Time Traveling

Well, another couple of weeks have slipped by without a post because I've been time traveling!

First stop: Luther Seminary. As most of you know, my dad was a Lutheran pastor. He studied at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN and the Luther campus is the seat of my earliest memories. At the end of June I spent a week there attending some continuing education. The campus and neighborhood had that eerie familiar/unfamiliar feeling that places get when you've been away.

Many of the people in the class came from far western North Dakota, currently the site of the next great American oil boom, and also the place where I went to first grade as my dad served his first call after seminary. Hearing about what Williston is like today and trying to integrate the descriptions of this boom town with my memories of the town we visited once a week was mind-boggling. Those conversations were little bit of time travel too!

The next stop was 1974. Pictured at the right is about one-half of the Selby (SD) High School class of 1974. It was a 40 year class reunion and hats off to organizer Ivy who pulled it all together. The weather was wet but the atmosphere warm as we wandered backwards in time and laughed at our younger selves, and then met again, almost as new friends. We are quite scattered, most of us coming from someplace else. No one's life was unmarked by experience over the past four decades:

• We've had jobs and careers, families and travel. 
• Most of us have kids. Many of us have grandchildren and one of us just became s a great-grandmother!
• All of us had lost at least one parent, and some of us spouses and siblings as well. 
• Some of us are retired, and one of us has retired and then un-retired!   

Together we remembered three who didn't live to see this reunion. Most of us had someone to visit in the nursing home (where, by the way, I had my first real job) and a surprising number of us no longer had family in town. Our high school has been demolished and replaced with a new, single-story building and classmate Kim, who recently came out of retirement to teach math there, gave us a tour that started at the kindergarten door. I heard many stories new to me since I didn't arrive until 7th grade.

Sunday morning I worshiped and was warmly welcomed at the church where I was confirmed. I was blessed to stay with my mom's good friend Vi (and my dad's former secretary) and wrap up my weekend with a buffet lunch at the Berens Cafe on Main. All in all a great weekend - except I forgot to drag Main with Deb & MariLynn!

I traveled home to Blooming Prairie for a few days of work before making the biggest time leap of all: back in time to a Fourth of July celebration of yesteryear! I've been hearing stories about Blooming Prairie's annual celebration yet I really wasn't sure what to expect. Our lovely city park was completely filled with vendors, games, a stage, and lots of people beginning Thursday night. A street dance for the adults and a teen dance at the Servicemen's Club rounded out the local celebration on the third. Friday, the Fourth, was all about the parade. I joined Pastor Heidi and her family on Main for the

spectacle. We were well down the parade route so it took some time for it to arrive but once it started it went on and on:

• Marching bands, antique cars and tractors, 
• Mayor and first lady of Blooming Prairie (to the right) who are my friends H & Jean, 
• Stix of Fury, the local drum and flag team, 
• Shriners from most of the nearby towns came in clown make-up doing great tricks on motorcycles or driving tiny cars, and 
• Mower County Sheriff's Department horse deputies were amazing.
• Princesses in flowing gowns from every area festival and pageant were pulled through town on floats.
• Most local businesses were represented with a float or an interesting vehicle and everyone threw candy to the kids. Except the dairy princesses - they threw cheese sticks!

I had a ball and at the parade and cookout afterward. Shortly before 10pm I wandered over to my friend Kari's front yard for the closest view of fireworks I've ever had - it was fabulous. I had a star-spangled 4th, reminiscent of my favorite childhood movie Pollyanna, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

Zig-zagging through time and memory this month, and realizing the gifts of both, it's been interesting to reflect that most of these trips wouldn't have happened if I weren't 1100 Miles North.

Putting things off. . .

So I bit the proverbial bullet this week and went to the dentist. Some of you know that I've been putting this off for a long time . . .

Blooming Prairie may be small but we have first rate dentists. They used equipment so state-of-the-art that I had never even seen some of it before!

