Making things happen -  with integrity.       encouraging a new generation of business, academic and social leaders A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday July 28, 2003 Volume V Number 35

FOCUS – Roots

 

History professors like to begin the first day of class with a “thought question.”  That’s what they called it in my student era, as though other questions didn’t require much of it.  A thought question.  I suppose the idea behind the phrase indicated that there was no simple answer – that the question itself created something of a curiosity designed to push the student deeper into some profound truth that might even lead to authentic insight and some useful reflection.

Oftentimes those thought questions took on the form of a clever philosophical riddle, the kind for which an initial answer only gave birth to a succession of other questions.  Reconciling the two competing theories being next to impossible, lively discussion ensued, if, that is, the professor possessed enough skill to spark a genuine interest in the subject in the first place.  As we all know, not everyone in the profession (education) has mastered this skill.  I understand that today, perhaps even more than back in my classroom days, students are more apt to roll their eyes in contempt of such efforts to stimulate thought than they are to engage energetically in fruitful dialog.  Teaching has always been a demanding challenge.

The opening thought question in History Class was predictable enough.   “Alright class, today I want to hear from you,” would be the opening remark.  “You’ll hear enough from me over the course of the semester.  I would like several of you to answer to this question:  [pause for effect]… What is history?”

A few students (you know the type) would jump in their seats to attention and shoot their hand to the sky like a rocket on the Fourth of July.  The first to be recognized attempts an answer.  If you’ve memorized the Dictionary, you may get it right on the first try.  But a good thought question generally takes a few errant shots before you get close to the bull’s eye.  We always believed those over-eager students with their hands waving with such enthusiasm to be motivated more by a desire to win the teacher’s attention than to display any particular degree of advanced intelligence.  Some were game show veterans who went first to the buzzer (the raising of the hand) and then to their brains, in that order.  And what the brain produced was not necessarily admirable.  Some were called on because their reaction time was so lightening fast, but then they froze under the glare of their classmate’s contemptuous stares, unable to utter even an incomprehensible guttural uhhhh.  Awkward silence reigned.  The kid got the floor but then didn’t know what to do with it.

Others, generally the readers - you know the type, those rare students who actually read books front to back - were more comfortable with the idea of constructing a sentence on the spot.  They would offer something useful to the discussion – like, “History is the record of significant people and what they said and did that shaped events throughout the course of time.”

The teacher would nod approvingly.  Yes, very good.  Anyone else?  What is history?

“History is boring,” another would chime in, the comedian of the crowd.

A sharp history teacher would waste no time.  “Yes, many people feel that way,” recognizing the veracity of the comment made in jest.  Here comes the first challenge of the semester.  “History, for many students, is boring indeed.  And why to you think that is so?”

“Because it’s like totally boring to be forced to memorize all this stale stuff that got laid to rest six feet under, dutifully buried a long time ago; long gone and like nobody cares about it anymore anyway, especially us” is what most all of them are thinking, but no one is willing to say so.  Not out loud at least, certainly not in the presence of a person who devoted a whole academic career to the subject.

“Yes, yes.  I know.  But consider this.  I want you to think about it.  Real history is not boring at all.  It’s anything but boring.  History is about real people,” the teacher would say in summary.  “It’s one of life’s great travesties [that would be the first vocabulary test for these students entrapped within the confines of the four walls, strapped to a hardwood chair, sandwiched helplessly between the beginning and ending bell – ‘travesty’ – a new word, but if spoken with conviction, students get the point]… Yes, one of life’s great travesties that well meaning people in my profession have made it so (boring).”  Enough commentary.  Now to the heart of the matter.  “History is the story of real people who faced real life problems and challenges.  People with feelings.  And passions.  People with families and loyalties and loves and hopes and dreams and aspirations.  People forced to take action.  Sometimes it led to open rebellion.  Sometimes, incredible displays of courage and strength.  Sometimes, they did really stupid things.  And lots of people got hurt.  Sometimes evil prevailed and horrible atrocities reigned [another pop vocabulary quiz – to reign – to be distinguished from to rain] over whole populations for long periods of time until something happened to bring relief and release, liberation!, the dawning of a new day.”  The momentum of eloquence would build at this juncture, that is, if the history teacher really believed this stuff.  The class is actually listening!

