Interview Transcript

Audiotaped Interview with Carl J. Westman
April, 2003

Interviewer’s name is not given, but is believed to be Rev. Linnea Pearson.

CJW: I was born in Boston in 1911, and my parents, then, and grandparents, were Unitarian. When they moved to a suburb, Everett, when I was two years old, they migrated to the Universalist church. And I grew up in that church. When my father died in an accident when I was thirteen years old, the church became a real support for me, particularly the minister, who took an interest in me. I did things for him, such as running the projector for his illustrated lectures. I was very active in the youth group. I preached my first sermon when I was sixteen to a large audience, who were very kind to me, in spite of my brash teenage assertions. So the church has always been a part of my life. I knew in high school that I wanted to become a minister, but because I graduated in 1929, when the roof fell in on finances everywhere, I could not go to college because I had to help out at home, and that continued for some years.

Interviewer: That was kind of disappointment for you. When did you finally get so that you could go to school?

CJW: Well, I married young, and had a variety of jobs, from an office clerk, to working in construction, with the construction firms that built Quonset Naval Air Station during the immediate preceding years of the war, and then in a shipyard in Hingham, MA, and then I worked as a labor foreman in an iron foundry. And when it began to appear in, I think it was 1944, that maybe I had a chance to go to college, and theological school, and work my way through, I took that opportunity.

Interviewer: Going back for a minute, losing your father at thirteen had to be a very traumatic event for a teenage boy.

CJW: It changed my life in many ways. It was not only the shock of losing one’s father, but also because there was no money in the family, my mother had to go to work, and I had to work after school, going to high school, so I missed out on much of the social life that high school students have, and so, but Sunday being free, was where so much of my interest gathered.

Interviewer: Were you active in the youth group of the church?

CJW: Yes I was. We had a small, but very active, youth group in Everett, and it was part of larger groups in the county, which would have as many as 200 young people at a meeting. So that was a very good experience for me, and in some ways replaced what would normally be the teenage experience.

Interviewer: That’s so common for so many young people in the church. Did you marry someone from the church?

CJW: Yes I did. She was a year younger than I, and she was also in the church and in the youth group. We were married very young, which, looking back, perhaps it was too young; nevertheless, it happened. We were married for many years, finally growing apart, divorced in the 1960s.

Interviewer: Any children?

CJW: I have two sons and two daughters. [A] picture’s on the wall there. They are all doing very well, except my younger daughter Janet, who is the second from the right, who has ALS, the Lou Gehrig disease, and does not have long to live. And ... so we all grieve about that.

Interviewer: I’m sure you do. That’s the tragedy in your life today. Can you tell us about the Universalist Church, and what they were like when you were growing up?

CJW: The Universalist Church, when I was growing up ... in my community, it was a very strong church. The church held 400 people, and it was frequently filled, and sometimes they had to bring out additional chairs. There were over 200 children and young people in the Sunday School, so it was a very strong church for many years. But, in that city, Everett, so many people moved out to further suburbs, and the population moving in was largely Roman Catholic. So, the church gradually dwindled, and I don’t know when it closed, but sometime in the 1940s.

Interviewer: I see. When you first became a minister, can you tell me what it was like?

CJW: Yes. Bearing in mind all that I’ve told you, I was a latecomer to the ministry. I was forty years old when I was ordained, having finished theological school and college, and I think one of the great differences I see between the ministry today and what it was in my time, was that there’s far more attention paid to a minister’s needs than in my time. I made several moves, which were made just for increase in salary, which I had to have because of my family, and I would have gladly stayed if the church involved had been willing to pay me a little more money. Nowadays, I see that there is much attention paid to the minister’s salary package, and that is all to the good.

Interviewer: How did you feel about the fact that the church pays such a low wage?

CJW: It did not bother me; we were all in the same boat. I felt the ministry was where I belonged, and we did get by. My sons and daughters all went to state colleges, so they got through; my sons were on athletic scholarships. And, so, it made out, but no, it was a struggle. I did not even have pension money set aside until 1960, which means I did not accumulate much pension money.

Interviewer: And that’s why you’re having some hardship today.

CJW: Look where I live.

Interviewer: Can you tell us about the merger commission?

