups and I had just four young people in the room with me, I couldn't get those four names straight because I had all the other ones rambling around in my head from prior conversations. There's only so much one can do- and then keep studying the names and faces.

I'm really quite thankful for this congregation and this job. In the words of a pastor who wrote recently in reference to my upcomign ordination, ""I extend to you my sincere best wishes as you look toward your Ordination and service to Christ and the church as a pastor. Unfortunately I will be unable to attend. However, I do hope that there will be many pastors and people to surround you as you speak your vows of faithfulness to the Scriptures as the pure Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions as the true exposition of the Word. May both you and the church be blessed accordingly!" The blessings bestowed upon the church come through the preaching of God's Word, not my own giftedness, so I pray I might be the voice and vehicle for God's word.

But I've also been meaning to write about the march in Washington. We gathered at the UW Memorial Union on Friday afternoon, and the signs acttually seemed to arrive before the people, stuck through slats of benches and propped against trees. Then a mix of colorfully and normally clothed people began to trickle in, congregations of local news crews, a guy holding a "thank you" sign who couldn't attend the rally personally but wanted to thank those of us who were going.

When the buses arrived the organizer still wasn't present, and, it being cold, we all boarded the buses. Only to then cause mass confusion when the organizer actually arrived and announced that there were assigned buses to accomodate those riding back on Saturday or Sunday respectively, etc. 1.5 hours later, we were on the road.

Amanda is writing a fairly substantial piece on this trip as well, including descriptions of the people who rode the bus with us, so I will post that later. For now, some more political observations. First, this was a grass roots movement, it represented a broad cross section of the Wisconsin population, and it should not have been ignored so blithely by our dictator, George the 2nd. These are not terrorists, these are not treasonous people, these are people expressing their disagreement with a preemptive unilateral war in Iraq. They are U.S. citizens and immigrants and resident aliens participating in -what the White House representative stated in a cold and distant fashion- a time honoured American tradition. They are also protesting the horrendous effects of the U.N. sanctions on the people of Iraq. The entire world has dealt with Iraq in a most shameful fashion.

Second, the effects of a bus rally to Washington are farther reaching than I had originally imagined. My original concept was something like- "I will add one more physical body to this mass of protestors in D.C., and this will make a statement." My understanding of the rally is now much more nuanced than that. First were the conversations on the bus, long and careful ones, where we learned how to articulate our sense of the wrongness of the so-called war with Iraq. Also the sense of community, the now-knowing-each-other, other protestors and organizers in the Madison area, which couldn't and wouldn't have happened in the same way through brief lunchtime meetings of the local Madpeace or International A.N.S.W.E.R. groups. Finally, the fact that now, when we tell friends and neighbors and families about the trip, their curiosity and questions allows for further public discourse, and the fact that we attended shows our commitment at a level above simple rantings and ravings round the dinner table. We didn't engage in civil disobedience (and so far, I believe we shouldn't), but disobedience wasn't necessary. Legal commitment of putting yourself on a bus and losing your weekend, that's enough to commit, at least at one level, to the cause.

One curious pre-trip apprehension. Amanda and I have slowly been trying to make our food consumption habits more just. I emphasize slowly, because Amanda is much better at doing this than me. I am still tempted, at times, by the Yellow Arches and the simplicity of warm food ready-to-hand. So I was nervous about the drive out to D.C. because I knew we would be stopping at places with fast food, I knew lots of the folks riding the bus would be vegetarians or at least anti-corporate buying, and I wondered if I gave in to the guilty pleasure of a BK Broiler if I would be judged. This was a funny thought. a) It should have helped me keep up my end of my own ethical commitments, and be a better buyer of just goods, b) I needn't have felt guilty or ashamed, because the people on the bus were non-judgmental and friendly to a fault, and c) I thank God for this helpful (read non-militant) push towards just purchasing, most of which is an internal dialogue in any event.

Other possible topics for future reflection: Civil disobedience? Do we have a democracy? Christian faith and partisan politics?

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Vote No War on the People's Referendum to Stop the War on Iraq Submit a referendum... go to DC if you can!

And this, a brief quote from a recent Christmas letter:

"The Son of God comes, and like any child, is a much less romantic gift than we make him out to be. At first adorable, but then voracious and demanding and helpless as any child is, it's a strange thing to realize God puts Himself into the arms of Mary and feeds at her breast. This baby demands something of us, for like any child, it is our responsibility to keep it alive. It is the last example of the law ending in Christ, for we fail in even this demand, to keep this child alive. Mary, helpless before the authorities and the willfullness of her own son (who are my mother and father?), sees him die. The risen Christ is a different Christ, no longer present as this demand of a living one expecting our responsibility to "not kill". He is beyond death, resurrected. The distinction could not be more sharp. And yet he carries the marks of his death in his resurrection body. So too Mary can see, like all mothers can, that little baby now present in the adult body. Out of the corner of her eye, here he comes (this, the way the icons are done indeed).

Wednesday, January 08, 2003

Below I've posted a brief e-mail I wrote recently examining the fair trade movement. There's a number of links here on this blog to Fair Trade organizations. Our family has increased the number of products we try to purchase that are "fair trade", and we also work to buy locally and from companies that handle their products and employees justly. We don't accomplish this always, but we try as often as possible to do so. This could be taken as a 21st century kind of pietism, I guess. Or it could be construed as simple consciensciousness, being "mindful", if you will, if how things are made and who makes them...

"As for defense of the free market versus fair trade, here are my main thoughts. First, free markets preference the "corporation" as a "person" over individuals. Even if you leave aside such things as worker's rights, you're still dealing with an economic system that works because of the existence of (potentially) eternal selves, corporate bodies, and the free market exists to provide successful contexts for these bodies. Some people argue that what is good for the worker is also good for the corporation, but when push comes to shove, the survival of the company must come first. This seems to me a false and dangerously secularized "corporeality" that disregards the members of the one body.

Fair trade, on the other hand, posits knowledge of the other at the other end of an economic exchange. At it's best, I actually know and greet the person who has produced what I consume. Even in the case of coffee, where the markets are in vastly different geographic locales, often the growers send photos, have visitors from the buying country, etc. Thus, the economic system becomes a human and humane one as well.

Third, fair trade recognizes that there is something more at work in any economy than simply "the bottom line". We already know that the most cheaply and most quickly produced product is not necessarily the best. Read Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser, for example, for an examination of where that philosophy leads. The "free" market economy doesn't care about places, people, or history. It cares only about productivity, and an abstract one at that.

Fourth, free market systems first rely on, and then come to demand, consumption qua consumption. Thus, for example, our current crisis where the American economy is dependent on people buying large amounts of things they don't need simply to buoy the economy. A free market ends up being anything but free. It is a slave economy, pure and simple.

Finally, free markets remove values from the equation. Or maybe better, they are purely teleological, the ends justify the means. I can go to a supermarket and see the plastic wrapped and odorless beef, and not concern myself with how the end product came to be the way it is. At it's worst, in my daily purchases I am freed up to commit crimes at third or fourth hand.

I do agree that there are some pluses to a competitive, free market. Creativity, good hard and often quality work come out of it. Fair trade, though, is actually a marriage of a values based economic choice and a free market. It's socialism on a micro-scale, similar to the highly successful kibutzes in Israel.

Monday, January 06, 2003

Just outside of Madison is a small town called Cross Plains. Like a lot of other small towns surrounding Madison, there's a mix of communities. Some are small town old time Wisconsinites, therefore of German ancestory and rural demeanour. Others are "bedroom community" folks. Seems in almost every town outside of Madison, there's both the older small town homes and the newer suburban development complexes.

Anyway, on a winding road (Enchanted Valley) about 2 miles out of Cross Plains, as a holiday treat we stayed at an inexpensive B&B. Almost all roads of any type in Wisconsin are asphalt. I don't know why, but unlike Iowa country roads, which are primarily graveled, Wisconsin lays down asphalt. So this small, inconspicuous home in a cluster of trees in a valley of rolling hills outside of Cross Plains is the location of a B&B. A new age B&B. We didn't know it when we made the reservations, but our hostess is into wholeness, had a Feng Shui designer out to remodel the house, has learned Raiki massage techniques, and provides a host of accoutrements that are designed to promote health and a sense of well-being.

Well, I'm more than a bit skeptical of New Age and homeopathic treatments. In fact, as our hostess said, "We might find these things a bit hokey." Nevertheless, as forms of hospitality they are outstanding. We had originally made the reservations because this was one of the few B&Bs in the Madison area that provide a sauna. That was the selling point for us. But it was very nice and kind of her to also provide natural soaps, homeopathic lotions, and the like. Not because of what they will accomplish but because of the attentiveness and thoughtfulness of it all.

Which is not to say that I'm any more approving of New Age gimmicks than I ever have been. At their best they are aesthetically pleasing. At their worst they are idolatrous. Normally, they are just part of the American product consumption machine. They fool people into false forms of comfort and happiness. But when given or spent on another, they are also a form of care, which makes them interesting.

If you head out the door of this B&B with running shoes on, as I did, you get to know Wisconsin in winter. First of all, it isn't as cold as Minnesota. In fact, it seems downright balmy. Second, it's much more hilly and rolling. You really get a hills workout in this part of Wisconsin. It's so hilly that when you get to the top of one mound, the top of the next mound is indeed miles away. I ran from our B&B to Martinsville, where, if one gazes across the enchanted valley, one can spot St. Martin's Parish on the way. In between, there are a ton of farms that are owned by the "Foremost Farms Corporation". Someone more savvy than me in current agricultural economic practice will have to explain the difference between cooperatives and farms that are all owned by a parent corporation, but what you see while running on the street are many well-kept farms with the names of families of German descent in the undersigned position. There are many cows; so much cheese is produced in Wisconsin. It is a "cottage" industry :)

Martinsville is a bunch of houses, the church, and a pub. We've seen similar small towns in Madison. The pub and church are usually kitty corner. Which doesn't top Germany, where pubs and churches are sometimes attached. nevertheless, picturesque.

A sauna. I would go back for another sauna.

Wednesday, January 01, 2003

It's official. I received the official letter of call on December 31, 2002, which means that 2003 marks the year in which I finally begin, for the first time (sort of) a full-time job. Amanda and I spent three years working as "full-time" teachers in Slovakia, so I guess that should count, but in my mind that time doubles also as time away from, a break from, seminary. The rest of the past 30 years have been spent in school, or engaged in part-time jobs. 2002 included work at the Global Mission Institute, interim pastoral ministry in rural Minnesota, a fellowship trip to Germany, and currently part-time work with the educational ministries at Good Shepherd Lutheran. So, effectively four jobs in one year. Not bad.

But this blog is going to be in praise of part-time work. I'm quite happy to be starting a full-time call at St. John's, happy to do good and necessary work, happy to be in the church, happy to have a salary and benefits. No doubt there are many goods that come from working full-time. Nevertheless...

The benefits of part-time:
1. Responsibility without stress- there's nothing like having a job where what you do is needed, but it doesn't swallow your life and thoughts when you leave work
2. Varied schedule- sometimes I go into work at 1:30. Sometimes I leave at 2. It makes me wonder how people who work a day job fit in all the other living they need to do
3. Freedom to move on- like a diversified portfolio, you end up working in, and therefore knowing, often quite disparate communities, businesses, worlds
4. Never fully "in" the system- you're always something of an outsider, therefore free to think creatively within the system
5. Never duped into thinking things will fall apart without you- 'nuff said
6. Enough time to make your own life a full-time job- Amen. If anyone would ever hire me to simply be myself and do what I do, I'd be elated! :)
7. You can choose your own health and pension plan- I currently spend $80/month for health insurance. I think my new plan will cost about 8x that much.
8. It causes other people confusion- it interrupts an otherwise pat conversation when people ask, "What do you do?", and you respond, "Well, not much of anything right now," or "I'm helping out part-time with the confirmation ministries at..." When I hear people give this similar answer, I always think to myself, "How is he getting away with that?" Like the guy who just died this year at Harvard who took it up as his one day a week job to check all the clocks on the campus. That's all he did. Where'd he get the money to live? Why didn't he do more? These are the enigmas of our lives.

Somewhere deep inside, I'm still afraid that to "not" work is somehow a bit immoral. If you're healthy and an adult with a sound body and mind, you relaly should be doing something. Even better if you do something "worthwhile" or "beneficial", but in any event, you should be working. Even when I was going to school, I never really considered "not" working. Work benefits the neighbor, provides a service in the community, earns your keep, teaches good habits, etc etc Nevertheless, I'm glad for this freedom of having made it to 30 without really working "full-time". A new page in 2003, and soon, I'll be able to compare.

Thursday, December 19, 2002

End of the year book reviews, part III

Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Aeneid surpasses anything else I've read that he has translated. I was forced to purchase and read his translation of the Odyssey the summer prior to my first year at Luther College. Ask any graduate of Luther in the past 10-15 years, and they will tell you the same. By and large, we come to the enterprise unprepared, a bit confused, and befuddled. It's hard to make sense of the classics when you haven't had a classical education, but you can't have a classical education without exposure to the classics, and since modern pedagogy has repudiated the idea of a "classical" education in any event (via a Foucaultian critique of knowledge as power), well, you end up with a bunch of high school grads who know THAT there's a Homer but haven't read him.

Of course, the summer before you go to college, the last thing you really want to do is start your homework early. But then you're also a bit curious, because the book assigned is a marker, a small clue as to what is coming, the mystery of college and life away from home. So I forced my way through the text, failed to understand large patches because I got bored of reading what seemed like a prose narrative composed in meter. Also failed to take notes.

About four or five years ago, I actually started to value what at that time I found somewhat burdensome and strange. I would be lying if I said that I'm always reading "classics" (whatever classics are), but I do try and read back into the history of the traditions in which I have interest. Theology, philosophy, literature. So in 1998 I started this tradition of reading a piece from the classical repertoire (meaning dead Greek or Latin writers) as a way of entering the New Year. Thus buy the book in December, start to work, and try and finish before heading out for New Year's festivities December 31.

1998 was the Iliad. Read it mostly on the train between Kosice and Berlin. Fagles translation. Fagles was brilliant in reiterating Homer's set phrases in captivating phrases, like "after they had put aside desire for food and drink" as the line to start story-telling and argumentation, or "his bowels gushed out and as he fell the life dimmed from his eyes" (this second a very oft repeated phrase in the Iliad).

1999 was Heaney's translation of Beowulf (I know, this is a violation of the dead Greek or Latin writer rule). It's of course great and quite readable, but the best part is that the poem begins "So." Just like an English speaker would tell a story.

2001 was Purgatorio. Oops, once again violating the Latin Greek rule. But since Dante was so deeply into the classic tradition, it seemed not so much of a leap. By this time I had been learning that one of the important tricks to reading classics and actually appreciating the process was to choose excellent translators. I'd read the Inferno in an inferior translation, but Merwin translated the Purgatorio in this year, and brought it back to the English speaking public.

Which brings me back around to the Aeneid, because Virgil is Dante's guide through the underworld, and after you've read Dante, you end up wondering what it is about Virgil that made Dante put him in this prominent place. And the Aeneid is just as fun and fascinating as the Odyssey and Iliad, and it is simply amazing that Virgil could try to, and succeed at, making his book a "third" in the series that begins with the Odyssey. What a work. and now I realize as I'm going through the process of writing this, I feel somewhat silly and commonplace, because to simply praise those things which have been praised seems a little disingenuous and flat. And yet there it is, just like a beautiful red sky in the evening, no matter how many times you see it, it's as genuinely worth gazing at as the last time. So too the Aeneid. No other comment necessary.

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

It's always harder to say positively what the alternative is to the dominant paradigm than it is to launch a critique of the same. Here are some quotes from Levinas in Ethics and Infinity that are "on the way" to a constructive alternative to virtue ethics.

"Ethics occurs as an an-archy, the compassion of being. Its priority is affirmed without recourse to principles, without vision, in the irrecuperable shock of being-for-the-other-person before being-for-oneself, or being-with-others, or being-in-the-world, to name some of th econtemporary philosophical formulas of post-metaphysical thought" (10)

Here quoting Kafka- "It is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know" 15)

This one particularly enigmatic- "The incarnation of human subjectivity guarantees its spirituality (I do not see what angels could give one another or how they could help one another). Dia-chrony before all dialogue... the other man, his face, the expressive in the Other (and the whole human body is in this sense more or less face), were what ordains me to serve him... the face orders and ordains me" (97).

"There is prophetism and inspiration in the man who answers for the Other, paradoxically, even before knowing what is concretely required of himself. This responsibility prior to the Law is God's revelation. There is a text of the prophet Amos that says: "God has spoken, who would not prophecy?"

The language of practices takes no account of this primacy of the face, of the neighbor. It replaces what in Luther's language speaks of the perfectly free lord of all, perfectly save, subject to all, with a system of abstract rules and systems. Instead of the urgent and necessary encounter with the neighbor as the primary ethical category, it develops "systems of behavior" that take place over time and train one in righteousness.

There is probably no clearer biblical text that contradicts virtue ethics than the good samaritan neighbor narrative. Here, two pass by the one robbed on the road, at least in part because of having learned certain habits and virtues. The one who stops to help humbles and dirties himself, violates all kinds of customs and habits, and simply helps the face, the whole body, the neighbor in need. At their worst, virtues and practices actually hinder the Christian in being a Christian-before-the-neighbor. And one can't tell if the rule that applies is virtues as the sine qua non.

