Shack II – Good Friday at the Basilica of Saint Mary. “God” Among Us.

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

SEE COMMENTS AT THE END OF THIS POST.

In my tradition, today is Easter. Whatever your tradition, this day, all best for a happy one!

(click to enlarge)

At the Stone War Memorial at the Minnesota State Capitol Mall, March 28, 2017. Each Minnesota County contributed a boulder on which part of a single war time letter was inscribed. This one is from Todd County Minnesota.

March 17 at this space, I posted about the film and movie, The Shack. You can revisit it here. At the beginning of that post, I very deliberately mentioned Columbine High School which became memorable April 20, 1999. At the end of that post I have now added my blogpost about The Shack written at the time I read the book in 2009, plus my Amazon review at that time. At the end of this post – postnote 1, below – is my unedited first rough draft thoughts about todays post, saved on March 19.

*

It’s been almost eight years since some friend told me about the book, “The Shack”, and now well over a month since I saw the film version in Littleton CO (see postnote 2 below). I have had some very interesting conversations about the book in the past month (including with myself!), and my antennae have been up to observe, as I say in the headline, “God Among Us”.

These are two repetitive thoughts this day:
1) Ours is an individualistic society, with a tendency to create God in our own image and to justify our own action. This is a real dilemma for organized hierarchical religion of all varieties, long accustomed to controlling the flock through one or another view of what God is, or is not.
2) We have great trouble dealing with forgiveness…of others, and of ourselves. The 1916 quotation on the boulder which leads this column merits long and very serious reflection and conversation.

*

Tenebrae on Good Friday evening at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis – two days ago – seems to bring it all together for me at this moment in my history.

We were in a jam-packed church Friday night.

The stage for Good Friday had been set for me, personally, through a brief back-and-forth between two of us – long-time good friends – earlier in the day.

I’m a regular at Catholic Mass; my friend used to be. He has his reasons.

Some snips:
J: “Happy Easter from the Apostate. I haven’t been to a Good Friday service in ages… do they still pray for the conversion of the Jews?”
D: “Maybe we’ll go tonight and I’ll let you know…we visited Auschwitz, etc., in the spring of 2000, a mixed group of Jews and Catholics from Basilica and Temple Israel. About that time, the big story was the shakeup in the famous Oberammergau (sp?) Passion Play, where the big deal was the guilt of the Jews… But, I think, there is a relatively positive equilibrium at the moment….”

Seated, I leafed through the program booklet, and in the section, “Jesus Breathed His Last” on p.6, was this (click to enlarge):

Tenebrae Program booklet at Basilica of St. Mary Minneapolis MN Good Friday April 14, 2017

The powerful service continued, and at page 12 in the booklet, came a prelude: “Remarks (Please be seated.)”

Presider and Basilica Pastor John Bauer began brief remarks by talking about the tragic history of Jewish – Catholic relations, and the strong impetus to change those relationships particularly in the time beginning with Pope John Paul II.

Then he introduced the speaker, Rabbi Sim Glaser of neighboring Temple Israel in Minneapolis.

I have heard Rabbi Glaser before, and we did go to Auschwitz with Temple Israel members in 2000, so what I and the others were about to hear was not a surprise.

I would summarize Rabbi Glaser’s very powerful remarks in this way:
1) There are three major Abrahamic religions: Jews, Christians, Moslems.
2) Jerusalem is important to all these religions.
3) We all live together in this world, and we need to relearn how to communicate with each other, rather than continue isolation and division.

I usher at Basilica often. I am sure that many of these people who Rabbi Glaser was addressing from this Catholic pulpit had not been in Church for a long while. Some may have been surprised.

The Rabbi had been introduced to much applause; when he returned to the pew, seated among all of us, the applause was even greater and sustained. This at a service where the final words in the program are “All depart in complete silence“.

I thought of my earlier conversation with my apostate friend, and about “The Shack”, whose focus (at least to me) is the need for forgiveness, of others, of ourselves.

A few hours earlier, my friend and I had closed our e-mail conversation.
J: “Heck, I go [to Catholic Mass”] fairly often… at least 2 Sundays per month at least, at St Joan… and I don’t even consider myself either Christian or Catholic….”
D: “Actually, I like going to church. It’s a good calming place for me. We’re a large diverse place so there’s all sorts of folks who wander in, including me, I guess.”
J: “Yep, calming… agree!”

The Shack? A novel followed by a movie. By traditional standards, perhaps, a purveyor of bad theology.

But what I witnessed at Basilica of St. Mary on Good Friday 2017 was the very essence of what I had read about and saw in “The Shack”. It may not seem like it, but people are beginning to get it. Let’s leave it at that.

Happy Easter.

*

POSTNOTE 1 – the early draft of this post, March 19, 2017: This post begins with two pages from an 1896 8th grade Geography book, used by my grandmother when she was in 8th grade – the final year she went to school at a Catholic school in Wisconsin, not far from Dubuque IA. It speaks for itself. (Click a second time and you can enlarge both).

The above was 131 years ago, in the United States of America, in a textbook sanctioned by my Church, the Catholic Church. It was the basis of instruction for 8th graders in a Catholic School.

We have changed, and I think very much for the better. But where we started was dismal, and for some what the standard should still be.

POSTNOTE 2: We saw the film, the Shack, literally across the street from “Cross Hill“, overlooking Columbine High School in Littleton CO. By sheer coincidence, I was visiting my family in Littleton five days after the massacre on April 20,1999. We joined the throng of people who slowly moved up that “hill” of construction remnants, to see the crosses that had been planted there by a man from another state for each of the victims killed that terrible day. It was incredibly moving.

It is long ago, now, so I don’t remember precisely, but in my memory, the day we reached the top, two of the crosses in that line had been cut down – the ones erected for the killers, the two students who had killed the others and then themselves. They, too, had perished, but denied standing as having also been killed.

In effect, they had been denied the right to be grieved – two more lost lives on an awful day.

My son and I walked up that same hill little over a month ago, and there is now a permanent monument – presently being reconstructed – remembering those killed 18 years ago.

But the killers seem to appear nowhere in todays monument, at least nowhere I can see. I can see the reasoning. At the same time, how long will it be till we can forgive, to echo that letter in the photo above, written in 1916, about the Civil War 60 years earlier.

In my opinion, unwillingness to forgive others, and ourselves, is the blind-side of forgiveness that affects every one of us. No one need qualify for forgiveness. To me, that seems to be the essence of this day, Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017.

Have a great day, and all which follow.

COMMENTS:
from Flo: Amen.

from Jermitt: Wonderful testimonial, wonderful historical story of your Grandmothers education and great lesson on forgiveness for everyone.

from Larry(wordchipper@gmail.com, with permission): Found your pieces on “The Shack” and Good Friday in your Roman Catholic Church to be thought stimulating. Will watch for the book and/or movie. I’ve bypassed the book several times but your article prompts me to maybe read it or at least look at the movie.

Regarding the Roman Church, I have my problems with this body and not just because I’m a lifelong ELCA Lutheran. I have many dear friends – like you – who are Catholics and when my wife and I have visited places like Mexico and Hawaii, we’ve attended mass at the most prominent landmark in any village, the Catholic cathedral. I find your church’s emphasis on string instruments and piano refreshing. I’m with Garrison Keillor on protesting against overly-enthusiastic organists. We have them in our church and, apparently, they’re also playing loudly in Mr. Keillor’s.

