Post: Readers Respond

Please renew my subscription. Art Anderson’s earthly wisdom continues to be my favorite reading. Blessings on you all. Tim Heintzleman, Thomaston, Connecticut.

Visited today with Kermit Olson, twin brother of Keith, uncle of Mark, out in his frame shop (Village Frame) in Wayzata. Kermit was thrilled in receiving and reading Mark’s “The Call of the Wind and the Water” [Mark Olson, Pietisten, Summer, 1993]. I told him, “You’re going to be a subscriber.” So here’s a gift subscription for him. Start with the current issue if possible.

Thanks, Phil, for taking Lorraine and me on another trip through Sweden. On the way to Grythyttan, you passed very close to where my Dad was born. Could it be that Sandy and I are related? And did you not visit Vall — where the Covenant was born?

Sports — you’ve got to know that Edison has a very good ice-hockey team this year. A neighbor, Joey Fehn, is captain and a high scorer! Take it easy. Curtiss Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Thanks to you and Elder Lindahl for “The Open Circle of Fellowship” article [Pietisten, Winter 1993]. We are Covenanters in Lindsborg and have read and been told about the early doctrinal controversies, but we now experience the Open Circle of Fellowship with Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics in our local organization of our churches. Virginia Hedquist, Lindsborg, Kansas.

I am renewing Pietisten as I like having warm thoughts and feelings from past associations and memories with our Covenant — which Pietisten reminds me of and brings back memories. Phil Christensen, Edina, Minnesota.

Here at last is $10.00 submitted to rescue my subscription from the oblivian of expiration. Perish the thought! Pietisten will forever (or as much of ever granted me) be a welcomed visitor. Its pages are always gladly received and devoured. Happily, Pietisten brings with it new and old vistas for inspiration and renewal of thught. Yes, keep it coming! L. Edward Nelson, Longview, Washington.

February 9, 1994. “The fundamental problem with rationalization is that, when some wrong decision is rationalized or trivialized, it corrupts all future decisions. When the next ethical challenge arises, instead of starting out with a 100% clean intellect, we begin with 95%” [Pietisten, Winter 1993]. Of the excellent interview with Rabbi Adler, written by Karl Soderstrom, these two sentences have made me think the hardest. What a laconic way of stating the problem with humanity, the problem with all of us these days.

Day after day, week after week, the media has been bombarding me with the images of the butchery taking place in ex-Yugoslavia. I have seen the same stories, listened to the same political promises, and heard the same pitiful sighs in three different languages. The general message is the same: “The bloodshed must be stopped . . .”, “We abhor such attacks . . .”, “We must take measures against . . .”.

I have been fooling myself for months, sitting in front of my TV set, chuckling in disapproval and silently assuring myself that the big guys in the capitals of the world will surely do something about this mess. For how long can I bear the thought of mothers maimed at the marketplace, children shot at in the playground, whole families killed while attending a loved one’s funeral? To my utter disgust, I now realize that my intellect (only a small percentage of which seems to be clean) has successfully tolerated all this for months on end. I do not know at what point in life my intellect was 100% clean; however, I do not think that, given the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, any one of us can claim to have a clean intellect. Thank you, Rabbi Adler, for finally offering an explanation for my own — and the world’s — absurd behavior and pathological passiveness. Ahu Latifoglu, Istanbul, Turkey.

Here is a check for the renewal of Pietisten — and for two of our friends and fellow pietists. Reading Pietisten is like a wanderer coming home. And it is good to know where home is. Glen Wiberg, New Brighton, Minnesota.

Thanks for the back copies of Pietisten — must admit I’ve had no time yet to read them, but look forward to doing so soon. We just got back from our UCC Minnesota group trip to Coahoma, Mississippi to work on Habitat houses there and have been scrambling to catch up after being gone for over two weeks.

It turned out to be a memorable trip in more ways than one! We had nice, mild weather for all the first week and into the second, but Wednesday of the second week (2/9), ice/sleet began falling and continued through Friday AM. I’ve never seen ice that thick before, and, needless to say, it wrought much havoc all around. Trees were over the roads, branches broken, power lines down, poles and crossarms broken, and power out for miles around. We had gotten enough warning to draw water into all the containers we had in the kitchen of the “inn” (an old remodeled school house), so had drinking water but had to hoard it since we had no idea when power might be restored.

But we used ice chunks to melt for dishwater and ditchwater to flush the toilets. We put ice chunks into the freezer and refrigerator to slow warming there. But the bigger (and more unexpected) problems were the fact no grocery stores were open for miles around, and there was no gas available since pumps couldn’t operate.

Those of us who were to leave Saturday a.m., anyway, decided it would help if we got out of there Friday afternoon and eased the pressure on those who would be staying for the third and final week. We drove over 60 miles before we ran out of the areas hit by the storm. Just plain snow in Iowa seemed no problem at all after all that. Still, we had gotten a lot of work done on five different houses earlier, and it is a thrill to see the progress being made — albeit somewhat slowly in a needy area. Some work is spreading to nearby towns, all of which can use Habitat houses.

And especially thrilling to a lot of us was the progress in the library being organized in the community building in Coahoma. It’s beginning to look great, and what is needed most now is a librarian who can open the place up to the children and adults in the town. Thanks to a newly formed EDUCATION FOR COAHOMA, INC. foundation, maybe that can be the next step there.

We were impressed that all the folks who had pledged to come the third week did show up, and, while their work was somewhat limited by the lack of power, they managed to find enough to keep them busy and had even greater opportunities to visit with the townspeople for they weren’t able to get out to school and work for much of that week. Just hope the power is there during the six or seven weeks that the collegiate groups will be there to work for they can get a lot done if all goes well. Marilynn Ford, New Albin, Iowa.