Saturday, December 14, 2002

End of the year book reviews, part II

The ELCA has started a campaign on "discipleship" trying to address issues of ethics and spiritual practices in congregations. It is called, variously, teach the faith, growing in discipleship, living faith, or fanning the flames of discipleship. No matter what you call it, the basic idea is to encourage a third facet of congregational life.

Growing in Discipleship and/or Teach the Faith

Church's generally don't forget the first facet, worship, and they usually spend lots of time on the second, that is, daily vocation (although they may not carefully relate the two), but the discipleship movement works to instill a third component, spiritual "practices" or "marks" of discipleship. These practices, of which the ELCA has listed seven, 1) pray, 2) study, 3) worship, 4) invite, 5) encourage, 6) serve, and 7) give, are all designed to round out congregational discipleship, make it more three dimensional.

The list is great, as far as it goes. Nobody would really want to argue against service, giving, studying, prayer, inviting, etc. The problem for Lutheran ethics is that the model of "practices" arises out of an ethical framework that doesn't jive with Lutheran theology. There's considerable conversation these days, both in Roman Catholic communities and Protestant ones, about what basically can be called "virtue ethics". On the Catholic side, you have Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, which defines prudence, the basis of virtue ethics, in this way: "Prudence, working through the moral virtues, disposes a person to good actions... it is the heart converted to the Lord and to the love of what is good which is really the source of true judgments of conscience... knowledge of God's law in general is certainly necessary, but it is not sufficient; what is essential is a sort of 'connaturality' between man and the true good" (this quote from Servais Pinckaers The Sources of Christian Ethics). In other words, for the living of the Christian life, more is needed than knowledge of the law... grace brings about a "connaturality" of man and the true good- this is the basis for understanding ethics as grounded in virtues.

So, lots of books have come out of this thought. You've got a lot of evangelical Protestants, especially based out of Fuller Theological Seminary, appropriating the writings of Wittgenstein and MacIntyre (MacIntyre's After Virtue is seminal) to come up with their own Protestant version of virtue ethics based a) in Wittgenstein's philosophy of language as it relates to speaking one's way into "going on" as such, and b) MacIntyre's thesis that practices are those things which, well, he's got this really long and clumsily formulated sentence that practices produce a greater ability to practice the virtues. These Fuller theologians, especially Brad Kallenberg in his Grammar as Ethics, spell out a program for understanding congregations as "language communities" that speak their way into new forms of living, and this grammatically formed practicing community becomes itself virtuous in and through these practices.

The arguments are much more nuanced than this, if anyone has another take or critique, feel free to respond.

There are also, on the other coast, such theologians as Hauerwas, who argue that the Christian community needs to be itself a "parable of the kingdom". This is to get beyond the social gospelers focus on bringing about the kingdom of God through particular works and the transformation of society, but is instead the definition of church as an alternative society that is itself a sign of God's coming kingdom living in (and thus speaking to) the world. So Hauerwas also argues in some way or another for "practices" as part of the Christian life. I must confess that this particular approach holds some appeal for me.

What both of these have in common is the proposal of a new law, the law of love, new laws and guidelines for how one is to practice the faith. Although these two traditions have a strong history and influence in Christian thinking, it is my contention that they are wrong-headed, and inasmuch as Lutherans themselves begin to appropriate them and adopt them as models, we have our own distinctive voice stifled.

So, just some preliminary notes. First, Lutherans believe that they have in the law already given by God everything we need to know about how to live in the world, as well as knowledge of our inability to live up to these laws. This contra the Popes saying we need something more than this "natural" law. Second, to set forth practices as such as norms for Christian living go against two distinct pieces of our theology. First, an understanding of Christian freedom, and second, our constant life in sin and life in salvation simultaneously. Against Christian freedom, because the Christian believes that once they have been called by the gospel, they have been set free from all compulsions, thus a radical critique of all "practices"; against simul iustus, because our continuing life "in the flesh" means even practices cannot drive out the devil. Only our new life in Christ assures that.

So, what are some better sources for Lutheran ethics. In the next post, I'll work with Luther's work on Christian freedom, and explore some of the writings of Levinas and his primary ethical category of "the face of the neighbor".

Friday, December 13, 2002

TOMPAINE.com - On The Justification Of Civil Disobedience

End of the year book reviews, part I

The official numbers are in, and the U.S. processed approximately 26,000 refugees in 2002. This is about 40,000 short of what George W. Bush had stated at the beginning of the year as our commitment (for more detailed info, click on the LIRS link on the right side of this page). This makes two years in a row where we processed far fewer refugees than we were committed to admitting [the numbers fell after 9-11, even though refugees go through an extensive screening process and are never actually suspected of terrorism]. In real terms, this means thousands of people around the world who are in danger and poverty have to remain where they are. The INS is now going to be restructured under the new Homeland Security Act, and this is potentially a good thing (for example, new laws regarding the handling of unaccompanied minors), but our government and presidential leadership is proving again and again that we are committed to our own safety and security without any understanding that a) the world's security and safety and sense thereof has an impact on our own, that is, we will be more secure if we act as a good neighbor, and b) that we have a responsibility as citizens to take care of the oppressed, the foreigners in our midst or those who request asylum. Our history as a nation is a history of welcoming the stranger and the refugee. The current administration's failure to recognize this proves that they are the ones who are unpatriotic.

Two things seem most troubling. First is the inability of our leadership to admit failure, to ask for forgiveness, to confess to wrong-doing. We simply leap right up and start labeling everybody evil. Certainly, Hussein is a harsh and terrible despot. Nobody questions that. What I question is our complicity in many of the evil systems in the world. We need to admit, confess, ask forgiveness, if we are actually going to work for healthy change. If we refuse to do this, then we ourselves end up with a president who is a harsh and terrible despot.

The second is even more troubling. Seems the current administration will not allow critique. Anyone who criticizes the government is unpatriotic. Worse, they might themselves be a terrorist. Never mind that our entire system of government is grounded on checks and balances and the freedom of citizens to speak their minds, including minds that find fault with the government. Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, etc.

Ok, so all of this as preparation for recommending two books. The first, Mary Pipher's The Middle of Everywhere, an account of her experience working in Lincoln, Nebraska with refugee families. She shares the story of their struggles to adapt, interviews with them and the officials who help them get to the U.S. The new work and life and stress issues that arise when they arrive. And she shares the very specific ways that she works as a "cultural broker", helping them to adjust and learning much in the process. One of her most impressive insights- that although the average refugee arrives in the U.S. with enough terrible experiences to warrant post-traumatic stress syndrome, they normally become self-sufficient economically within three months of their arrival in country!

The second book, Ann Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, is also a narrative of refugees, this time sharing the story of one Hmong family and their epileptic daughter. Here she illustrates the difficulty of negotiating between traditional Hmong thinking and Western medical practices. In fact, it is more like a collision than a negotiation. Fadiman's book is reporting, like Pipher's, but less sociological and more literary. She writes well, and it reads quickly. Read the two in tandem, and you learn a little bit of how to perceive your own homeland from a stranger in a strange land's perspective. Always a worthwhile endeavour.

Sunday, December 08, 2002

Reflecting on Vestments

A somewhat distant relative of ours refuses to attend churches where the pastor wears a robe. Actually, I think the relative in question called the robes "skirts". On the flip side, last night in a conversation with a friend, I heard dismay in his voice when I mentioned that in a Lutheran congregation I know, the pastors don't wear vestments; in fact they don't even wear clerics (the special shirt with white colars). Clothes may or may not "make the man", but at least in a number of instances lately, the clothes do or don't make the worship and make the pastor.

But to do this story justice, I have to step back a number of years. I grew up in a congregation where "vesting" for worship was simply the thing that was done. I didn't really wonder at it at all. We wore gowns if our youth choir sang from the front of the sanctuary, there was a complete collection of robes back in the sacristy for the acolytes, worship assistants, and pastors to wear, and all of this white linen seemed completely natural. I don't remember paying a huge amount of attention to the stoles and other colorful things that the pastors wore, although I do remember them matching the liturgical seasons.

It wasn't until some time in college that I learned that someone might consider leading worship without these vestments. And it was a mind-blowing experience the first day I actually heard somebody say they were OPPOSED to wearing vestments in worship. Apparently, they were of the opinion that the pastor should wear a shirt & tie so as not to appear flowery, or fake, or Catholic, or old fashioned, or, well, I can't really remember the reason.

I went through a rather long period of not caring too much about what worship leaders wear in worship. I've since attended worship in enough places to have seen almost everything (or at least to expand my imagination of what "everything" is or might be). I've seen jeans, cowboy boots, and a frilly shirt. I've seen the classic black cassock and white frill collar of the German and Slovak churches. I've seen the pageantry of the cardinals and pope in Rome. I've seen church leaders from Africa, as well as the high church African-American Methodist Episcopals with their cross between high church Episcopalian and traditional early 20th century American. I watched a pastor in San Antonio texas change clothes three times for three morning services, the first in alb and stole, the second in clerical colar and jacket, the third in t-shirt and jeans. And I've seen all kinds of earthy, evangelical services where the worship leaders came in the same clothes they would wear to a coffee shop or Applebee's.

I think my not caring too much had something to do with an idealist anti-materialism, I didn't want to seem to care too much about clothes, it seemed too surfacey- to care too much about clothes in worship was to get away from the essentials of worship, and it was somehow anti-thetical to the "spiritual" nature of worship. Worship isn't about clothes, it's about God, right?!

But I had two conversations in Germany that began to alter my thinking somewhat, the first with a pastor in Braunschweig who wears vestments similar to those in traditional American Lutheran contexts, Alb and stole. They maintain the liturgy as it was translated by Luther in 1526, and as a way of maintaining that tradition, they also stick to the vestments the Catholic church would use for similar services, alb and stole, with an additional chasuble for presiding at the Lord's Supper, and a few other pieces for high feast days, etc. Then, I learned from another much less liturgical pastor down in the Rhine valley that the traditional black cassock that the pastor's where in the Protestant churches in Germany has connections to old Prussia. In other words, the black cassock is secular, not churchly, garb, or at least has it's origins in secular institutions.

Which is also true of the suit and tie, which came about in 19th century bourgeoise England. Or jeans and a t-shirt, which came out of the casual culture of mid-20th century America. Or the spectacular vestments that the Eastern Rite Catholics wore at their creation as cardinals in Rome. Or name any other article of clothing, and the same rule applies. Clothes have a history, and they mean something, everywhere and always. It's why, when special occasions come up, we concern ourselves with what we are wearing, even when the thing we choose to wear is chosen specifically to make it look like we weren't concerned about what we were to wear.

As I've been examining worship more and more from an aesthetic as well as a dogmatic and ethical standpoint, I'm coming to the increasingly firm conclusion that a church should be careful about what it has the pastor wear when they lead worship. There are the traditional arguments, that the alb allows for the pastor to be in and signify the office they are filling, rather than wearing clothes that accentuate their individuality. That the alb has a tradition and history behind it from and for the church. That it helps set the tone and space for worship.

But the more convincing arguments have to do with aesthetics. In worship we work with symbols, we communicate things, and one of the ways the church has always communicated has been visually. At a very early stage in the churches life, in fact, we called it a heresy to REJECT images. Iconoclasm is not a virtue. It is a heresy. We do have art in worship, from the cross to the altar frontal to the stain-glassed windows. And everything visual in worship contributes to the liturgy, makes the space for it. Thus it is important how one constructs a sanctuary. It is important what one puts on the walls.

It is extremely important NOT to hang an American flag in the sanctuary.

And so on and so forth. Table and baptismal font to remind us of the sacraments. Word placed in a prominent place. Incense and candles burning to make the smell of the space also worshipful. All of this is important for the worship space, because it works together with the music, the readings, and the sermon, to communicate the gospel.

Therefore, the vestments, the clothes of the presiding minister, do matter. They should communicate something of the gospel themselves. They should be beautiful, so as to give glory to God. They can and should be pictorial, like the cross that graces so many chasubles, or the pictures and colors that decorate stoles. All so that, when you kneal at the communion rail to receive communion, and you look up at the pastor who is handing you Christ's body, you don't see a golf tie hanging there from their chest, or a t-shirt with U2 pictured on the front, but instead the cross of Christ, the presence of the sublime.

Not all churches will be able to afford fancy vestments, and probably churches should be careful not to go too far in lavishing large amounts of money on them. Today at Luther Memorial where we currently worship, the congregation had received spectacular, beautiful Advent vestments as a gift, so that the pastor, altar, pulpit, and assisting ministers could all be dressed in similar material, and although this was incredibly beautiful, the combination of the beauty, the note in the bulletin, and the conversation we ended up having on it, ended up being almost too much the other way. The simplicity of the clerical shirt and collar may be sufficient in many cases. It still serves much the same purpose as the alb. It signifies an office.

I remember a particularly beautiful scene from O.E. Rolvaag's Peder Victorious. The community that has begun to grow up around Beret hasn't seen a pastor for many years. Many people have common law marriages, some people pray and read the Bible in their homes, but no pastor has yet to arrive. Then, one day, an itinerant Lutheran pastor arrives on horseback. The community is over-joyed. Common law married folk run up and ask to have the blessings of the church. Others want to confess sin, to have children baptized. It's a touching scene. But the first thing the pastor does is announce that they will hold worship with preaching and communion in one of the largest barns on a farmstead. He carefully removes a large bag from his horse and goes into the home at which he has arrived to lay out and smooth out his vestments. Later, when all have gathered to worship in this barn, these clothes, quite worn but still beautiful, change the whole space so that it becomes a church. Really, the clothes don't do anything at all, it's Christ present in His word and sacrament. But swaddling clothes do matter, and that small touch, that the pastor thought enough to bring along clothes fitting for the occasion, communicated something both in the novel and to those people, that couldn't be said only with words.

Friday, December 06, 2002

Today I witnessed something amazing. Amanda is working on a project for one of her library science courses. In this particular case, she had to classify our kitchen. It started weeks ago when she opted for the project, continued last weekend when she went through every single cupboard counting what was there, and has come to a sort-of conclusion this weekend as she designs the classification system for the project. In this case, it includes organizing the contents of our kitchen according to some kind of logic, then ordering things within various systems according to even more intricate systems of logic- danger during use, likelihood of use, tastiness, spiciness, I'm not even sure what all. Today she discovered that our Mac has an incredible number of fonts, some of which are symbols rather than letters, so these were put to use to provide the "classification system", not exactly like Dewey decimal or Eric, rather symbolic and playful and sometimes surprising.

But none of this counts as surprising. The surprising thing was the energy invested in the enterprise, the number of hours spent on a free Friday, and how all of this is done in a kind of voluntary fashion. We have all these neighbors up in Eagle Heights who are also grad students. They wake up each morning heading out for projects for which they are not paid; in fact, projects for which they are often paying, they are assigned these tasks by faculty who may or may not review intently that which they produce, and nevertheless, almost to a fault, they work super hard and invest hundreds and thousands of human hours. that's the surprising part. My wife invests this same kind of time.

Speaking of which, I spent the morning reading some theology written in 2002 on evangelism, tried to get up to date on the news and some modern fiction in the afternoon, and continued that work into late in the evening on Heidegger, all with no job, not actual use to which I might put these things, all in the mood of inquiry, interest, insight. What is this that drives us forward, often in spite of ourselves, to invest ourselves in something that lends meaning, funds our imagination, makes us part of something bigger? The works that humans engage in to do things that have nothing to do with subsistence are constantly surprising. Self-justification? Compulsion? Neighborliness? Civility? Habit? Innate goodness? Self-preservation? Often, I have no idea. But it helps us all go on, doesn't it?

The title for the blog has changed, as has the format, but the intent will be the same. A public journal, reflections on life, recipes (i've actually never thought to post recipes here, but it's as good an idea as any), and now, a links section!

Perseus Digital Library

Thursday, October 17, 2002

What a great interview! Of course, this is the way things always are, I'm finally getting good at the language (German) and can conduct interviews relatively productively, and now I'm leaving (have left) Germany. In any event, it was great to visit with somebody on a theological faculty of a German university. Quite a different perspective on issues from the pastors I have questioned over the past few weeks, the concerns raised were more properly the responses I expect from Christians engaged in theological education at the graduate level.

To recap, the two basic interview questions are always, in some form or another a) what do you think of first when you think about the church in Germany, and b) what relationship do you see between the Reformation and the modern German church?

To question one, the faculty member responded that she thinks about the church's irrelevance. She finds the average worship service boring and of no interest to visitors, and the content of the service (particularly preaching) not centered sufficiently on the gospel. Instead, the church runs off and tries to be political or modernistic. We talked at length about the struggle the German church has to actually participate in the contemporary world, to actually be missionary. It's a common refrain/lament, and a worthwhile one. It's a bit of a paradox. Good pastors and theologians often say something similar, that the church cannot itself be focused in one political method or ideology, and yet the gospel must address the political world. It is, as always, the Christ and culture issue that crops up. So, for example, if you go to www.ekd.de, you can see the German Lutheran church's current advertising campaign. The question is, in trying to be a church that addresses "modern" questions, does the church end up saying anything at all of real value? Or does it instead produce dated fluff?