But my concerns today with your church have to do with their heavy-handed role in American politics. Although it raises my blood pressure, I listened to Catholic media, both radio and television, featuring endless praise for Donald Trump because of his stand on “abortion,” although his stance on anything, including abortion, is a bit suspect. The commentators on Catholic media sounded like they took their training from Fox News. Horribly one-sided. I called into one national program and reminded two of the on-air expounders, who were praising Republicans and blasting Democrats, that it was Democrats who put across the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and fought for working class people, many of whom belonged to unions and were good Catholics. Also, because I’m “pro-choice,” does not mean I’m against life. I believe Republicans and Catholics ought to care as much about babies who are born – through health care, education, and so forth – as they are about getting between a doctor, his or her patient, and the patient’s God, or no religious belief. Our Republican legislators in North Dakota, many of whom are Catholics, cut health care programs for women and others but pass unconstitutional measures that waste tax dollars on wild goose chases that do nothing but please the Roman hierarchy.

Noting the personal morality record of Mr. Trump, multiple divorces, not paying subcontractors, and proposing to cut health care while investing more money with the Daddy Warbucks of the country, I just don’t get it why the Roman Church in the USA is so in love with Trump and expressed such hatred for Mrs. Clinton. They preached their right-wing philosophy so strongly during the Presidential campaign that, I believe, the should have lost their 501-3c tax exemption.

Response from Dick: Larry, it’s a rather daunting task to take on your response. I just googled the words “Catholic census” and the first link was a reputable one, Pew Research, that says there are over a billion Catholics worldwide, half of the Christians. The whole global population is over 7 billion. I usually hear that Minnesota has about 20% Catholics; the U.S. about 25%. That’s lots of folks, and I know from long experience that they aren’t all alike.

I was in college in the transition from the old to the new Church – 1958-61. Generalizing is dangeous, granted, but I think I can fairly say but “authority” took a hit in the post-Vatican II era. This was great for many Catholics; “the pits” for many as well. In one sense or other this battle is joined every day in one way or another.

Personally, I’m on what I’d call the social justice side of the debate within the church. I’m sure the authoritarian side would also say they’re for social justice, but they’re more into control, often played in the assorted debates that you cast concern about in your state (which is a state very familiar to me.)

I choose to stay within the Church. I don’t see it doing much good to drop out and start over in some other denomination. Those I would call “authoritarians” are not comfortable with the current Church, which is fine by me. The Catholic Church, like many Christian churches (and others, doubtless) has a very long history of authoritarianism, going all the way back to Constantine’s embrace of Christianity as essentially the state Church of the Roman Empire about 300 A.D. In general, where the ruler went, the people went. Some places, everybody was Lutheran; other places, something else. in the olden days sense, we’re sort of in the wild west.

I think I’ll leave it at that, except to emphasize once again Rabbi Glaser’s advice at my Catholic Church on Friday: we need to look at and talk with each other. That is risky, but the only way to break the current and very unhealthy stalemate. Just my opinion.

A LETTER: On April 17, I sent a letter to the Denver Post. I almost immediately got a call back that they were interested, and I expected it would be printed. Thus far (Apr 26) I haven’t seen it printed. So here it is:
Last month we were in Denver to visit family. I asked to visit “Cross Hill”, the place above Columbine dating back to just after April 20, 1999. March 11, 2017, we walked to the memorial.

April 25, 1999, I was in Littleton to visit the same family, who then and still, lives little more than a mile from Columbine. In a steady rain, four of us patiently trod up to those new crosses.

At the top were two fewer crosses than originally set in the ground. Those two were those raised for the killers, also students, who also perished that day. Those crosses were cut down.

I know the reasons those crosses came down.

Today I speak to the need, in my opinion, to recognize once again these two students whose personal demons led to the heinous results. They were victims too.

Forgiveness is difficult. Consider it, seriously.

#1250 – Dick Bernard: “The World Is My Country”, the Garry Davis story

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

“When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”
York Langton*

Today begins the 2017 MSPIFF (Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival). The schedule promises “350+ films & events”.

I highly recommend one film among the many options: “The World is My Country“, which has its World Premiere at the St. Anthony Main theater in Minneapolis, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 23. In order to accommodate possible overflow crowds, the festival has scheduled three screenings. So if you want a seat at the World Premiere, get your tickets early. All necessary information is on the Festival site accessible here.

Along with the World Premiere of The World is My Country will be an eight minute short adapted from the Minnesota film: Man’s Next Giant Leap. The was made especially for this Premiere by Arthur Kanegis and his Associate Producer Melanie Bennett, who edited it mostly from a 30 minute film made back in the 1970’s. Take a look – you’ll be pretty amazed to see what our governor, mayors and other officials had to say about World Citizenship. The short can be viewed here. The Minnesota Declarations of World Citizenship can be viewed here: Minnesota Declarations002

The World is My Country is the remarkable story of up and coming ca 1940 Broadway star Garry Davis. It deserves a full house at each of its three showings. Garry Davis, then into his 90s and very engaging, tells his own life story in the film, which is richly laced with archival film from the 1940s forward. Among the many snips from history: the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rightss at the United Nations, in Paris, 1948.

New York Times front page July 29, 2013. Garry Davis pictured in lower right.

I wrote about this film on April 8, and again after its work-in-progress preview, also at the St. Anthony Main, on January 6, 2013. (See here and here.)

Garry Davis? I didn’t know he existed until his name came up at a lunch in June, 2011. Filmmaker Arthur Kanegis was in town, and a friend of his invited four of us to lunch. It was there that Garry Davis came to life for me. A WWII bomber pilot, his brother already killed in WWII, Davis couldn’t justify killing by war as a solution to problems. In 1948, he gave up something precious to him, his U.S. citizenship. He said he did it as an act of love for the United States, following in the footsteps of our founding fathers who gave up being Virginians or Marylanders to be citizens of the United States of America. He declared himself a Citizen of the World, and ignited a movement promoting world citizenship beyond even his imagination. He took a huge risk he lived with the rest of his 93-year life.

From there, I’ll let the film tell the rest of the story.

I was enrolled, that day in June, 2011, and had a small opportunity to see the dream evolve, and now return to the screen for its World Premiere in Minneapolis.

In the fall of 2012, I received permission to show an early draft of the film to a group of high school students in St. Paul. How would they react to ancient history (WWII era film and characters)? Very well, it turned out. They liked what they saw.

About 100 of us participated in Work In Progress test of the first draft of his film in Minneapolis, at St. Anthony Main, in January 2013. The reaction was positive.

Again, I asked permission to show the preview to a group of retired teachers meeting in Orlando, and they liked what they saw. And on the same trip I showed the in-progress film to the Chair and Founder of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. He was very attentive and liked what he saw.

Time went on. Last summer, I attended a private showing of the film, now nearing completion. The process of making a film is tedious, I found, simply from occasional brushes with this one. To make a film is to take a big risk. Now it has earned its time “in the lights” for others to judge.

I do not hesitate to highly recommend this film, particularly to those who feel that there have to be better ways of doing relationships than raw power, threats, and the reality we all face of blowing each other up in one war after another. This is not a film about war; it is about living in peace with each other.

The key parts of the film focus on Garry Davis in his 20s and 30s, roughly the late 1940s through the 1960s. It’s an idealistic film, especially appropriate for young people, with an important place for positive idealism in todays world.

“The World is My Country” does not end with somebody dying (though the real Garry Davis died 6 months after that first preview I saw in 2013). Rather, its call is for solutions other than war or dominance.