“History is not a collection of data… ”  The teacher’s on a roll,  “… dates and names and places to be memorized and parroted back like math tables or chemistry formulas.”  Time to drive it home.  “History is drama.  It’s about winning and losing.  It’s comedy and tragedy.  It’s the stuff of great consequence.  It’s about character – the victory won for those who possess a high degree of it, and the disastrous downfall of those who possess none.  History often is the story of horrible defeats.  And colossal triumphs.”

Now the class sits in rapt attention.  You can feel the passion.  Hear the conviction.  The students are caught up in the experience of generations gone before, those who left a legacy worth uncovering and exploring.

“Some will tell you that we study history in order to learn from past mistakes so that we will avoid them in the future,” the teacher draws in a long slow breath, sighs, and turns reflective.  “In fact, the longer I live and the more I study, the more I believe this old adage to be a misguided myth [another vocabulary quiz].  That, class, in my judgment, is a utilitarian view of history that misses the point entirely.”

The teacher’s lost some of us now.  But not all.

“When we study history, we enter into ebb and flow of timeless events.  We feel the passion.  We get into the heads and hearts and minds of people who lived in the same world of color and seasons and abundance and scarcity, people who lived in the same warm sunshine, under the same dark clouds, in the shadow of the same great mountain peaks and on the same rivers and streams and coastlines, people who relied on their own ingenuity and common sense and living faith, some of whom built a world of ideas and institutions and monuments, people who spoke words and wrote words that inspire and inform and give meaning and purpose to generation after generation, right up to this very day,” the opening lecture now building to a symphonic crescendo of thought and enlightenment…

“… and that, my dear students, is what we will be doing in the days and weeks to come.”

And in some classrooms, not all, through the generations, students, under the tutelage of a real live history teacher have embraced the challenge, and the gift of curiosity over the past is presented in bright colorful wrapping tied up with a bow on that very first day of class, and opened and cherished, and embraced with joy for a lifetime.

* * * * * * *

This week, late in the afternoon, we pulled up on the crunchy gravel of a countryside parking area, down the slope of a grassy knoll, tall oaks and pines providing shade in the afternoon sun, and parked our car next to an old granite boundary fence, a pile of boulders, each just large enough to challenge the strength of human hands and backs, neatly stacked long ago to form a wall about waist high and four feet deep, moss covered stones that surround an ancient chapel on the hill.  

I was far away from home in just about every sense of the phrase.  The last time I saw a church built in the thirteenth century was in Salisbury, outside London, not far from the world-renown collection of ancient hewn rocks, mysteriously erected in a precision circle of stones as a celebration of celestial order measuring the cycles of heavenly motion - Stonehenge.  The Salisbury Cathedral was a feat of architecture and engineering that stunned all of England with its soaring beauty – stone and glass.  Over seven hundred years ago.

During that same century, in a little village outside Stockholm… stone cutters brought rocks from nearby fields and erected a place of worship.  One can only now imagine the dedication of these artisans and architects.  The roof line would be tall and steep – steep enough to prevent heavy winter snows from collecting up top.  At the peak of the corners, a cross.  And above the cross, a star, glittering gold. 

We are told that that Roman Empire extended this far.  Franciscan brothers, inspired by the pastoral rolling hills of forest and meadow, rich soil and massive stone, found this hilltop and built a church.  The gardens around would add color in the summertime.  The thick walls would keep out the cold in winter.  On Sunday mornings, residents nearby would make their way into the chapel to gather in worship.  The heavy walls, and high ceilings formed in the shape of a dome were carefully shaped inside to reflect sound.  When the singing began, full voices in joyful harmony would bounce back to reward the congregation with rich full music, as though God was listening and mirroring back the praise.  In the deep recess at the front, an altar under a high shaped arch, in pleasing symmetry, a place of prayer, candlelit, welcomes the sojourner.  And later, a wooden cross was added, hanging on the wall front and center, conspicuous, unmistakable, illustrating the powerful truth that the high price for the sins of humankind has been fully paid.  Tall paned windows on either side illuminated the scene then and now, issuing a soft dispersed light, marking the shadows.