Of course, the irony here is that both of us were able to find many critiques, but not nearly as many solutions. Simply goes to show that the proper task of the Christian is not complaint but prayer.

To the 2nd question had a very clear response. Sees the Reformation functioning in today's church as fodder for Protestants to continually re-hash old arguments with the Catholics. This becomes problematic, because to freeze a conflict 500 years previous and then bring it directly into the present without translation immediately causes confusion and continuing strife. It also has the ironic function of turning Luther and his writing (or some idealized Reformation) into an interpretive tool/tradition that can be used in Protestant circles in a way similar to the Catholic churches relating of Scripture and tradition. Sola Scriptura, sola Luthera, or something like that.

She sees this playing itself out primarily with regards to curricular decisions (they read many more Protestant theologians than Catholic ones, and the center of the church history curriculum is the Reformation, not some other period like the Patristic). In this way, the evangelical faculty in Tubingen is quite similar to the Luther Seminary curriculum. Very heavy on a particular voice within protestantism.

Mentioned also a Schliermacher renaissance occuring in modern Germany that is already quite influential in the faculties, and may or may not be influential on the preaching of German pastors. Good question for those reading this: has phenomenology ever played out as a preached theology?

Monday, October 14, 2002

Like Marburg, Tubingen has a sincerely fairytale atmosphere to it, with steep hills, narrow cobbled streets, and the Neckar running through with students punts lined up for Saturday races. What an amazing town at which to attend university. Had a great evening the first night here eating sushi with a group of international students invited by Mari, my host. It was the week prior to the beginning of class, that is, the second week of October(!), but the campus was already alive with students. Still can't get used to how late classes start here. October 15. But then, they also continue classes into late June or early July, so...

The theological library at Tubingen is large, circular, and well-layed out. It also was quite full of students. Doctoral research has no seasons, only an endless and heavy progression until finally, a dissertation emerges, so the library was full of these bookish types with small bookstands and piles of manuscripts and texts. Enjoyed perusing the theological journals section, then wandered across the street to the cemetary. Wonder if the students at the theological faculty also wander over here and ponder their proximity to this collection of the saints, the cemetary next to the library, buried and remembered, shelved and read. The gardeners were hard at work sprucing up the cemetary for fall and wintering, plus the coming of All Saints day. Freshly cut pine branches to cover the grave site, flowers to bedeck the stone. I think if I was wise, I would study in a place like this and keep the dead buried here ever in mind. I thought of my grandfathers, for example, from whom I learned as much, more, than from all my store of books. There is a living conversation still present in my mind from these men different from my conversations with authors. Certainly, I appear to pursue the writers more, the ones who put their words down in texts bound to be read, but somewhere deeper inside of who I am, I know my grandfathers, who sleep now and are remembered by us daily and visited sometimes, are witnesses, they are members of the communion of saints, they are spoken of in our creed, between "the holy catholic church" and "the forgiveness of sins", and when I wander this cemetary in Tubingen this strikes me more deeply than the journals I read over lunch. Thanks be to God for all the saints in Christ throughout time, but especially as I think here and walk, for those buried here, and those I remember, my grandfathers.

Possibly one of the most intriguing responses I got to interviews while visiting congregations was to the Reformation/modern church question as put in Heilbronn. The pastor there responded that when he thought of the home of the Reformation, he thought, not of Germany and Luther, but rather of the Huguenots in France. These are his genealogical roots, many Huguenots fled to places like Swabia and Potsdam during the persecutions in France, and so are still in Germany today. This was something of a shock, for I was normally prepared to hear either the response, "No, I don't think of the connection at all," or, "Yes, I think about the connection, but we live in different times," but not, "The Reformation is really centered elsewhere." Of course, there is a progression of Reformations in Europe, the earliest probably being in Prague with Jan Hus, then the 2nd with Wycliffe and others in England, then third chronologically, the Reformation centered in Wittenberg, and finally, the Calvinists in Geneva who had their influence also in France. So it is correct to think of multiple centers of Reformation. Nevertheless, it was de-centering for me, having just come from Wittenberg, to have this reminder set forth so plainly.

What is particularly interesting in this formulation is this further point. Although the Reformation occured in Germany, the French Revolution occured, well, in France. And it would be quite easy to argue, with much sincerity, that the French Revolution had a greater practical and religious impact on our modern lives than the Reformation itself. Concepts such as religious freedom for the individual, some kind of democratic rule of the people, etc., all of this comes out of the French Revolution, and we have incorporated these ideas and beliefs wholesale into our modern church practices. Germany, at best in its time came up with the cuius regio, eius religio, to each region, its own religion (and before those of you with considerable historical astuteness jump on this point and argue that this was a compromise only, made in Augsburg, and not really central to the reformation itself or its central tenets of faith, I say I agree, but nevertheless, the practical ramifications still play themselves out differently than the ideal). The radicality of the revolution in France was its move to "to each man, his religion."

Our conversations then turned to the dividing line between Catholics and Protestants and the continuing divide between the protestant claim for justification as that which makes for the catholicity of the church, and the Catholic move to authority. Although we disagreed on some of our formulations of faith, we did agree that the two churches remain ships passing in the night and not really hearing each other.

Sunday, October 13, 2002

I'm jumping over a couple of blogs in order to let my "readership" know the following:

1) I'm no longer in Germany
2) the trip home to Madison was safe, uneventful, but happy, because I'm now back with my spouse
3) those of you who feel reading the blog was worth a subscription price can certainly pay a freewill subscription fee! :)

I'll be posting some remaining notes here in the next week or so. Lots happened between departing Wittenberg and getting on the plane, a very satisfying last week in Germany. Weird too how once you fly across the Atlantic, experiences, people, etc., feel distant not only in miles but also minutes, hours, time.

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

Currently visiting a friend from Japan who is a student in Tübingen. Funny, but it turned out to be a Japanese fellow student who made me feel most like a missionary in my time here. We spent a number of hours back in Wittenberg talking about the church and the Reformation, and I had invited her one Sunday to a worship service. She had mentioned a couple times in passing that she didnt have a religious community. So, she loved the music of worship, and when she came down to Tubingen, she immediately hooked up with a local congregation. She has a chart of her classes hanging on the wall of her dorm room, and she has blocked out time especially for Sunday morning worship, Wednesday evening organ music, and Tuesday choir. She also helps the congregation by assisting elderly members with hymnbooks, getting around in the church, etc. It is remarkable, namely, worth remarking, that the same thing couldnt happen, or would happen rarely, with a German that I would meet. Theres an oppenness to talking about and entertaining participation in the faith of the church from the Asian side that I just never see when speaking with agnostic Europeans. Most of the time they are either completely skeptical, outright hostile, or patently indifferent. And the preceding list of adjectives does a good job of describing the frustration that would be involved with being a missionary in contemporary Germany.

The local congregation near my host families house in Wittenberg has a worship service once a month presided by a retired pastor. I was able to catch one of these prior to leaving Wittenberg, and it was a beautiful, simple affair. There were about 20 of us, the organist was sick so we sang all the hymns ourselves. It was St. Michael and All Angels Sunday, so the pastor preached on the role and function of angels in Gods work of salvation. The service was splendidly clear on this point, angels as speakers and servants through whom God works creative and redemptive work, but not allowing angels to somehow supplant the function of God and make Jesus or the Trinity surpufluous. This is always an important question in Christian theology, because we must distinguish at all times between how and what God uses for Gods purposes, and the things themselves as in the hands of God but not gods. Very nicely done, and Im at work on a translation of a Reformation era hymn on this theme(Melanchthon), hopefully to be posted next week.

Also partook of what was probably my last Eucharist service in Germany, as the southern part of Germany, at least in the evangelical church, has been informed by the Reformed tradition and only conducts the Lords Supper occasionally, rather than as an integral part of the weekly worship life of a congregation.

Monday, October 07, 2002

Didnt realize how interesting and beautiful the Neckar wine valley in SW Germany is, but now I know. Of course, the Black Forest is world renowned, but the whole valley down the Neckar is amazing. Many of the grape growing vineyards stand on such steep hills that the vines run parallel to rather than up and down the hills. Theyre so steep that parallel vines still receive equal light, whereas often grapes are grown on rows ascending a hill in order to catch more light. And these vines blanket virtually every hill thrughout the whole valley. Its quite different here in western southern Germany. Around Munich everything is completely flat. Here you really feel like youre in this environmental wonderland. Rode the train between Heilbronn and Tubingen today, and didnt get much reading done because I was gawking out the window the whole time. Ive tasted the wine now, and disagree with Mark Twains description that the wine is indestinguishable from vinegar. Also disagree with his assessment of German newspapers. The Suddeutsch Zeitung is a wonderful paper, read it on both of my train trips down into this area. Course, cant be too hard on Twain. He described papers published 120 years ago.

This reminds me that Germany needs to be described Bundesland by Bundesland in order to provide a correct picture of what is actually a very diverse country.

This past weekend was the equivalent of Thanksigiving in Germany. Literal translation would be the harvest thanks festival. Like many harvest festivals in churches int he states, they gather a lot of produce together and display it in front of the altar. In the case of the congregation I visited, they also brought in a fleet of cute kindergarten children to sing songs and do miniature skits. Normally, on any given Sunday, the church (I think most churches) has about 50 people in attendance, max, most of them older. This particular Sunday is the Easter or Christmas of Germany, with lots of adults coming to see their children, nieces, and nephews sing. It was so interesting to observe this, because at least a couple of itmes Ive worked in congregations where it was the norm for half of the congregation to be children, but Ive never seen anything like this in Germany. What was weird, and I think this was true of my feelings as well as the pastors, was that by the end of hte service, you kind of yearn for the quiet and peace of the smaller service, and wonder why the children have to be so noisy all the time. Which goes to show how much the missionary impulse can be quelled by weaks of getting used to small numbers in the building.

After the service, attended a very nice one year celebration of the installation of new church bells. More on this to come, but the basics can be uttered now, because they are so interesting. Last year the whole congregation gathered to see the smelting and production of the new church bells, four in all. Then they gathered a few weeks later to see them lifted up and installed in the steeple. The largest of the bells weighs approximately 6000 pounds! The first bell is called the Dominican bell, the second is the prayer bell, the third is the cross bell, and the fourth is the baptism bell. Each is decorated with appropriate insignias and art. Gorgeous. These are the bells that ring every fifteen minutes in teh village, and for ten minutes prior to each worship service in teh church. Altogether, the bells cost $230,000 dollars, not including installation! But bells are an essential part of the architectural life of virtually any community in Germany, so...

We watched a video of last years celebration and installation, drank coffee and new wine, had a wonderful time. I interviewed the pastor on Saturday and Sunday, and answers to both of my primary questions were fascinating. More to come.

Friday, October 04, 2002

that one of my first, Gestalt clarifying German experiences came before I got on the plane. Luther Seminary hired a professor of missions this past spring, and I was present for his open-to-the-public trial lecture. Luther usually brings in a fleet of faculty possibilities for a given professorship, and then has them lecture publicly. They also get grilled later by the faculty. Anyway, said German prof stands up and delivers an in-depth, thoughtful, and very dry account of German missions in Nigeria. I learned a lot, the analysis was first-rate, but one could fall asleep given the style of presentation and tone of voice. But this is not yet what made it German. In fact, the presentation style was understandable, given that he was presenting in a foreign language, was seeking to be reserved in order to be respectful to his audience, etc.

After the lecture, the questions came. We have another prof at Luther Seminary, Craig Van Gelder, who is a leading North American missions theologian and publicist. He, along with most American missions theologians, constantly asks the question, "How does this hit the road?" The American mind always wants to take an abstract concept, an historical datum, anything, and apply it, make it "work". The German theologian, on the other hand, wants to make sure the historical claim was made correctly and truthfully in and of itself for the sake of historical inquiry, and the German theologian only sometimes concerns himself with how the rubber hits the road. Karl Barth even famously said that, to paraphrase, that the theologian shouldn't concern him or herself with how the general public will understand the theology, but rather, should be concerned with the theological centerpoint itself, which is inquiry into theos, that is, God. You don't expect a TV repairman to be able to explain in great detail how a vacuum tube works to a layman. You only expect that he understands it and knows how to fix it. So too a theologian who prepares tools for preachers and other theologians for the sake of the discipline itself (like every other academic discipline), not immediately for the sake of the masses. Should we tell quantum physicists to stop doing their research just because most of us don't have a clue what they're doing?

So, getting back to the point. Craig Van Gelder asked our visiting German professor, "How do you see your analysis of German missions in Nigeria informing the missiological situation in North America? What practical suggestions do you have?" With great sincerity and warmth, said German professor began to respond- "Well, last Sunday I attended worship here in St. Anthony park, and they have a wonderful thing that they do. They have small cards in the pews, and if you wish, you can fill these cards out with your name and address, and put them in the offering plate, and if you say you would like to be contacted, then the pastor or somebody in the church will contact you in the coming week. I think this is a great idea!" He actually elaborated even more than this, but you get the point. So, and this is why the story is exemplary (hopefully it is already self-evident how this story is exemplary/problematic), it is just a given to the average American church goer that there are such a thing as pew cards. Not so to the German. And herein lies a huge difference between our churches, a cultural rift so deep that it is almost hard to fathom. And it can be explained very simply by speaking of pew cards.

Started reading last night a portion of Mark Twain´s "A Tramp Abroad" which takes place, at least in part, in Germany, first of all in Heidelberg. Twain really is liberating to read. He just flows from thing to thing. A Tramp Abroad is an example of a blog that somebody, namely Samuel Clemens, was actually paid to publish. Funny. Anyway, the first two chapters of Tramp arent even about Germany. Instead, Twain´s walk in a forest outside Heidelberg becomes a segue, through the squawking of ravens, into a long a humorous story about a California man of the woods who learned the language of animals and then reports a weird story about bluejays arguing about a hole in a roof.

So you sit down to read a travel narrative about Germany, and you get stories from California for eight straight pages. And you love every minute of it.

Which re-confirms a theory I´ve long had that part of the joy of reading and writing is out of placeness. We read to be somewhere else, and we travel to be home. We travel to learn about our home, and we read to learn about somewhere else... for example, here in Germany I have learned...

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

Book recommendation:

Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and It's Discontents

Attended a fascinating conference this past week on the issue of "Just War, Just Peace." Schorlemmer, a rather famous German theologian, was the convener, and had invited a variety of very interesting presenters. The central topic of the conference, aside from the theme, was the life and times and thought of Willy Brandt. Unfortunately, not enough time right now to post all my notes on the subject. But briefly, as a foretaste, know that the Germans are really struggling with the U.S. actions, or potential actions, in Iraq. They have too much experience with quotations like "the party is always right," which rings so close to George W.'s quote, "Whoever isn't with us, is against us." I wonder if GW knows he sounds like Communist party leaders of 20 or 30 years ago.

Have, ever since my first visit to Europe, been fascinated by the travelers' obsession with old buildings. Why does international travel always include, or even emphasize, the visiting of castles and palaces? I'm sure Twain has something clever to say on the subject, so I'll look there after I look into my own brain. Was in Potsdam two weekends ago for a language course visit. Potsdam is remarkable for the diversity and number of interesting buildings it contains all within walking distance of the Altstadt. The palaces built by Frederick II are ironic because they are examples of royalty, fascinated by buildings in another land, building buildings that look like buildings from another land, all so that tourists years later can visit buildings built by kings fascinated by buildings built by kings in a foreign land. Frederick II never got to travel to Italy as he so much desired to do, so instead he built castles, complete with Roman ruins so that he would have an idealized landscape to gaze out upon from his garden villa.

He was also a rather open-minded nobleman, and so welcomed a strange amalgamation of foreigners into Potsdam. French Huegenots fleeing the oppression of the counter-Reformation, Dutch dike builders, Russians who came and built beautiful wooden homes in the Russian quarter, and a quaint Orthodox church in the middle of woods. The first mosque in Germany was also built here in Potsdam.

Besides these very cool historic ethnic quarters, there are the various palaces, including Cecilia Schloss, where the Potsdam Conference of 1945 was held. By the time I had visited all the obligatory sites, I was both repelled by having spent a whole day in such an egrigriously touristy manner, but then also interested, as we slipped on large cotton footcovers and slid our way through the Neues Palais, listening all the while to a historical account of the life of the nobility in this building and their fascination with Roccocco design.

So what exactly is this fascination with buildings. Why does the Parthenon stand today still in Athens, white and bleached by the sun, and why do we keep rebuilding it, and maintaining it, and visiting it? Why would Athens not be Athens without it, in a sense? There are of course hundreds of possible responses, including a) vestigial class ressentiment, b) the false eternalness of great buildings, c) the ease and confidence with which one can visit buildings as opposed to more transient, ephemeral events in the life of a culture, etc. Or is it in fact the very It-ness of buildings, that they are available for us to stare at, and talk at, gook at and laugh at, and they will never make us feel the least uncomfortable, never talk back to us or scare us in any way, and so we walk in and over and through them, all the while confident that we are safely engaging a foreign land, snapping pictures, in order to say we have been there, all the while knowing secretly in our hearts, "You didn't learn a blessed thing because really, you could have been anywhere, and the building was just a disguise for the semblance of having been somewhere. It did not change you, because it can't, and you wouldn't let it even if it could." That, I think, is why we visit buildings. Or that's the dark, radical side of the coin.

