loving parents but the way they
read the bible meant no dancing
on my own after college I
took lessons to please my new wife
i was never good but had fun
for years moving with the music
now my knees and back restrict me
to a slow shuffle and a sigh
but in my sleep i leap and fly
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Feb. 6, 2014
I was reading an article last night about fathers and sons, and memories came flooding back of the time I took my son out for his first drink.
Carling Black Label ad
Off we went to the local watering hole which is only two blocks from the house. I got him a Castle … he didn’t like it – so I drank it.
Then I got him a Carling Black Label, he didn’t like it, so I drank it.
It was the same with the Windhoek Lager and Premium Dry Cider.
By the time we were done with the whiskey, I could hardly push the stroller back home.
– Sent from a friend in Texas. Years ago it could easily have been [we’ll call him] Bob just for the fun of it. Bob’s humor broke the soberness of pondering climate departure. I needed that today.
Nestlé wants to sell more chips,
so the Tollhouse recipe
calls for two times more chocolate
than tastes best–just try and see!
From the yellow packages,
I eat handfuls semi-sweet,
but in cookie dough, like life,
moderation makes the treat.
I love butter on fresh bread,
pancakes, toast and potatoes,
but in cookies, half will do:
half Crisco with sugar goes.
Half brown sugar and half white,
integration tastes just right!
Use real vanilla, not the fake–
you’ll be proud of what you bake!
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL.
Last evening we published Susan Lince’s wonderful poem “Every Stone Shall Cry” and her accompanying art work. Thanks to Susan for permission to publish them.
Not everyone is familiar with this line about the stones. The poetry of the stones crying out has its roots in Hebrew Scripture in a poem from the Book of Habakkuk, later echoed by Luke as Jesus’ response to those who want to silence his disciples and protesters to Roman occupation – “I tell you,” says Jesus riding on an ass into the city occupied by the Romans, “if these [people] were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40).
The original Ode of Woe against the Chaldeans’ foreign interventions and military-economic occupation becomes, on Jesus’ lips, the ode against the Roman system of occupation and internal collaboration by indigenous leaders, and, on Susan’s lips, it echoes from the walls of intractable powers that nature itself will not long abide in silence. Nature will not be silent! Think of the stones in the wall of Wall Street. Even the stones cry out against the abuse. Here’s the text from the Book of Habakkuk where the reference to the crying stones first appears:
Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—
for how long? —
and loads himself with pledges!”
Will not your debtors suddenly arise,
and those awake who will make you tremble?
Then you will be spoil for them.
Because you have plundered many nations,
all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who dwell in them.
Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house [society/empire],
to set his nest on high,
to be safe from the reach of harm!
You have devised shame for your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.
For the stone will cry out from the wall,and the beam from the woodwork respond.
Woe to him who builds a town with blood…– Habakkuk 2: 6b-12a
The ode against the Chaldean Empire ends with a lovely line looking for the day when the most intimate knowledge of the Breath of Life will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” and the stones will no long cry.
Susan is a writer, painter, poet, composer, environmental and social justice activist. She and her spouse, John Lince-Hopkins, developed the movement Requiem2020. They will lead the First Tuesday Dialogues event on Climate Departure at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, MN Tuesday evening, March 4, at 7:00 P.M.
Original art by Susan Lince – “Every Stone Shall Cry”
And every stone shall cry
The stone cries
Along the roadside
As the bomb explodes
Killing young soldiers
As well as the children nearby.
And every stone shall cry
The stone knows to cry
Even before the excavator
Upheaves the earth
To take away the coal
And leaves only a ragged empty space.
And every stone shall cry.
The ancient stones
Of the wailing wall
Cry as they have cried for centuries,
Listening to the prayers
Of the sufferers
And the selfish,
The grieving,
And the greedy
That reverberate
With echoes of misunderstanding
About who has been left out
Of the Kingdom of God on Earth.
And every stone shall cry.
Every stone shall cry
Yet goes unheard,
As humankind,
With hardening core,
Pushes violence, power,
Injustice, and neglect
Rumbling across the world
Like boulders.
