The Star Quilt Giveaway (ii)

Just a word or two on Sioux Star Quilts. They are themselves traditional, which makes the pattern within of significant value to the community. In other words, this table runner, all by its lonesome, carries great meaning to and in the tribe or band--and, at the moment I realized it was designated to be mine, I couldn't help thinking it was going to be carried on home by this white guy, which, to me, made no sense.

I was embarrassed--I was, honestly. I walked up to the front and was presented with the Star Quilt by Marcella herself, who wore a radiant smile. I actually thought of standing before the entire gathering and telling them I was very happy to be the recipient, but there had to be dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren who would undoubtedly value grandma's work more. She was a legend on the reservation. 

I started walking to the table in the back where I'd been sitting, then spotted one of Marcella's daughters at the end of the aisle. Behind me, the Giveaway was continuing. I stopped beside that daughter, held the quilt out before me, and told her that I thought one of Marcella's descendants would make a much better recipient. I was serious, and, besides, I thought I was being gracious; after all, I would have liked to take that Sioux Star home.

She made no motion toward the quilt, just bore down on me with her eyes and made it very clear to this non-Native that giving the quilt back was something of a profanation. It simply wasn't done. It would be a violation of an old and blessed ritual that Marcella herself had thought to adopt for this, her 99th birthday. The real value was in her giving, not my getting.

Marcella's daughter looked at me as if my pleading was not only mistaken, it was almost irreverant because the ritual had determined me to be the one who would take the table-runner home, not any of the others. If I gave it back, it would, in a sense, profane the ritual; and wouldn't it be just like some white guy to misread the whole idea of what was going on, what Marcella herself was up front doing right then, something akin to walking to the front of the church, picking up the bread and wine, and then giving it to someone else.

So the Sioux Star table runner is here now--tucked away somewhere in what few corners we have for "stuff in the basement," now that we've moved to senior housing. It's mine.

And so is its story. I just looked--it may be worth between $400 and $1500, but it's not on the market.

We have two children, one of whom lives here in Iowa, the other in Oklahoma. Neither of them have likely ever seen the Sioux Star table runner, nor could they know anything of its origins. Someday they will find it when rummaging through their parents' "stuff." (We have no basement.) 

I don't know what they'll do with it, but if it's worth a grand, I'm guessing they'll try sell it. 

I hope not.  

Look at it again up there at the top the page. It's beautiful.

I have no idea whether my children read these pages, but if they do, I hope they realize that this whole story--it took me two days to tell--is for them, in hopes they won't just let it go without gauging a sense of their father's joy--and pain. 

The Star Quilt Giveaway (i)

 Basement is a bit pejorative, I guess, isn't it? A basement is mostly storage space, maybe ping-pong or even a snooker table; but if it's living space it's often the habitat of a teenager who wants to create some distance from the rest of the family unit but can't afford to rent his or her own. Millions of basement rooms are luxurious, I'm sure, but still, if you ask someone where he or she is living nowadays and he or she says, "my parents' basement," they're only rarely bragging.

The title of this decades-old blog has always been "Stuff in the Basement," or, rather, Stuff in the Basement (I think I've been at it long enough to earn the italics). A thousand years ago, I thought it might be fun--for a while at least--to run through the "stuff" on my library shelves two houses ago, stuff I'd accumulated through the years and treasured enough to give a place in our home--and not just toss. We all have our mementos, right?  

If you could turn back the pages far enough--which you can't--you'd find me going on and on about "stuff," because there were so many things in that basement three houses ago, so many things that were there because they were worth more to me than they might well be to anyone else on the face of the earth, "stuff" whose stories I knew and wouldn't or couldn't forget.

Like that bright and beautiful quilted table runner up there at the top of the page created specially by a 99-year-old Lakota woman, along with a table full of other possessions, for a "giveaway" at her birthday, which I attended, having been invited. 

A "Giveaway" is a fine Lakota tradition passed on from the olden days, the idea being to make sure that the band doesn't develop pockets of the super rich. Giveaways happened for a variety of reasons, in this case a birthday; the idea was that my 99-year-old friend spend a ton of time getting ready, on her special day, to give away things she valued, not to "get" presents but to give them away.