Monday, September 30, 2002

This blog starts a while back when I stopped at a fish restaurant for lunch in Hamburg, ordered a wonderful plate of fresh north sea fish, and then sat down at the table of two men, students a few years younger than me, who were in town for the street festival. One dressed like your average German male, jeans and worn collared shirt, the other looked to be of Rastafarian extraction, dreadlocks tucked up but not successfully contained by a large and colorful hat. About 10 minutes into my meal, they struck up a conversation with me, of course first asking where I came from, what I was doing in Hamburg, then I reversing the question, to learn that one was a veterinarian student in Vienna and the other a law student in Munich. But they both hailed from Schleswig Holstein originally.

After some initial pleasantries, we wandered off on a variety of subjects, the most substantial being the future of Germany. Anyone who studies history knows that Germany has played a considerable role, for good or for ill, in this centuries historical landscape. Anyone who studies philosophy, theology, and a variety of other disciples, know the extent to which Germans (and German speakers) have been stunningly influential in the thought-world, the weltgeist, of the west. Just start dropping names at random. Einstein, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Bach, Beethoven, Schliermacher, Bonhoeffer, Freud, Barth, Bultmann, Hesse, Solle, Mann, Klee, and so on. But, and this is the critical issue, it is more difficult today to say that Germany holds the same kind of sway and influence that it did in the past. The German educational (Bildungs) system is reportedly in disarray, and has descended into the lower ranks of the world's educational systems. One has difficulty idenitifying particular ways in which Germany influences world politics, culture, etc.

I mentioned this, in a halting way, in German, and the young men agreed that this was a dominant leitmotif for conversation in contemporary Germany. Then, we got into it really, discussing the mood of the youth culture in Germany, particularly as it relates to expectations, work ethic, etc. More to come, but for the moment, think Alvin Toffler.

Friday, September 27, 2002

Had intended, at least once or twice in this visit, to get out into the mountains and wild preserves of Germany, but unfortunately the combination of time constraints, flooding, and money, kept me fro the goal. Mostly. Did get out for some damp and fecund runs on trails in the Thuringian forest, outside Eisenach, and how this past weekend I gathered a group of classmates for a Sunday day trip to the Harz mountains. Actually, just a tiny SE section of the Harz mountains, but well-known and beautiful nonetheless. We visited Thale, a popular DDR tour destination due to its pagan historical sites (not that the DDR was pagan, but rather, the mountains are in Saxen-Anhalt, part of the DDR, and thus available for travel). Hexentanzplatz (witch dancing place) on a hill overlooking Thale, is accesible by a kabinet bahn, that is, a cross between a gondola and chicken eggs. Hex. is about as kitsch a tourist destination as I have seen. The actual sites to see are virtually nil, but the legend is attractive (witches gather every year for a pagan festival), so there are plenty of tourist stands selling bratwurst, beer, witch dolls, bumper stickers, etc. If you are emboldened enough, you can stand beside, or even do strange things to, the Sysiphian witch pushing a stone into position to build the dance arena. Then, following this obligatory visit, you can proceed to enjoy the great outdoors, a descent into the Rose Valley, cross a thunderous mountain stream, then reascend to Rosetrappe, a small indentation in a stone on the top of a cliff supposedly made by the cloven hoof of the devil.

Stopped back in Thale and had drinks and food at the bar of a Turkish restaurant, the bartender really chatted us up, and gave us extra bonus shots of Raki (turkish anis liquer). You can travel a whole day in Germany with five people for 28 euros if you are willing to take slow trains, so we took the slow train back to Wittenberg, napping and joking. Ah, to be a student again! :)

Thursday, September 26, 2002

Notes on an altar piece

The altar piece in the front of the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg is incredibly famous. It depicts the four "sacraments" of the Lutheran church. For those of you who did confirmation, you might think we have only two sacraments in the Lutheran tradition, but Cranach's altar frontal begs to differ (as does, to a certain extent, the confessional writings of the Lutherans themselves).

So, some clarification. The left section of the tryptych depicts baptism, of course, the first sacrament of the Christian life. It is situated on the left because it comes first, and just as we would read a book, we look to the left and see Melanchthon baptizing an infant. Melanchthon?! An infant?! Yes, that's right, it emphasizes and teaches in pictorial form the baptism of infants, and the baptizer is none other than Melancthon, who was never ordained as a pastor. Still havent figured out exactly why good ol Mel stands in as baptizer, but it certainly teaches that baptism is not a special work of the priest, but can be done by every person, as God through Christ has sent us into all the world to baptize.

2nd comes the Lord's supper, logically following on baptism, and situated in the middle, just as the table of the altar is situated in teh middle of the worship space. There's a circular rather than a long straight table. The disciples are all there, but dressed in the garb of the typical Wittenberg Burger of his day. There's also a roasted animal in the center of the table. Anyone know why Lord's Supper depictions of this period include not just bread and wine but also meat at the table?

The office of the keys, or confession and absolution, stands on the right portion of the tryptych. Although this seems out of place in a sense, thus coming after rather than before communion in the left to right pattern, actually functions to flank the Lord's Supper with baptism, and thus pairs confession with baptism, reminding us that the Christian life is one of constant repentance and turning back to our baptism. Bugenhagen, the parish pastor in Wittenberg, holds the keys above the heads of parishioners, and some are loosed from the bonds of their sins, and some are bound.

The fourth painting depicts the fourth sacrament in the Lutheran tradition, namely, the sermon. It thus provides the ground, the basis, and the connecting point, between the altar and the other three sacraments. There's a way in which this is actually the primary sacrament, for it is in the Word that Lutherans find their center, and the sermon is the place where the Word of God is preached to the congregation. In this case, Cranach has painted Luther preaching to his congregation. In between the pulpit and the pews is the crucified Jesus on the cross. Luther points only to Jesus. His sermon points only to Jesus. Thus Jesus in his crucifixion forms the very center of the tryptych from and through which all the other sacraments arise.

I'm playing a bit with the term sacrament here, but it is clear from this painting and our confessional writings that we are called to expand a bit our understanding of sacrament a bit, to loosen it up from the Augustinian definition of the word combined with a physical element. In this case, we must understnad the word itself as a physical thing that flys empowered by the Holy Spirit into the ears of the hearers and actually accomplishes the faith that it promises. The Word of God does not return empty. In the sermon, the congregation truly receives Christ. In the office of the keys, the penitent truly receives God's forgiveness. This we are to believe and hold fast to. Thanks, Cranach!

Morning services in Wittenberg. LWF's annual council meeting is currently held in Witt. so the worship services are radically altered. This is the 1st time I have attended one church and then, after the sermon, hopped on my bicycle and headed for another church to arrive, just in time, for the Eucharist. I learned midway through the sermon in the first church that there was communion at the 2nd, why not at the first church I do not know, tradition maybe, but anyway, I wanted to be there. The sermon in the Schlosskirche was by the bishop of the church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania. He spoke impeccable German, but still, in a 2nd language, he spoke more simply and therefore more comprehensible for me than a native German preacher. Referenced Karl Barth, Thomas Mann, Paul Tillich, and a few early Romanian reformers in his sermon. Focus of the sermon was "remembering", for those of you with theological backgrounds, anamnesis. He used this idea as the basis for saying that the past thing, through anamnesis, really IS in the presents, its not just a memorial, but a re-member-ing, as he put it, a bringing back together of things separated by time and space. Interestingly, the sermon in the other church also delved into the theological of time, but in reference to hope and the future, rather than remembering and the past. Thus, he developed in his sermon an ontology of Christian hope. The 2nd sermon by a German theologian. Without going into too much depth, it was easy to see the first bishops participation in the world-wide full communion dialogues, and clear that the 2nd had read Moltmann and Pannenberg. Funny how these things come together.

Monday, September 23, 2002

Rode out with the Jost family to Prettin today, about 40 km from Wittenberg, and the whole way we were passing through the flood zone. Even though Prettin is over a kilometer from the Elbe, it was completely flooded, and we passed whole streets in various small towns where the water marks went up to the middle of the first floor window, and there were still, now three weeks after the flooding, piles of rotted furniture and sundry household goods blanketing the siewalk awaiting garbage pickup. Outside most of the towns stand large dumping areas for the sandbags used to fortify dikes, and fruitlessly it turned out, stem the flow of water into town. By a stroke of geographical happenstance, the Josts mother lives in the one small region of Prettin that didnt flood, so today they are performing the usual fall Saturday chores, sweeping up early fall leaves and apples.
...

When running, the nose kind of shuts down in a mucous creating frenzy, so sometimes I remember very few smells from a run. But today I ran from Prettin through Großtreben, Dautschend, and back, and I smelled wonders. First, there was the ubiquitous waft of overmoist earth, a kind of clay, decaying smell that usually comes from swamps, or marshes, but in this case, in the flooded areas, from the towns and fields. Then theres the smell of manure,. Seems to be manure spreading season in the area, in spite of the flooding, or maybe because of it. Finally, the best smell, the roads between villages in Germany (and apparently over much of Eastern Europe) are lined with apple trees. People sometimes come out to collect the fruit, but often they simply fall to the ground and rot, creating, in the meantime, a wonderful sour cider aroma that pricks the nostrils on a Saturday morning run. Its the kind of smell that almost stinks, but doesnt pass over into stink, and so is instead intriguingly pleasant, like a good ripe cheese or a pungent cigar. The different with rotting apples is that you imagine a kind of punchy, willowing activity in the fruits themselves, a unctuous juiciness.

I was surprised at how the scent energized me.

Running is a strange hobby in this part of the world, and so people probably found it strange for a guy to come jogging through the village. But it really is the best way to see the country. The economy here is quite poor, about 40% unemployment, more in the smaller villages, so lots of people are out on bikes, but not for recreational purposes. Others are in the process of cleaning out their flooded houses. In spite of it all, people keep at it, and there is a kind of street conviviality that accentuates the morning air with humanity.

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Three worship services, one day

Leipzig might rank as the city with the most active congregational life of the cities I have visited, or probably I should say the most visible, as there is a lot of the church here that I have not and will not see because it simply goes on in the daily life of people and communities. Anyway, discovered through the Leipzig church publication that there are three worship services held in Leipzig in various churches on Wednesdays, ideal for me since I wasnt able to visit Leipzig on a weekend. The services were first, a Taize worship in the Thomaskirche (Bachs church), and evening Psalms and music service at the Nikolaikirche (the activist congregation), and then an evening "New Generation" service outside of the city center in a Leizig neighborhood.

Taize

Mix of Taize chant and Russian/Ukrainian psalm and prayer tones, the service was carefully and prayerfully hosted by two young people, probably in their early twenties. I thought it was simply and unaffectedly graceful, as a noon prayer service can and should be. The cantor entered candle in hand beginning the chant. Like most daily prayer offices, we chanted our way through three of the psalms (this included Psalm 122, which prays specifically for peace in Jerusalme). After the service, the cantor doubled as a tour guide for a brief theological tour of the church building.

Couldnt help but think, often, of Sept. 11, since I visited these congregations on the 11th. Had already seen earlier in the morning video footage of churches in Eastern Germany being blown up for the sake of the revolution (in fact, the altarpiece in the Thomaskirche is actually from the Pauluskirche, one of the churches demolished in 1967 as a part of the "barbarism of the DDR religion", as my tour guide described it). Watching those churches fall brought back images to mind of the world trade centers, and so, in the midst of prayer services, had plenty of time to reflect and pray.

2nd service was also my second time attending a service at the Nikolai Church, but the same atmosphere prevailed. A rather long winded sermon that tried to address the "why" evil question, taking the form of pastoral care. It started out quite nice, I even wept at the beginning, but then I think the personal angst of the pastor got the better of him and he tried to say too much. Often the best consolation includes a few words and much silence. The sermon itself, although careful and reflective, dwelt very little on the center of our faith, Christ, and therefore failed to address the issue of evil, because any Christian examination of such cannot be philosophical or existential, but must always be Christological finally.

Nevertheless, there was something about being American and hearing this German pastor speak of a tragedy in my home country that left me moved and thankful that he cared enough to speak something.

"New Generation"

First attempt Ive seen at a rock style Gen X worship service. Could have guessed that such a service would be held in a more hip out of the way church rather than in one of the traditional city churches. Had to hoof it about 2 km to get down to the church, but it was well worth the walk. Everbody out eating Doner kebabs on a Wednesday evening, lots of hip CD, pipe, wine, and apparel stores. Walked into the church about 30 minutes early, and the band is warming up for the "worship" service. Pretty heavy guitar, bass, and drum sound. All the techies are busy with their equipment, so no one has come to greet me.

Actually, no one ever does. I try to strike up a conversation with one man hanging around, but he seems distracted and busy with preparations as well. On my way down here there was a group of Jesus evangelists handing out tracts and singing in front of the university, and although I didnt stop and speak with them, they exuded a mood of wanting to talk and evangelize. I didnt get that at all at this new generation service. Instead, everyone was very much alone, in their little spiritual world. When the music started people stood up in the traditional style, hands held high, but what was remarkable was that all this emotivism was happening in solitude. One woman even got out in an open space and started free dancing (ive seen this also at folk rock concerts), and everyone watched over did their own thing.

I finally 30 minutes in was so uncomfortable I had to bail óut and head for home. Why does this kind of thing always creep me out? Am I hard hearted? Dont think so, but...

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Making an experiment in understanding other people's fascinations. Let me explain. Im not a stranger to obsessing over obscurities, for example, certain musical styles like acid jazz, literary genres like the early modernists, or th elike, but there are two artistic giants in this part of Germany who Ive never understood in spite of the worlds fascination with them (the 2nd being Goethe who I wont discuss at present). For some, this may sound lke the rantings of an uninformed fool. For others, it will likely bring relief, something like, Thank heavens somebody else shares my sentiments. In any event, Ill make my confession. Although I can appreciate some forms of classical music and even say that they sound nice, over a period of time, they simply make me fall asleep, and Ive never once had an AHA! experience or even a point of amazement while listening to classical music, whether it be Bach or Wagner or 20th century avant garde.

Bach is the man in question here in Leipzig. Its a pilgrimmage site. Im supposed to appreciate Bach because hes the theologians musician, the great interpreter of the Lutheran tradition into musical forms. Bach is buried in the Thomaskirche. Theres a wonderful museum across the street in which I spent four hours learning and listening. Of course, Ive heard Bach before. Who hasnt? His music hangs in the air in megamalls, and if you attend classical concerts, as I periodically do, youve heard something from him. I can even say that, when I hear a piece on the radio, Im often able to distinguish, say, Bach from Mozart, or at least from Wagner.

But I still dont understand the fascination. One pastor I know went so far as to say that the next step in my preparation for being a pastor would be to take a year off and simply study Bach. This could be the source, so I was told, for pastoral care and preaching. This is Bach at its extreme, the gospel according to Bach, and I just dont get it. Id much rather listen to U2, or Miles Davis, and Ill even admit that Ive learned much more of the faith from a number of bluegrass songs Ive heard than I have from Bachs corpus. Ive learned a lot about the book of Isaiah through Handel, so Im not saying the whole classical thing cant be done or isnt important. It just doesnt mesh with me.

These are the rantings that come from a searching but not convinced mind. I wonder if others have similar or opposite thoughts. I promise a further entry on this topic if I get responses from more informed and reflective minds.

Attended the Swords to Ploughshares evening prayer service at St. Nikolai church in Leipzig. Theyve been conducting the prayer service for 20 years straight now, and the service was incredibly, if not centrally, influential in the peaceful revolution of 1989. Prayer services held at this time became the center of the movement that eventually led to the fall of the Stasi, the restructuring of the government (in which some church leaders like Schorlemmer were influential), etc.

http://www.nikolaikirche-leipzig.de/gebete/geschichte.html

The link above provides more extensive history. The service is also often called Friedensgebet, or Peace Prayer. Unfortunately, the service was, in my opinion, terrible. There were no prayers, only sporadic singing, and then a long diatribe by two speakers who stood in front of us in a very condescending and lecturing manner and tried to explain the 1st chapter of Genesis and the existence of evil. Not a good start to worship services in which I had high expectations. But then, that teaches one what to do with high expectations.

Monday, September 16, 2002

Worship in Weimar

Arrived in Weimar a bit later than expected, so dropped all my stuff in my room and headed immediately for the city center. You have to actually visit the churches in town to learn teh worship schedule, so checked that out first,then wandered around Weimar gawking at the statues and the homes of Goethe and Schiller. Ive never really understood the fame of Goethe and especially German theologians preoccupation with him, so I went and bought a biography. Goethe is considered almost as a 2nd Scripture in Germany (possibly like Shakespeare in English), so Im slowly learning why, although for myself, no interest has been sparked. I think he was weird!