Viewing this film is an investment, not a cost. It brings meaning to the timeless quotes of Margaret Mead – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world indeed it is the only thing that ever has”; and Gandhi – “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Applications for World Passports will be available for those interested at the film.

POSTNOTE:
Here is the first, last and only e-mail I was ever privileged to receive from Garry Davis, Jan. 7, 2013. He died 6 months later.

(click to enlarge)

Garry Davis (on screen from Vermont via Skype), Lynn Elling, film producer Arthur Kanegis and another guest share thoughts on the pursuit of world peace at St. Anthony Main Theater on January 6, 2013.

On taking risks (from a Church bulletin in Park Rapids MN 1982) (attributed to William Arthur Ward):

Attributed to William Arthur Ward

* POSTNOTE:
York Langton was a Minnesota Corporate Executive in wholesale business, and often used this quotation in talking about relationships in the 1960s.

“When the people lead, leaders will follow” is a common sense axiom in business. If people want a product, they buy it; if they don’t, they won’t. Fortunes are made by following this simple truism.

The same is true in political relationships. If people make unwise decisions in choosing their leaders at any level, they face consequences.

So, “when the people lead, leaders will follow” is an important one for all of us.

#1245 – Dick Bernard: The Flights – “City in the Sky”

/0 Comments/in /by

“BREAKING NEWS”: About noon came the report of the incident at the area of Houses of Parliament in London. It will dominate the news cycle. I notice that greater London has about 8.6 million population. Every single thing will focus on the incident at Parliament. Politics and News Media find things like what happened in London today very useful. It’s a good time to finish off the blog post I started earlier this week.

*

A week or so ago we joined “The City in the Sky“, taking a short vacation to Denver and a visit with family there.

(Click to enlarge)

A plane contrail far above Pike’s Peak indicates that part of the “City in the Sky” is passing by enroute somewhere….This would have been March 10, 2017.

We’re not jet-setters. Taking an airplane once every couple of years might describe us fairly well. My history goes back to about 1962, from Denvers Stapleton Field to Bismarck ND, via Rapid City SD (The airliner had two propellers, very noisy. The connecting flight to Bismarck was full, so they flew two of us to Bismarck in a four-seater. It was a clear, dark night and the western Dakotas were not well lit.)

Being an infrequent flier, gives an opportunity to take occasional ‘snapshots’ of the “neighborhoods” in airplane world, and compare my reality with the normal assessment which comes via the news.

Wednesday, March 8, through Sunday, March 12, were very civilized days at and in the air between the Minneapolis and Denver airports. I say this even though we endured delayed flights on both ends of the trip (equipment problem, then weather).

This has been my normal experience over the years. Only once was there a legitimate drama in an airplane, and that was back in the 1970s, best I remember. This time it was a guy with a heavy metal suitcase which he refused to submit to inspection. Finally they let him be. I notice him the rest of the flight!

As “The City in The Sky” makes clear, the million or so people per day that fly in airplanes from here to there and everywhere, are a community of strangers.

We could do worse than the airport crowd. Come to think of it – and I get around a lot in my daily meanderings – the normal dynamic wherever I happen to be is much like it was on our short trip: people just being people.

On this trip, security (which really didn’t exist until post-9-11, though sky-hijacking increased security back in the 1970s) worked efficiently and quickly and without incident either way. Enroute out, a couple were detained very briefly, but not because of suspicion. The child was in a wheelchair, and the Grandma had an artificial hip, so security had to accommodate, and did so quickly and politely.

Did I mention? They appeared to be middle eastern, dressed in the conservative manner of many Moslems.

Perhaps somewhere in the terminals, something was coming down…no question…in a big town, things do happen.

But my point is simple: those around and with us in the airports were just ordinary people, “no drama”.

This afternoons news will be full of London, London, London…cut to a deadly car crash somewhere…cut to perhaps a shooting, or something else. And this is the normal news, delivered by people I like.

Meanwhile, in London, there will be the usual bad ending for the perpetrators; and one feels empathy for the victims and their families, but odds are very tiny that something bad will happen to the overwhelming vast majority of us.

And that’s the good news for the day.

Of course, bad news sells. So it goes….

#1244 – World Storytelling Day 2017, March 21, 2017

/0 Comments/in /by

Yesterday, the first day of Spring, has, since 2003, also been called World Storytelling Day by an informal network of storytellers.

This years theme is “Transformation”.

If you’re in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area, and are looking for something to do this evening, Tuesday, March 21, come over to the Landmark Center in St. Paul for this years local event, 6-9 p.m., with stories beginning at 7 p.m.

All details for the St Paul event can be read Stories Mar 20001. There is a followup event for children on Saturday, March 25, 10 a.m., also at the Landmark Center Weyerhaeuser Auditorium, St. Paul MN. Details here.

If you live elsewhere and the topic seems interesting, here’s the website for basic information about how the day came to be, and is. There were many events yesterday (March 20). My friend, Larry Johnson, one of tonights story tellers, says “there were 18 or 19 countries listed on the calendar, including 33 events in German speaking countries. Argentina and India came in yesterday on the storytelling day listserv.”

Perhaps an idea to share in your community for the future!

#1241 – Donna Krisch: Diary of a Working Visit to El Paso. A Lenten Reflection

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

“SNIP” Feb. 27: “We decided on a menu of macaroni & cheese with tuna and peas, spaghetti and a carrot/yellow squash combo and apples. I started the meal and all at once was joined by a woman from Honduras who really knew how to cook. I speak basically no Spanish but could understand very well that I had not cooked the vegetables correctly. We were then joined by a woman from Brazil so none of us spoke each others language but we all knew the language of human.”
NOTE FROM DICK BERNARD: A long and very powerful witness to the less publicized side of our neighbors in Mexico and Central America by retired teacher, Donna Krisch. (She and I “share” North Dakota roots, and an Aunt, long deceased.) I hope this essay diary of two weeks in El Paso is shared broadly. All photos, excepting Statue of Liberty, by Donna Krisch, click on any to enlarge. Guest columns, such as Donna’s, are always welcome here. dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom for information.
DONNA KRISCH
Wednesday February 15, 2017
Today four Basilica of St. Mary (Minneapolis MN) members plus myself will leave for El Paso Texas to help in a shelter on the Mexico/Texas border. We have two nurses in our group and the rest of us will help however we can. The people coming to the shelter are seeking asylum from violence in their own countries. We have heard most are coming from the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
We arrived in El Paso yesterday afternoon. During our stay we will be staying at a beautiful, old convent of the Loretto Sisters directly across the alley from the shelter where we will be working.