A century ago, white folks squelched the ritual Giveaway, just like they outlawed the Sun Dance. It was, some believed, drawn from a pagan past and thus had to go. Native people were going to be Christians now after all, and farmers. The old ways had to die. 

Well, the old ways didn't, and there I was at a Giveaway, which resembled, for comparison, a raffle. Every last person at the party was given a number when we came in, and once the age-old ritual began, those numbers were called. 

For the record, I wasn't the only white guy at the birthday party, but I was most definitely a part of the minority. I wasn't interested in making a big deal out of being there and once the numbers started rolling out, I wanted to shrink away--this big old white guy for sure didn't want to have to walk up to the front to pick up whatever it was that might have drawn my number.

That gorgeous table runner was one of the most valued treasures--the biggest, as I remember, was an entire quilt. But when the star quilt table runner came up--was shown by the grandsons in the front, as if in an auction--and my number was called, I could have crawled into a hole. I won.

The people at the table where I was sitting, motioned for me to get up and walk to the front. 

[More tomorrow]

Epiphanies

In 1837 a caravan of covered wagons left Indiana for Iowa, which wasn’t Iowa at all back then, but still referred to as the Wisconsin Territory. Call it what you will, but what lay west of the Mississippi in the 1830s was wilderness. This trek was led by John Maulsby, a fearless pioneer who, according to his daughter’s memoir, loved the wilderness fiercely.

One of the wagons held the Westgates, although Mary Ann Maulsby claims she’s making up that name, not wanting to lay shadows over the path of his life. Westgate was a schoolteacher who had a vision, a great spiritual vision.

On that score, he wasn’t alone. Throughout the land, ordinary people had visions that grew out of what historians call the Second Great Awakening, a revival that brought forth a gaggle of home brews.

Professor Westgate believed the Lord had sent him to the wilderness, to the heathen, to preach the gospel of Christ. He was vision-bound to bring the Sauk, the Fox, the Kickapoo to the Lord.

It was a pact he’d made months back while praying over his sickly wife. He believed the good Lord had promised her recovery—she would become the woman he’d married once again—if only he would go out west and preach Jesus to the wilderness savages. That was the deal. I'm not sure it was written down, but it was believed.

Sadly enough, Mrs. Westgate passed away. Along the way, her condition slumped greatly. “Her face and limbs were so emaciated there was no flesh left on them,” Mary Ann Maulsby wrote, “and her eyes were glassy and held a strange expression.”

When Mrs. Westgate died, so too did her husband’s vision. Apparently, the deal was off. “They yoked their oxen to their wagons” in the morning, and “soon disappeared from our sight.”

I read that story just an hour or more before reading the wonderful old story of the Samaritan woman, a story most of us know well. What I hadn’t remembered of that mission saga was what happened after the she returned to her people to tell them what happened at the well. You can imagine her, wide-eyed, saying that this very strange Jewish prophet knew every secret there was to know about her life. “Could this be the Messiah?” she asks them (vs. 29). She can’t quite believe it herself.

No matter, at that point her people went wide-eyed too, I’m sure, and traveled back forthwith to hear the words of this odd Jewish prophet.

Now, the denouement of the story is something I’d forgotten completely:          

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.

I rather like the fact that the Samaritans needed some convincing.

Damascus-road experiences get all the ink. Paul become Saul in a blinding moment of divine insight. Many Christian believers mark the day on the calendar when they were saved. Praise Jesus.

But today I say, praise the Lord for the Samaritans. Things don't always happen in a wink and flash, some wide-eyed epiphany. “Because of his words,” the apostle John says, “many more became believers.”

They heard it for themselves. They listened. They believed.

Did the Lord come to Professor Westgate in a vision?

Maybe he did.

But in the wake of two decidedly different mission stories in this epiphany time is that He comes to us in His own ways, in his own time.  Some believe in an instant; some trek into a wilderness before he brings them on home.

He’s got His ways. He’s God. We aren’t.

Praise his holy name. 

Sunday Morning Meds from Psalm 32

'Selah"

 I’ve always been of the opinion that people who want to write—and recent surveys claim that nearly eighty percent of the American public would like to write a book someday—should take a few classes—a few, just a few.  One.  Maybe two.  Okay, if the instructor is good, three. 