So I'm smiling because a) I finally started something I've been putting off for a long time and because b) I got my chipped front tooth repaired.

Some people in my circles would call this procrastination. And they would probably be right except every time I start to get cured of my procrastination it pays off again. . .

A couple of weeks ago my cousin scored a second-hand window air conditioner for my apartment.  It was raining when we got it here so we stowed it in the garage. On Friday, the warmest day we've had so far this year, I was kicking myself for putting off getting it installed.

Then there came a knock at my door. It was my landlady and she came bearing a gift: a brand new, energy efficient combination de-humidifier and air-conditioner. And she had reinforcements who got the whole unit installed in about the amount of time it took me to find and use a screwdriver to open the remote control and install the batteries.

So, dear reader, what do you put off? Or, if you are one of those git-r-done types, how do you put off the urge to put it off? Do you think it is habit? Temperament? Attitude? Fear?

Life is funny. . . As I wrote git-r-done I wasn't sure of the "proper spelling" so I googled it. (Google can be a procrastinator's very best friend!) Guess what? Comedian "Larry the Cable Guy" has a foundation called, appropriately enough, "Git-R-Done" which raises and contributes money to children's charities. Now, I'm sometimes really put off by ol' Larry's humor, but turns out we both have a soft spot for kids and hail from the Midwest. Who knew?

OK, I've put off my other reading and writing tasks for this evening so I need to stop meandering and say goodbye for now from 1100 Miles North. . . but I'll write again when I get around to it!

A Tortilla is Mexican Lefse

I couldn't believe what I was seeing! My worlds collided in the grocery store this week; I may never see this again, as long as I live, but it was a memorable moment. Lefse and tortillas sharing space in the cooler! If I had a dollar for everytime I explained lefse to someone in Texas by saying "Lefse is like a Norwegian tortilla. It's made from potatoes and rolled much thinner" I would be RICH. Now I find myself explaining about tor-tea-ahs (not tor-till-as) that they are Mexican, kind of like lefse but made from flour or corn.

It's mid-June and summer has not really begun yet. The corn is up and will likely be knee-high by the Fourth (of July) which is a good thing. Sweet corn from points south is starting to show up in the store but I'm holding out for local. This is, after all, where the Green Giant gets his corn. Just up the road in fact! The days are sunny and cool and the nights are perfect for campfires. I've been enjoying a weekly campfire worship on Wednesday nights at church, plus an occasional lazy evening around the fire ring with my neighbors, in my very own back yard. The sun stays up late (official sunset tonight is 8:53 pm) so we don't wait for dark to start a fire. Here are a few pictures from around 7pm last Wednesday:

The door you can see in the upper left side will take you into the hallway where you'll find my office. As these helpful guys built the fire, we were having VBS in classrooms up and down the hall. Parents and children have three 20-minute faith experiences together in the 6-7pm hour while the fire is being built in preparation for our campfire worship. So far it's been fun, and well-attended.

Our musicians are getting tuned up and ready to go. It's a very intergenerational evening - so far our youngest attendee has been around four months old, and our oldest (who drives himself and arrives in a sporty, red, brand-new Cadillac) is 95. The worship service is built around the FAITH5 exercises for families: Share, Read, Talk, Pray, and Bless. It's fun for all ages. 

And then, as singing and blessing wrap up our worship experience, and the sun begins to dip closer to the horizon, one last favorite summer experience remains:

In between these wonderful Wednesdays, I'm fitting in a lot of continuing education: a half-day last week, a full-day next week, and a four-day class at Luther the last week of June. I'm spending a lot of time reading ahead for the class at Luther. In addition to re-reading Almost Christian by Kenda Creasey Dean, I'm also diving into a book by Sharon Daloz Parks called Big Questions Worthy Dreams which is focused on mentoring young adults. The other two books are on Romans and are written by Terry Fretheim who will teach that section of the class. This has to be one of the biggest pluses of my move north - the density of Lutherans here allows for a lot more opportunities to refine my work skills and recharge my batteries.