CJW: Yes, I was part of it. I was minister in Akron, Ohio, when I was first appointed. Well, first of all, I was on the Board of Trustees of the Universalist Church of America, and their Executive Committee, so I was appointed to the Merger Commission, which was comprised of a number of both Universalists and Unitarians who were charged with the task of finding ways that might support a merger of these two denominations. Merger had been talked about for a great many years. Some people said that merger talks began in 1855, and it took 100 years to get to the point of actually being serious. There were a number of problems that had to be solved, including the name of the new denomination. We were able to work out the differences in organization, and essentially create the organization of the Unitarian Universalist Association, as it became and still is today. There were many who weren’t that enthusiastic about merger. Some Unitarians felt that union with Universalists would hinder growth. Some Universalists felt that Unitarians were too radical, although there were radical elements in both denominations. The work required a great deal of study and reports, but the merger, after a couple of [votes], went through very well, and was – I wouldn’t say it was unanimous, but a very heavy majority favored this merger.

Interviewer: Some churches haven’t really taken up the double name. My church in Colorado hasn’t, and I was wondering about that.

CJW: Well, some of them prefer to maintain their historic name. On both sides. One church I served in Akron, a Universalist church, readily adopted the double name. The church I served in Rochester, New York, did not, because there was already a Unitarian church in the community. Although there were very good relations between the two, each kept their own name – First Universalist, First Unitarian.

Interviewer: Over the years, how has the role of the minister changed?

CJW: That’s a little difficult to answer, because I retired from full service in 1976. I would say that the minister is much better trained in counseling than in my day. I would say that in many cases, laypeople have assumed obligations they should, in terms of the organization of the congregation, so the minister doesn’t have to run everything. People do take care of fundraising and religious education and so on, so I’d say there’s, at least in my observation, there’s a great deal more of lay leadership, being active in our congregations, than in the early days of my ministry. And that’s a very good thing.

Interviewer: So you’re talking about how churches have changed as well. How has the denomination changed?

CJW: Very little, I think. It seems to me that we, more or less, behaved (if that’s the word) as each of us did separately. The general assemblies, which replaced the annual meeting of the American Unitarian Association and the annual meeting of the Universalist Church of America, are much more heavily attended than ever was the case before, in terms of the next general assembly in Boston in 2003, they’re expecting close to 9,000 people, I am informed, which would mean for a tremendous difference. I think one of the large changes I have seen is that women are, I believe, a majority of our ministry, and that’s been all to the good. So many of them have become, were, and are, very effective ministers.

Interviewer: That’s interesting. Now, as you look back on your ministry, what were the peak experiences, both traumatic and in regards to achievements?

CJW: The most traumatic experience was in my first church, Gloucester, Massachusetts, a historic church. It was the first organized Universalist Church in America, but these were the years 1950 to 1953, when McCarthyism was so prevalent that I was under fire for ideas which were certainly not unusual for Unitarian Universalists of that date. I was called a communist. One member stopped my eleven-year-old daughter in the street and told her “Your father’s a communist.” And so we understandably said she didn’t have to go to church anymore. So she stayed home and cooked Sunday dinner, and is a gourmet cook today. Being under fire for ideas that are basically within the Bill of Rights and within our Unitarian Universalist tradition of free speech and so forth, this certainly was the worst experience of my life, my ministerial life. I was very tempted to leave the ministry at that time, with people calling up while I was away and telling my wife that her husband’s a communist, and “Why don’t you all get out of town.”

Interviewer: These weren’t Unitarian Universalists?

CJW: Some were.

Interviewer: Some were Unitarian Universalists? My goodness.

CJW: Yes. I found out later that the postmaster, who was a member of the church, had a mail check put on me. So that was the most difficult experience of my life, my ministerial life.

Interviewer: Well, it sounds like it was your personal life also, with children.

CJW: Oh yes. And they’ve never forgotten it either. The ones who were old enough. The peak experiences? There were many. It’s hard to single them out. I’ve been ... certain recognitions, people who appreciated my ministry... I used to keep a file that I called “Treasured Letters,” and it was rather full. It’s hard to single out any one experience. I guess the successful outcome of the merger commission was one of the top experiences. And I enjoyed being a district executive, where I worked with many churches, helping them to solve problems, get ministers, and so forth, and I guess that was a fairly high point in the ministerial life. But most of all my peak experiences have been with people – persons to whom I related, became very close. Other than that, no, I was never elected to high office – although I served in a number of capacities, but no, my peak experiences [were] the kind of people people I would run into in our churches.

Interviewer: That doesn’t surprise me because we know you’re very loved and respected and appreciated in this community.

CJW: Well, that’s the only way I can put it.

Interviewer: Can you talk a little bit about your experiences in the civil rights movement?