Then attended an evening prayer service, much more informal and non liturgical than others I have visited here. Came back feeling like it would be hard to meet church people in Weimar. This weekend was my experiment in just showing up in a town, visiting random congregations with no previous contact, in order to see how it goes for visitors here. I think you can learn a ton from this about evangelism and the life of the church.

next morning, I attended the same church, Statdkirche, where Johann Gottfried von Herder preached during the Goethe period. We sang a lot of hymns, followed a loose liturgy, and then heard a somewhat long and rambling politicaltheological sermon (elections are coming up in a week). Prior to the service, I had noticed a rather scruffy young man (listen to that, a rather scruffy young man) sitting behind me, and he tapped on on the shoulder and asked, in German, where I came fro. Turns out hes from Wisconsin, studying German for two months while hitchhiking and camping his way through Germany. We spoke the whole time in German (he promised himself he would only speak German while in the borders of Germany), and I learned he grew up Missouri synod, still attended church regularly, was headed home in few days, etc. Funny to attend worship in Weimar with another young Wisconsinite. Said goodbye, and headed for some juice and Plaumenkuchen. At the cafe, I had a minor run-in with the waitress concerning tap water. Normally, I try to be kind and relatively undemonstrative while interacting in public. Its never fun to draw attention to ones foreignness. Anyway, she told me that she coudnt give me any tap water, and I asked why, since there was a sink right behind her. She said she didnt want to. This was somewhat annoying, but then the scene became more dramatic. Two middle aged German women sidled up to me conspiriatorily while the waitress was away getting my cake, and told me I should have said I had a headache and need to take a couple tableten.

Then, the woman returned, and handed me a glass of mineral water, instead of Fanta (I had ordered Fanta as a 2nd best to tap water). I said I had ordered Fanta, and the waitress said that was Fanta. I said, no, Fanta is yellow. She said, no, this is Fanta. Then, another young German man joined in on my right side, so now I had a total of three people clustered around all helping me argue with the waitress. She let out a long frustrated breath, gave me the evil eye, and went and got me a Fanta.

Finally free, I went to sit down at a table, and this is where things get somewhat serendipitous. Im joined seconds later by a 50 year old pony tailed man from Manhattan, currently on leave from his job at Barnes & Noble. Hes been in Germany three months looking for a job teaching English. Turns out hes also a strong but seeking Christian. He tells me about various churches hes visited in Weimar (Pentecostal, state church, semi-free traditions, etc.), and then points out that theres an afternoon worship service at a very small congregation not far from my hostel. Im a little churched out at this point (five services in two days), but I decide to go. Its Frontier style worship with a German twist (Reformation era hymns mixed with praise music translated from English), a long conversational sermon by a guest lay preacher, no creed and no sacraments.

But the best part comes after the service, when we all sit down for coffee together. It doesnt take very many pleasantries before we dive right into sharing history, informational, and confessional differences between churches in the U.S. and Germany. This congregation is somewhat Baptist in orientation, although there are some big differences as well. So we debate some of the classic issues, like believers baptism, the nature of Christs presence in the Lords Supper, etc. The pastor is an avid debater, the other American an avid seeker, and so topics and arguments range far and wide. This lasts about three hours. Then we are invited to the pastors home for supper, where we spend another three hours talking and sharing stories with the pastor and his family. This confirmed in my mind the fact that the self standing or free churches in Germany, because of their smaller and confessional nature are more relational and open to visitors. It also showed me the serendipitous nature of life in a town, where I can end up meeting a congregation because of an American visitor from Manhattan who happens to be buying coffee simultaneously with me. Good also to see the Anabaptist tradition in its modern form in Germany, and learn what that means.

The church web site

www.lkgweimar.de

Jumped off the train between Eisenach and Weimar to visit Erfurt, another de rigeur Luther spot. On the walk between the Augustinian Cloister where Luther was a monk, and the Hauptbahnhof, you cross a creally cool shopping bridge similar to one we visited in Florence (I think it was Florence). Anyway, its a bridge that doubles as a street and artisanal shopping center. It took ten minutes to cross because of all the tourists and window shoppers. The Communitat Casteller Ring, the community of Lutheran nuns, which has a branch in Augsburg and now, apparently also in Erfurt, runs the musem and also a small hotel where visitors can stay and participate in the spiritual life of the community. The museum is quite informative, provides quite a bit of information on the rule of the Augustinian community and its history, which alone provides much insight into the theology of the early Luther. I learned, for example, that Luthers trip to Rome was not simply a pious pilgrimmage, although it was that, but it was also a business trip in the sense that he was an emissary for his branch of the divided Augustinians, in an attempt to reconcile. The reconciliation failed.

Bailed out on the guided tour just in time to attend the daily noon prayer service with the sisters. Sang three psalms (normal for the daily hours) and brief liturgical tunes from the Russian and Ukrainian chant tradition. I was the only male voice, which was interesting. The community prays four times daily, runs the museum and hotel, and also hosts an inexpensive coffee shop similar to the one in Augsburg, very homey. After prayer, the sisters went back to their jobs, I ate potato pancakes and drank bubbly apple juice, and hung out and chatted with a few of the sisters. Theyre eminently quiet and unassuming.

Lutherhaus in Eisenach

Like the Wartburg, Eisenach is one of the "must see" Luther sites, primarily because of the Wartburg, but secondarily because of the Luther house where Luthers family lived for a number of years. Owned today by the evangelical lutheran church in Saxon-Anhalt, its a beautifully preserved house between the city center and the Bach house. It also happens to be a well designed church museum, somewhat unique amongst the museums I have visited. It does a wonderful job of trying to depict, through displays and history, the actual meaning of the Reformation insights into the Christian faith as they relate to modern day Christians. The first room includes brief bios of various reformers in different parts of Europe. The 2nd room is a quiz game where one can answer questions regarding the application of biblical passages to various life situations. This is somewhat humorous at times. The better and more insightful display helps the reader understand the principles Luther used to translate the Bible into the German of his day in a culturally sensitive manner.

The 2nd floor of the museum is a more traditional historical exposition of the Eisenach house, and the reform of schooling that occured in Eisenach as a result of the humanist ideas furthered by the reformers.

The coolest exhibit, though, was a four century history of the Pfarrerhaus (vicarage, parsonage) in germany. With the end of monasteries and the marriage of Protestant pastors, a new era arose in the daily life of the German church. The vicarage became an important part of the educational and cultural life of the city or village. Many famous German thinkers were the children of these pastors, and were thus raised in a vicarage. Pietism was born in the vicarage system, for example, but so was Nietszsche, a great antiPietist. Schliermacher, Herman Hesse, and many others. Slowly, this phenomenon changed, especially in Eastern Germany under the DDR, but also in the West with the secularization of Germany. Finally, with the advent of women pastors, the traditional pairing of a male pastor and pastors wife became less and less the norm, and so, the vicarage is more an historical than a present day phenomenon. It would be interesting to create a similar museum in the states charting the transformation of the parish-parsonage system in the U.S.

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

Warning: ive added a lot of posts today, but I think they are generally worth the read. Consists of some peak experiences.

Eisenach:

Its a 30 minute walk by foot from Eisenach to Wartburg castle. Plenty of time to think. Ive been trying to discern the major diff. between German and American churches. Of course there are differences, but I want to avoid descending into stereotypes, if this is possible. Heres my reaction. Most American congregations of which I have been a part provide a place, a röle, for adult members. Sometimes this is through activities, like committees or Sunday school leadership, Other times it is through subscription to confessional standards, as in, we are unique in this community because we are Bible believing, because we are confessional Lutherans, etc.

So far in Eisenach Ive seen the Mormons (Ive seen the Mormons actively proselytiying in every city ive visited), and Ive seen an active, hip youth activities bulletin board. Theres of course the everpresent organ concert advertisements featuring Bach and sometimes Beethoven. And interestingly, the first time Ive seen this, theres a Bible cafe (privately run) which sells Christian books and coffee, mostly, once again geared towards the youth culture.

But theres nothing for adult believers. A vast difference between American churches and German ones, then, is this cultural standard in America that you belong to a congregation as an adult as part of your civic responsibility, or, more normally, you take a pause when you are in college, and then, once you have children, it is your parental responsibility to attend so your children are raised in a congregation. That standard, that norming norm, isnt the same in Germany.

But now Ive arrived at the Wartburg. The tour is great. All the tours Ive been on here feature well informed and animated guides. This one even performed, with mock readings from a book, dance, etc. Different parts of the castle were built in different periods, so there are Romanesque, medieval, and even Romantic rooms. You end your tour in a small museum of LutherCranach paintings, and a visit to Luthers study and sleeping quarters during his time under the pseudonym Junker Jörg. They pay special attention to a comment Luther made in a letter to a friend, where he mentions he is lazy (and lonely) in the castle, but at the same time mentions how much he is learning and writing. He collated his Christmas sermons, translated the NT, learned Greek and Hebrew, and battled the devil here with his pen. NO small feat.

I think Luther fought the devil in a way I am familiar with, in solitude. A kind of desperation sets in when you are completely alone that ends up in either a) a complete drivelling away of time, b) frenzied activity in many directions, or c) listlessness, or d) sustained, creative activity. I think the last comes only through practice and prayer. Or so I am learning. Apparently, Luthers propensity for work and the Holy Spirits calling him into prayer led him in an incredibly fruitful and faithful direction. Interestingly, though, that the same museum celebrates Luther the hard worker and Luther the preacher who said, the just shall live by faith alone apart from the works of the law. The combination of these two things is the great gift the Lutheran confession brings to the life of the church. Work not for salvation, but simply because it serves the neighbor, and serves the health of the one working. Or something like that.

Segue to reflections on the Fischmarkt:

Fish are now only ancillary to the whole fish market culture. Theres more fruit for sale by sober, coffee consuming Arab and Greek and Turkish men. You can, if you look, find the boats with the fresh eel, salmon, crab, and unknown slinking white fishes, but the building itself (the Fischmarkt) has been captured by the champagne upscale breakfast crowd, those wealthy enough to want a whiff, but only a whiff, of the edginess of the port. Theres a German rock band playing covers (remember, this starts at 5 a.m.), and lots of travellers eating large greasy plates of fried potatos and fish, drowned in tartar sauce. You can find the ubiquitous seafood sandwiches, and all of this, if you are bold, is lubricated with beer, wine, or schnaaps. Although it seems that many visitors are already sufficiently pickled from their night revelries, so the liquor simply helps stave off the hangover for a few more hours.

There are some funny scenes, plant sellers from Holland who pack people off with large boxes of discounted greenery, including tall palm trees that are then seen walking through the crowds on the shoulders of giddy men. Then theres my Irish pub, where I stopped and had a pint of Guinness (6 a.m.), and was enjoying some good Irish music on the radio, when suddenly I had to undergo a really drunk elderly German man sing really bad polka songs to a synthesizer drum machine.

Then headed up the hill to attend worship in Plattdeutsch.

Another older note:

Got up at not too early an hour this morning and came down to the Fischmarkt (Hamburg). I dont think Ive even been in such a debauched city. Last night I slept all night hearing the bass thump of a disco, and I woke up and headed down to the Fischmarkt where the party simply continued by starting up again at 5, the same time the bars close. So the true partiers need never go home. They just head down for the wharf.

Seaside life has always intrigued me, maybe because of my midwest landlubber status, but then, I kind of fear it at the same time. I always feel a bit out of my element. Ive read Moby Dick at least three times now as a result of this fascination, so coming to the Fischmarkt was a great baptism by fire into the real thing. I got a taste of the edgy and extreme.

Heres my working theory, which Id love to have expanded by those more in the know. Sailors and those hawkers at the stands in the Fischmarkt (they sell their products from 5 to 10 a.m.) live, in more ways than one, on the edge. They are perpetually a frontier people. They live between countries, between or over national boundaries, and so constantly live away from home, in exile. In addition, they live at the edge of civilization, the last and always frontier between the settled urbanity of the city and the wild nothingness of the open sea. One step from the shore to the ship is a step off the cliff into the abyss. But sailors float OVER the abyss, on it, and only sometimes sink into it. They are perpetual defiers of gravity, and this means, I think, they are a bit more often confronted with the quickening darkens of death than the rest of us. And this knowledge, this small little peak into something that most of us close our eyes to makes for the edginess. MOrals, civility, mannerisms, all these take on a different, sepia tone at the shoreline. So morning becomes evening, work and play reverse, holiday is compressed into a two day binge on shore, and the hawkers in the market remind us with their raw, abrasive voices, that in life to fight off death it is sometimes necessary to shout!!!!

An older note:

In Braunschweig, they have a collection of medieval priestly vestments that is unique to Braunschweig both in quantity and quality. The main collection consists of an alb (wheres my dictionary of liturgical terminology when I need it!?) This is actually a very simple, square piece of heavily embroidered cloth, with a hole directly in the middle through which the priests head passes. The texture of the cloth is sometimes plain, sometimes lavishly ornate, but on the front of each alb is an ornate piece of bas relief tapestry. Usually, this consists of a very graphic depiction of the crucifixion (not a cross, mind you, a crucifix). Thus, the priest while serving Communion to the communicant (in one kind), bears the gospel right there on his chest, and if the communicant is emboldened to look up at this ornately dressed priest, the first thing they see, maybe the only thing they see, is the gospel, Christ crucified for us.

Monday, September 09, 2002

InstantSleep hostel in Hamburg, where I stayed for the duration, is purposefully Bohemian, really marketed to the free for all party crowd, most of them on their way from or to Amsterdam. Thus, you would imagine things to be a little wild, maybe even dangerous. It is true that some really weird things happened. I learned how one roles a joint, although I did not smoke one, and I also saw, for the first time in my life, how a bong is used. As I said, all the people have just come from Amsterdam, so they use up their extra supplied sitting on the deck of the hostel in Hamburg (disclaimer... I in no way approved of or disapproved of this... I just mention it for its cultural import... I myself tend to be law abiding... anyway, what an annoying little moralist parenthetical comment this is, ill digress).

Anyway, the hostel is anything but dangerous, and is actually the most convivial and friendly place I have stayed in all my travels in Germany (true German Gemutlichkeit). Since everyone has chosen to live a rather marginal existence for a time, 3 to 6 months on the road is completely normal, they do so with a sense towards immediate, deep, and interested community. People take care of each other, give complete strangers gifts, and generally enjoy and relish in the mish mash of characters that frequent a hostel. The evenings were so fun in our hostel that there was very little need to go out on the town. Just hang around a table with good food and wine prepared in the very messy communal kitchen, and chat commiseratingly into the wee hours. I especially became friends with two other hostelers who were living more on my schedule. A young man from Bayern here for a computer conference, and a professinal ballet dancer from southern Holland who was in Hamburg for an update in her training. I tend to go to bed around 11 on the road, and they had to because of their work, so we were well match. There was also, of course, the party crowd who would hang out at the hostel until 12, or 2, and then head out for the pubs, but even they were polite about it and had regard for their sleeping neighbors (in a 40 bed communal "dream room"). Or at least, they were as quiet as tipsy people can be in the wee hours.

Cool things in Hamburg

1. Played in a chess competition on a bridge overlooking the Elbe against the current reigning youth champion. 18 years old. She won.
2. Fireworks every night sponsored by various countries. Dont know why, but I watched American tax dollars at work.
3. The Speicherstatd, an area that used to be used for hugs ships full of goods shipped into Germany.
4. Riding the ferry on the cheap as a way getting out on the water.

Interview with Simone

Monday morning walked down into Alton, a way diverse suburb of Hamburg, to visit with Simone, a pastor in the area. She actually studied at Hermannsburg, a mission society and school where our firends Michael and Stevie also studied (they now served in Abakan, Russia) At first, she just gave me a tour of the congregational offices, mentioned some of their ministries. For example, they just hired a very active youth director who converted teh basement into a play room with foosball, table tennis, pool, a couch, a CD player, all the things that seem de riguer in the art of youth ministry today. Funny how often entertainment evangelism concepts that have their roots in America have found their way back across the ocean.

We sat in an upstairs room where there were toys for small children, and we conducted our interview while her daughter played and filled her diaper. First question, what do you think about first when you think about the church in Germany, she responded with the concept of seelsorge, care of souls. Some background. Each landeskirche is responsible for a certain area of town, and the number of people in the parish is the number of people who pay the kirche steuer, church tax, in that area. For her church, this means about 3500 people. Of this 3500, about 90 can be found in worship on a given Sunday morning. And if theres 90, that number is on the high end. But, the number of worshippers doesnt represent the total demands of people on the life of the church leadership, pastors and others. Many of the 3500 may not shadow the church door for years, but then when a tragedy happens, they look for seelsorge, soul care, from their pastors. They expect help and support, etc They also expect to be able to baptize their children, ahve them confirmed, have funerals, and get married in the church, which turns into no small undetaking when you are talking about such a large number of people. And all this with one full time pastor. So, the main thing Simone thinks about is all these people who need care, and who only sometimes get it, sometimes because they fail to come, other times because the pastors are overworked.

Next question How do you think about the connection between the Reformation in Germany and the contemporary church. Answer I never do. This one shocked me, because as many of you may know, many protestants, and especially Lutherans, think all the time about the origins of the Reformation in germany especially in connection with Luther and others. Many American pastors make pilgrimmages to Wittenberg. Simone had never been to Wittenberg. We talked about this topic for quite a while, the difference between living in a country where an event took place, and appropriating somehow itno ones contempory life. I guess a parallel example would be to ask how many pastors in America really think about the connection between Jonathon Edwards and their own theology and work. Or something like that. I have more notes on this, but it might get a little too much.

We talked some about musical instruments used in worship, the pride of place of the organ in Germany, new styles arising in Germany. She doesnt get a chance to vsiit other congregations in Hamburg, so actually, when we talked, I had seen more churches than her.