– Susan Lince, artist and poet, Chaska, MN.
We pledge allegiance to the earth
that sustains humanity,
and to the land, air, water, and sun
on which our future rests:
one fragile creation
in our hands to preserve and protect,
with equality, freedom, justice,
and peace for all
.
– Steven Shoemaker and
Joan Humphrey Lefkow,
2007
Prince Charles recently called climate deniers “the headless chicken brigade”.</p>
“It is baffling, I must say, that in our modern world we have such blind trust in science and technology that we all accept what science tells us about everything – until, that is, it comes to climate science.
“All of a sudden, and with a barrage of sheer intimidation, we are told by powerful groups of deniers that the scientists are wrong and we must abandon all our faith in so much overwhelming scientific evidence.
“So, thank goodness for our young entrepreneurs here this evening, who have the far-sightedness and confidence in what they know is happening to ignore the headless chicken brigade and do something practical to help.
“As you may possibly have noticed from time to time, I have tended to make a habit of sticking my head above the parapet and generally getting it shot off for pointing out what has always been blindingly obvious to me.
“Perhaps it has been too uncomfortable for those with vested interests to acknowledge, but we have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have.”
– Prince Charles at award ceremony honoring young green entrepreneur.
Think Headless Chicken Brigade Keystone Pipeline.
The instructions of the deceased, left in his safety deposit box, were no viewing of his body, no visitation, cremation, and no obituary.
Why no obituary?
Here is and excerpt from the homily delivered yesterday at the memorial service for Kenneth Beaufoy (b. 8/4//1923; d. 1/24/2014), the former World War II “Tommy” (British soldier), who married Ilse, a former German soldier, one of only two women later decorated with the Iron Cross for standing at her post during the Allied bombing of Hamburg.
Ken Beaufoy left very specific instructions for his son. At the time of his death he wanted cremation, no visitation, no viewing of his body, no interment of his remains … and, most surprising of all, no obituary.
Why would a man leave instructions that there be no obituary upon his death?
Ken Beaufoy sat in these pews for the last 17 years. Every Monday morning without fail he was at the weekly Bible study at Auburn Manor, the nursing home where we moved the Bible study to accommodate members living there. On Monday mornings he plumbed the depths of Scripture and shared the parts of his story he told few others outside his family. Hollis and Patsy, Karin, Barb, Max. Jesse, Katie, Chuck, Bernice, Marge, Dana and Lorraine were all blessed by his sharings and by his well-worn King James Bible…. They were a very special group of healing for Ken. People who gathered around the Word to discover more and more of who God is and who we are as God’s children.
Ken knew himself to be a child of God – a beloved “sinner of your redeeming” as the wonderful line from the Anglican funeral service puts it. We will miss him sorely. His chair will remain in the circle, empty, like Elijah’s chair at the Seder meal of Passover.
But the question remains. Why would a man like Ken Beaufoy elect to have no viewing, no visitation,and no obituary?Why would a British signalman who cracked the German code in World War II want no obituary?
Why would a British soldier who fell in love with an enemy combatant. a German soldier named Ilse, one of only two women later decorated with the Iron Cross in Germany, not want an obituary?
Why would a Brit who walked in the woods alone each night back in England, worrying about his beloved Ilse, stuck back in Elmshorn, Germany, not want an obituary, unless he knew what Paul wrote to the Corinthians that the last enemy to be destroyed is death?
Why would a man with a great sense of humor not want an obituary? Ken had a nickname for everyone. In Shakopee he walked into the Subway and at other places he greeted people by the nicknames he had given them.” Hey “26” –“ Hey, Irish!” and he and “Irish” would break out in a duet of Danny Boy. He called his father The Prophet because his father was always talking about what was going to happen and it almost never did…. Only Ken could have gotten away with that. At the wedding of 12 people, the Prophet marched Ilse down the aisle, out of step with Ilse, changing step three times before they finally got it right. Ken wrote in his memoirs “Prophet didn’t have a suit! Had to borrow one for the day from a neighbor, Billy King! The jacket was too short for him. Prophet called it a Bum freezer!.”