CJW: Yes, a little bit. At the time, I was in Rochester, New York, minister of First Universalist there, and of course we were concerned, some of us in the congregation, and when the young black man was killed in Selma, and the Board of Trustees of the UUA all went there by airplane, at first I was going to do that, but then I talked to other interested persons, and we decided that we would instead hire a bus. And about forty of us went. Most of them were not members of our church, and there was certainly an integrated group, a number of, well, for example, some very intelligent and caring teachers, who happened to be black, were among those who went.

So we had a bus trip from Rochester to Montgomery, actually going to Birmingham to meet the march en route, and south of the Mason-Dixon line, new drivers came on the bus, they were all uptight about having to drive this bunch of people...

Interviewer: I can imagine!

CJW: ... and they were polite, but icy. I remember we arrived in Birmingham, and spent the night at the Unitarian church in Birmingham, sleeping on the floor, most of us, and in the morning, taking the bus to go to the outskirts of Montgomery, where we joined the march into that city. And that was an unforgettable experience, not only for the abuse that was heaped upon us as we marched, but also about walking through the slums of Montgomery, largely occupied by black people ... women who came out saying, “Thank God you’ve come, thank God you’ve come.” So that was an unforgettable experience.

One of the experiences that, when we walked to our bus after the mass meeting was over, another man and I were escorting two black schoolteachers from Rochester, and I can’t begin to tell you the kind of abuse that was heaped upon us, as we walked to the bus, from largely white young men. It would have been easy to yield to anger, but we were disciplined enough to do it. But I felt an enormous sensitivity to the kind of names, particularly, these young black teachers were called. The worst of profanity, if you can imagine it.

And then, of course, there was the famous meeting in Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his “I Have A Dream” speech. And again, a number of us in Rochester got together and hired a bus to take us there, and that too was an unforgettable experience.

We also had some civil rights activities in the city of Rochester, where we had some riots. I remember trying to be part of the effort to calm things down, and in the clergy association of that city, we decided to go in pairs, a black minister and a white minister, through the rioting areas, attempting to calm things down. How much we succeeded, I’ll never know. Things did calm down, but maybe they would have anyway. But again, as we walked through, I must say, that we did not get any abuse. And we didn’t. We did stop a couple of young men from looting stores.

Well, there are other things I could mention, but that’s the most I can think of at the moment.

Interviewer: I find myself being surprised that there was that sort of a reaction that far north.

CJW: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Plainfield, New Jersey, also had riots. No question about it.

Interviewer: Those were really difficult days.

CJW: Yes, they were.

Interviewer: Things have changed a lot since then.

CJW: And of course, not all the members of our congregations approved it.

Interviewer: Really?

CJW: And we lost some members, but perhaps that’s just as well.

Interviewer: Yes, yes. Well, I’m wondering what I haven’t covered. Can you talk a little bit about what you think you might add to this enquiry about your life and the church and the denominations – is there anything I haven’t covered?

CJW: Well, I think that one of the fine, but also difficult, experiences of it was preparing for the ministry at college and theological school. I had to work; we had enough money to buy a small house, in Canton, New York, where St. Lawrence University is located, but in order to survive, I was janitor in the bank (a bank, there were two banks there). And I would go to the bank at four o’clock in the morning, and work until time to get to an eight o’clock class, and in the afternoon I would come back again and work two or three more hours. It was a grueling schedule, but I guess I was young enough not to have to worry too much about it physically. I do remember, Canton, New York, is cold country in the winter, and I have a distinctive memory of walking to the bank at four o’clock in the morning, with the temperature forty-two below zero, and the wind blowing in my face. I think that had a great deal of bearing on my decision to move to Florida and never touch a snow shovel again.

Interviewer: I think you’re echoing the thoughts of a lot of us. Well, thank you so much, Carl, for this interview, and it’ll be in the church archives I’m sure.

CJW: You’d better check to see if it’s recorded!

Interviewer: Yeah.....

Wicca And Fanatics

November 1, 2003

Yesterday was Halloween. Here at the Beneva Park Club the halls and nurses station were adorned with jack-o’-lanterns, spider webs, witches hats and other decorations appropriate for Halloween.

Nan and Diane, two of our nurses, wore bizarre costumes with startling make-up. They provided good entertainment for all of us who live routine, unexciting lives, and sometimes need palliatives for cabin fever.

The same day in the newspaper, an account appeared of a local fundamentalist Christian church which does not permit their children and adult members to participate in any Halloween activities. They denounced all Halloween activities as “Satan worship.”