9 11 also came up in relation to the memorial services to be conducted this week.

We went out for lunch, a nice pasta place, while her daughter slept, and it occured to me that, at least in a number of cases that I have encountered, pastors here are rather unaware of their status as "German" pastors. That is, they simply do their work and take for granted a bit their context. I had come with a preconceived notion of the import of Germanness and history in the life of everyday Christians here. I am beginning to reassess this preconception. Its probably for the good.

Friday, September 06, 2002

Attended a worship service in Plattdeutsch at Trinity Church downtown Hamburg. Small community, but very friendly. It was interesting to imagine the Schnekloth and Johnson ancestors up here in the North worshipping in Plattdeutsch. There are substantial similarities between the languages, but the average german reading the text for the service has some difficulty. Nevertheless, the church in the area has even assembled a plattdeutsch hymnal as a way of remembering, and also ministering to those who still speak the dialect.

Then, in the evening, attended a post modern worship service at St. Michaels. It was a cross between Vespers, a poetry slam, and avant garde free improv music. A woman read a series of poems out loud from the lectern, centered on a kind of romanticized, personal faith expression, while the organist improvised under and sometimes over her. The service lasted an hour, and the congregation participated only rarely. We sang two traditional hymns, at the beginning and end. As seems typical here, the organ played a central role in the service. The difference was the attempt to bring modern slash postmodernist musical and poetic styles into a worship setting. This I have not seen done in the same way in the states. We have contemporary worship, but that is a long way from say the poetry of T.S. Eliot or John Ashberry, or the music of acid jazz. Can modernism be translated into worship? This question remains oopenn, i think.

Hamburg.... walked and saw a bit of the Gerhard Schroeder election rally, German elections come up Sept. 22. Then saw a war protest parade in tthe city center. Hamburg is radically different than anywhere else Ive been in Germany. Its hip and knows it. Great bohemian fest in our neighborhood- apparently you can set up any kind of shop you wnat right on the street. Some guys have hauled out grills and are selling brats, others are hawking used clothes. The coolest thing is this impromptu lounge lizard club situated directly the S-Bahn bridge. A couple of guys are hand mixing lounge beverages from a stock of liquor they have purchased, theres a DJ mixing back beat rhythms with old LPs, and in th emiddle of the street they have set up old lounge furniture... comfy chairs, couches, lava lamps, etc. Vinyl is really in in Germany, especially in this neighborhood. Theres another Rastafarian band down the street with dreads and weed, just happy. The party went until 5 a.m. Saturday morning, when the beat of the radio stopped thumping in our hostel. Unbelievable.

Thursday, September 05, 2002

My third evening in Lubeck I meta young woman headed back to Munich after her vacation, and we cooked supper together. She was headed to Hamburg the next day, so instead of taking the train, I rode in her rental car, and she even dropped me off in the middle of town. How nice. This is what Im constantly discovering on my travels, how kind and helpful travellers are to each other. My InstantSleep bohemian hostel is no different, just a little more party oriented. MOre on this later...

Staying in hostels has been a new, and rather hip experience. In Lubeck, I spent each evening chatting with fellow residents. The first night it was a young couple with child from Copenhagen. They were actually from England, lived and worked currently in Copenhagen. I shared a bottle of wine with them, and we did what our generation often does, got into a very deep and meaningful discussion without even knowing each others names. Turns out the man is a convert from atheism to Buddhism, and when he learned I was a theologian, he had a lot of questions. Specifically, he wanted to clarify in his mind the differences and similarities between our faiths. In fact, we were so interested in conversing with each other that we spent part of the next day wandering the streets of Lubeck and sharing our faiths with each other. It doesnt surprise me that a man like this, so passionate about faith, would find Buddhism, because his parents, themselves raised Christian, had not shared any faith at all with him, and so naturally, he thought there was nothing to offer in the Christian faith, he himself being taught this by his parents.

The next night an Israeli family arrived, two retirees with their young nephew. The couple actually lived and worked in Sweden for 30 years, their nephew had flown up from Israel to visit them, and they were spending a day or two in Germany. This is not very common, I learned, for Jewish people to visit Germany. Or at least this is what was reported to me by them. But the most surprising thing was this. When the young Israeli man learned I was American, he immediately shook my hand, grinned from ear to ear, and said, Then you are my best friend!!!!! He was so excited, wanted so much to thank me for what America does in Israel, and was so positive all I could do was nod and say thank you.

The very next night, in Hamburg, the guy sleeping next to me was a Palestinian. Of course, his understanding of me as an American was radically different. Still, we were able to have a good talk. Hostels can really throw people together.

Alot has happened since the last post. Im now in Eisench, after having passed through Lubeck and Hamburg. I spent four days in each spot. Lubeck was pretty, Baltic, and friendly. Visited an organ and an orchestra concert, took a day trip out to the spa town of Travemunde, continued working my way through Buddenbrooks, which takes place in Lubeck and Travemunde, and hung out evenings chatting with a diversity of hostel visitors.

Not sure Ive read a novel about a place while in that place. Ive read a number of Prague novels, possibly one on location, but usually I read books about a place in another place. The Great Gatsby, many many British novels, Rushdies The Ground Beneath Her Feet, all these are place evocative, but Lubeck was the first place I bought and read a book in a place. Im not sure theres any advantage to it. In fact, sometimes its much more fun to read a book out of place, incongrously, as a way of escaping. When you read a book in place, you have travelled to get there, but then the book fails to serve its purpose as a small print version of travelling.

Theres a display in the Marienkirche in Lubeck concerning Sept. 11th. Its major, with large placards mounted through the dom, and newspaper articles in various languages displayed dramatically on all sides. Apparently it has been suggested, almost ordered, by church leadership in Germany to hold commemorative services and events in the churches this Sept. 11.

Hostel owners have noticed a decline in travel during this time, possible fear of a recurrence of the Sept. 11 atrocities. I wonder what people in the states are doing and saying in preparation for a commemoration?

Saturday, August 31, 2002

Wolfenbuttel. Verz cool library. Interesting that there is so much history in a town I previously hadnt heard of. Important in the history of libraries, this counts as my beginning my library education along with Amanda. Lessing, Liebnitz, among others worked here. Today it houses the largest collection of 17th documents anywhere in the world.

http://www.wolfenbuettel.de/

http://www.bartleby.com/65/ha/Hanseati.html

Reading Thomas Mann's Bruddenbrook right now. Those of you interested in things like the U.N. and new forms of economic organization might be interested in the Hanseatic League, encyclopedia link above.

Was invited this evening to the family Karla and Dieter Bierschwalen. They're a couple in their 50s who were on the trip yesterday. I walked with Dieter from the centrum out to their house, 1.5 hours, for a bit of afternoon exercise. They have a beautifully rebuilt masonric house. Dieter did all the reconstruction. Their mother lives in the other half of the house. The walk out was great. When you're walking, you don't care if you speak slowly, quickly, whatever, so it's ideal for a conversation in a foreign language. 3 parks, two breweries, a gartenverein, and many streets later, we arrived at their house.

They came to the Bruedern church because Karla originally cme out of the Apostolic-Catholic movement (do a google search if you want). Turns out this is another high church semi-charismatic movement that began in teh 1830s in England. Many members of the Bruedern community come out of this tradition, not Lutheranism per se. Then, even more interesting, their daughter belongs to a Pentecostal Charismatic LItiurgical church that arose in America in the 90s as a protest against abortion, among other things.

We sat on their deck and grilled good meats, had iced coffee and schnaaps. So far I've found that universally germans are against George W. Bush's military decisions, and our government's overly self-righteous attitude as regards its role as a global police.

Thursday, August 29, 2002

So far Braunschweig is everything I had expected, and more. Pastor Diestelmann picked me up at the train station, and we went to his cozy apt. in a suburb for coffee. We talked about the Hoch Wasser, of course, Martin Chemnitz and his predecessor pastor. The most humorous part of our day is: we went and surfed the Internet together. There were a # of things he was interested in, like blogging, the magayine First Things, the evangelical catholic movement in America, Orthodox Lutherans in Kiev, etc., So we surfed in his office. He gave me a copy of his book on Luthers Mass of 1526.

Heres where things get a little crazy, even dreamy. Bruedern church is an actual 16th century church with an attached convent, nad the pastor and wife actually live on one floor of the monastery. We entered church through the social hall, and then into the back smaller chapel behind the altar (the choir) for Vespers. There were eight people present, including me, Juergen, and Pastor Grozdek.

The entire Vespers service is chanted, a capella. The order of service is virtually identical to the one found in the LBW, with some language differences. The Psalms and other verses are pleasantly sung in a particular manner- the congregation comes in on their verse immediately after the pastor sings the downbeat of his last note, thus overlapping each other ever so slightly, and creating a sustained chant. Very beautiful.

After Vespers, we visited briefly, and then headed up to the pastors residence.

I have a small bedroom with ancient furniture, hardwoods, and a small window looking out over the innner courtyard grounds. Also on my floor are other bedrooms, a living room with oddly colored chairs. Theres also an immense library. But the amazing thing is the pastors residence. He has hundreds, possibly thousands, of ancient leather bound books interspersed with his newer books. The whole house is decorated with icons and art from the Renaissance. In addition, his wife is a professional harbsichordist, so she has two very nice harpsichords in the living room, among other old instruments. She plays renaissance music and 16th century tunes on original instruments as her specialty. He is a specialist in 16th centurz reformation theology and liturgy. In other words, they literally live in the 16th century. Its amazing.

I jumped the next train to Braunschweig from Magdeburg, and am now writing and enjoying a meal at a stand up Burger King stand. Crispy chicken, pomme frites, pomme frites sauce. The church Im visiting is interesting. It represents one way to relate the history of the Reformation to the present. Keep things as they were. Luthers translation of the Mass is used as their main service. They use quotes from Luther and other early reformers in their monthly church mag. They have also, like the Missouri synod church, adopted relatively stringent rules concerning the inerrancy of Scripture. Will be interesting to see how this plays in the Braunschweig context.

On first visit, it has been a wonderful chance to be contemplative, a kind of retreat. Ive so far visited Vespers, Compline, and High Mass. The congregational bus trip comes next.

Warning... been having a bit of a problem finding time to be on line. so these are notes only to get them off paper onto the web

To get from Wittenberg to Braunschweig last week, I had to take a bus through Wittenberg because of the flooding, and then board the train at the Witenberg west train station. I arrived in Roslau, the first transfer point, only to be greated bz a very worried train attendant wantng to know where we were headed. When I said Magdeburg, sh informed us they had sent the train off early because they thought we werent coming. She went and got a new schedule for me- combination of small town and guilt- then, the pay phone in the train station wasnt working, so she let me use her own personal cell phone, Handi in german, to call Juergen, the pastor and theologian meeting me in Braunschweig. When I asked if I could reimburse her, she said "the important thing isnt the money. the important things is that your friend comes at the right time." How nice. So far Germany has been the land of good neighbors for me.

I struck up a conversation with a similarly situation traveller named Maik. He was a diminutive young man (26) who, although initially angry at being stranded, was very happy to have a travelling companion. He was a power-lifter and computer technician from Sahne, a village near Wittenberg. We chatted all the way to Magdeburg, where hes visiting his parents. His dream destinations in America are Florida and Las Vegas. His favorite cities in Europe Berlin and Paris. Once he found out I wa a theologian he had a ton of questions. But like many in East Germany, he was fascinated but not interested. This strikes me as an interesting topic, the difference between being fascinated by someone who is a religious person, and actually being interested in the faith yourself.

Friday, August 23, 2002

http://www.luther-in-bs.de/

This is a page designed by the pastor I begin visiting tomorrow in Braunschweig. He is a confessional (free) Lutheran, and a church historian. Most of the articles are in German, but there is an excellent article on Melanchthon, as well as a couple other pieces in various languages, for anyone wishing to read more on Melanchthon.

Thursday, August 22, 2002

On the last post, the web site for flacius should be with one c:

www.flacius.com

The author of the book is Oliver Olson, a specialist in Reformation church history. He's written on Melanchthon also, I've learned, so when I get back to the states, I'll have to read up and correct some of the errors on this post. For the moment, please forgive historical or theological inacurracies (or send corrections... I always appreciate that).

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Philip Melanchthon

The Luther house and museum are closed in Wittenberg and won't re-open until late October of this year. This is unfortunate for me, but good for future tourists, because they are restoring more rooms, improving the museum and archival displays, and so are doing a more adequate job than in the past of helping visitors understand Luther and his period.

The Philip Melanchthon house had, on the other hand, already been restored in 2000. Melanchthon's life and work was celebrated with a travelling exhibition that made its way around Europe back in 1996 or 1997. Various European humanists were celebrated at this time, and Melanchthon is a prime example of the movement. The travelling exhibition concentrated on Melanchthon as a man of letters, literally. From early in his life, people began to collect Melanchthon's correspondence, and there are an astounding 10,000 letters extant. It's estimated that M wrote between 10 and 20 letters some mornings before heading for the university to teach! His letters ranged around the world, and he carried on careful and frequent correspondence with many of the leading political and intellectual figures of his time.

Melanchthon's opening lecture in Wittenberg (a lecture Luther responded to appreciatively) was entitled, "On Improving the Education of the Young." In the lecture, he referred especially to Horace's dictum, "Sapere audete!" Dare to know! The Melanchthon museum goes into considerable detail regarding the various ways Melanchthon encouraged a humanist curriculum at Wittenberg University (the Leucorea... yes, the same school where I now take German lessons). In fact, the museum gives equal time to M's work in the humanities and school reform as it does to his historical importance as a reformer in the church.

Many people have not even heard of Melanchthon, including some Lutherans. He is the primary author of many of the sections of the Book of Concord (a book some Lutherans don't know, either), including the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, large tracts of the AC itself, etc.). But Luther gets a bad rap in many seminaries, and whereas students come out of, say, Luther Seminary, having read many works by Martin Luther, very few students read the works of Melanchthon. There are many complicated, and some overly simply, explanations for why this is the case. Nevertheless, it makes a visit to the museum all the more interesting.

At the risk of over simplifying things, the reason Melanchthon gets a bad rap is, surprisingly, because he tried to bring together people from radically different camps. Whereas many reformers and reform congregations held rigorously to their new (or old) confessions, Melanchthon tried to build concords and interim agreements between communions. The Augsburg Confession is an example of this, actually, as well as the apology to it. Luther's Smalcald Articles are much more strongly worded, for example, but just so also more clear.

This might be unfair, and historians can feel free to correct me, but it might be said that Melanchthon risked clarity of confession for the sake of greater ecumenism. Other reformers were not nearly as willing to let this happen. A prime example is the Augsburg Interim, a document written in absentia by Melanchthon, and re-titled the "Leipzig Interim" by Flaccius, a more strident and confessional Lutheran. This document deals with the issue of adiaphora. The result of the Interim was the re-establishment of certain RC practices in places in southern Germany where Lutheranism had taken a hold. Other Lutherans believed that requiring these practices itself became a matter of confession, and therefore not of adiaphora (things of no account). Flaccius famously said (to paraphrase), that in matters of confession, nothing is adiaphora.

For this statement, and other's more strong, Melanchthon labeled Flaccius as one of the "rabid" theologians.

For a book on Flaccius recently published, and the only one available of its kind, go to:

www.flaccius.com

I encourage pastor's and church leaders especially to purchase this book.

For a summary of Melanchthon's teaching as a systematic theologian, see his "Loci Communes". This summary of doctrine went through a number of re-writings, but the earliest formulations of it were approved expressly by Luther. "Loci Communes" is fascinating because M takes Erasmus's humanist method to back up Luther's Apologia. Erasmus and Luther were radically at odds with one another in matters of confession (especially around the issue of free will), and Melanchthon famously found a middle ground here as well.

Melanchthon was very talented, and his work will be remembered for posterity. But in the church today, we might say his greatest influence is exactly in that area which causes the largest divisions (ironically)... that of ecumenism. I tend to side with the Gnesio-Lutherans rather than the Philipists when it comes to matters of confession and ecumenism. Wherever one falls in this discussion, Melanchthon clearly rises up as one who will continue to set the agenda, for better or for worse, through his life and writings.

Heres a friendly e-mail reply from a friend regarding Bach biography suggestions, as well as information on why the creed comes before the sermon in German churches. Excellent information! Thanks.

Your blog asked for a bach book; read Christoph Wolff's biography. Philip
Spitta would be a close second. Avoid Schweitzer's. Wolff attends to
Bach's churchly vocation and is shorter than Spitta's four volumes.

Also, the creed comes before the sermon in Luther's order and in most
pre-Vat II versions of the mass. For North American Lutherans, the creed
follows the sermon only starting in the Green Book. The Red Book had the
opposite. It's a matter of conformity to the Book of Common Prayer in the
LBW rather than Luther/the Mass. The creed does go before the sermon
sometimes so that the Preacher can be clear on what's expected of him to
say. ;-)

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

I just finished reading an early sermon by Barth (re: the New Year, Sylvester) while sitting in the courtyard of Brauhaus Wittenberg im Beyerhof. The brick street sits under my feet, there's a cool breeze from the (flooded) river, the sun is setting, and I find there is no better place to sit and read and write than in a courtyard with beer and a nice shaded picnic table on a Sunday evening. There's the trickle of an ancient Wittenberg spring to my right. Non-potable, but pleasant nonetheless. It makes me think of how the purity of the water influences the taste of the beer. I wonder where Wittenberg Brauhaus gets their water. I get whiffs of good cooking periodically from the kitchen, the noise of helicopters passing over and Red Cross sirens whining reminds me that the floods are still doing their damage, and it's a bit hard to believe I'm sitting here while the flooding is happening there. Nevertheless, it is the case, the stores are open and people are living there lives. Incongruity, as always.