Arriving at El Paso


Clothing room at the shelter


Dormitory for volunteers


When we arrived at the shelter a Brazilian woman with two small children was being taken to the airport to catch a flight to Boston to meet family having spent the night at the shelter. The morning was spent getting a tour of the facility, and sorting clothes that were collected by the Basilica children. In the afternoon, we met with Eina Holder, director of the shelter. She gave us a brief history of the shelter and an update on what we can expect to be helping with during our stay. In December, there were some days where up to 150 asylum seekers stayed at the shelter mainly from Central America and Brazil.
People coming to the border are questioned, fingerprinted by Border Patrol and processed at a facility an hour away. Some are required to wear an ankle bracelet with a tracking number and a phone call is made to a family member or friend vouch for them and send them travel money.
ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will bring them to one of 3 shelters. Nazareth Hall receives asylum seekers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and people will stay for 1-3 days and then either travel by bus or plane to meet family somewhere in the US. In the last few weeks the number of people seeking asylum has dropped so significantly that two of the shelters will be closing next week. Starting Monday, Nazareth Hall will be the only short-term shelter open. No one can explain why. Some possible reasons we heard were increased border patrol and also the new administration’s stance on immigration.
We have been treated so kindly by everyone we have met.
Friday, February 17, 2017
This morning we went to the shelter at 9 AM. Our work for today would be to continue to organize clothing, disinfect and disassemble cots, and organize the storage room full of supplies.
At noon, we attended a peace gathering in front of the El Paso courthouse. We were introduced to Fr. Peter & Sr. Betty. Fr. Peter is 94 years old and Sr. Betty is in her 80’s. They have devoted their lives to the work of the poor in Central and South America. They currently live and work with the poor in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso. It was as if we were in the presence of saints. Each Friday they are among a small gathering of people that bring their tattered peace signs and stand on the corner for an hour.
After lunch, we went for a tour of Annunciation House. This shelter houses people seeking asylum that need to have more than 24 hours to figure out where to go. Some may stay for months. It is run by volunteers and houses up to 100 if needed. Upstairs in the house we saw the dining room and kitchen. Eina our guide then took us into the chapel which also serves as a bedroom when the shelter is crowded.
On the wall behind the make shift alter was a cross made of metal boxes each containing a shoe found in the desert where people might have crossed.

Cross of shoes found in the south Texas desert


One of the shoes in above photo


The story Eina told was of a young child traveling with her mother. The mother had written the phone number of the relative in America where they would go to live with in ink on the child’s hand. Along the way, the mother died. When the little girl was finally found, she was holding her fisted hand very tight. When she finally opened it the phone number was smeared so no one could decipher the number.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Today started when Eina, the director of the shelter where we are working took us to her church to meet some of the young teenagers that came unaccompanied to the border and are now at Southwest Key a facility for children and teens.
Three times a week, they host groups of 10+ youth to come, play games, do a prayer service and have a meal like pizza and soda. Each week groups of youth ages 3-17 come to Rico center for three hours away from the detention center. This ministry is named in honor of the priest’s nephew who was murdered in Mexico.

Poster at Rico Center


Seeing these young people not knowing what they have been through, what they have seen, who they left behind at home was very moving for all of us. We prayed with them and for them. When we were leaving, the young woman leading the group thanked the “white people” for coming.
After lunch, we returned to the shelter to finish up tasks to be ready for people arriving on Monday.
*In 2015, there were 75 shelters that house children along the US-Mexico border housing approximately 14,365 unaccompanied minors. Rico ministries and the detention centers collaborate to provide this program for youth in detention. Their future is unknown, they may be deported, they may reunite with another relative. If a pair of siblings comes to a center and one turns 18 they will be separated and the 18-year old will go to adult detention. You have to ask yourself what kind of a nation does this to children.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Beautiful sunny morning in El Paso. Eina picked us up for mass at 11:30 and we drove across town to El Buen Pastor parish in Horizon City, a suburb of El Paso. The church is in one of the poorest neighborhoods of El Paso and is surrounded by a very wealthy suburb.
When we arrived. the church was already filling up 45 minutes early. I have never felt so welcome in a Catholic church. The priest welcomed us during the sermon and we were thanked by the entire community at the end of the mass. During the handshake of peace, a little 4-year old boy came over into our pew, crawled through the entire pew, and shook everyone’s hand. After the 2-hour long mass we purchased 80 tortilla’s, to deliver to the farm workers at their center in downtown El Paso.
When we arrived at the farm workers center we were greeted warmly by a man named Carlos Marentes who runs the center. The center is located on a corner where farmers will pick up day laborers to work in the fields if there is work. They have lockers and showers and sleep on the floor. At midnight, they arise and stand out on the street and wait to be picked up if there is work. Of all we have seen so far this for me was the most difficult. Grown men with skin like leather, sleeping on the floor. Maybe it was because of growing up on a farm but I saw in those men my brothers and uncles and really for no other reason than luck is there life so very different.
We introduced ourselves and they introduced themselves and the Mexican state they are from. We then joined hands and said a prayer. One of the men I was holding hands with was missing half a finger and another I am sure must have Parkinsons Disease.
The work they were doing tomorrow was picking hot chilis. Apparently, they pick by the 20-gallon container and for each one they fill they get a chip which will then be exchanged for money. The plants are low growing so if you are tall you need to crawl through the fields on your knees. We were told by the end of the day their hands feel like they have a fever. Carlos thought they may also be planting onions. To do that they poke their fingers into rock hard ground and put onion plugs in each hole. For all this earn an average of $6,700 per year (just over $500 per month).
Monday, February 20, 2107
Our day started this morning at 9:15. We cleaned this huge gathering room called the Sala. After packing up the 40+ cots and them stashing them away we sorted through a great number of toys, vacuumed the rug to get ready for the next group of travelers. We received instructions on how the intake process works.
At 1:30 an ICE van pulled up to the shelter and dropped off 4 families with a total of 9 people. Usually the processing center feeds them lunch but when they arrived they had not eaten. The group were a father and son from Brazil who were going to Boston, a young mother with a two-year old and a seven-year old from Guatemala going to Florida, a mother and her 16 year old son from Guatemala going to Nebraska, and a father and his 10 year old daughter going to North Carolina.
After a short interview one of the workers tried to call their US families waiting for them. We then helped them find a new change of clothes, show them their rooms and help them find the showers.
Every Monday a local church brings a delicious meal of beans, rice and shredded beef. One of the men that brought the food sat down at our table and talked about why he does this work. He told us that 5 years ago he was an engineer and very successful owner of a construction company when he had a heart attack. He was lying there close to death when he decided his life had to change. He decided he needed to give back because his life had been so good so he now makes and serves dinner every Monday night at the shelter.
Things we found out about the families: the Brazilian man decided he wanted to go back to Brazil. He had left two daughters behind. For him to do that he would not ever be able to get back into the US again, plus he would need to go to a detention center until a whole planeload of detainees needed to go back to Brazil. The mother with her 16-year old son was pregnant with him the last time she saw her husband. The 10-year old little girl was complaining of her legs hurting and the dad just said that yesterday they had spent the entire day running.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Today seemed like a long day. We started at 10:00 with a meeting to write a shopping list for the shelter and then purchase the food. Three of the families from yesterday are waiting for bus tickets sent by their receiving families. The father and his ten-year-old daughter will be leaving on the bus at 4.
The process when families arrive looks something like this. The director of the center and one of our Spanish speaking volunteers do the initial intake (finding out what papers they have, finding out who to call to receive them, etc.) From the office, they are taken to their sleeping rooms.
Next, they are taken to a used clothing room to pick out one set of clothing because they literally come with the clothes on their back. The final stop is the shower where they each are given a hygiene kit with everything they need. After they shower we give them sheets and blankets to make their beds.
Today the refugees did not get dropped off by ICE until about 3 PM so by the time they finished everything another church group had come in with the evening meal which we shared with the families. After dinner, we helped them make their beds and get settled in.
The group that arrived today were two families from Brazil. One of them was a father and his 1½ year old son. They left Brazil because they had witnessed what he called a “massacre.” His wife and their older daughter will come soon maybe tomorrow. The reason they came separately and not together was they would have been separated at the border. The father would have gone into a detention center and the mother would have come to the shelter with the children. The other two families were from Guatemala.
One was a nineteen-year old mother with a 3-month old baby the other family was an older mother with her six-year old daughter. The young mother and her baby were both extremely dehydrated so even though the baby was trying to nurse the mother had no milk to give. The baby screamed uncontrollably for most of the early evening. Although complete strangers the older mother stayed with the younger mom through the night to make sure she and the baby got plenty of fluids… amazing compassion.
We had the chance to see for the first time the electronic ankle bracelets. I had imagined maybe a small band. They are at least two inches wide, battery operated and the batteries need to be recharged on a regular basis or ICE will start looking for them.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Nazareth Hall got the call that 32 people (12 families) would be coming to the shelter by early afternoon so we sorted clothes, got bed linens ready and made sure we were prepared for their arrival.
This has been the largest group to come in since we came here. This time a huge white ICE bus arrived. We all felt a bit more prepared for what needed to be done.
During intake, I noticed a woman and two children. Throughout the process tears were streaming down her face and her two little girls were patting her on the back. Apparently when they arrived at the border her husband was taken away to detention and she and the girls were sent on. Everyone was once again very hungry so we served snacks while they were waiting to do their paperwork. While everyone was waiting, we noticed many of the people did not have shoe laces. Apparently, they are taken away when they arrive.
We left the shelter at 5:15 to attend a memorial mass in honor of Juan Patricio. The young man was killed outside the Annunciation House Shelter 15 years ago. We walked through luminaries that lined the sidewalk to the spot he was killed. We sat on benches in front of a makeshift altar outside. The mass was attended by many young people and many older adults.

