Eastertide Reflections

2017 Eastertide Reflections

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to our greetings this Eastertide (and Chag Pesach Sameach)!

As sure as the sunrise, as sure as the sea,

As sure as the wind in the trees,

We rise again in the faces of our children,

We rise again in the voices of our song,

We rise again in the waves out on the ocean,

And then we rise again.

“We Rise Again” by Leon Dubinsky

(Newfoundland folksong)

Here, even in the midst of new and difficult circumstances, are some thoughts to get our hearts and minds into the newness of life we celebrate this season (and thanks to Anu Gang’s Wordsmith for some of these):

‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind. -William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

The person who is all wrapped up in themselves is in a pretty small package. John Ruskin

God of life made new in Christ, you call your Church to keep on rising from the dead.

From the collect in Holy Women, Holy Men for the commemoration of Moravian Christian and ecumenical leader Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor. -Max Eastman, journalist and poet (4 Jan 1883-1969)

The limits of tyrants is prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, editor, and orator (1817-1895)

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. -Dr. Seuss, author and illustrator (2 Mar 1904-1991)

Story, finally, is humanity’s autobiography. -Lloyd Alexander, novelist (30 Jan 1924-2007)

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (17 Jan 1706-1790)

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Our “memorial” list since Christmas
Celebrities:

Chuck Berry…no more need be said but a lot more was

Jimmy Breslin, reporter and raconteur

Gene Cernan, last man on the moon (to date)

Fr. Mulcahy (William Christopher) of M.A.S.H. fame

Judith Ortiz Cofer, brilliant writer

Colin Dexter, creator of Morse, progenitor of 3 BBC series

Joe Esposito, Elvis’s road manager

Carrie Fisher, Princess goes into her last woods

Bernard Fox, very funny character actor (Col. Crittenden on Hogan’s Heroes)

Zsa Zsa Gabor, what can one say!

Della Street (Barbara Hale), long-time secretary of  TV’s attorney Perry Mason

Henry Heimlich—quite a maneuverer

Joe Mannix (Mike Connors), first TV sleuth with a black secretary

George Michael, whose death scared lots of little kids into thinking Michael Jordan had died

Mary Tyler Moore, a tremendous talent gone

Nasaya Nakamura, father of PacMan

Robert Osborne, film guru for TCM

Akbar Hashemi Rafsangani, former president of Iran

Debbie Reynolds, the unsinkable sank

Don Rickles, imagine what he’d say knowing he ended up between Debbie and David!

David Rockefeller, philanthropist

Vera Rubin, discovered Dark Matter, i.e. explained the universe

Craig Sager, sports caster—the cameras never had trouble finding him

Rashaan Salaam, 1994 Heisman winner

Thomas Starzl, liver transplant pioneer

Derek Walcott, Nobel in Literature (poet)

Nancy Willard, much admired poet and children’s book author

Clayton Yeutter, Secretary of Agriculture under the first Bush, from Eustis Nebraska

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet of freedom

Zhou Youguang, father of Pinyin

Friends:

Bill Gibson, former NAU colleague, honored teacher, friend

Jon Nelson, whom Kearney owes for the Jubilee Center and the Episcopal Diocese owes for its Sower of the Seed program and I owe for his loyalty

Ron Norman, former director of KPL when I was board treasurer and started their first investment portfolio (see my recent blog “Keep Scrolling Down”)

Helge Steinsvik, Swedish expat who lived in Malaga, España, and with his wife Marianne was for years a stalwart of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference and helped start the long-running Faulkner on the Fringe program. They were grandfathered into the last smoking room at the Inn at Ole Miss.

Catching up on us:

Our beautiful Christmas holy days in Milwaukee included Christmas Eve at Mount Olive (LCMS) and lovely supper with the Milwaukee Peeks, early rise on Christmas morning (Santa had been spotted just flying away, only Rudolph’s red nose really visible!), opening of gifts, and a Bruss family party, followed by some lovely days just to visit and see our “Second City” in its snow clothes.

Just after getting back, I caught up with the late papers for my History of the Episcopal Church class I had taught in November for the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry in Topeka—all the papers were good to excellent and all sensitive to the potential of our history lessons to enhance their writers’ ministries.