I still get homesick for Texas - just seeing tortillas at the store make me long for Chuy's and Torchy's and all of you who made those meals so festive but at least my life is filled with lefse and Lutherans - these are also my people. I don't believe I'll ever stop being partly Texan, but in the meantime, I'm eating both tortillas and lefse 1100 miles north.

Excuses, excuses

Seven weeks without a post. . . time to get back to my keyboard. This last stretch has been full to overflowing nearly every week - and most of it has been about family:

• Oliver, the first member of the next generation of my family, arrived just after Easter. I am not a grandmother yet, but my sister is, (and I have envy issues.)
• My mom, now a great-grandmother, arrived about 10 days later to officially welcome the sweet young man. We spent a few days together and then on Mother's Day we left right after church to drive out to South Dakota and met him in person. She stayed on, and I came home on Monday to work.
• My sister Laurie brought her back at the end of the week and stayed over briefly before returning to her growing flock.
• Mom left for home on Tuesday, and I returned from the airport to visit with Clyde and Joyce, part of my Austin/TLLC "family". It was fun to catch up a bit and hear about their planned summer adventures.
• On Wednesday I hopped a plane Washington, DC where Gracie is clerking for a law firm this summer. She didn't start until the day after Memorial Day so we had a couple of fun days playing tourist. The Millses were great hosts and I had a wonderful time. 
• Came home on Memorial Day in time to hang out with my wonderful cousin Jane who was kind enough to pick me up from the airport and indulge me with a trip to IKEA for towel racks. (I am still getting settled. . .)
• Jane came to Blooming Prairie on Wednesday evening so we could make a surprise Koi delivery (long, convoluted, fun but irrelevant story.)
• Friday night Emily and Paul made an overnight stop on their way home from a camping trip to Yellowstone. It was brief, but oh so wonderful!
• So, those are my excuses for my long hiatus. I'll try to get back on some kind of schedule and stick with this for the full year I intended when I started.

Yesterday I attended the Blooming Prairie High School graduation and was amazed to realize that I recognized three of the four people handing out diplomas, ten of the graduates, many faces in the crowd, and probably one-third of the students in the band and the choir. I am not as much of an outsider as I sometimes think I am!

I also jumped aboard the 100 Days of Happiness project yesterday. I am tweeting @jklock228 #100happydays if you care to follow. I'm sure a substantial portion of those pictures will also show up in my blogs so if you aren't on Twitter, don't worry. This just seemed like a fun way to learn to use my camera and my Twitter accounts better - Lord knows there are plenty of things to be happy about!

One last note - the snow is gone. In fact I bought a fan on Friday because it was so warm and humid. The joke is once again on me. Saturday night brought severe thunderstorms and we now are going to have about 5 days of rain and cool temps. . .   

As I pass the one year anniversary of the personal earthquake which sent me here, I can only marvel at how God has blessed what seemed to be a devastating event. Even as I continue to miss my Austin "family",  my new/old family connections abound, 1100 Miles North.

The Growing Edge

I enjoyed two accidental discoveries this week. The first was Tiger Lilies coming up outside my bedroom window. My landlady had mentioned them to me when I moved in, but of course it was fall and they were pretty sorry looking. I didn't remember then how powerfully the signs of life impact a person after the winter is done. Walking in from the garage and spotting these on one of the first warm days this spring made my heart sing.

The second delightful discovery was a quote from a 20th century theologian whose wisdom I had not visited in a long time. Hello, Howard Thurman. You are brilliant as always!

"Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life's most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!" —Howard Thurman

Some days I feel as though I have been at the growing edge for the past 16 months. Hope and expectation have sustained me; the certainty that life is a circle, not a straight line, has kept me moving forward into the unknown. And now, as spring approaches and new life pushes up from the recently frozen dirt, I know that I was RIGHT, not just a cock-eyed optimist.  Thanks be to God!