Walk for Juan Patricio


Mass at Annunciation


Thursday, February 23, 2017
Many of the asylees [those seeking asylum] were leaving the shelter early in the day to go to the bus station.
Today people were leaving to be reunited with families in Maryland, Florida, New York and many more places. Because they will be riding the bus for several days and have no money the shelter sends them with a travel bag. Travel bags are made up of a blanket for each, sandwiches and fruit, snacks, water, and if they have children some sort of toy and pages to color. Some bus trips take over 36 hours. They are also given a winter coat if going to a cold climate state. Once the bags were made we started preparing for a new group of asylum seekers.
At 10:30 we got the call that 15 people (7 families) would be coming in the afternoon. After everyone was settled we put travel bags together for each family.
Tonight, we had an invitation to go to dinner at Villa Maria. This is a home for woman in crisis that need a place to stay until they can get their lives together. Women with mental issues, addiction and homelessness come to this shelter. Women from a variety of age groups live at the house. They usually stay up to two years.
Recently, however, women are being pushed to move out more quickly due to reductions in money from HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] The home is run on grants and a fundraiser each year. We had the opportunity to sit down with the women and enjoy a wonderful meal that they had prepared. This special place houses 22 women and offers support and counseling, job training and access to classes at a community college. It is a very calm place with a courtyard in the middle.
We are so impressed with the organization, the planning and collaboration of these shelters. All of the resources are donated and all the staffing of the centers are volunteer.
Friday, Feb. 24, 2017
We got a call this morning that Nazareth Hall will be closing today because of an inspection of the attached nursing home. All asylees will be taken to Annunciation House until further notice. We are glad to have an afternoon to rest.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Matthew 25: 35-40
For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty
And you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made
me welcome; naked and you clothed me; sick and you
visited me; in prison and you came to see me.
. . . I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of
the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.
This is the reading Rubin Garcia referred to as we met with him this morning. What we thought would be a 20-minute meeting lasted 2 hours. Rubin Garcia started working with the immigrants 40 years ago when he quit his job and with the help of the archdiocese of El Paso opened Annunciation House. He has since opened many shelters as the need arose in the immigrant and the asylee community. All of the shelters including staff are operated by donations.
He started off by saying we probably should take down the Statue of Liberty.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The words ring hollow.

Statue of Liberty New York City harbor late June, 1972


Joni and Tom Bernard at Statue of Liberty, late June, 1972 (Photos by Dick Bernard)


Mr. Garcia believes that the church has failed to raise awareness for these most vulnerable people. The clergy need to start talking about Catholic Social Teaching. After 40 years and countless groups of people coming to the border to raise their own awareness nothing has changed.
In 2014 the first wave of immigrants arrived. They arrived in south Texas and because of the numbers immigration asked Rubin Garcia to house people in El Paso. He agreed with the stipulation that he would receive no money from the government so the government would have no leverage over these people.
From October 2016 thru January 2017 the arrivals of people needing shelter went up to 1,000 refugees a week. Since the new U.S. administration has taken office the numbers have dwindled significantly. Mr. Garcia thinks people are not coming because of new U.S. immigration policy and posturing. He said there is no official policy on who gets detained, and who doesn’t. The number of government run and private detention centers has risen with the surge.
In Mr. Garcia’s words our new President changed mindsets with the power of fear and the power of repetition of lies. He repeated the terrorist threat many, many times during his campaign. Mr. Garcia said we should ask ourselves how we feel about the leader of our country given absolute freedom to lie. What do we tell our children? He compared the terrorist threats to car accidents. Since 2011 there have been 80 deaths due to terrorists and 600,000 deaths due to car accidents. So, should we ban cars? Do we fear the car companies for making cars?
He encouraged and challenged us to talk to our neighbors, both however they voted about what is already happening in America. Find out what people are afraid of in regards to immigration. He also encouraged us to sit down with our pastors and ask them how we should be responding as Christians.
His biggest fear at this time is that the U.S. will set up immigration courts at the border and no one will be granted asylum. Once turned back they will be in Mexico which does not have the accommodations to house Asylees.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
This morning we have an invitation to visit Sr. Betty and Fr. Peter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. We are to cross the San Antonio bridge from El Paso, Texas to Mexico. Sr. Betty assured us she would meet us at the bottom of the bridge. We had a difficult time finding the right bridge and when we asked the response was always, “You’re going to Juarez??”

Fr. Peter and Sr. Betty and Cathy.


For over 5 years starting in 2005 Juarez was known as the murder capital of the world but in the past few years murders have dropped considerably. It was the city Pope Francis chose to visit in 2014. In any event, we were happy to see Sr. Betty at the bottom of the bridge.

