Christmas in the Gospel According to Mark

It's here. It's been here for a while already. The True Value hardware store I frequent, mainly because it has a selection of fasteners I have never found on the shelf anywhere else in my life, had its Christmas lights and displays out in early October.

Yes, there's a life-size Santa Claus seated in a recliner. His motorized head scans slowly left and right. I say words to him each time I pass. I won't print them.

Every year as we enter this part of our culture--and modern Christmas is really about commercial culture, not about Christ--I encounter those rare individuals who seem to thrive on it. I'm always amazed by them and wonder, "If this didn't exist (tinsely decorations, advertising, etc.), would our lives be joyless? Or would we in fact discover a lasting source of 'Joy To The World'?"

Our modern celebration of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem does not coincide with the date of his birth. Long ago it got plopped onto a pagan festival of the winter solstice, which by definition is very different in the Northern Hemisphere from what's going on in the Southern Hemisphere. Snow and reindeer? Not in Australia, Argentina, Namibia.

Maybe we should lift up the layers of tradition to look at what lies beneath. So here's a challenge. Read the Christmas story in the Gospel According to Mark. Read it and meditate on it this week. Then get back to me. As you meditate, here's a little Northern Hemisphere poem for the season:

A Time Between

Christmas is a time between
It's not yet the New Year, nor really the old
It's pre-income tax, it's post-Halloween
It's long before springtime, it's winter, it's cold.

Christmas is a time for joy. And peace. And love.
We save these all for one brief day
For the time between designed to remove
The burden of failure, of losing our way.

"Give love for Christmas this year!"
by the sign in the store I am told.
How much it will cost, how long it will wear?
Am I too late? Am I too old?

"Sorry! We're all out of love this Christmas.
Come back next year when it's sold."
But it's long before springtime.
It's winter. I'm cold.

Happy exploring in the Word according to Mark.

Stay warm!

Roger

My little friends

I love little piggies. Of all the creatures we had on the farm when I was growing up (a few steers and heifers for beef, 500-600 laying hens, Muscovy ducks, a Guernsey milk cow, a tired Shetland pony, cats, dogs and hogs), the little oinkers we by far my favorite.

Contrary to popular urban myth, they don't like to be dirty. In hot weather they need to stay cool. But clean the pen and provide fresh straw for little feeder pigs, and you can find no more joyful and grateful creatures on earth.

As a group, they would agree on one corner of the pen to do their business in first. When that was thoroughly soiled, they would move to the next and the next. It was a sad day for them when they had to use their remaining sleeping quarters for their bathroom. And when the opportunity finally came for us to clean the whole thing, they would run and play like the happiest kids when school lets out. (That was before video games paralyzed our children.)

We Americans are chronic complainers, I think. And yet, we are the most empowered people on earth in so many ways. We get to choose where we spend our dollars. A week ago I needed some clear tape for shipping cartons and some strapping (filament) tape. I went to the local Fred Meyer grocery/variety. I had my choice between tape made in China, or clear tape from Canada and strapping tape made in the USA. I bought the North American products for several reasons:

1. They were shipped a far shorter distance.
2. They would have been manufactured to higher standards of quality.
3. They would have produced less industrial waste handled more responsibly.
4. They would have been made with cleaner electric power.
5. They would have given somebody on this side of the globe a job.
6. They were more expensive.

You get what you pay for.

Yeah, the label of these little piggy banks says, "Made in China". They are in the grocery store where we buy most of our food. Most of that still comes from here, fortunately.

If I'd gone to Wal Mart, I'm sure I would not have had a choice between North American or Chinese tape.

Save money. Live better. Wal Mart.

Not always. Every choice is a voice. Every dollar is a vote. We're staring a "jobless recovery" in the face. There's no secret trap door for our economy like there is in this Chinese piggy bank.

There will only be jobs for our neighbors nearby when we buy what our nearby neighbors make. When they buy what we make.

Every choice is a voice. Every dollar is a vote for what the world and our country will look like in the future. We have incredible power over those choices.

You get what you pay for.

Pax,
Roger

Veterans' Day

I'm married to the daughter of a World War II veteran. I wish my father-in-law Herb were here today for me to thank him again for his service and his daughter. My sister-in-law is married to a Vietnam vet. My two brothers served in the Army National Guard. My best male friend in life, Jack Moore, was a Cobra pilot in Vietnam and won his final battle with his last breath on March 29. My friend and schoomate of 12 years was KIA in Vietnam on 5 April 1968. My great uncle N.O. Wittmann was a WWII pilot and went on to a Navy career that eventually put him in charge of maintenance of U.S. Navy aicraft in the Pacific, including the one in which Sen. John McCain was shot down.