We enjoyed the Senior College “Winterim” classes we could sit in on and Chuck set to work preparing for the OLLI course he’s now teaching in Lincoln on Nebraska Writers, part of OLLI’s celebration of Nebraska’s 150^th birthday.  He has a great “facilitator” in Susan Jacobs. She’s a world traveler we first met at the Faulkner Conference when her husband taught at Ole Miss. And it is always fun to see old friends now living in Lincoln, especially Kay Horner and Dick Hove, as well as getting to visit after class with Helen Stauffer, one of the first and best Sandoz scholars who first got Chuck involved in the Western Literature Association.  And old friend Jane Wasserman popped up in class, as well. We also got to have coffee with Paul Olson one afternoon and one morning with Annie Andrews Hays, one of Nancy’s sorority sisters she lived with one summer.

At the same time, Chuck has been trying to keep up with this blog, posting twice a month now, one post on a topic of personal or human interest, the other on our current political scene. We start our morning prayers each day with a prayer that we might discern where best to resist, whom we might be called on to help rescue, and on what grounds and occasions we can reconcile with those who visited on America the nightmare we are living through…a responsibility that falls on us all.  We know good, loving, sensible people who voted differently than did we, and we know people of good heart and mind who are in the administration doing what seems best to them to bring about a better world.  This in no way diminishes our resistance, but it does temper any claim we might be moved to make to have the whole or the only truth. Conscience is no respecter of party and zeal is no guarantee of being on the high ground!

Our chief resistance now comes from the renewed fight that has to be waged against the potential devastation of the Keystone (and similar) pipelines, scheduled if we don’t stop it to carry toxic tar-sands sludge for a foreign company through pipelines built of foreign steel to an export market where China can buy it on the cheap, all the while exposing our air and land to the devastation of leaks into a fragile ecosystem and high water table and potentially into the water supply on which 40% of American agriculture depends, the land taken by a for-profit company through eminent domain, including sacred lands of American native tribes. Go figure!

Our friend Janet Fox has organized the Kearney Action Network whose growing membership includes Nancy and dozens of others, several focus/interest groups, and ties to Indivisible Kearney, Light the Way, Bold Alliance, and other groups whose ultimate goal is to be effective by figuring out just what we pray for each day—where we can make the most difference.  Think Congressional elections 2018. Some of this gets discussed to no good end by the KAN’s husbands and their friends at our weekly lunch!

Our biggest adventure: it worked out with our schedules and the work plans of the Go 2 Guys (Brad Driml and Jarod Pastany) that we could finally remodel our kitchen.  Mostek Electric, Norm’s Plumbing, TASK Lighting, Shon Hawke Floors, Russell’s Appliance, and Victoria and Dave Devitt home services, all combined with Go 2 Guys to have us out and back in in just a day or two under a month! We are mightily pleased by all their work and its results. (A photo is attached.)

Meanwhile, our Winter was brightened by several treats. Two readings, one at the Museum of Nebraska Art (huge attendance) by a former UNK student named Gary Dop…a joy to hear his fine poetry and to see him again after several years, the other at the Frank Museum by our friend Terry Schifferns (her best ever) and Omaha novelist Liz Kay, a new delight. (Thanks Rick Brown and Mark Foradori for the Front Porch Poetry series and the Reynolds Reading Series at UNK.) We enjoyed a short trip to North Platte to have dinner and go to Ash Wednesday service at Our Savior with our grandson Rowan, our favorite Oldest Grandson, who continues to do well in the welding program at Mid-Plains Community College.

We made two short trips to GI for the Tuesday Night Workshop and our usual gathering of friends beforehand at Pam’s Pub and Grub, another trip to Lincoln with friends Ken and Linda Anderson for the energetic Lied performance of Mama Mia, again with them a week later to Red Cloud for the community open house for the new National Willa Cather Center and dinner at the Palace, and that same weekend taking in Kearney Community Theatre’s production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, with friend John Bancroft. Accompanied by our grandson Brody, we took ourselves off to Cunningham’s in Arapaho for dinner with friends Cloyd and Linda Clark and Linda Crandall and ideas for this summer’s Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival. We joined Mary Haeberle and Rosemary Northwall for the Kearney Community Theatre/Academy of Children’s Theater production of The Princess King—Anderson’s grandson Devin on stage!

We attended the March meeting of the Nebraska Library Commission and all the meetings in conjunction with Library Advocacy Day at the State Legislature.  Our old Grand Island friend Steve Fosselman presided over a helpful orientation, we got to talk briefly with our Legislative District 37 Senator, John Lowe.  I frequently write him about my support or opposition to a bill; he writes back his disagreement with me; and someday when the session is over we’ll have the chance to sit down and talk. Our time in Lincoln included dinner with Don Cunningham and Jeanetta Drueke, good friends and good company, whom we miss a lot. Among the absent we of course talked about, Gerry and Cathy Parsons, whom we hope will have a Nebraska visit in their and our future.