Juarez, Mexico, border city of El Paso TX


Housing from the street in Juarez


Going from El Paso to Juarez was quite something. Crumbled streets, very primitive housing almost appearing to look like the site of a city that had been in a war. We made our way by bus to the little house and yard that Sr. Betty and Fr. Peter rent.
It seems like an oasis in the middle of a desert but is located in one of the poorer boroughs of Juarez. They served us eggs from their chickens and we talked about their years working for peace and justice in Central and South America and for the past 20 years living in Juarez. At 94 years of age Fr. Peter continues to say mass at one of the boroughs in Juarez. Sr. Betty at 84 has classes for women on her porch. She took us out to her backyard to show her chickens, and the tomatoes she had just planted. In their back-yard they have a covered area where she has made memorials to various groups of people that have been murdered. She has painted murals and listed all of the names of these people. There are murals for slain journalists, murdered women, students and men and people that have died in the desert.
Juarez has had many problems over the past few years. Early in the 2000’s American companies set up Maquiladoras (factories). A Maquiladora is a factory run by a U.S. company in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor and lax regulation. Workers usually work 6 days a week for an average of $6.00 per day. When they first began workers especially women were drawn to these factories. There is a reason we can buy cheap goods in America. Sr. Betty was telling us that one of the companies was John Deere. The same job if done in America would earn a salary of $25.00 per hour. Hardly a living wage.
Monday, February 27, 2017
It is hard to believe this is our last day to work. We got a call that Annunciation House was receiving 39 asylum seekers (12 families) and needed help. About 2 PM ICE came with two white buses and dropped them off. It was basically the same procedure as Nazareth House with the exception that the men would stay at Annunciation Shelter while the women and children would walk two blocks to Casa Theresa. Some of the Basilica group stayed to help find clothing for everyone and I went to Casa Therese to make beds. Once beds were made there was dinner for 22 that needed to be made.
We decided on a menu of macaroni & cheese with tuna and peas, spaghetti and a carrot/yellow squash combo and apples.
I started the meal and all at once was joined by a woman from Honduras who really knew how to cook. I speak basically no Spanish but could understand very well that I had not cooked the vegetables correctly. We were then joined by a woman from Brazil so none of us spoke each others language but we all knew the language of human. The Honduran woman’s 10-year old son squeezed limes to make a beverage.
When everyone had their plates filled we all joined hands and said grace. It was truly a moving moment, I will never forget.
While this was taking place, the people were registered and given medical treatment if they needed it.
The stories of some of these women will stay with us forever. One woman carried her paraplegic son on her back the entire way from Honduras. Another woman and two children had wandered through Mexico trying to get to the border for the past 3 months. They slept in woods and would beg to sleep in people’s yards. At each place, they were told they needed to leave after one night. Another young girl maybe 12 or 13 year of age said her whole body hurt and was stiff. Apparently, there is this holding facility called the icebox because it is so cold at night where people can only be detained for 24 hours but she had been there for a few days.
Over the past two weeks not once did we see a potential terrorist. These are the poorest of the poor looking for a life free of violence. They come with their children, they come to be reunited with family, they come to make a better life for their families. Everyone I talk to in Minnesota seems unaware that this is happening here at our border. How can we the richest nation on the planet turn our backs on our brothers and sisters.
Thank you to the Sisters of Loretto for their hospitality and all the people we encountered during our time in El Paso. This is an extremely generous and caring community that works tirelessly to make life better for the poor.
POSTNOTE FROM DICK: Politics and Compassion are very uneasy companions. A dozen or so years ago I came across a succinct and very powerful explanation of the relationship between politics and compassion, made by then U.S. Senator, and former U.S. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. You can read it here. I read it some months after a powerful visit to Haiti, and after the Iraq War had commenced. The brief paragraph or two spoke many volumes.
Donna Krisch reflects on the very human side of the migration (refugee) story.
Others with the microphones and media and levers of power much stronger than Donna or myself can better publicize “illegals”, “drugs”, and the seamy underside of immigration. The comment by Rubin Garcia (above) brings it home: “He compared the terrorist threats to car accidents. Since 2011 there have been 80 deaths due to terrorists and 600,000 deaths due to car accidents. So, should we ban cars? Do we fear the car companies for making cars?”
Back at the beginning of the worst of the Great Depression, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a statement that deserves repeating, over and over and over: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
We are a nation of immigrants and descendants of immigrants. Even Native Americans, the first immigrants, initially came from somewhere else.
The only ancestor I personally knew who was an immigrant from another country was my grandfather, Henry Bernard, who came to North Dakota from Quebec about 1894. His only language when he arrived was French, and he had a first grade education. Doubtless it took years for him to speak English fluently.
He died when I was 17, and I knew him well.
Four of six of my great-grandparents immigrated to America, long before the Statue of Liberty became the welcoming beacon (and lest we forget, the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France.) My circles – all of our circles – are full of immigrants.
We do not honor ourselves by our present day fear-filled approach to people whose only sin is, as proclaimed at the Statue of Liberty, “yearning to breathe free”. We will, one day, be called to account….

Dick Bernard: An Old Photograph

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Today is my oldest child, Tom’s, birthday. He shares the birthdate with my wife, and our daughter-in-law; and his great-grandfather, Henry Bernard, would be 145 today, were he still alive. And two days from now would be his great grandparent Ferd and Rosa Busch’s 112th wedding anniversary. Time marches on.
(click to enlarge all photos. Click again for more enlargement.)

Busch family history about 1937


This weekend I was continuing a long project – sorting hundreds of photos from the Busch farm, saved by the last survivors of the farm, my Uncle Vince, and Aunt Edithe, who died two and three years ago respectively.
There are hundreds of photos. The one which leads this story has always intrigued me, though as you can readily see (you can enlarge it twice if you wish) is not a prize winner. It was taken, almost certainly, on August 9, 1937, on the wedding day of my mother and father, Henry Bernard and Esther Busch, at the Busch farm near Berlin ND. If I’m correct – I think I am – it is the only photo surviving of my parents wedding day.
Back in those days, the days of the Great Depression, few photos were taken, and those taken were not wasted. And you didn’t know, sometime for weeks, whether the photo would turn out. But once you got it back, even if not good, it wasn’t tossed – thankfully.
In this photo, I can clearly make out my Dad, he’s the “tall drink of water” in the back row to the right. My future Mom is in front of him. Clearly, at the right in the picture, are Dad’s sister, Josie, and her husband Allen Whitaker, from San Marino CA. In the group would be both sets of my future grandparents, and Aunts and Uncles and others.
What really attracts my attention, though, is the dinner bell in the background. This is the oldest picture of the bell I’ve seen. The family story of the bell is uncertain. Certainly it was used to call the workers in from the field. We kids would always visit the bell when we came to the farm. It was well photo’ed over the years. My guess: it once adorned a country one-room school nearby.
And I note the dog as well, who appears in quite a number of the photos which have not been labeled. That pooch probably had a normal farm dogs life span, and helps me date some of the photos. He or she seemed to enjoy being in the pictures!
All the birthday folks mentioned at the beginning of this post started out in some family circle somewhere, going back generation after generation after generation. Everyone has stories worth remembering for generations, here or yet to come.
For every one of us there are hills and valleys in the family history. We like to think we can control our destiny, but as one who is rapidly approaching octogenarian status, I know that there are many and disparate intrusions into the dreams of youth.
Best wishes to everyone. To Tom and all the others, do the best you can with the time you have, and help make the world a better place. Take time to read “The Station” linked at the end of this post.
Happy Birthday.
Some other photos, more family specific.

Four generations: Grandma Busch with great-grandson Thomas, daughter Esther, and grandson Richard, at the farm, June 1964


Family gathering at the farm August, 1964. Barbara, Tom’s Mom, at far right.


The men in the Busch family with the youngest male, Tom, August, 1964


After Barbara’s funeral July 29, 1965, at the Grand Rapids Veterans Memorial Park. Ferd holds Tom, Rosa at right, all of the Busch “kids” are behind. It was a sad day, such as we all experience sometime in our lives.


Busch dinner bell, photo by Mary Kay Busch summer 1976


A popular and Inspirational Essay on Living Life, a favorite of Ann Landers called “The Station”The Station001

Dick Bernard: One month.