Halloween is not, emphatically not, Satan worship. For many of us, Satan is a creature of the imagination of people who need a supernatural being to embody evil and be held responsible for it. They want their God to always be just, benevolent, and loving.

I can remember in my youthful days when Halloween exhibited much more rowdy behavior than today. A garden gate could lifted off its pin hinge and lugged a few blocks away. A lot of unpaid work, but the occasion seemed to justify it. Small, wooden thread spools could be carefully notched on both round ends with a jackknife. Winding string around the spool, then spinning the notched spool against a window made a most satisfying clatter. Windows of autos and homes could be soaped up. There are many memories.

Then Halloween evolved into “Trick or Treat” where children, escorted by mothers, went door to door, getting contributions into their shopping bags of candy, gum, coins, apples and I don’t what else. This is still a custom.

Then as the United Nations became organized, a new Halloween effort appeared: soliciting coins for UNICEF, The United Nations Childrens’ Emergency Fund. A most worthy practice which I advocated in the churches I served. It was also a way to make our children aware of the dire needs of children in other parts of our world; and to address such needs. “Trick or Treat for UNICEF.”

To label Halloween fun as “Satan worship” is ignorant nonsense. Furthermore, such beliefs, including persecution of “witches” is an historic disgrace to the Christian faith.

How many persons, women for the most part, have died excruciating deaths because of that Biblical sentence found in Exodus 22, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”?

In Brian Monahan’s scholarly HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, his chapter, “God’s Charnel House,” details the repulsive witch-hunt mania which lasted for about 200 years, beginning in 1484. The historian estimated the number of alleged witches hanged, drowned or burned alive to be in excess of one hundred thousand persons. Protestants as well as Catholics were equally zealous in pursuing this fanatical murderous crusade. One almost unspeakable horror was perpetrated by the Bishop of Würzburg in 1627. Burned at the stake for alleged witchcraft were eleven adult victims. But they were outnumbered by six small girls and eleven boys. Next time you see children getting on or off the school bus, imagine six girls and eleven boys being burned to death for alleged witchcraft. That is almost too horrible to contemplate even from a distance of 376 years.

Thus, I cannot consider with any equanimity those fundamentalist Christians of today who label innocent Halloween fun as “worship of Satan.” Who can predict how such fanatics will act out their irrational ignorance?

Persecutions for alleged witchcraft did migrate to America. An alleged witch was hanged in Connecticut in 1647. We are all familiar with the witch trials in Salem. Nineteen were hanged and one pressed to death. Playwright Arthur Miller made that terrible scene the center of his famous play, THE CRUCIBLE. Later in the season the Asolo is staging this play.

Witches exist today. Their organization is WICCA. But their purpose is benign and their activities helpful. If my information is correct, they gather in Covens of 13 persons. Their main characteristic is to embrace the wonders of Nature and to hold fitting rituals that will help them feel at one with Nature.

Rest in Peace

September 18, 2003

Robert B. died two days ago. He was one of my first friends when I moved to the Beneva Park Club, July 1, 2002. I was assigned to a dining room table where Bob sat with two others who also have become friends. When one eats three meals a day, nearly every day, with the same men, one inevitably gets to know much about them. Bob was the youngest by about ten years of the four of us.

Bob B., a very complex man, had a varied and interesting career.

Born of a farm family in Iowa, he also owned a farm in Maryland. He knew much about agriculture and was appreciative and sensitive to the needs of farmers and their contribution to us all. On his apartment door was a bold-lettered sign, “NO FARMS, NO FOOD.”

Within fifteen minutes of the time I first met him, he informed me, somewhat militantly, that he was an atheist. Not only did this appear in conversations at meal, again and again, but also his obit in the local newspaper printed the words, “He was an atheist.” I am sure that he left specific instructions to his family to include that in his obituary. He felt some connectedness with me, a Unitarian Universalist, because his mother attended one of our churches in Washington, D.C.

He was a navy veteran, having served as a Lieutenant in the submarine service. Fred D., another tablemate, had served on a sub-chaser. Fred told me that he and Bob had discussed battle tactics, sub-chaser versus submarine.

Bob was also employed by the National Institute of Health as a research scientist. One of his projects was recording the sexual and mating habits of monkeys (I don’t know which breed). It was never made clear to me why the N.I.H. needed and authorized this unusual research. Bob knew the Latin names of all of the primates.

In politics, Bob was an ardent and articulate Democrat. I’m sure one of his regrets is not having lived long enough to vote for the Democrat nominee in the 2004 election.

