It's Sunday morning and unlike Johnny Cash, I didn't have a beer "for dessert." I appreciate DeToy's Restaurant being open this morning as once again we're all just hunkered down to survive lousy weather. This winter reminds me of the late 1960s in the sense that our storms are marked by a persistent northwest wind. The drifts can really build up. They're still not as high as I can recall from the '60s. However, our windbreak is now better where we live.
The wind can roar down from the farm field, toward my neighborhood on the north end of town. We're across from ShopKo. There's a photo from my youth of my rear end on the roof and my feet on a drift.
This year we get updates on the desperate measures to try to get school days in. Various strategies for making up time are employed, as if our kids will be harmed so bad by just skipping a few days. Kids go online and enrich themselves every day. Yes there's lots of foolishness on the world wide web and with electronic gadgets. But seriously, kids do advance their literacy, quite substantially in fact.
I could strike a comparison with the comic books, trading cards and Hardy Boys mysteries my generation of boys consumed. Our elders weren't real impressed by that. And my, the educational establishment could condemn it! Of course, educators were trying to protect their monopoly status with dispensing knowledge. I gained much from soaking in the non-recommended material, like "Sergeant Rock" comic books. School classes foisted lots of questionable stuff, stuff that gained the imprimatur of intellectuals and academics, people who wanted to insulate themselves with their own air of self-importance.
So today it's Sunday and the wind roars again. Each winter storm can develop its own particular personality. As intense as our current one is, it's not impeding transportation. I got up in the morning and found I didn't even need to grab a shovel.
Status of church on stormy day?
I wonder if church was held this morning. I remember when I was young, Pastor Grindland would congratulate everyone who made it to the sanctuary for services. I will probably start to attend church again this spring. Morris has two ELCA Lutheran churches. Any time you have two of anything in a small town, they will be compared with each other, whether we like it or not.
If you belong to one of these ELCA churches, you will want it to appear stronger than the other one, much as we might want to discourage such thoughts. It's human nature. I remember a co-worker at the newspaper who mused on "small town paranoia." When you decide to join either of the churches, members of the other one might be nonplussed. "Gee, why did they choose the other church?" Or, "what do they have against us?" Well, nothing. You simply have to choose. Life has its issues in Peyton Place.
It's interesting: when I was young, we heard the "ELCA" initials and conceived of the most conservative images and notions, associated with the "Greatest Generation" of our parents, the old end of the fabled generation gap. Fabled yes, but myth it was not. It was incredibly real. My generation wanted to distance itself, to reject a lot of conventions that our parents wanted to pass down. The schism became unavoidable, thus we got the term "generation gap."
Young people of today might think I exaggerate. Heh heh. Those of us who were there, understand full well.
Today? Would you believe that today, the ELCA has an image of being liberal? My goodness! A very sad development for Morris area Lutherans was the need felt by a considerable faction to create a whole new church based on anti-gay bigotry. Don't let them deny that. They would assert that being gay is a sin. Well my goodness, aren't we all sinful creatures? So, what other "sins" would exclude you as a matter of policy, on paper, from being a minister? Adultery? I consider adultery to be far more of an issue than gayness, and frankly I don't consider gayness an issue at all. Responsible behavior is the issue.
I think the two in-town ELCA churches are challenged these days, more than usual. My old neighbor the late Les Lindor said "it's always a struggle" to keep things going well for the church. He was in his prime for the long Grindland tenure at First Lutheran. Grindland was the Lutheran pastor for the boomers just like Wally Behm was the high school principal for the boomers. They're in a special niche of local history.
So plentiful were the kids in my growing-up years, we were arranged in rows for our confirmation photo at First. Oh, you can spot me in one of the group photos along the upper hallway at First. Unfortunately I still had my "Moe" haircut, hadn't started combing my hair back yet.
New church image, lacking pizzazz?
So today our grand old ELCA is not nearly so conservative and we even read church publications that respect the theory of climate change. We have a president of the United States who says emphatically that climate change is a "hoax."
We have seen the self-fashioned ultra-conservative churches pick up steam. The Apostolics with all their business genius seem more high-profile than ever. Keep voting Republican, guys. And the ELCA just plugs away, unfortunately with their bland or milquetoast image which is not reasonable. I think the ELCA is very generous and all-embracing of humanity, reflecting the true values embodied in the Savior, Jesus Christ.
You'll decry me as a "liberal." Well, I'm so goddamed sorry.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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