1. Wittenberg Wießen, a summer brew that is very fresh, and the leaves the yeast suspended in the batch. It gives the beer a tart flavor.

2. Krystal Weisen, where they remove the yeast somehow while still giving it the tart flavor.

3. Mass, in Munich, apparently not elsewhere, the beer is served in masses, a whole liter of beer.

4. Cola bier, a popular afternoon choice, this is the German equivalent of American 3.2% beer, except it tastes like cola. Yuck.

5. Haven't tasted the dunkels yet.

Monday, August 19, 2002

English Worship

Although it might be cliche, I think any pastor visiting Wittenberg wonders secretly or out loud, "What is it like to preach in the same church where Luther preached?" It's hard not to think this, since all the trappings of the church still come from Luther's period. The art is by Cranach, the statues and other paintings are of Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen. So, it was not much of a surprise for me, when I sat down for the service, that we sang two hymns by Luther, and the sole references in the sermon to other writings were a) the Bible, and b) Martin Luther's writings. In fact, there were probably more references to Luther than the Bible, specifically references to Luther's Large Catechism, explanation of the first commandment.

What did surprise me, though, was that the sermon started with a kind of abstract reference to God's inclusive nature, God's reaching out past the bounds of Israel, outside of the Jewish community to the Samaritan woman, etc., but then the sermon ended with an ABC's of personal conversion. A, Admit your sin, B, I have forgotten, but I think it was something like beg for forgiveness or begin to pray, and C, commit your life to Christ. Thus, although the sermon could have done justice to either Scripture or Luther, it ended up doing justice to neither. It turned the gospel promise of justification by faith into a law, one must admit, believe, commit, always with emphasis on the must. Apparently, this inadequate kind of preaching, with no doctrine of the Spirit (I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but the Holy Spirit...) ends up turning faith into an act of the free will rather than something wrought by God through the preaching of the Gospel itself.

Herr Ulrichi, the current Wittenberg organist, accompanied hymns, and played the prelude and postlude. Imagine if every congregation of 30 had a professional recording organist to accompany them!

Sunday, August 18, 2002

Hochwasser (Flood Water)

The villages that my host families mother's live in have been evacuated because of the flooding, and we wait until today to see if they will actually flood. In the meantime, they have been staying at our house. Gisela, my host mother, has been wonderful, preparing food for everyone, still calm and welcoming in the midst of it all. I've offered to help at various points, but I think the best way I can help, as far as I can tell, is to be a good tourist and supporter of the economy while in Wittenberg. And in the meantime, try not to get in the way.

Towards that end, I stayed in Wittenberg the whole weekend. Friday evening was very basic, stayed at home drinking wine with some guests, waited for the families to go pick up their mother's (to drive anywhere requires considerable wending and weaving to get around the flood areas). We also, of course, watched the news. In fact, both evenings we had supper around the television, completely out of the norm, so we could learn what was going on.

Saturday morning I came into the city centre to see the Melanchthon house museum (this requires a separate blog). I ate lunch at the Kartofel House (potato house), a busy and old-style chic restaurant that I recommend to any visitor of Wittenberg. By this time, because of class and conversations with my family, I know all the specialized vocabulary around floods. So I was able to sit at the restaurant, coffee shop, wherever, and listen in on conversations with a good deal of comprehension. Everyone is talking about the flood. There really is no other topic.

While I sat for lunch, helicopters kepts flying overhead with large nets full of sandbags that were being delivered to the suburbs of Wittenberg on the other side of the river. These towns were imminently in danger of flooding. The Elbe is the same river that passes through Dresden, which made national news in the U.S., so you can imagine how high the water is here. The water has come right up to, but not into, the old city centre. All the hotels and hostels in town are full of evacuees. In fact, some of my classmates who were living in dorms had to evacuate their own rooms to make room for evacuees. They went from single room luxury to four people in a basement in one of the higher lying suburbs. You do what you must.

Saturday evening I attended the English language worship (a separate blog), and then Sunday morning I attended the German service in the main castle church. It was interesting visiting worship with a Portuguese Catholic and a Japanese student who had never attended any kind of religious service before. All three of us read and sang what we could together in German. What to make of confession and faith in such a context?

Then, after the service, we were invited by one of the elders of the congregation to climb the Turm (tower) and see the flooding. Apparently, everybody in Wittenberg had the same idea, because people were arriving in droves on their bicycles, not to attend worship, but to climb the tower. It was a wise choice, because we could see all over, and we weren't interrupting relief efforts or endangering ourselves going out on treacherous bridges. The river is normally about 200 meters across. Now, you can't see from one end to the other, or you can just barely see the other side of the water.

Hubert went and got a few sandbags himself on Saturday, just in case. We haven't filled them yet, he just has the empty bags in the yard. Nobody really knows how high the water will go, so even people who thought they were safe take pre-cautions. Also, the water comes not simply from the flooded river, but also from the elevated ground water level. It's possible our basement (keller) could flood from that pressure alone, and so sandbags could help stop up cracks). Meanwhile, everyone is also very curious. Last night, I went back down to the city center for a beer, and it seemed like the whole town was out for a stroll. They were "gucken", that is, taking a look, a German verb not too distant from our "google", or "gawk". It's pretty hard not to gawk when the exhibits its power.

Thursday, August 15, 2002

I learned that the first beer was made in Baghdad, and that in fact the first hospitals were in Baghdad as well. Then we got into a joke telling session, some of which were really great. For example, Margo contradicted the historical veracity of beer originating in Baghdad, and said that it was actually the Egyptians who invented beer, and then to honor the beer, built the "beer-a-mids". Yes, you have read correctly.

A Lutheran pastor from Cuba was the English pastor for two weeks in Wittenberg a few years ago, and his joke topped them all. Fidel Castro dies and goes to heaven. Who does he find there but Napoleon, Kennedy, and Breznev. Napoleon soon shows he is the most sociable and talkative. First, he goes up to Breznev and says, "If only I had had your tanks, I would have won the battle of Waterloo." Then, he strolls over to Kennedy, and says, "Oh, if only I had had your money, I would have won the battle of Waterloo." Then, he sidles over to Castro, and says, "Oh, Castro, if only I had had your newspapers, nobody would have known I had lost the battle of Waterloo!" So it goes.

There's a five year waiting list for pastors to come and serve their two week stint in Wittenberg. This is interesting to me. Because we have met some of these English congeration members, though, we have an inside track, and I was told I could be bumped a couple of years up the waiting list, if I so desired! :)

There are two English language ministries in Wittenberg, and Lutherans won't be surprised to learn these are hosted by the ELCA and LCMS respectively. The ELCA program, the Wittenberg Center, has two full time staff members through the department of global missions who live and work in Wittenberg full time. Their office is housed in the Lutheran seminary here in Wittenberg, and their primary work is hospitality, providing resources, trips, information, etc., for American Lutheran travellers coming to Wittenberg to learn about Reformation history. They were hired from the top down, through the division in Chicago, a lot of their work is bureaucratic, lots of e-mail going back and forth from Chicago to Wittenberg, conference calls,e tc.

The LCMS runs a different program. During the prime tourist months, they provide English language worship and prayer services in the city. These serviced are usually Wednesday afternoon, Friday evening, and Saturday evening. They alternate between the Stadt Kirche and the Schloss Kirche. They also host a Thursday evening Stammtisch (standing table) at a local restaurant. This whole ministry is very loosely organized. A pastor comes in for a two week period to preach and be available for conversation and pastoral care. Then, when he leaves, another pastor comes. This goes on for five months of the year. All of their information is available through the Wittenberg information center, and they have close ties with the people that work there. But as you can imagine from the LCMS, there is much less of the bureaucratic in their work, much more focused on providing a confessional religious and pilgrimmage experience for English speakers travelling to Wittenberg.

"Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimmage", to quote Chaucer

I attended the English Stammtisch last night, out of curiosity for who would show up, and what it would be like. Two LCMS pastors came, one of whom was the deputy director of the program for the two weeks that he was there. The other was with his wife, and was just visiting. They spoke no German, and expected the waiters and everyone around them to speak English. They were kind and welcoming to a fault, and very happy to be able to participate in such an event. Then, there were five young people (I'm 30, so I guess I can still say I'm young). Myself, Anna, a seminary student from Philadelphia doing beginner's German study, Erica, an international studies student doing a internship in Wittenberg for seven months (who interestingly grew up in Dubuque), Sven, the son of Margot, to be mentioned later, and Michael, a young man from Wittenberg. Michael studied for a year in New Mexico, I think.

But the conversation was dominated by the intelligent, middle-aged German couples who came to practice their English. Pontificating wouldn't be too strong of a word for what a couple of them did most of the evening. There were many heated debates, often over dates and historical data, and when the debates got too heated, they switched to German. Apparently, if you want someone to really listen to you, you speak their full name to them. So, "Herr Doktor ..., do you really think that...". Or, "Mrs. ..., I don't think that is so. In fact, I know it isn't, and here is why..." Earnest to a fault, I learned a ton of German history in a short amount of time. One of the most interesting discussions revolved around why Wittenberg wasn't bombed during WW II. Some thought it was simply because America ran out of bombs, others because Wittenberg wasn't strategically important, and others thought it was because Americans, as Protestants, love Martin Luther, and so didn't bomb his home city.

To be continued...

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Anyone out there have any good book recommendations on Bach? I need a suggestion prior to the Leipzig trip. There's good stuff on the web, but not much theology or biography.

1. Pfifferling- a specialty in Germany in August, made of hand-picked mushrooms sauteed in spices and oils, and then presented with a pork tenderloin, in an omelette, etc. Very good.

2. Weiss bier- beer where the yeast is left in and suspended in the beer, thus making it white in color, opaque. Kind of tangy and fresh, the local brauhaus here in Wittenberg has prepared a batch that will be served until it runs out some time in September. Then the October brews come out...

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Last night my host mother brought out an old yellowed envelope. In it were the papers that her own mother had to have made to prove her German purity in order to be married. She was married in 1942. She needed paperwork proving that her parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles were all German and Christian (not Jewish). Each paper has similar data. Date of birth, date of baptism, date of marriage, birth name, lineage, home city, type of work. All the papers were carefully wrapped and kept. I kept thinking to myself (though I'm not sure my host family thinks this), "Will people in Germany ever need these papers again? Who else in the world has to prove by paperwork their racial lineage?" No wonder the papers are handled carefully, wrapped gently, and stored.

It's flooding all over Germany, France, Austria, and the Czech Republic. 50,000 people were evacuated from the Prague city center. The Dresden main train station is under two feet of water. The Elbe, which flows past Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, is 10 times its normal size. Wittenberg won't flood, though, because it is on a small hill (Witten = white berg= hill).

Last night we watched the news here in Germany, and it was dominated by the flood. It was really incredible. Periodically, my host family would translate into simpler language something that was said on the television. A couple of times, I could see tears welling up in their eyes. It's terrible to see beloved cities ravaged by water, and to hear of people losing their homes, and sometimes their lives. In all likelihood, the flooding will change some of my travel plans. But the worst thing is the stress it is causing all these thousands of people.

Monday, August 12, 2002

Here's the introduction to the Magdeburg confession, where I'm headed next Sunday. There's been some talk of late that it was quite influential in the founders writing the Declaration of Independence. It is also unique among the Reformation confessions as regards the issues of tyranny and resistance.

THE MAGDEBURG CONFESSION
Magdeburg Bekenntnis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Confessio et Apologia Pastorum et Reliquorum Ministrorum Ecclesiae Magdeburgensis
1550

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We will show from Holy Scripture that if a higher magistrate undertakes by force to restore popish idolatry and to suppress of exterminate the pure teaching of the Holy Gospel, as in the present instance, then the lower god-fearing magistrate may defend himself and his subjects against such unjust force in order to preserve the true teaching, the worship of God together with body, life, goods, and honor. The powers that be are ordained of God to protect the good and punish the bad (Romans 13), but if they start to persecute the good, they are no longer ordained of God. There are to be sure degrees of tyranny and if a magistrate makes unjust war upon his subjects contrary to his plighted oath, they may resist, though they are not commanded to do so by God. But if a ruler is so demented as to attack God, then he is the very devil who employs mighty potentates in Church and State. When, for example, a prince or an emperor tampers with marriage against the dictates of natural law, then in the name of natural law and Scripture he may be resisted.
Praise be to God. Because He lives we also shall live and be exalted since now we suffer with Him and for His sake we are killed all the day long (Psalm 44).

A random list:

1. Butter is vitamin enhanced in Germany, rather than cereal.
2. After the trainer at the gymn poured eucalyptus water over the heater, he took a large towel in hand and spun it vigorously, helicopter style, over his head. This quickly spread all the hot steam evenly over the room. I could feel all my pores opening simultaneously.
3. I eat meat three meals a day here.
4. Everybody in Germany rides a bicycle. Everybody.
5. I learned that virtually everybody in the German church leadership is on vacation in August.

Another good web site:

www.wittenberg.de

The service at the Schloss Kirche was relatively similar to the order of service found in the LBW or most Roman Catholic churches, although unfortunately it was only a service of the word and not a service of the meal. No Lord's Supper. Apparently every church (every church I've been to) has a super organist, so the service opened and closed with gorgeous organ music. The bells of the church ring for over five minutes, and immediately as the last resounding gong fades away, the organist comes in with, generally speaking, something from Bach. At the end of the service, the entire congregations sits down after the benediction and listens to the Postlude.

One thing that is radically different in the order of service from most American congregations is the location of the announcements. In the U.S., the service begins with announcements. This tends to be problematic, though, because it forces the announcement to be somewhat informal and chatty, funny and homey, because everyone in the worship space has themselves been chatting. Thus the pastor, prior to formally leading worship, has to informally be the "cool" announcer.

In many German congregations (again as in Slovakia), announcements are made after the sermon. I find this to be very wise. The preacher preaches the word of God, and after the sermon, there is a necessary time of cessation, of letting the words sink in (not necessarily consciously), of taking a breath, of becoming "easier", and this time can be filled well with the announcements of the congregations life and work. This also logically follows the sermon, because the sermon is the place where the people of God are called to hear the proclamation of the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake alone, and then following this, they are free, as it were, to serve in the world. I will recommend this I think often in congregations.

I also appreciate the presence of many confessional and creedal hymns in the hymn book. In place of the Apostle's Creed, this past Sunday we sang a creedal hymn based on the Apostle's Creed. There are many of these in the hymn book, and they would be of great service in a Lutheran hymnal in the U.S. as well, because they allow the singing church to be not simply emotional or I-centered, but also thoughtful and we-centered, gathered in song in a common confession of faith. They also serve a didactic purpose, in that they teach the congregation how to think correctly concerning the Trinity (which is a matter of Christian doctrine, ala the conclusion of the Athanasian Creed).

I do wonder though whether the creed should come before the sermon. This is what happened here in Wittenberg, but I wonder if liturgically the creed should be spoken AFTER the sermon. The creed is a confession of faith by the congregation after having heard the Gospel. If the creed comes before the sermon, it seems to say that faith comes prior to the preaching of the Word (and this would be contra, say, Romans 10:12 through 14).

The altar was graced with sunflowers, which happen to be in season right now in the fields of Saxony-Anhalt. The sermon was over Nathan's rebuke of David after he went in to Bathsheba.

www.dessau.com

http://www.dessau.de/amt41/kulttour/engl/index_ueberblick.html

I am providing two links above, the first for those of you wishing to brave a German web site concerning Dessau, the 2nd a quick link to the English tourist portion. Sunday was Dessau day. First, we attended worship at the SchlossKirche, the castle church in Wittenberg. This is the church where Luther regularly preached, and also the legendary location of the posting of the 95 theses (although there is some dispute about how, where, and in what fashion they were posted). It might seem a bit cliche to say that it was somewhat overwhelming to hear a sermon preached in this church. In fact, I only thought of it at times. The space forces you to think about it, because Melanchthon and Luther are buried here. Nevertheless, the pastor led worship and preached in a style very similar to Lutheran pastors in Slovakia, so it seemed familiar and natural to me. (a post on the worship service itself is forthcoming)

There's a quick and easy train between Wittenberg and Dessau. Dessau is the final and primary home of Bauhaus, an architectural/artistic movement who's primary motto was "form follows function." Which is to say, rather than building a house, or a school, or a piece of furniture, with the idea that you will decorate, ornament, or otherwise accentuate it, you try to bring out the chairs natural chair-ness in the design. Form follows function, so all the artistry should be devoted to having the form bring out and make beautiful what is already there in the chair qua chair.

It is a little hard to describe Bauhaus, because in fact, the architectural style itself became something of the norm for buildings the world over. Not all buildings are built in the Bauhaus style, but a majority of modern buildings today, almost anywhere you go, follow the more functional design strategies of the Bauhaus movement. Squarish, blockish, and generally ugly apartment complexes, quirky colorful high-rises, these are some examples of the children of the Bauhaus movement.