They say that truth is often stranger than fiction. Why would a man whose life story rivals the very best fiction, the most intriguing novels created out of human imagination, not want his story summarized in an obituary?
There is no way to summarize his exploits. No way to accurately tell the story of the young street thief who ended up in charge of security for the bank in Chicago; the soldier who broke the German code, met the love of his life in a Canteen during the Allied occupation of Germany after the war; fought with the British Foreign Office to get Ilse a visa to Britain, and, when that failed, bicycled his way to the home of his Member of Parliament, appearing unannounced and without appointment – a man as bulldoggish as Winston Churchill and unafraid of any human authority – to get his German war-bride-to-be out of German and into England.
Why would a man so frustrated by the slowness and opposition of the British Foreign Office be willing to enter Germany illegally in order to get his bride not want an obituary? </strongWhy
“Late in August,” wrote Ken in his hand-written memoir, “I read in the newspaper that the first German girl to be married to a soldier had arrived in England. She would be the first German war bride in England! I couldn’t understand why Ilse hadn’t been issues a visa! I’d already made up my mind to take a merchant ship to Denmark, slip across the border into Germany, make my way to Elmshorn and marry Ilse in the German church. I’s somehow find a job in Germany and hope that one day we’d be able to enter Britain legally! I decided I’d go see Henry Usborne (the Member of the House of Commons) one last time I did, and he told me that the next Friday at Question Time in Parliament, he would ask Ernest Bevin, Britain’s Foreign Minister a direct question as to why Ilse Kuhl of Elmshorn, Germany had not been issued a visa to enter Great Britain for the purpose of marriage.
“The next Saturday, two German policemen knocked on the door of [Ilse’s home] in Elsmshorn. Gertrude Hesse, a tenant in the house had seen them approaching the house from her bedroom window. She ran downstairs and warned Ilse! Isle was scared stiff. She thought the police had discovered her black market dealings and had come to arrest her! The policemen entered the house and after ascertaining she was Ilse Kuhl, handed her British visa to her along with an authorization to board a military transport aircraft for her flight to London on the coming Thursday.”
Why would a man with a story like that not want an obituary?
We’ll never know for sure, but we can guess. He was a private man. He was a humble man. He knew himself to be what the Anglican church calls each of us, “a sinner of your own redeeming,” and so at the end it was not himself that he wished to focus upon, but instead the goodness and merciful kindness of his Lord.”
“All flesh is grass. The grass withers; the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” – Rev. 21
What might Winston Churchill say about climate change and the prognosis of climate departure around 2020?
“So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent… Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are now entering a period of consequences…. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now…”
– Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936
The Last Lion – Winston Churchill
Bristlecone Pines photo
Clinging tenaciously to the ridgetops
and twisted by the winds,
bristlecone pines are the oldest
living trees on Earth. The oldest
of them, found only in the White
Mountains of California, are
4,600 years old. Those pines were
already 1,400 years old when the
Egyptians were building the pyramids.
The Bristlecone Pines on Windy Ridge,
Colorado (picture, taken by friend
Harry Strong) are nearly 1,000 years
old.
These gnarled trees have endured
strong winds, cold temperatures,
drought and poor soils. They learn
to grow horizontally. The sign posted
on Windy Ridge invites visitors to
“walk through these survivors and
stand watch with them over the vast
South Park.”
How will these remarkably adaptive
creatures do with the projection of
Climate Departure? Are they calling
out for help from down below, echoed
back to them in song by Pete Seeger’s
“God’s Countin’ on Me; God’s Countin’
on you”?
You might say that Pete’s life was a
reply to the Bristlecone pines, a
modern day Habakkuk whose writing
we have from the time when the Bristle-
cone Pines were just teenagers:
“I will stand upon my
watch, and set me upon the tower,
and will watch to see [God] will say
to me, that I will answer when I am
reproved. And the LORD answered me,
and said, Write the vision and make
it plain upon tablets, that he may
run who reads it.”
Views from the Edge 