He relished good food. He was quick to criticize the servings at Beneva Park Club if the soup or the entree did not live up to his expectations. “That’s not French onion soup,, where’s the cheese?” is a complaint I heard many times. He had favorite eating-out places – a particular Chinese restaurant, a seafood restaurant that would serve oysters in the shell. He spoke of eating a dozen more than once. On one occasion he told us he ate three dozen! Perhaps he did; I have no reason to doubt it.

On our table, he kept a particular supply of food not available from the kitchen. On a “lazy Susan” which was his own, there were condiments and other items not supplied by the kitchen. There were particular kinds of liquid sugar substitutes; at least two varieties of mustard, chili sauce, pickled watermelon, marinated mushrooms, a large jar of peanut butter, jars of jams and jellies. Now that these are no longer taking up so much space in the center of the table, we have much more space to eat our meals.

He had somewhat of an obsession with women. He frequently talked of his large supply of pornographic videos. Conversations with him became somewhat raunchy, ending up “below the equator”, which was a favorite euphemism of his. He would ask the waitresses if he could lean his head on their bosoms.

But in my view this somewhat unpleasant aspect of his personality was far out-weighed by his constant devotion to his wife, L. She is in an advanced stage of Alzheimers in the nursing wing which is an adjunct to the Beneva Park Club.

Bob had to use a motorized wheel chair. He had a skillful way of holding L.’s wheelchair with one hand and driving his motorized vehicle with the other. Nearly every day he took her riding around the grounds and corridors. Each wore a bright red beret which had some common memory for them. Bob was never sure whether she had some faint recognition of him or some memory of the songs he sang to her. His devotion never flagged.

A few weeks ago Bob was diagnosed with a throat tumor. His difficulty swallowing was increased by the radiation treatments to which he was exposed. Soon after, a feeding tube had to be used and he was moved to the nursing wing.

A couple of weeks ago, or so, he made the decision never again to eat food or have anything to drink. When I went to see him, he was calm and serene. He did not regret the decision. In about ten days, he died peacefully. I am glad that I knew him.

In THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (Act III, Sc. i), Shakespeare has Valentine say,

“And why not death, rather than living torment.”

An Underemphasized Reason

July 29, 2003

Many of us who believe in the wall of separation between church and state are convinced that if that wall is breached, both individual and associational freedom will suffer. There are churches and religious denominations who seek advantages – getting money from the national budget, imposing particular religious beliefs on public school education, for example. This attitude of “only we have the truth” is illustrated by a quotation from THE FIRST AMERICAN, by H. W. Brands (p.789). Commenting on the fact that some people in England felt possessed of all truths, the apt quotation is, “The only difference between our churches in their opinions, etc., – the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong.”

This attitude, not confined to the churches above, illustrates the necessity of the wall of separation between church and state.

There is another cogent reason: churches and other religious institutions must be free from governmental control and political inroads on religious freedom. This underemphasized reason is highlighted by the following quote in its entirety from the July-August 2003 issue of “Church and State”:

“Atheist Pastor May Keep State Job in Denmark:

“A Danish pastor sparked an uproar recently when he announced that he does not believe in God, but he still may be able to keep his state-paid job.

“The Rev. Thorkild Grosbøll, a Lutheran minister, reportedly said, ‘There is no heavenly God, there is no eternal life, there is no resurrection.’

“Grosbøll was suspended from his pastoral duties June 3 by the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but his future in the ministry has not yet been determined. In Denmark, the final decision over whether Grosbøll should be defrocked falls to the Danish Government’s Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. Under Denmark’s constitution, Lutheran priests are employed by the state and cannot be dismissed by bishops.

“Some 85% of Danes belong to the state-supported Lutheran Church, but only 5 percent of the country’s 5.3 million people attend services regularly.”

I believe strongly that the Lutheran Church should have the right and power to establish standards for the ordaining of its clergy and the right to defrock and dismiss those clergy who violate their rules and standards.

I am an equally strong advocate for the same rule for our Unitarian Universalist clergy, as well as for all denominations and religious associations.

That the Danish government has the constitutional power to employ and dismiss Lutheran priests is a powerful reason not to chip away at the wall of separation between church and state, that, praise be, exists in the United States.

Why? And Why Not?

July 10, 2003

One of my boyhood friends was Billy Hogan. Billy and his family lived on Ferry Street, not far from my Oliver Street home. When Billy grew up, he became involved in Everett politics. When still a young man, he was elected to city office, becoming Alderman William Hogan.

