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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday August 18, 2003 Volume V Number 38 |
FOCUS - Summer Heat, Winter Light
This weekend, sweltering in the summer heat, I’m emotionally spent. I’ve got so much to tell you, but I need a weekend to regroup. It’s a good kind of tired. I picked up enough LeaderFOCUS material this week to keep me going for months. I’ve got a good set of notes. (As you well know by now, I have no difficulty finding things to write about.)
I went into the Archives, and found the LeaderFOCUS I put together on the Christmas Eve that followed the life-changing tragedy of September 11, 2001. It was Christmas in Colorado. There we met a young woman from Stockholm, Therese, who taught us the magical tradition of Santa Lucia. It inspired one of my better efforts – if I may say so myself – and in the review, I understood a little more fully why this week packed such a powerful emotional punch.
In that edition of LF (now over a year and a half old), I took a big risk and expressed in writing the hope that Therese would become a permanent member of our extended family (a rather bold move for an adoring uncle – but my nephew, Grant, wasn’t really surprised). Turns out, I had plenty of company in the family. It was unanimous. We all felt the same.
So this weekend, Therese came to California for a large, enthusiastic reception. She was introduced to us all as the new Mrs. Grant Michels. She’s one of us now. And what a day it was.
Here now, in hopes that a Christmas message in August might remind us all that this suffocating summer heat is only temporary, is the story of Therese that touched out hearts then – and touch our hearts still.
A repeat worth repeating.
Saffron Cakes and Candlelight
Ethnic caricatures are always risky.
Generalizations usually get qualified by exceptions. A thoughtful speaker will anticipate all the objections to a general thesis in his speech. It’s a sign of preparedness. You can generalize, but you can easily slip at your own peril and cross the line and over-generalize. It’ll be big trouble. Stereotypes can be insulting; proceed with caution if you dare. And now, profiling, the practice of sketching out common features of appearance and behavior and attitude of certain cultural and sub-cultural groups as a basis for identifying and apprehending culprits, many believe should be flat illegal. Racial profiling is considered to be the primary excuse for all manner of invasive and intrusive behavior by law enforcement, and worse, prejudicial behavior by the general public, and should be banned by the law itself; some sort of ghastly penalty attached. So they say.
I’d agree. To a point.
It’s a terrible consequence of tragedy that some jump so readily to the indefensible conclusion that all the terrorists’ ethnic cousins share in the blame simply because of the color of their skin or their hair or cultural dress or facial features or version of spoken English or even religious affiliation. It’s happened before. It will happen again. Its name is ignorance.
But that said, it’s difficult to keep from ascribing some character traits as typical and representative of certain social and cultural groupings. The Brits are stiff. The Dutch, thrifty. The French, lusty. Italians, loud. Greeks, proud. Germans, precise. Japanese, industrious. Latin Americans, vivacious.
There, I’ve offended most everyone.
But the Swedes. Ah, the Swedes.
If reduced to a single word, I’d call the Swedes hearty.
The Homeland is at once rugged and weathered, and steeped in the seasons. The deep green forests and blue lakes and tumbling rivers and long coastline and vast archipelago with islands scattered along the shore; little villages on the slopes with centuries of tradition and the clean bustling cities with spires reaching for the heavens and a lyrical language bind a people who are, well, in a word, hearty.
Through a couple of the most recent centuries, the children of Sweden migrated all over the globe, many finding comparable real estate somewhere in the North Woods, somewhere like North Dakota or Minnesota. And while new generations of Swedes rarely return to the Homeland, the Homeland’s been transplanted and a new heartiness steeped in traditions long revered survive in far away places where warmth and grace and affection have a counter-part. These attractive human traits are cultivated in the context of their opposites – harsh cold, severity and isolation.
When Swedes refer to a long winter’s night – it’s really quite literal. The sun may well wait until after ten in the morning to make an appearance. And then, sink a short time later early afternoon. You may not see the bright yellow ball at all on any given day; it will be hidden behind a thick gray cloud cover which may or may not drop even more snow on the blanket of white already covering up just about everything. Christmas is just about the coldest and darkest time of the year, when candles on the window sill can be seen for miles on a dark winter’s night. And Christmas lights brighten up spirits as well as rooms. A crackling fire on the hearth, big granite stones from the fireplace radiating heat completes the scene.
Maybe the Swedes have taught us as much as anyone else the wonder and joy and heart of the Christmas season.
It all begins with the appearance of a Swedish beauty in white.
Santa Lucia.