But if you can imagine taking one of these functionalist, blockish houses, and dropping it in the middle of the 1920s, this will give you an idea of how radical an idea Bauhaus was.

Close relatives of Bauhuas include Marie Montessori, who utilized the Bauhaus artists to help build schools and school furniture according to her pedagogical ideals. Others were artists like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, both of whom were in residence in Dessau. Their art, which today is called abstract expressionism, had close affinities with the Bauhaus ideals.

One of the interesting things about Bauhaus is how it got caught up in the political changes of the time. Everybody had an opinion about whether or not Bauhaus supported such and such ideology. During the 2nd World War, when Marxists and Jews were in danger, most of the Bauhaus leaders left (many were Jewish or Marxist or both), and so the movement went to more Western European countries, or to America. Thus Bauhaus became an expat movement.

Dessau is a really careful and excellent memorial of Bauhaus. We had a tour of the school, took a walk through the gorgeous homes of the Bauhaus directors and lead instructors, and then walked out to the Elbe, where we had a magnificent German supper in a Bauhaus restaurant and dance hall. Many photos from these buildings are available on the web site.

Saturday, August 10, 2002

Just a reminder that if anyone wants more info from the blogspot, and/or wants to respond, correct mistakes etc., you can write to:

perichoresis2002@mac.com

I've got fifteen minutes left of my half hour session at an internet cafe on Potsdamer Platz. A long chain of those motorcycles with two wheels in the back and one in the front, I don't know the name, just rode by in good summer motoring fashion. Lots of honking horns and sirens and stuff. Potsdamer Platz was finished in the summer of 2000, so I wanted to get back to it and see it. It is a stunning mix of old city street side cafes and modern electronics and business extravaganzas. Definitely post-modern. Weekdays it is the home to over 10,000 workers at the Sony Center, the DB, and the Deutsch Bank, among others. Weekends it is a popular hang-out for families and Berliners who want good expensive fancy food and cool shopping. Imagine a cross between the Mall of America and the State Street, Madison, and you might get the picture.

WE had a bus tour of the city this morning. Very fun, and good German listening practice. After the tour, everyone took off in different directions based on interests and language groups. Funny how even at a German language immersion course, people need to relax and hang out walking while speaking in Japanese, Russian, or what have you. I've decided to go solo. I'm headed for the Bauhaus Archives, which is a little bit less popular of a tourist destination within my group of students...

Thursday, August 08, 2002

Jugendweihe - Ceremony in which 14 year olds are given adult social status in (formerly in the DDR, still sometimes in modern eastern Germany) This is the equivalent to socialist confirmation

I'm still thinking through all the implications of this, but the context for learning the term was very helpful. I sat down after dinner with my host mother, her daughter, and her own mother, three generations, and learned the differences between baptism and confirmation in the three generations. One thing I learned is that people describe the religious and political events that transpired around them as things that happened to them, that they passively went through. Thus, not "I decided not to be baptized" but rather "I wasn't baptized" or "My daughter wasn't baptized".

More later...

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

This next post speaks oodles, at least for me, about the life of former east Germany (and possibly also life in a small town). I set out yesterday in search of a fitness centrum. Gisela had given me very explicit directions, including a map, on how to find the place. This turned out to be important, even though the centrum was in my neighborhood. I decided to walk rather than bike, at least in part to break in my new Birkenstocks. :)

The gym was located in a former fabric factory. Like many buildings in the east, the factory had been built, used, and then abandoned some time in the late 70s or early 80s because of the poor economy. Then, in the early 90s, it was purchased and rebuilt, and now stands as a very notable and interesting shopping mall. The building itself is built of red brick in a quaint early 20th century style, I don't know the actual name, and so is something of a relief from the normal socialist functionalism in which many factories here were built. Now, it is like a mini-old city center, with stone streets and walkways, ornate passageways, etc.

The map helped me find the place. Otherwise, the building becomes something of a maze through which one wends. I walked past a hair stylist, an Imbiss, a couple of groceries, a bank, etc., until I finally came to the fitness center, Terra Firma. This center is up a flight of stairs and takes up most of the top two floors of the building.

What luck! I asked at the front desk whether they had any special deals for short term passes, and it turns out that Frau Doktor Timmerman, the director of our institute, had called Terra Firma, to request that they give a one month reduced rate for Leucorea students (29 Euro per month), and also that they only speak German with us so that we will learn there as well! So, for 29 Euro, I get extra German lessons, a personal trainer, and access to a ton of great fitness center amenities, like a sauna, a sun bed, weights, treadmills, raquetball, all at no extra cost. My personal trainer, Susen, even went so far as to give me a tour of the center, and a brief lesson on German fitness center vocabulary. How great!

I also get a very clear picture of how things stand today. At the gym, everything is clean, and new, and wunderbar. The trainers all take great pride in their work, clearly, and there is the sense that everyone wants to provide quality services and a good experience. Susen introduced me to the other trainers, and showed me their photos on the wall with their credentials and certificates. Even though you can see signs of the former "decrepitude", you also see how people are working to move beyond that, keeping some of what is good, many of the local customs and styles and habits, but also energetically jumping into the new. I head back on Friday to take advantage of the sauna and sleeping room.

German language classes here in Wittenberg are offered through the Leucorea, an institute founded in the early part of the last decade, when the change happened (die Wende), the re-unification of Germany. The building in which I am typing, and the library more specifically, was built through a grant from Western Germany. Our building sits almost right next to the Luther House (the old monastary which became Martin Luther's families home). In 1990 it was a run-down mess, almost ready to collapse onto itself. The 2nd day of class, we saw pictures from the period of re-construction. It's amazing what they have done with the place. The library is especially cute, with the books shelved in a loft area with the original hardwood beams gracing and bracing the roof.

Our program is actually a branch program of the University of Halle, a larger city about 1 hour by train from Wittenberg. They are very well organized. On the day of arrival, they were waiting here with bottles of mineral water and fruit, knowing we would have come off long hours of travel. They immediately called our host families, who came and picked us up and gave us an orientation for our three week stay. Classes are also very well organized. It's a good mix of hard work and then breaks for coffee or lunch, which is also learning time, as we sit down with our host families, neighbors, or colleagues, and continue conversation in German.

But the best part is my host family. They are kind to a fault, and have really made it a vocation to welcome students into their home. I have a beautiful upstairs room with a desk and enough mix of privacy and "family time" that I'm never frustrated with either. We've been on a few walks together, and this afternoon, I'm invited to see mother and daughter working at the Lucas Cranach house on a paper-making project. Just like being part of the family.

One of the best deals in German travel is the WochenendTicket, which, for 28 Euros gets you unlimited train travel for one day. The only rule is that you cant ride any of the super fast trains. So, to travel a long distance in Germany for a small amount of money, you purchase this ticket, and then have the train ticket office print you a schedule for switching trains between your departure point and your destination. Oh, and the coolest part of the ticket is that up to five people can travel on the same ticket, still just 28 euro.

So, I didnt know anyone traveling from Munich to Wittenberg this past Sunday, but i bought the ticket anyway. At various points along the trip, i had people traveling "with" me. I had five changes of train total, some short, some long, all perfectly on time and therefore not worrisome. Then, on the last leg of my journey, from Bitterfeld to Wittenberg, a young attractive German couple was sitting next to me and asked if they could travel with me on my ticket. They offered to pay a bit of money, but I settled for a carrot and an apple from their rucksack. As we rode along, they discovered i was a theologian (or at least had an interest in theology), and so we had a conversation about that. Neither of them were confirmed and neither of them participated in church regularly, and yet both of them had heard of Jungel, Moltmann, and a few other famous German theologians, among others. This shocked me, because the same thing wouldnät happen in the U.S. If I mentioned, say, Robert Jenson or Jaroslav Pelikan, the names would usually fall on deaf ears.

We had a very nice chat, I practiced my German and wanted to ride further with them, but Wittenberg came up quickly, I hopped off, and I was at last in what had been the center of a Christian Reformation, and is now a quaint little town with wonderful museums and a great German language program.

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

So, I'm getting a bit behind in all of these blogs, but this is one of th emore interesting things so far. I took a day trip from Munich to Augsburg, the location of the signing of the Augsburg Confession, among other things, and really enjoyed the time. First, there was a small but well organized museum concerning the Reformation, particulars of Reformation history in Augsburg (the confession, the Augsburg Interim, etc.) and then the church itself where recently the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between Roman Catholics and the LWF was signed, is really quite nice. There is an altar piece by Cranach that has a painting entitled "Jesus and the children", or something like that, and there is even a depiction of a woman breast-feeding a baby right next to Joseph holding the baby Jesus. Imagine this same painting on the wall of ANY American church, Lutheran or otherwise.

After the historical walk-a-bout through the city, I stopped in at one coffee shop that was run by the local Lutheran church. What I learned, much to my amazement, was that the coffee shop was actually under the proprietorship of a woman's Benedictine monastic community, a Lutheran community at that. Those of you who keep up on evangelical Lutheran faith and its origins might be surprised to learn that there is such a community in Germany. Those of you who know the diversity of the church throughout the world might be less surprised. In any event, there it was, a group of Lutheran women taking vows of chastity, "celibate for the sake of heaven", "free for God and the coming of His Kingdom in the common life of the community to serve the world determines its life and work.

Oh, yes, there name is "The Community Casteller Ring". Founded in northern Bavaria in 1950, it is one of the communities that sprang up during and after the II World War in various Protestant churches in Europe and elsewhere. In 1957 they took over the castle on the Schwanberg (Schloss Schwanberg) near Rodelsee. They have now founded small religious houses also in Nurnberg, Augsburg, Hildesheim, and Erfurt.

The coffee house was quite similar in design and spirit to some of the Christian outreach coffee houses I have seen in the States. It was incredibly clean, modern, nicely decorated, with games, magazines, and books available, confessional and religious writings mixed in with pop culture, etc. There was a small prayer chapel in the shop, which I imagined served both as a way of offering a place of prayer for visitors, but also as the places where the sisters could hold divine office throughout the day (according to the Benedictine Rite).

I had a small cup of espresso, tasted their kuchen (apple cake), and then read their brochures. You can take retreats at their main center, which would be a nice way to stay somewhere along the "Romantic Road" in Bavaria and enjoy the outdoors. I might try it.

All in all, a somewhat ironic trip seeing the Augsburg Confession site and a Benedictine Rite coffee house, all in the same town.

Saturday, August 03, 2002

My first worship service this time in Germany was yesterday, the 6:30 p.m. "Freitag Abend Gebet" at St. Thomas Church. This evening prayer service is regular for them, but it was the first and only time I'll be able to attend.

Apparently St. Thomas has the distinction of being the church in town where the homeless and otherwise hang out. I haven't seen the same kind of poverty and uncleanliness anywhere else in Munich. I had walked by earlier that day, in the hopes of going into the pastor's offices, but I was thwarted by a group of squatters sleeping and/or drinking beer at 9 a.m. who were at that time being politely harassed by a group of police officers. It was a bit too crowded and confusing to make my way through the mess.

I came back for the evening service, though, and attended at least in one way what I had expected. The service had only nine congregants (although one of the wall hangings re-affirmed us in this with the quote regarding "wherever two or three are gathered"). What took me absolutely by surprise, though, was how sometimes a small event can paint a picture of the world in miniature.

First there is the kind of awkward elder who has been walking around the church inviting those hanging out to attend. He invited me, first in German and then when I responded with halting German, in excellent English. His demeanor throughout the service was calm and organized. Next, there was a very slender woman sitting in the back who clearly was working to take up as little space in the world as possible. I think she would have been a nun, had there been such a thing in the Lutheran tradition (note: I learned today that in Germany there is).

Next, the woman next to me, who was emoting so strongly that I knew the service was very important to her. She became more and more dramatic in her praying and singing, and when we heard the words of absolution, and then prayed the Lord's Prayer, she was weeping openly. She left briskly during the postlude so as to avoid conversation.

Next, the pianist, who played two Bach pieces (of course), very well at that, although the piano needed tuning. Then, the pastor, who was clearly the classic male German pastor of the generation prior to mine. If I tried to describe what I mean by this, it would sound a little strange, but trust me, there is such a type. Words like stocky, taciturn, deep, rumbling come to mind.

Two young men arrived late, seminary types, and they still had their bicycle helmets on as they came in. They sat on the side and talked fervently together following the service. The elder and a few others seemed to know them.

Finally, there was Mattias. He sat in front of me, and was clearly one of those people who's intelligence has handicapped them in some way. His clothes were a bit soiled, and he smelled like the street. Rather than shorts, he was wearing pants he had rolled up to his knees. After the service, he spoke to me quickly in German, and then, when he realized I was American, also switched to perfect English. We had a rather profound if transient conversation concerning prayer, ecumenism, etc. Turns out he has a sister who is a librarian in Madison (small world)! He hadn't heard of Minnesota, though. In the middle of talking to me, he suddenly ran away, chasing down the pastor, and apologized to me, "I have two earnest questions for the pastor", he said.

The pastor seemed to be fleeing none too furtively. It was a good moment because of the truth of it all.

This blog would certainly not be complete if I didn't include at least one running entry. So, here it is. Thursday morning I was up at 5 a.m. because of the time change, and there is nothing worse (for me) than being up this early with nothing to do really. So I put on the running shoes, and headed for one of the sites in town that I intended to visit but not really tour, Nymphenburg Schloss up the hill from downtown Munich. There's something of a cult around Ludwig II and his extravagances, which i won't go into, but the short of it is that this castle is amazing. At one point of what is effectually a large circle in the main castle. The rest of the buildings around the circle are also large mansions. Imagine if a bunch of wealthy suburbanites decided to put up their palatial dwellings all facing each other around a lawn and pond, etc. Then multiple that by twenty, and you'll have some idea.

Germans have blessed themselves with excellent bicycle lanes along major roads, so I ran on one of these out from the train station and up the hill. First, there was the usual big city construction and banks and railroad tracks. Soon, I was in a rather normal housing addition. Then came the first pleasant surprise. The Germans apparently have the same habit (at least in Eastern Germany) that the Slovaks had of having private family gardens all packed together in big complexes. All of a sudden, on both sides of the street, there were these quaint little garden zones. A bit more money has been spent on them than their Slovak counter-parts, but they were just as neat, just as diverse, and just as tended as others I have seen. There was the smell of vegetables, flowers, loam and dirt.

I continued along, up into the more wealthy districts, and finally got to the Schloss. I'd like to be able to say I arrived just at sunrise, to complete the romantic/sentimental picture, but that wouldn't be true. The sun was already up, though still red and low in the sky, and it was shining across the grounds in a way that did paint thinks a kind of welcoming pink. Then I noticed, floating in the ponds and crapping on the grounds, hundreds of honking geese. It occurred to me that although these birds are considered dumb, they had the genius to camp out at the Schloss all night to be awakened by a red sun in a beautiful landscape.

Thursday, August 01, 2002

I'm here. Everything you hear about beefed up security in the airports is true, at least in the U.S. I even had to take my boots off twice. I sat next to a Grand Master in chess from Zurich on the flight over, and he agreed to be my first German teacher. Munich definitely looks like a slightly spruced up part of what was formerly Eastern Germany, at least on the fringes. I head for the city center now.

Monday, July 29, 2002

Fortuitously, the Monday before my Lufthansa flight out of Minneapolis, the latest issue of the American Scholar arrived in the mail. And what should one of the essays be, but "The Peculaiarities of German Travel" by Michael Gorra. The last few months, I had been searching quite diligently for travel writing on contemporary Germany. Of course, you can find lots of history writing on Germany (especially WWII), but it's nigh impossible to find travel writing. I read John Ardagh's Germany and the Germans, which was fairly interesting and encyclopedic, but that was more of an expose than travel writing.

Thus, it was good to have confirmed by Michael Gorra that there is generally a paucity of contemporary travel writing on Germany. Travel writing today tends towards the adventure narrative, extreme travel to distant and relatively unknown lands. Or, it's writing on romantic locales, like the popular Peter Mayle books about France, or sundry travel books extolling the virtues of the Italian landscape.

Gorra's thesis is rather straightforward. He believes that each country has something unique about it, something that makes it worthy of writing about. The difference between Germany and other countries is that one feels guilty discussing "trivialities" when those trivial things are in German. The "peculiarity" of Germany is its history, and its recent and dramatic history makes it difficult for the traveller to feel at ease assessing, say cuisine or landscape, because always in the back of their minds is this issue- "How can I say that when this is the same place where..." Or when discussing the people, to think "These are the same people who's parents..."

Thus, there's very little recent travel writing about germany because people who write travel narratives feel like they can't come up with anything significant enough to say. Travel writing lacks "gravity."

I don't know if this is the right thesis or not. I do know that when you think of Germany, you think of its history almost exclusively (well, and maybe OctoberFest). I will be in Germany at least in part because of the Reformation, so I am one of those who goes as well because of the "peculiarities of German history." At least I am not alone...

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

This blog will take the place of the periodic mailings I send out by e-mail. You can simply come browse at any time and look at the updates. As an FYI, here are links to the language program in Wittenberg, and the Wittenberg Center:

Wittenberg Center: www.elca.org/ewbc
Institut for deutsche Sprache und Kultur: http://www.sprache.uni-halle.de/

Clint