Billy’s family was just one of the Irish families who became politically active in the Boston area as well as the city of Boston. There was “Honey Fitz”, mayor of Boston and father of Rose. Rose Fitzgerald married Joseph Kennedy, generating the politically powerful Kennedys. JFK, Robert, Ted, just to mention a few who have been described as “America’s political royalty” by one author.

Then there was Congressman McCormack who became Speaker of the House of Representatives. His brother, “Knocko” McCormack ran a saloon in South Boston (“Southey”) where, it was said, one must go to in order to solicit political favors.

Just to cite a few additional names will be reminders of how potent politically were the Boston Irish: James Michael Curley, Maurice Tobin. From nearby Boston, Tip O’Neill, Senator David I. Walsh, William Cardinal O’Connell, Richard Cardinal Cushing.

Many of their Irish forbears were immigrants escaping from the terrible potato blight in Ireland, 1845-1850.

As A. N. Wilson tellingly describes in THE VICTORIANS, most of the Irish were poor. The estates, great and smaller, were owned by the English aristocracy. The food for the peasant Irish was potatoes. That was practically the only food for the Irish people. A man might eat 11 or 12 pounds of potatoes a day. Two million acres were planted with potatoes.

When the blight ruined potato crops, the absentee British landlords did nothing to help. Some were growing corn on their estates,but exported it for profit rather than sharing to prevent mass starvation.

Large numbers of the Irish poor emigrated to the United States and Canada, enduring wretched conditions on the passage and settlement in a new country. To quote A. N. Wilson, there is “the eternally shaming statistic of 1.1 million deaths by starvation in Ireland between 1845 and 1850.”

Two quotations cited by Wilson (p. 83) recognized the inhumane position taken by those absentee, wealthy English aristocrats who owned so much of the land in Ireland.

Philosopher Benjamin Jowett: “I have always felt a certain horror of political economists, since I heard one of them say that the famine in Ireland in 1848 would not kill more than a million people and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.”

Sidney Smith: “The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots.”

WHY? Why do human beings act with such cruelty? We know that the situation described is not unique. The 20th century experienced the Holocaust where 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis and their allies.

But there was not enough shock and revulsion in that awful genocide to persuade humankind to abandon such killings. The New York Times, June 7, printed this summary of current horrors:

Congo: Since 1999, an intensifying civil war has left an estimated 3.3 million people dead and displaced tens of thousands....

Somalia: 1988-94 ... 50,000 dead

Angola: 1975-2002 – Civil war left and estimated 400,000 people dead and displaced an undetermined number....

Sierra Leone: 1991-2002 – Civil war left tens of thousands dead and 2 million displaced....

Ivory Coast: Since 2002, thousands have been killed and 1 million displaced....

Rwanda: Since early 1990s ... more than a half-million dead and 4 million displaced....

Ethiopia and Eritrea: 1998-2000 ... tens of thousands dead, 650,000 displaced....

Mozambique: 1977-1992 – Civil war left an estimated 800,000 dead....

Africa is not the only continent where such genocidal killings have occurred. When the dictatorship in Argentina was recently overthrown, it was disclosed that as many as 30,000 had “disappeared.” We will never know how many Soviet people died at the hands of Lenin and Stalin, but it has been estimated in the millions.

Is it possible to generate internationally and worldwide the helpfulness and concern that exists among neighbors and families as I described in the prior Musing, “Friends.”

I don’t know. The United Nations could organize peacekeeping forces that could mitigate considerably these genocidal events. But that can never happen until the United States takes the lead, and is willing to yield some sovereignty to international courts of justice. Furthermore, by assuming a front-role in funding international peacekeeping. A small percentage of the Pentagon budget would accomplish wonders in peacemaking.

The peoples of the world compete in the Olympic Games without killing each other. Is it too far-fetched to believe that the example of the Olympic torch could light up the world and seriously address hunger, sickness, boundaries, finance, trade, human rights?

If some solution is not adopted, the human venture is doomed to failure.

Friends

June 19, 2003

In THE TEMPEST (Act V, Sc. i), Miranda, who has been reared without human contact other than her father, Prospero, and who, following the shipwreck, falls in love with Ferdinand, declares:

“O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t.”

Prospero, whose experience has been of betrayal by friends and associates, responds cynically,

“’Tis new to thee.”

When we consider genocides, the lying and distortions of governments, greed for oil or fame, surely Prospero was correct. When one looks at politics, financial swindles, some CEOs whose greed is beyond sensible comprehension, how can we dispute Prospero?