The pulpit stood to one side, lifted high above the congregation sitting in enclosed boxes, each with a latched gate.  The circular stair lead to the podium, a pulpit shaped like a goblet, as though the spoken word well delivered might be like a fine red wine, bringing  joyful encouragement to the soul. 

An aging priest, educated in America, suffering now from a mild Parkinson’s that causes his hand to shake, some years ago was assigned by the State Church to this parish.  His heart broke over the realization that this chapel, built by loving hands for the purpose of knowing God had grown cold and neglected and empty.  He informed his good wife of his plan.  He would move in, place a cot in the stark prayer room off the nave, and live in the place twenty-four hours a day, devoted to prayer for a full year.  In his Swedish tongue, he prayed, day after day, that this place would be restored to its original purpose.  He believed there was power in those forgotten rooms.  That the aging pipe organ still had a song to sing.  That the chapel could once again be filled with the voices of harmonious praise.  That the candles would flicker there on the chandeliers, and warm hearts again to the transforming power of the gospel.  That the Spirit would fill hearts, and restore souls, and give despairing, hopeless, disconnected, dispossessed people, a place to be reborn.  All in this very room.

The story got out.  All over Stockholm.  People would come and pray with him.  For hours at a time.  The priest kept his promise, and when the year was over, God kept his.

This enchanting place, out on the edge of civilization, on the same hilltop, the same stones which will be there long after I’m gone, the chapel where Father Sören lived and ate and slept and prayed, was alive again this weekend, filled to overflowing, a crowd gathered to celebrate my nephew’s wedding.

The candles were lit.  Songs of praise filled the sanctuary.  The bride stunning in her pure white beauty.  The groom scrubbed and fresh and properly dressed for an occasion such as this.  The organ pipes singing.  The people with hearts overflowing.  Father Sören presiding.

If the stonemasons and the architects and the Franciscans and the glass-makers and the carpenters could, from their place in heaven, the people who labored to build this little chapel on the hill, if they watched the ceremony (and from here, you had the sense that they did) now nearly eight hundred years after their work began, their hearts would be as glad as the congregation now present.  Maybe more.

And the same God who energized them in their work, energized us now, in praise of everything good and right and beautiful.

And I’ve only begun to tell you the story.

* * * * * *

It’s Monday morning.  You are a leader.

As I write, I’m far away from home.  But not really.  My ancestors (many of them), came from around here.  These are my people.  As I meet them, and touch them, and look into their eyes and listen to them in their native Swedish and their lyrical, musical English, I feel like a tree absorbing nourishment somewhere deep on the level of my roots.  The source of my own faith and hope somehow finds its derivation in that little chapel on the hill. 

Grant and his lovely Swedish bride, Therese, are married now.  They drove off from the church in a polished Mercedes, top down, chauffeured by a best friend in a tuxedo from the chapel to the reception hall, where we all waited in eager anticipation to embrace them both.

You have roots, too.  You have a history that is rich and full of drama and comedy and tragedy and moments of inspiration.  There is a continuity of goodness.  There are the perils of evil.  The world is wonderful and dangerous, all at the same time.  And there are those places in it where granite piles of stone have been formed into an altar of promise, and there we experience very presence of God.

Holy ground.

I visited one of those places of promise today with people I love.  And we found more than a few kindred spirits there.

I’m glad you came along.

        

Posted in Stockholm, Sweden

© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2003

Special Thanks to my good friend and brother in law – Greg Michels, for true tech support 

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