N.O. Wittmann, Jr., his son, was my second cousin and gave his life in Vietnam in August 1967.

I fought the Cold War, helping to keep it from becoming hot. I served three years, 11 months and 28 days. This portion of my life changed my life forever.

I've been to Washington, DC many times but only once on a Veterans' Day. That was in 1997 to take photos for the multi-media segment of the play I was writing and would stage 11 years ago this month. It was an incredibly moving three days. If I could be anywhere on this earth today besides my own house, it would be in Washington, DC for another Veterans' Day.

In 1997, my head and heart were so filled with hundreds of emotions and thousands of sights and images that I literally could not sleep. Finally, I gave in to the stirrings in my head and heart and got up at 4 AM to write. One of those pieces was the following, and I dedicate it today to Narvin (both of them), to Wes, to Jack, to Les, and to my college fraternity brother Lyle who served in U.S. Army Special Forces and was laid to rest today in Omaha:

A Time of Changing Leaves

In a time of changing leaves,

In a time of leaves that bleed the colors

of the seasons all

We pass and place our fingertips into

Familiar spellings on the Wall

Of those whose journey passed its outer marker

just a little sooner than our own

In a time of changing leaves.

In a time of changing leaves,

In a time of leaves that shed their passing quietly

Upon the earth once more,

We are again confronted

by the passing of ourselves

Even the passing of our passing...

Whose familar letters?

Whose the names well-worn into our hearts?

And whose the memories that rain again into the earth,

One by one

Day by day

Year by year,

Now in a time of changing leaves?

One day, no one shall come here

Who has ever heard the voice of any

Upon these sacred walls.

And yet, they shall keep coming

To pause, and to pray in passing

When all have taken their turn in passing quietly

Into a time of changing leaves.

Copyright 1997 by Roger D. Fuchs. All rights reserved.

Veterans, thank you! Welcome home. To those no longer with us, we know that you are receiving the best of care in the hands of the One who created you for us.

See you again one of these days. One of these fine days.

Pax,

Roger

Saving Private Hagerbaumer

His name was Bill (William, actually). He never got to enter any kind of memorial to his service in World War I. He was a blood relative with a clear case of PTSD. And a moral conflict he could never resolve.


Most of you have probably seen Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's lavishly set WWII film focused on a small band of soldiers on an odd mission in the land war in Europe.


Perhaps you remember the scene where a German soldier is overtaken in his foxhole by the Americans. He does his best to seem sympathetic to the Americans and to American popular culture. Then comes the decision: to shoot him or let him go unarmed since the GI's are on the move and in no position to hold a POW.


They let him go. Later, he pulls the trigger in a standoff with the boyish GI clerk typist who is unable, or unwilling, to shoot first. The GI is unable to kill. So he is killed.


This happened to great step-uncle Bill. Bell overran a German in his trench. He threw down his weapon when Bill cried, "Haende hoch!" (Hands up!). I'm sure that in reply to Bill's fluent German, the German soldier would have replied "Nicht schiessen, nicht schiessen! Bitte nicht! Ich moecthe Ihnen sprechen." (Don't shoot, don't shoot! Please don't! I want to talk with you.). He was just a young boy, really.


Uncle Bill didn't know whether he could trust this enemy who shared his blood and ancestry, but not his nationality. Bill had already seen plenty of battle, had surely lost a number of buddies. The German begged for his life. How much trench warfare and mustard gas had he seen?


Bill shot him.


And he could never rid his mind of the German's last words, the sight of the young man's body falling to the earth. Bill had nightmares. He cried. He self-medicated with alcohol. He smoked. He never married. He never forgot, and he died long before his actual death.


He left Mom $200 in his will. She used it to buy the window air conditioner that at last cooled our house during the hot Nebraska summers in the early 60's.


What pastor would have been able to counsel Bill back in his day? Where could he have turned? And who in the family would have had a clue? Did he ever go to Holy Communion again and feel welcome, healed?


And we should remember this. Before we were forced to rename it World War I, this was called "The Great War" and "The War to End All Wars". It only did that for 21 years. Remember that the next time you read about, see a photo of or visit the site of a Nazi death camp where a solemn marker proclaims "Nie Wieder", never again.


"He was never the same," my Mom recalled on my visit with her two months ago.

I don't know how Fourth of July and fireworks ever worked for Bill. I don't know how they could have. But I pray that the voices of angels and the eternal light of Christ do what we were unable to do here on earth: give him peace.


Lord Jesus, thank you for saving Private Hagerbaumer. Rest well, Uncle, and welcome home!


Pax,
Roger

Half Staff

The rain has stopped long enough to put out my flag. It's at half staff, the way it flies more frequently than it does at full staff.