* * * * * * *
Little is known for sure about a young Christian girl named Lucia who lived in the Fourth Century in the village of Sicily when Christians were a persecuted minority. Much legend surrounds her life. She was venerated later by the church for her noble efforts to minister to believers in hiding. She came from a wealthy family, schooled in the pagan religion and arts of ancient Rome. But early in her life, she became a Christian, and used her position of privilege to come to the aid of believers who met in secret, often in the cold dark and dank tunnels beneath the city. She brought food, and would care for the sick. To illumine the way, she wore candles on a wreath setting like a crown on her soft brown hair. She became known as a bearer of light in the darkness.
According to the legend, she suffered the fate of other believers when she was exposed and then apprehended for her Christian faith and the illicit aid she provided the “enemies” of the State. Her wealthy parents could not protect her. Legends surrounding her fate abound. One authority sentenced her to be delivered to a brothel where she would live the remainder of her days in forced prostitution. God intervened. Officials were unable to physically move her as she stood firm. Frustrated, outspoken purist officials claimed the supremacy of the Law and they condemned her to die. But their efforts were thwarted again. So they ordered up a bonfire. Surrounded by a shroud of goodness, condemned to death by fire, the flames had no affect. Not until an angry executioner wielded the sword that took her head in the public square did the Roman guard rest. Her martyrdom inspired generations to stand tall for the faith.
It’s difficult to separate fact from fiction in a story seventeen hundred years old. But history describes a wicked persecution of Christian believers by Emperor Diocletian from the same era in the same territory. Believers claim she was martyred then. Lucia’s name appears in ancient manuscripts and two churches from as early as the Eighth Century were named for her far away in Britain, long before that nation recognized Christianity as the religion of the State.
In the 10th Century, the King of Sweden expanded his territory to include Norway and Denmark and Finland and England through sheer military might and personal resolve. He was a mighty warrior, a fearsome presence, a loud and commanding figure. The wealth and fame and victories in battle gave him time and vast resources. With age, he mellowed and turned contemplative and philosophic. Fear turned to affection. His subjects revered him and he became one of the most beloved of all Scandinavian Royalty.
His name: King Canute.
Certainly the Norwegian Rockne family remembered this King from a thousand years before when they christened their newborn boy… the boy who would become the fierce legendary football coach at Notre Dame (1918-1931), Knute.
It was this King who pronounced over a thousand years ago that the Christmas celebration would last a full month, beginning with the shortest day of the calendar year – December 13th.
(Since that pronouncement, scientists introduced the phenomena of the “Leap Year,” necessary because the earth goes just a tad beyond three hundred sixty-five revolutions while circling the sun every year. So today, the shortest day is December 20.)
King Canute’s proposed thirty-day celebration still holds most everywhere. Lights go up in my town just after Thanksgiving. Traditions implanted themselves around the celebration of Jesus’ birth, and blended in with other pagan traditions of the deep winter, at least on this side of the Equator.
And somewhere along the way, the Swedes and the Norwegians took a liking to the inspiration of the lovely Italian Christian girl, bringing light to the darkness in the seclusion of the cold chill of an underworld of rejection and hunger and opposition. She brought a flickering light. Warm sustenance. Gifts of kindness. A warm hug. Santa Lucia was embraced by the people of the North.
They made her a blonde.
* * * * * * *
When Carolyn and I stepped off the airplane in Stockholm five years ago, we were greeted by my sister and her husband. All four of us have just enough Scandinavian blood running through our veins to say that it felt eerily like a coming home. Vonnie and Greg settled had in for a five year stay on business. We were short-term visitors, Americans through and through. It was a total immersion in the culture of the Swedes. The clean streets of the city, the skyline and the waterfront just like the postcards.
Now they are back Stateside. They returned to their Colorado home. They brought a bit of Sweden with them.
This week, we packed our bags and hopped a plane to share Christmas in the foothills of the Rockies.
* * * * * * *
To this very day, Santa Lucia’s Day marks the start of the Christmas celebration in Sweden. December 13.
The nation’s leaders gather at the Royal Palace in Stockholm for the annual appearance of the Queen of Lights. Little Swedish girls grow up dreaming that when they come of age, they just might be chosen to walk into the candlelit Ballroom, filled with Sweden’s favorite sons and daughters and the Royal Family around the National Tree and make her entrance in the traditional white robe and red sash, ivy crown and five tall white candles lit. And as she walks, bearing a platter of warm saffron buns, the people smile and sing “Santa Lucia” and hold one another in a kind of holy reverence because this young girl represents far more than the youthful feminine beauty and grace that makes her so pleasant to watch… she represents the hope that light will shine in the darkness, that goodness and generosity and gratitude and the sacred traditions that bind family and nation will fill the moment with joy and wonder and make the future bright, and even when the day is short, and the sun obscured, and the ground cold and covered in white, and the trees bare, and the lakes and streams frozen solid, and the highways slippery, there is a flickering light that bears witness to the promise of spring and warm breezy summer days yet to come.