And yet, I had an experience last week that strengthened my faith that there are “goodly creatures.”

I was in the home of the Newtons in Hubbard, Oregon, where my daughter, Janet, is suffering from the effects of A.L.S. She cannot talk, swallow, or walk. Thus she is dependent not only on the alert, loving, devoted care of her husband, Ron, and her daughter, Christina, and son Ian, but also from at least a dozen women friends in the area who care enough to help so Ron can get a little relief and tend somewhat to his law practice. Other members of our extended family – sister, brothers, sisters-in-law, others have traveled to Oregon to help in all ways possible.

In addition, Janet depends on certain life-sustaining equipment, powered by electricity. Ron came to my room about 2 a.m. to provide me with a flashlight. The power was out. He went out seeking the cause of the outage. Down the road he came upon a utility crew replacing a pole which had been rammed by a colliding pick-up truck.

When Ron explained how much the power was needed, one of the crew said he had a generator on the truck; and would follow Ron home and leave the generator there until power was restored.

The power was soon restored, but Ron realized that they needed a generator as a stand-by if other power outages occurred. So he called Jim, a friend, who knew something about generators to find out what features were important, what makes were superior, how much generators cost and other details.

Jim replied that he had an extra generator and would bring it over. Within a half-hour, Jim delivered the generator fully fueled and ready for instant use if the need should arise.

I met Jim and his wife, Marion, who is one of the dozen women ready to help Janet as the need arises.

O. Henry once wrote a pungent short story, “Friends in San Rosario,” but friends in Hubbard/Canby are real, not fictional. Miranda was correct,

“O brave new world
That has such people in’t.”

I intend to write next about the many terrible happenings of man’s inhumanity to man, but Miranda experienced “goodly creatures” and so do we.

THANKS BE.

War Is Always Catastrophe

April 30, 2003

This remark is attributed to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations. The relatively low number of casualties in the war with Iraq experienced by the forces of the UK and USA without doubt is a smaller number than many predicted. The number of civilian casualties, children and adults who died or were maimed by the bombing and military actions may never be known. Lest we be cajoled into thinking that war is not so terrible, a few reminders may be sobering.

In a review of THE FIRST DAY ON THE SOMME, by Martin Middlebrook, we are reminded that July 1, 1916 is the bloodiest day in Britain’s history. World War I was largely trench warfare, and, often enough, the trenches of Allies and Germans were only hundreds of yards apart. The British soldiers attacked, advancing toward the German trentches. At the end of that day, the British had more than 57,000 casualties. 20,000 men were dead and three out of four officers had been killed or wounded. All for an attempt to reach German trenches, some less than 200 yards away. Can any words effectively describe such a day?

In HAMLET, Act IV, Sc. iv, the Norweigian captain says to Hamlet and others:

“We go to gain a little patch of ground
That has in it no profit but the name.”

That was the pattern of trench warfare in World War I. You will find that vividly documented in Barbara Tuchman’s THE GUNS OF AUGUST.

There was slaughter on the oceans, too. Most of us are familiar with the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania by a German U-boat; 1,200 persons [lost] their lives. Because many of them were Americans, this sinking was the event that brought the United States into World War I.

On January 1, 1945, there was another sinking that had a loss of more than 9,000 persons, the worst maritime disaster in history. The German cruise liner, Wilhelm Gustoff was torpedoed in the freezing waters of the Baltic Sea.

On board were 1,000 German U-boat sailors on their way to Kiel to serve aboard submarines. Also there were 370 women of the Naval Auxiliary. But most of the people who died were civilians trying to escape from the advancing Soviet forces. (I read this information in a book review in the “New Yorker” discussing the book CRAB WALK by Gunter Grass.)

In World War II, most killings were of civilians. One need only name cities to stimulate that recollection: London, Coventry, Dresden, Berlin, Leningrad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki – many others.

Unsuccessfully I have been trying to locate an article with a forecasting of the next World War. The essence of the article was that with the advance of science in devising and delivering new weapons there will be no need to send our uniformed men and women anywhere to engage in combat. The weapons will be “smart” missiles, unmanned “drone” bombers and other unmanned aircraft, all skillfully directed to their targets by their inboard computers, satellites and other devilish ways to destroy people.

If that scenario is a real possibility, then the only deaths will be civilians – millions of them. Other than similar retaliations by the “enemy”, our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen will be safe at home. But is that much consolation? General William Sherman was more correct than he knew when he proclaimed, “War is Hell.”

Some person unknown to me made the observation that the certain proof that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe is that no one has bothered to make contact with us.