Embedded

I went galivanting last weekend so didn't get around to blogging. I attended a shower for my niece Liesbeth. One of the best parts of being up here is being able to spend more time with various family members. It was so much fun. I felt like I already knew some of her friends from watching them interact on Facebook, but it was great to meet them, and some of my sister's friends, as well as cathcing up with members of her extended family who I have seen many times over their 30+ years of marriage. It was a lot of fun, and a road trip with my cousin Jane too.

Here's my big accomplishment from the weekend: I ran into people from Blooming Prairing in South Dakota and a) recognized them, and b) could summon up their names!!!  I have been so overwhelmed learning faces and names since I got here that this is a major milestone for me. I think it means the learning curve has finally started to level off.

Tuesday I had a thoroughly enjoyed visit from Beth and Niel Wiegand and was able to demonstrate to them that, unlike their previous visit, I can actually find my way around without having to start from either home or the church. It was great to catch up with them. I haven't been going to Rochester much since it got so cold. I guess the hints of spring are getting us all moving a bit more.

Yesterday I had my first stamp camp in Blooming Prairie. There will be an evening repeat on Monday. Here's what we made (because no event is too minor to talk about or post pictures.)

Again, it felt good because everyone who came had been here for my open house, knew the way, and where to park. And I, although almost too late, remembered to shovel the sidewalk (we got about 4 inches of wet, slushy snow on Thursday night.)

I guess you could say I am feeling "embedded". I am starting to carry this community with me when I go places, and to be one who welcomes besides being welcomed.


Tonight I will be taking kids to Mankato State Campus Ministry for a Lock-In and next week I will be at the Synod Office in Rochester for some training. Gracie and Tony will be coming for Easter. My connections are strengthening each day. I guess I've been planted and have finally put down enough roots to grow a little bit. Or maybe it's just the promise of spring talking. Whatever it is, it's worthy of celebration!

Generation to Generation

Last week at council, for the first time, the Youth Board was represented by a youth. And he did well. More than once I wanted to jump in, to introduce, to adjust expectations, to make him more comfortable but as the meeting progressed, I realized something. He was more comfortable there than I was. Everybody already knew who he was, who his folks were, and more or less his life story.

The familiarity of community can be a two-edged sword. It can create understanding and context, or it can create labels. My greatest fear, coming here, was that this would be a labeling kind of community. A community where the class clown keeps joking until one day he blows his brains out - worn out from being a caricature of the person he really is. A community where someone grows up to run for mayor and gets defeated because 30 years ago she cost the home team the game by turning in the quarterback for smoking. Or where some well-meaning business owner won't hire someone because the kid's dad embezzled money from the co-op 20 years ago.

Blessedly, this doesn't seem to be the case here. It seems that it is more in the creating context mode. I have learned some personal history here but only what I need to do my job. Much of it I have had to ask for because I have clues, but no facts. People are reticent to share anyone else's story. They really don't even share their own stories unless you ask. That's partly ethnic: say as little as possible in as few words as possible is the creed of all good Norwegians. Still, having been in communities where gossip was the chief form of entertainment, this creating context transmission of information is welcome!

The one place where people will share stories and history freely is in talking about their homes. People know who lived in their homes before them, where they worked, where they moved to, and what architectural features are specific to which former residents. I don't know the significance of this community characteristic but it plays out in funny ways. Often people will answer, if asked where they live, "in the Baxter house" or "across the street from where so-and-so used to live". This is not helpful to newcomers, but eventually these will become familiar as well.

The boy in the first paragraph? I know his dad, his grandmothers, his sister, his step-mom, some of his cousins,and his girlfriend! (Only I didn't know she was his girlfriend. . . but I know who her best friend is because they went to a youth event together recently. . . and she lives over in the Smith's old house.) OK - truthfully, I have no idea where she lives, but it's approximately 1100 miles north of Austin, TX.