And if you know the story well, you know that the candles that illumine her hair with a soft yellow glow represent the One who is the Light of the World, the One born so long ago under Bethlehem’s bright Star.
As in Pasadena, where young collegiate women compete for the Crown of the Rose Parade, so young women in Stockholm compete for the Crown of Santa Lucia. It is one of the nation’s highest honors. If your words manage to capture the attention of the world’s elite, and you receive the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature, the Stockholm Committee will require that you perform key role in a long standing tradition. You will be an honored guest in the Royal Palace in the presence of Swedish Royalty, and in the same year you win world-wide recognition for your work, on December the 13th, before a watching nation, you will also place the Crown of Ivy on this year’s Santa Lucia.
Santa Lucia not only appears in the Palace, she appears in homes across the nation… and for that matter, around the world.
The oldest daughter in most every Swedish family will wear the white robe on that same evening, wrap herself in a red sash, and her mother will light the five candles on her crown of ivy. Children leave their shoes outside, in hopes that Santa Lucia will fill them with little gifts and candies and inside, around the tree, the family will sing carols and welcome the Queen of Lights with a teary eyed rendition of Santa Lucia. She’ll carry a plate of saffron buns, and around the table, by candle-light, the family shares heart-shaped gingerbread cookies and candies and in a polished brass pot over a lit candle is warm glögg – a spiced blackberry wine with almonds and raisons served in tiny china cups by Santa Lucia herself.
* * * * * * *
When my sister and her family returned to their Colorado home, they brought with them a young Swede, a collegian, to work on a special study project in the United States. She wants to be a school teacher someday. She occupies a spare room for three months, a visit that will end just after Christmas. Then she’ll return to her home in Stockholm. She’s tall and blonde with bright blue eyes and an engaging smile and would be a leading contender for a crowning by a Nobel Prize winner in the Royal Palace had she not chosen to spend this fall and Christmas season in Colorado. Her name is Therese.
Our
first evening in Colorado, we sat by the tree and listened to the stereo as it
played familiar Christmas carols, in Swedish. Candles flickered on the window
sills. I didn’t notice the next track on the stereo CD, nor did I notice the
glow from the stairwell in the hallway, but to our surprise, Therese appeared
in a white robe and red sash with a crown of ivy and five candles lit, balanced
delicately on her head. She smiled brightly, her face all aglow as a Swedish
choir singing “Santa Lucia” came through the house speaker system and she
walked slowly, reverently, holding the plate of heart-shaped gingerbread and
warm saffron buns, on to the dining room table set for a celebration of light,
with warm glögg and almonds and raisons to welcome the long anticipated
day that draws family from far away places to enter into holiday… holy day. A
sacred time. That began one Holy Night.
Luciadagen
And I will stay awake throughout the longest winter night
And dress up in a red silk sash and flowing gown of white
And serve my parents with warm sweets and sing for their delight.
And I will wear upon my head a crown of fragrant green
Ablaze with tall white candles, with golden candle-gleam,
And I will be a Lussibrud as in some wondrous dream.
And as the night begins to fade I'll greet December sun
And knock on all the neighbors' doors and sing to everyone
And offer all the friends I greet a golden saffron bun.
And I will stay awake throughout the longest winter night
And dress up in my silken sash, my crown, my robe of white
And I will be, for one brief day, Lucia of the Light.
Myra Cohn Livingston
We all laughed and sipped and ate and sang. Together again on a cold winter’s night.
Here’s hoping Therese stays with us in the family… for a long long time.
* * * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning, you are a leader.
Tomorrow is the day you’ve been preparing for. It’s come all-too-quickly. If you are blessed with some measure of control over your calendar, you have the day off today. You are out of the office, and loving it. Hopefully, as you read, you are sipping something hot and tasty. If you are in the office, and sneaking a read before you get to the phone or the e-mail or the stack of paper, check the clock and count the hours. It won’t be long.
Take a deep breath. It’s here. Take it in. Embrace the ones around you. Make the moments matter.
If Santa Lucia is an ethnic caricature, I’m all for it.
Tonight, if you see a candle flickering, picture Therese, in a white robe and a red sash with candles glowing in the darkness bringing hope and joy and promise into a world that needs it. A family that needs it.
You need it.
Me, too.
May your Christmas days be merry...
And bright.
What remains of your summer, too.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2003
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
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