Guest lecturer from Copenhagen Professor Paul Lubeke exercised our minds on Kierkegaard one evening, and in our spare time we keep busy with Torch Club, each of our prayer groups at church, Nancy’s weekly yoga class, and keeping up with several people to whom we try to give or from whom we receive God in the form of Good Orderly Direction.

Having been pretty slack in the eating and exercise department, we are trying to do better this Lent and, so far, have been pretty successful.  Of course, it shows—which the lessons for Ash Wednesday tell us is kind of a game changer!  Brody, our favorite 14-year old grandson, who joined us for a weekend, had some pizza one night, despite having “given up” pizza for Lent.  I told him he didn’t seem to be taking Lent seriously enough, and he replied, “No, papa, I take it very seriously.  I’m just not very good at it!”  He’s got it (and us) just right—plenty there for anyone’s Easter homily.

Up north, our son George is preparing for a month-long trial in Madison, Laura Grace is juggling three children, work, and George’s impending absence, along with keeping us posted with pictures of Willie, Greta, and Huck…a great set of pictures of Willie (our favorite oldest Milwaukee grandson) during his basketball games, a darling picture of Greta (our favorite granddaughter) with her cousin Mairead, and, dressed for his school field trip to the zoo to see the penguins, the story of (our favorite youngest grandson) Huck’s preparations to undress at the zoo and swim with the penguins. Easter will be the last respite for George and LG before the big trial, change-ups at his school forced Harlan and Noelle to cancel a Cabo trip, so they may end up getting a short holiday together closer to home. At any rate, Brody will be here with us and possibly Rowan, too. Harlan has been showing off the school’s new vocational and arts center and its new wellness center, shared with the community. Noelle has been launching a new one-day spiritual and mission experience for high-schoolers and is gearing up for summer camp.

Meanwhile, Chuck is getting ready to read and emcee at this year’s Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival, part of Nebraska’s 150^th and McCook’s 135^th birthdays.  We’ll be at Cather Spring Conference for the dedication of the new Willa Cather National Center where Fr. Randy Goeke will join in the celebration of the Eucharist at Grace Church. We are booked in for 3 days of the Cather Seminar in Pittsburgh…on our way to D. C. to help Nancy’s brother celebrate his 70^th birthday and see all the Reslers, Lenihans, and Coffees (just back from two years in Australia) as well as old friends Cathleen Carothers and Cynthia Caples. We hope for a visit to the new African American Smithsonian exhibits.

We’ll be back in time to say farewell to our friend and Rector, Fr. Jerry, who retires as of July 1. Nancy will have her usual summer visit with the iris specialist at the University of Iowa (all is well), we’ll see some Iowa friends en route from there to Mississippi for the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference (where Chuck will teach along with Jim Carothers, Theresa Towner, Terrell Tebbetts, and Brian McDonald), hoping to see Marty Townsend and Clark Swisher on the way home. Then, from there it is on to August in Milwaukee via, we think now, Sycamore, Illinois, for a short visit with my cousin’s son David and a trip to check out the farm nearby that was once in her family. Alas, we’ll miss the eclipse. (But, friends, that means we have bedrooms you could use!)

Who knows what the fall will bring!

Whatever you celebrate as spring comes upon us, may it bring you peace and purpose to your very core!

Love, Chuck and Nancy

Our contact information remains the same: 2010 Fifth Avenue, Kearney, NE 68845; 308-293-2177 (Chuck’s cell), 308-293-3386 (Nancy’s cell), cpeek.cp@gmail,com and nancyjpeek@gmail.com .

A closing poem (not one of mine this season) for you all to enjoy:
A Short Testament

By Anne Porter (from Living Things, 2006)

Whatever harm I may have done

In all my life in all your wide creation

If I cannot repair it

I beg you to repair it.

 

And then there are all the wounded

The poor the deaf the lonely and the old

Whom I have roughly dismissed

As if I were not one of them.

Where I have wronged them by it

And cannot make amends

I ask you

To comfort them to overflowing.

 

And where there are lives I may have withered around me,

Or lives of strangers far or near

That I’ve destroyed in blind complicity

And if I cannot find them

Or have not way to serve them,

 

Remember them, I beg you to remember them

When winter is over

And all your unimaginable promises

Burst into song on death’s bare branches.

 

And here’s a view of The Kitchen!