Can We Talk?

My “brush with celebrity” includes 1) a snapshot of Tennessee Ernie Ford at the Seymour fair and 2) Marissa Myer, the new CEO of Yahoo grew up in one of my interim congregations.  Bless his pea pickin’ heart, Tennessee Ernie Ford is no longer with us.  Marissa Myer on the other hand has been making business news.  She recently reversed the privilege of working from home for Yahoo employees.  Whenever a policy change occurs in business there will be dissent and so it was with this decision.

I’d like to think Ms. Myer’s decision stemmed from her strong confessional background and the influence of Luther and Melanchthon.  But, my guess is that it is purely business theory.  The policy appears to discourage isolationism in the workplace and to encourage communication and teamwork.

For being a sexagenarian I think that I am fairly tech savvy. I text message and depend on email.  I send attachments.  Not to mention, I blog and have two different Facebook pages.  However, nothing compares to live human communication.  Electronic communication will never (in my lifetime) pick up the nuances of human communication.  As far as I know there is not a font for sarcasm or sincerity, skepticism or concern.

The human condition depends on community.  Without some sense of community we slowly weaken.  The human spirit erodes into something that simply goes through the motions of life. There is a certain kind of energy when we come together for a purpose.  As Christians we believe the words of Jesus, “Whenever two or three are gathered in my name I am in the midst of them.”  I think it happens in the secular realms as well.  When we are in cooperative work relationships the results are greater than the sum of the parts.

It’s more fun when we do stuff together, too.  A few years ago I was an interim in a parish where I often had no human connection from Sunday to Sunday.  I had no secretary to kid with, no custodian to kvetch to.  When Christmas came I decided to have a staff party at Culver’s.  I bought an eggnog shake at the drive through.

I hear of people whose religious connection is watching a preacher or two on TV while sitting in jammies and a bathrobe. It may be entertaining but where is the human connection?

From my pastoral perspective or maybe my sexagenarian perspective, in a time of growing isolation, we need those moments to celebrate community.  We need to talk to one another.  We need to wait in lines together.  We need to gather around the water cooler.  We need to be assigned to work together as a team.  We need to initiate dialog.  The human family will only be made strong when it is linked together.  Families are made healthy by authentic communication.  Congregations are healthy when people are in genuine conversation.  Workplaces are productive when face-to-face contact leads to cooperation.

Talk among yourselves!

Lutheran Nuns, Or What?

On one of my church calendars the other day it reminded me of the commemoration of Elizabeth Fedde.  Sadly, Elizabeth Fedde is not especially memorable in church history books.  She was significant in the development of the deaconess movement in the 19^th century.  The notification, however, brought me to a moment of nostalgia and something that modern church members hardly know anything about.  Deaconesses are part of the American church special to the post-immigrant years.

Back in college I participated in the Semester Abroad program spending a semester of my Junior year in Germany.  University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point arranged the month of travel before settling in for the academic term in Munich.  One of our first stops was a stay in Kaiserswerth, a village outside of Dusseldorf.  Kaiserswerth was the motherhouse for a very large deaconess community.  I knew nothing about deaconesses and in retrospect I wish I would have taken greater note.  Deaconesses are women of the Lutheran church dedicated to the social ministry of the church:  nursing, teaching, social work, etc.  Yes, there are similarities to Roman Catholic nuns.  Deaconesses wear a “habit” but not like the medieval garments formerly worn by nuns.  The deaconesses in Germany wore a modest black or gray dress.  Some of the older deaconesses wore a white cap similar to a nurse’s cap.

When I started seminary I was introduced to Sister Arnetta Beyer who was the bursar (bookkeeper) at Wartburg Seminary.  My Kaiserswerth experience gave me heads up but other seminary students were clueless about Lutheran women called “sister.”  Sister Arnetta was from the Milwaukee motherhouse of Lutheran deaconesses.  She and another deaconess were working in Dubuque, Iowa.  Sister Arnetta was from North Dakota and became a deaconess because she was influenced in her youth by another deaconess. 

Deaconess Hospital in Milwaukee, which has long since been merged with another hospital, was the center of ministry for the Milwaukee deaconesses. Unless she was a parish worker, a deaconess worked at the hospital.  Stories were told that if a Wartburg Seminary student became ill and needed hospitalization (days before health insurance), they would be put on the train in Dubuque and sent to Milwaukee to be cared for by the deaconesses.

Because of dwindling numbers of new deaconesses, the Milwaukee motherhouse disbanded as an organization.  The remaining deaconesses working in secular fields continued their tasks.  The consecrated women in their light blue jumpers and white blouses became a ministry of the past.

There are still some deaconess communities within the United States.  Diaconal ministers are recognized within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Valparaiso University in Indiana has been a training center for deaconesses in the Missouri Synod and the ELCA.

Here’s my point:  Ever since the early days of the Church, diaconal ministry was vital to the church:  Stephan who was martyred, women like Priscilla and Agrippa, Lois and Eunice tended to the details of serving widows and orphans.  There has always been a spot in the life of the church for those blessed deacons and deaconesses who literally touch the lives of the people of God.  Maybe there still is a place for those communities of similar spirited people dedicated to prayer and healing and teaching.

Interim Time

“Interim Time”

When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

“The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.”

You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here in your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, 2008.