We mourn the loss of life and the deeper tragedies at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Nidal Malik Hasan. Officer. Mental health professional. Major. Member of our armed forces. U.S. citizen by birth just like most of us. Muslim, unlike most of us.

I'm glad I have known other Muslims besides those seared into the minds of most Americans by 9/11, homicide bombings, interfaith sectarian bloodshed, honor killings and forced marriages of young daughters who seem to barely qualify as property.

I'm glad that Jean and I lived for 2.5 years at the very beginning of our marriage as tennants of the generous and loving Aydogan family: Muazzez and Ali and their three kids: Esen, Ali and Sedat. Ali was a farmer just like my Dad, but he lived in town. And they opened their little apartment building to us and, before us, to other GI's who didn't live on base. They didn't rip us off by jacking up the rent. They welcomed us and respected us, as did countless merchants who often insisted that before we did any business we first have tea.

Then there were the two Muslim Turks who helped me out of the ditch after a motorcycle accident in August 1972 as several carloads of Americans passed by. I know the parable of the Good Samaritan from the ditch-level view, not that of a spectator two millennia removed.

Likewise, I am glad that I know Christ followers other than the KKK, slavers, the IRA and the Orangemen, the popes and kings and armies of the Thirty Years' War, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials and the Crusades, apartheid, the 1990's bloodshed between Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs who spoke the same language simply written in different alphabets.

May I never be judged by them. May our faith lead us only to humility, forbearance and compassion. Not to judgment but to new resolve.

A trail of bread crumbs, the agonizingly clear signals in hindsight, so often have us asking, "Why didn't we heed the warnings given by this person?" A legitimate question. Too easily we deny because the person is an active church member or occupies a position of authority.

How much of the buildup to the Holocaust was rationalized, ignored or just plain denied?

Now, shall I be judged by the Holocaust because the blood in my veins is 100% German? And will our president be blamed for this tragedy because of his absent father and his middle name Hussein (blessed)? Already, in the minds of many, I'm sure that connection has been made.

That's how the Holocaust started. And spread among literate, educated Christians.

But not all lives giving warning signals of potential tragedy actually end in tragedy. There are countless stories of signals heeded, help offered and received, healing experienced, lives rebuilt and restored. Mental health victories are the great unrealized and unexplored frontier of our lifetime as a civilization. Some of them are on the streets of downtown Portland, and I am blessed to know and to pray with some of them on Sunday evenings. Their lives make no headlines and attract the hot breath of no cloistered pundits far away.

But they are banner headlines in heaven causing the angels to sing.

Lord, give us wisdom, humility, compassion and your peace. Amen.

Roger

A Nation At War?

Is America a nation at war? For more thought-provoking commentary, read "All In Vain" at http://karenzach.com .

Be sure not to miss the miracle story of Diane Carlson Evans' grandson.

Keep the prayers faithful.

Roger

SR9-11-69B

Exactly 40 years ago today, November 3, 1969, I was dressed in this blue suit. I had only one stripe on my sleeve then. After waiting around most of the day and finally getting paid, I was at last on the way back to the airport in San Antonio, Texas, where I had landed on August 15, 1969 to begin basic training in the United States Air Force.

After waiting an extra month for orders because my background investigation took a little more time (having been all over Europe the summer before, my trail was longer), I was on my way with fellow Airmen to become part of SR9-11-69B. That is,
Syracuse
Russian
Training category 9
Class starting in the month of November (11)
Year of starting classes, 1969
Language instruction level: B for basic.

We flew from San Antonio to Atlanta by daylight. In Atlanta we changed planes, flying the last leg from Atlanta to Syracuse on an Eastern Airlines DC-9. It was a nice ride, unlike the thunderstorms I had flown through on my way into San Antonio back in August. Enroute, I had a good conversation with seat mates. I think I paid the two or three dollars and had a beer.

We arrived in Syracuse after 10 PM, collected our duffle bags and boarded a chartered bus. I remember driving through Syracuse once we entered the city and seeing beautiful hardwood trees, so unlike the pale chartreuse mesquite trees we had left behind in Texas.

Someone a couple of rows back remarked upon seeing the brightly colored leaves of November in Syracuse, "Wow! It's actually fall here!"

So it was. And so began the next phase of my training that would eventually lead my path in life to that of a young woman named Jean Beth Robson from Buffalo, NY, the following May 23.

And that's the way it was, November 3, 1969.

Today I wore this uniform again, the first time publicly in 36 years. I went to Milwaukie High School's Living History Day. I heard a few vets tell their stories. I added a few comments from four decades ago.

40 years. Just like that.

Pax,
Roger