Apatheism

April 15, 2003

“Apatheism” is a word coined by Jonathan Rauch. In an article in “The Atlantic Monthly”, May 2003, he defines apatheism as “a disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people’s.”

I am 100% in agreement with 50% of his definition of this new word. I do care much about my own religion. But as with Rauch, I have a strong “disinclination to care about other people’s.” To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, I don’t care if any fellow-inhabitant on this wonder-full planet Earth believes in one God, three, twenty or none, if he/she does no harm to others.

Jonathan Rauch also points out that more and more persons seem to agree with him. He cites a survey which indicates that “the proportion of people who say they never go to church or synagogue has tripled since 1972 to 33% in 2000.”

I’m reminded of a verse my colleague, Keith Munson, cited in a sermon recently:

If one drop of rain
The sidewalk doth besmirch
It’s far too wet
To go to church.

If you conclude that, as a career professional in religion, this trend disturbs me, you are wrong. The “true believer” in a particular religion has too often been so fanatical about belief that they have prayed to their God and often preyed violently on others.

In Judeo-Christian history alone, there have been such notorious persecution, wars and suffering in the name of particular religion: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Thirty Years War, the Puritans who came to this land to secure religious freedom for themselves and to deny it to others, the KKK and its violent hatred of Catholics and Jews, the terrible Holocaust of recent memory. There are many other examples.

James Russell Lowell, who lived in the 19th century and more known for his poetry, once wrote, “Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-blooded cruel as in punishing differences of belief.”

So two cheers for “apatheism.” This attitude toward religions will not ruin our nation in spite of the money-begging appeals of some intolerant TV evangelists.

There was a healthy, hopeful contrast in the book, LONGITUDES AND ATTITUDES by Thomas L. Friedman (p. 309). Attending Parents’ night at his daughter’s school, in Washington in the gym with a large American flag, a Noah’s ark of black, white and Hispanic singing “God Bless America,” Friedman choked back tears, saying to himself, “Here is the whole story right here, E. Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One ... Natalie’s school and the World Trade Center have a lot in common – both are temples of America’s civic religion. Our civic religion is built on the faith that anyone can aspire to come to our shores, become a member of this American nation, work hard, and make of him- or herself whatever he or she wants. The economic strength of America derives from millions of individuals doing just that, and the military might of America derives from the ability of all these different individuals to come together into a fist when these bedrock values are threatened.”

So Be It.

Introduction To Musings XIV

Holiday Greetings
November – December 2003

May the holidays be a time of rest, renewal, and inspiration for you and your loved ones. These greetings recognize how central to our lives are our families. May health and happiness prevail among those you hold dear.

For our family this has been a traumatic year. Daughter Janet Newton died after a doomed struggle with A.L.S. (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the Lou Gehrig disease). She fought valiantly and her courage and spirit were, and are, a continuing inspiration to us all. Her husband, Ron, daughter Christina, and son, Ian were wholly devoted to caring for her during this tragic period. Other members of the family traveled from California, Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, and other far places to help in her care. Janet is free of suffering now, but her life of love and caring will always be our precious memories.

Daughter Marjorie had mastectomy surgery earlier in the year. All indications are that the surgery and post-surgical chemo-therapy have been successful. Marj embraced this serious matter with courage and optimism with the total support of her husband, Dale.

Mildred Swanson, my first wife, and mother of Marj, John, Janet, and Bill suffered a tragic loss. Her husband, Roger Swanson died suddenly of a heart attack in Reading, Massachusetts, on the day before Janet’s Memorial Service. This sad event required much time, travel, and effort by John, Marj and Bill to help straighten out matters dealing with the disposition of much goods in order to have the Swanson house ready for sale and other matters concerning the estate. Mildred now lives in an assisted living facility in San Francisco.

Son Bill Westman had knee surgery in mid-November to repair torn ligaments which happened when he was playing tennis. He will deal with rehab and expects full recovery.

The dark days of this year were lightened by the arrival of another great-grandchild. Dylan Hunter Roseberry was born November 3, in University Hospital, Albuquerque, New Mexico. The happy parents are Maria and David Roseberry. Grandma Alicia reports that the baby is a strawberry blonde with blue eyes and very handsome.

So life and death have been very much a part of our extended family this year. That is the nature of human existence. If we did not care about others, there would be no deep grief nor real happiness.

My own health seems relatively stable, although I am quite aware that I am in decline. After all, I have been on this planet since 1911.

Happy Holidays,
Carl