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Feb. 20: For a long and very good summary of the issues check this “weekly sift”, here.
*
Today ends the first month of the term of the 45th President of the United States. This means there are only 47 months – 98% of the term – to go.
In a one mile race, our country has finished about 100 feet. The next crucial election day is Nov. 6, 2018, about 19 months away.
We will not be living within a “four-minute mile” these coming months, and if the first month is at all a prelude, this will be a very, very long four years.
What does one write about when a consensus already is that a prudent person cannot believe anything that this President says, at any time, about anything? Certainly, on occasion this old man now and then in the White House occasionally tells the truth, sometimes even deliberately. But it is all but impossible to separate truth from fiction from his assorted declarations.
Best I can tell, lying has been the basis of his career “success”.
In my little corner of the world, I receive lots of “must reads”. One of them is here: by Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan spent most of his adult life, including now, as a political conservative.
People like me – liberals – are quite certainly despised by this President as losers, not even worthy of acknowledgment. Our issues are to be dismissed and ridiculed. We are ‘enemy aliens’. All one needs to note are his choices for Cabinet level positions, his closest political advisors and their orientations on issues. His truth is outing itself.
The temptation, even this early in what appears to be a very dark time in our history, is for the average citizen to say and do nothing, to stay “under the radar”, to keep from going mad ourselves.
Please don’t succumb to inaction.
The solution lies within each one of us, one small, positive, courageous action at a time, where we live. This has always been true. A favorite quotation of mine is this one from Margaret Mead: “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”
More here.
I hope we don’t give up; that instead we become and remain incessantly active, impacting on those who in turn can impact up the chain of power up the line.
To this end, former U.S. congressman Barney Frank recently authored some advice to citizens which is worth reading. (You can read it here, and it is also reprinted below.) Frank co-authored the endangered Dodd-Frank bill attempting to rein in, a bit, Wall Street and the high finance industry.
Earlier Posts about this Presidency beginning in 2017 here.
POSTNOTE: I was refining my always imperfect thoughts (above) early this morning, then I went back to bed. I awoke to a vivid dream, one of those one remembers, though the specific details are never quite as they appear while you’re sleeping.
Three of us were in some intense conversation about actions for change: myself, (born before WWII); an activist lady I know who’s about one generation younger than I, and a third participant, younger, of a millennial age (roughly 20s-40s).
Doubtless this blog generated part of the dream; perhaps it came from learning that Barney Frank’s column came from a very successful Millennial website; perhaps a Millenial-age speakers comment at a Thursday evening meeting I was asked to convene played into the dream, as did my own union history in my 20s and 30s in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s as well.
The dream ended with a realization that what people like myself bring to the table in the current year is the voice of experience; and we have to speak with that well-informed voice. But it is the people younger than us who are going to decide whether or not they are willing to learn from the successes and the failures of the past as they go into their own future.
The new U.S. President, who is younger than I, from early baby boom years, does not seem inclined to learn from, or value the past; nor do most of his “Make America Great Again” followers who represent his base and seem committed to the slogan on the bumper sticker I see now and again, “We’re spending our kids inheritance….”
It is, in reality, up to todays Millennials, who will rise or fall by their own actions now and in the future, to rise up, and really pay attention to future consequences of present actions.
I can only sound the alarm.
* * * * *
SOME POINTERS FROM BARNEY FRANK
received Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017 from Harold.
After 32 years in the House of Representatives, here is my advice on how people opposed to President Donald Trump’s assault on our basic values — a majority of those who voted last November — can best influence members of Congress.
Done the right way, communications from citizens can have a significant impact on legislators, even when they claim to be immune to “pressure.” (“Pressure,” in legislative jargon, is the expression of views with which legislators disagree, as opposed to “public opinion” — the term used for sentiments that reinforce their own.)
The key to doing it right is being clear about the goal, which is to persuade the Senator or Representative receiving the communication that how he or she votes on the issue in question will affect how the sender will vote the next time the legislator is on the ballot.
This means the following:
Make sure you’re registered to vote — lawmakers check.
Many office holders will check this, especially for people who write to them frequently. Elected officials pay as much attention to those who are not registered to vote as butchers do to the food preferences of vegetarians.
Lawmakers don’t care about people outside of their district.
You can only have an impact on legislators for or against whom you will have a chance to vote the next time they run. In almost all cases, this means only people in whose state or district you live. Senators or representatives whose names will not be on the ballot you cast are immune to your pressure. There is a small set of exceptions — representatives who want to run for a statewide office in the next election will be sensitives of voters throughout their states.
Your signature — physical or electronic — on a mass petition will mean little.
You are trying to persuade the recipient of your communication that you care enough about an issue for it to motivate your voting behavior. Simply agreeing to put your name on a list does not convey this. I have had several experiences of writing back to the signer of a petition to give my view on an issue only to be answered by someone who wondered why I thought he or she cared.
The communication must be individual. It can be an email, physical letter, a phone call or an office visit. It need not be elaborate or eloquent — it is an opinion to be counted, not an essay. But it will not have an impact unless it shows some individual initiative.
Know where your representative stands.
If you have contact with an organization that is working on this issue, try to learn if the recipient of your opinion has taken a position on it. When I received letters from people urging me to vote for a bill of which I was the prominent main sponsor, I was skeptical that the writer would be watching how I voted.
Communicate — even if you and your representative disagree.
On the other hand, even where you are represented by people whom you know oppose you on an issue, communicate anyway. Legislators do not simply vote yes or no on every issue. If enough people in a legislator’s voting constituency express strong opposition to a measure to which that legislator is ideologically or politically committed, it might lead him or her to ask the relevant leadership not to bring the bill up. Conflict avoidance is a cherished goal of many elected officials.
Say “thank you.”
If your Representative and Senators are committed to your causes, you should write or call to thank them — not frequently, but enough for them to feel reinforced.
Enlist the help of friends in other districts.
Your direct communication with legislators outside your voting area will have no impact. But you do have friends, relatives, associates etc. Find out who the potentially influenceable legislators are on issues of prime importance to you, think about people you may know in their constituencies, and ask those who share your views to communicate with those who represent them. On an extremely important issue, get out the list to who you mail holidays cards or important invitations and ask them to communicate with their legislators.
To repeat the essence of point 5, if a legislator who you might have expected to vote differently — e.g. a Republican who votes no on a Trump priority — votes as you have urged, send a thank you.
— Barney Frank, former Democratic representative for Massachusetts.

Lynn Elling: An Anniversary; Thoughts About Peace on Valentine's Day

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

It’s Valentine’s Day, and today I’m remembering my friend, Lynn Elling, who died one year ago today, a few days short of 95 years. He was a remarkable guy. He walked the talk about Peace. I was honored to talk about him at his Memorial Service on May 1, last year. I wrote a bit about him then. You can read it here, “In praise of exasperating people”.
The 1971 Declaration of World Citizenship
Click to enlarge, twice to double the enlargement

Last spring, after Lynn died, the family invited me to go through the residue of his long life which related to his passion, the quest for world peace. He gave “World Peace” a great run, leaving a substantial base – and a challenge – for the rest of us. Down in our garage is a single box with many remnants of over 70 years passion for Peace, which began, for him, as a young Naval officer viewing the aftermath of the awful battle at Tarawa Beach in the Pacific, November, 1943.
A truly major accomplishment from that box is shown above, from March of 1971, and I’d invite you to take the time to really look at not only the text of that Declaration of World Citizenship, but to carefully study the list of signers who, at the time, represented all of the major leaders in Minnesota, Republican, Democrat, Civic…..
Out of this accomplishment came a 30 minute film, “Man’s Next Giant Leap”, which is worth watching on line, here.
Lynn was 50 years old when that Declaration was signed. Two years previous had come a similar Declaration for the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County; and six years earlier a similar declaration for the United States of America.
The idea of Peace was catching on.
And on and on.
In about two months, in Minneapolis, a new film, The World Is My Country, will be shown at the Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul about Garry Davis, another remarkable man, and friend of Lynn’s, who began a world wide campaign for the concept of World Citizenship. When I know details I’ll announce them in this space.
On May 1, at Gandhi Mahal in Minneapolis, we’ll celebrate another creation of Lynn and others: World Law Day, which first was held in 1964, went on for years, and after a hiatus, this year will be the 5th in the most recent series. More on that event, featuring Shawn Otto of ScienceDebate.org later as well.
Yes, Lynn Elling could be “exasperating”.
But it is “exasperating” people that are very often the ones who make the difference; the people who go beyond the bounds of “average and ordinary”. We all can learn from being “exasperating” ourselves, from time to time!
Have a great Valentine’s Day.
POSTNOTE: Another great accomplishment by Mr. Elling came May 1, 1968, when the United Nations Flag was mounted beside the U.S. flag at what is now the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza. The flag flew there until late March, 2012, when it was removed. More can be read here. This, too, was a completely bi-partisan initiative. Elling was a downtown Minneapolis businessman, working with others in the business community. The UN, then, was not considered as some enemy of the United States, as some have come to portray it in more recent years.
Related, Feb. 13, 2017, here.

