Larger Voices Calling

Hello from about an hour from Oslo,

I am in Norway, a country significant to my family heritage and childhood memories, but for the first time. It is a place I have read about, a country I have spoken about with both academics, classmates, or relatives – a country, which has intrigued me. That intrigue occurred for multiple reasons as long as I can remember. So being here as I write this is both a check off that proverbial bucket list, but also something that offers me an opportunity to put so many dreams and thoughts into the space my former classmate and friend refers to as gestalt. While I certainly have only a beginning perception of what Norway is both physically and experientially, the sum of what is happening each day has been beyond everything I could possibly imagine.

Mr. Kjos-Kendall seemed somewhat larger-than-life to me when I arrived for my Dana residency the fall of 1979. He was formidable (but not pejoratively) physically because of his height; he was captivating because of his personality and ability to influence the campus ministry elements, and most anyone with whom he interacted. He was more conservative than I was theologically, but as clarified over the last 10 days or so, the influence of his home congregation, which had a significant presence at Dana, and particularly in my own specific class, had a different albeit Lutheran practice. Our conversations reminded me of how our piety is shaped by external forces and seldom by our own inidividual thoughts. How ironic!! Specifically, the thing that became abundantly clear to me while visiting Tom and Ellen, as well as meeting two of their three children, was the profound effect our advisor, Dr. John W. Nielsen, had on both of us, but that influence was (and it) nothing that has disapeared. It has been life-altering. His sagacious care for his students changed who we were, but has intensely affected who we are. At some point in each day, whether it over a cup of morning coffee, or a toast with a raised ounce of Akavit, “The Pope” has been an integral part of our conversations and our recollections. I think I can say with complete confidence that we both believe it is how he pushed us to question, to ponder, and to imagine that has been most efficacious as we have continued with our journeys beyond those Nebraska bluffs on the Missouri River. From the Introduction to Religion class to the class on Christian Thought, from our Humanities sequence to both of us traveling on an interim (we went different years), this incredible Minnesota native, steeped in his Danish heritage and an Oxford education, exhibited a profound dialectic between the conservative and liberal which changed lives. His probing way of working with students pushed them to explore their limits both intellectually and experientially, continually offering support in their educational as well as their maturing processes.

And yet as Tom and I reflected on our mentor, his exceptional intelligence was perhaps second to his incredible humility. The effort and care he put into his classes, into the humanities program, which was one of the top ranking programs in the country, and groundbreaking in its unique approach, was about his students. He wanted to prepare us for the world we would enter by providing an unparalleled and integrated understanding of the world that created the foundation we stood upon. That is a tall order, but he understood both the reason for doing so as well as how to accomplish it. There is seldom a week that goes by in my own teaching that I do not think about both what he taught me and the method he used. To say that he lived what he taught cannot be overstated. His quips either in front of class or during individual conversations still stay with me. While visiting Sande, Tom recounted the process of building the clock that he and Jim Borden did for a senior project. If you know this clock, you cannot help but be astounded by the workmanship and the size of this wooden masterpiece. Our conversations about the Panassus edifice reminded me of the day it was unvieled. I remember being as speechless as Dr. Nielsen himself was. They designed, created, and toiled in secret on their masterpiece as a labor of love for what the Humanities and Dana had given them. What an incredible repayment for something that cannot be repaid, but if anyone ever did, I think the two of them probably top the list.

My traveling over the last month has been my own sort of interim travel, but during the summer rather than during a January term. Visiting Anton in Humlebæk to see him graduate was wonderful, but considering the possibility of hosting a student returns me to Dana. It was there I learned the value of culture and visiting places in the world. To be in Osterport 42 1/2 years later when spending the day in København with Anne Marie and Hans Christian could not help, but recall memories on that night with Dr. Nielsen’s nephew. Visiting the Viking Museum, Kronberg, or the Domkirke in Roskilde reminded me of how we followed Dr Nielsen around to the Danish sites he believed important for Dana students to experience. Likewise, going to Norway was significant because of my own family heritage, but also because of my cousin who taught at Luther College, leading the math department for many years. It was ironic as I was in the airport in Copehagen I saw a young boy with a Luther College t-shirt on. His mother told me she had graduated from Luther and they now lived in Montana. Connecting those Lutheran roots on various levels are significant to me. Once again conversations about Luther, Bonhoeffer, and other things significant to my faith journey with my Dana classmate was important to me as I still try to understand my own evolving piety. As I write now, it is a couple of days later, and I am back in Northcentral Pennsylvania, trying to create some semblance of order, both to the last month of experiences, but to a summer than is already half gone. There is so much to ponder, and presently I feel like I am in about three different worlds.

When I think about my time at Dana, it is a mixed bag of things, and 40 years can blur some things, but one of the things I do remember is spending a lot of time with my guitar. I loved working on and learning new things, and music has always been an important part of my understanding who I am. Duing my senior year, Crosby Stills and Nash released a new album, and still one of my favorites, titled Daylight Again. I remember being quite excited when I learned to play “Southern Cross.” The chorus of the song included the phrase that is the title of this blog. There is a power and strength in time. It can heal the wounds of our life; it can help us redirect ourselves towards something more helpful. Perhaps I love the song for the implicit message that there are always “larger voices calling” if we will only listen. It is often after the trauma of something we need to retreat and sit quietly, believing that the Spirit can still use us to accomplish something positive. As I drove earlier today, I found myself pondering what the next year might offer both as a sense of closure on a significant portion of my life, but also what it might do to prepare me for what could happen on the other side of my teaching. Further, I considered what imagining a possibility of being a vagabond of sorts might say about me. I can already hear or perceive what some of you are thinking, but I think what I realize is quite simple. There is a continuous thread from my childhood to what I imagine now, and it is not a fragile or fraying sort of thread, it is an incredibly strong perhaps central piece. That thread that when you pull it allows an entire garmet to unravel, but this is not an unraveling it you will, it is that larger voice, that Spirit. And yet it is, at times, a lonely space, a melancholy tone. It is something that I believe most of us have, but often push aside. Somehow, I choose to embrace it. It is the thing that connects my entire life, and perhaps creates a foundation that makes sense to me. It is the thing that was thrust upon me from the outset, and yet nothing I asked for. It is an experience that I dealt with differently than my sister. It is something that, believing I am incapable of escaping, I have chosen to make the best of.

The summer travels connect the pieces of the fabric, like many of the fashions worn throughout my life; the places visited, the people experienced again, or for the first time, reminding me of the Hegelian dialectic that seems more and more apropos as I age. There is always something new to learn, to experience, and to weave into my daily life. From visiting with Pattie, David, Barb, and Nancy, spending precious time with them back in Omaha, from seeing Amy and Charles, Tom and Elaine, Becky, and her wonderful children, from a quick dinner with Jennifer and John and surprising Brandon, from visiting my sandbox buddy, her husband and sister for a quick breakfast, those threads of my life were strengthened. The beautiful handweaved rug that graces my kitchen is a reminder of an incredible person who first taught me more about relationships than I could ever fathom. I am blessed by that to this day. Indeed, “I think about how many times I have fallen. Spirits are using me, larger voices calling. What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten (I’ve been around the world).” Little did I know this small Iowa boy would travel the world. Little did I know that I would learn from one of the most incredible travelers by spending a January interim class with him. Little did I imagine perhaps the road is my home. So much yet to learn.

Thanks as always for reading. Additionally, I am pondering the creating a book of excerpts of my blogs. If you remember a particular blog you appreciated, would you get in touch with me? Thanks for that too.

Dr. Martin