Dick Bernard: Killer or Healer? A Decision We All Need to Make

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

Sunday’s homily at Basilica of St. Mary was a powerful commentary on a portion of the Gospel of Matthew: “You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with brother will be liable to judgment.” (full text MT 5:20-22A, 2728, 33-34A, 37).
Fr. Harry, a retired Priest of the Diocese and frequent celebrant and gifted homilist at Basilica, wove his message not around physical killing, but the more common, now almost ubiquitous and unfortunately acceptable practice of “killing” others by actions other than a gun or similar. He talked of a couple of old guys, once friends, who hadn’t talked to each other for decades, though they worked in the same building, who were more or less forced into contact by the marriage of their respective granddaughter and grandson…and in the process of renewal of their long interrupted relationship couldn’t even remember what caused the fracture in the first place….
So it goes.
Driving home, for some reason, I got to thinking of a homily I had heard in a Port-au-Prince Haiti Catholic Church on December 7, 2003. Six of us were in our first full day in Haiti*. The congregation of the church was financially very poor, but vibrant. The Priest, Gerard Jean-Juste**, was a charismatic preacher, and this particular day, he knew he had a target for his message in we six visitors from the United States, an hour or so flight away.
(click to enlarge)

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste and parishioners at Ste. Clare Parish Port-au-Prince Haiti December 7, 2003 (Dick Bernard)


Fr. Jean-Juste saying Mass at Ste. Claire Dec 7 2003 (photo by Dick Bernard)


He didn’t look at us – we really hadn’t met him at this point, but he knew we were there – but his message about the role of our wealthy society in the U.S. – to be the “killers” or “healers” of this desperately poor country – struck home. He supported the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide; and by the sundry means available to it, the U.S. was in the process of “killing” this president whose constituency was the poor. Rather than helping (“healing”) the poor. We were making it all but impossible for Haiti to compete in any way with their very wealthy neighbor, our own country. Democracy in Haiti was competition, and could not be tolerated. With “friends” like us, who needed enemies?
While there weren’t dead bodies in the street – at least not a great number of them – nonetheless, they may as well have been: farmers who had grown rice were forced out of business by U.S. undercutting Haitian farmer prices, and then dominating the rice market…things like that.
I got to thinking of a recent visit to our towns bookstore. I was looking for a book of meditations for a friend whose wife had recently died. Walking down an aisle, I was stopped short by a sign, which so struck me I went back to the car to bring in my camera and click this photo:

Book Display December, 2017


I googled the author and found quite an array of books, almost all dark topics: about killing Patton, …Kennedy, …Lincoln, …Jesus; similar about the attempted killing of Reagan; in effect, the killing of Hitler and the Nazis, and per the picture, killing “The Rising Sun” in WWII; the Next Nuclear War….
Clearly, killing was O’Reilly’s selling point for his books. There is a polarity in this country in which many enshrine the idea of killing an enemy: a political opponent, “al Qaeda”, on and on. We sort of enjoy killing. It is politically very useful to have an enemy to kill.
Similarly, I am sure, there is a “healing” niche as well, with a completely different audience….
A friend of mine, a migrant from another country, here for many years, but not yet a citizen, described us well, recently. The U.S., he said, is a polarized country, where we largely exist in “bubbles”, like those two old guys that had no relationship whatever for many years, until some unplanned event brought them together again.
I’m on the “healer” side of this polarity. At the same time, I say we have to find ways to constructively communicate with the other side as well.
“Killing”, whether physically or by character assassination, is no solution. In assorted way, the assassins described in the books ended up dying themselves, either individually (like Lincoln’s assassin) or on a larger scale (Nazi Germany).
“Killer” or “Healer”? I’ll take “healer” any time.
TUESDAY, VALENTINE’S DAY: a shining moment when “healing” held sway.
* – More about the trip, if you wish, here.
** – Jean-Juste was on the “wrong” side in the battle with the U.S. Less than 3 months after our meeting him, he was imprisoned, then deposed to the United States, where he ultimately died, effectively in exile. President Aristide was deposed and taken out of his country by the United States. It was a sad lesson for me, on my first visit to Haiti.

#1210 – Dick Bernard: A Men's Retreat

/0 Comments/in , , /by

For several years I’ve spent a winter weekend at a Retreat for Men at the Franciscan Retreat and Spirituality Center in Prior Lake MN. I enthusiastically recommend both the Retreat and the Retreat Center. (Next years Men’s Retreat is the first weekend of February, 2018).
This years theme: “Find the Missing Peace: Pathways to Prayer”. This became the focus at the first group event on Friday night:
(click on photos to enlarge them)

Franciscan Retreat Center Feb 3-5, 2017


Each of us was given a wooden token as a reminder:

What do a bunch of men, mostly older, do in 44 hours at a Retreat on Prayer?
Well, I can only speak for myself. It was a quieting, reflective time. I didn’t see a newspaper, or hear any news, or see any television, or hear about such for 44 hours. It had been a long week, so I got some needed extra sleep; there were few distractions from just thinking about where I fit into the bigger picture of “peace”, and life in general.
It was a precious time.
Doubtless, we men approached it the topic in our own ways, privately, coming from wherever we were at at the moment. The greatest gift was the opportunity to escape from the madding crowd which is a constant in all of our surroundings in this fast and furiously paced world in which we live. For some precious moments we could be quiet.
In part of my time, I walked outdoors – the weather was decent.
I’ve made friends with an old Peace Pole out there. The pole needs to be rehabbed, and when I reported on that, yes, they knew. Much to my surprise, a good friend of mine, Fr. Vince Peterson, had been the driving force for the peace pole some years ago. I’m sure it will be brought up to date.
Personally, I wouldn’t want it replaced with a new pole. By itself, it represents a history I want to help reinvent. Peace Poles are around you. Look for them. They’re available. Here’s one source, a good friend of mine.

Old Peace Pole at Franciscan Retreat Center Prior Lake MN Feb 5, 2017


Of course, we got pieces of paper at the retreat, and they were talked about by the conference facitators. Thomas Merton was a favorite source of quotes. I think I was in college when I first read his “Seven Storey Mountain”…inspiring book.
And we saw a movie on Saturday night, one I’d highly recommend – very thought provoking. It’s called “Unconditional“, and is 90 minutes, here on Youtube. Take the time, and watch it! It may speak to you, in some way….
Franciscan Retreat Center celebrated its 50th birthday last year, and there were panel displays remembering events surrounding its history, which began in 1966. I found these interesting in themselves, and they don’t need additional elaboration.
late 1960s

1970s forward


2000s

Somehow, the panels spoke to me in a pretty powerful way. The list may not include something of importance that you remember from those past years in our history. Add it in!
That what’s a retreat is for….
Have a great week.