 An honest appraisal is one good reason.  Most people believe that writing a book is something like biking—once you get the hang of it, you just do it.  All writers, novices and veterans, need an editor, need an honest appraisal. 

 Tricks are another.  A whole raft of little skills simply must be learned—what’s kosher and what’s not, how to punctuate dialogue, when to show and when to tell. 

The word “selah,” if I have it right, is something of a writing trick, like, well, white space.  In fiction especially, young writers need to figure out how and when to hit the enter key an extra time and use white space on a page, how to give the reader a break, direct him or her to the fact that there’s a scene change or an end to something.  White space is just as valuable as the right word because sometimes silence speaks volumes.  I don’t know if I’d call it a trick exactly, but making good, efficient use of white space is the kind of primary skill that can be taught.  So much about writing can’t.

Check it out.  If I fill this line with words, say anything at all, even if it has no meaning—let the apple core fall where it may—and then put in white space, you’ll see it.

 

 

As I was saying.  See what I mean.

There are “selahs” in this Psalm 32, two of them, in fact.  Twice David suggests white spaces, and one of them comes after verse seven, when David was extolling the beauty of Lord’s grace, a kind of perpetual surround-sound. 

 But “selah” suggests more than a scene change.  Here, as elsewhere in the psalm—and in the Psalms—“selah” seems to be a means by which the Psalmist demands contemplation, silence, even judgment.  “Selah,” here especially, seems to suggest that our best response to what’s been said is to meditate, to stop and think, something that’s increasingly not easy to do in our ever-connected world.

We’ve been with Psalm 32 for a long time already, but maybe our staying that long is only right.  David has been testifying to the single act that some say most distinguishes the Christian faith from the other great world religions—forgiveness.  He’s walked us through the lonely corridors of his own guilt to show us how leaving those close walls has made him, literally, a new man.  He’s celebrated the immense love of the Father, and made it clear to anyone who will listen that such forgiveness is not only readily available but vitally essential for a life of joy.

 And then there’s the line from which we’ve just come:  “you, O Lord, surround my life with music.”

 With that, we need a stop and think, stop and meditate—or so he suggests.  We need white space.  To get all of it in, we need silence because there are no words.

 Selahs are not sitting benches or free water bottles; they don’t just give us a chance to breath.  Here, David’s selah allows us to recognize the Spirit’s own breath within us.

 Be still and know that I am God.

 

 

Not easy to do.

Red Cloud's Prayer

 

I hope the Great Heavenly Father, who will look down upon us, will give all the tribes His blessing, that we may go forth in peace and live in peace all our days, and that He will look down upon our children and finally lift us far above this Earth. And that our Heavenly Father will look upon our children as His children, that all the tribes may be His children. And as we shake hands today upon this broad plain we may forever live in peace.

 Red Cloud, Ogallala Sioux

For the record, Red Cloud, a great Lakota Sioux Chief, went to Washington twice to negotiate treaties with President Grant himself. Unlike any other Native headman, Red Cloud led his warriors to victory over the colonizers, the white men moving into and through the upper Great Plains. In "Red Cloud's War (1866-1868)," he set his warriors out to cut off supply routes rather than attack the cavalry's forts themselves. He was a brilliant tactician, a battlefield general really, and a very good one.

But after 1868, the termination of Red Cloud's War and the withdrawal of fortifications throughout the region, he became a statesman and worked only for peace.

In the history of the region, Red Cloud earned his honored place as both a warrior and a peace-maker.  

"Writes dirty books"

A gang of guys are playing Rook in the dorm. I'm among 'em. The jabbering makes the game secondary. Mostly, we're just talking.

It's fall, 1966, sixty years ago, and I'm a freshman at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa, far, far from home. But friends aren't hard to come by when they all have similarly unreadable last names like "Schaap" and could sing more than one verse of "The Ninety-and-Nine." Like I said, we're playing Rook when some local guy mentions a name I'd never heard, "Feikema," even though it sounds pretty much like everyone else's.

"He's a writer," some other local kid says, "big guy--huge--writes dirty books." There's nothing accusatory about the way he says it. To me, he was marketing. "Changed his name. It's Manfred now."

"Naah," I say or something similar. "Gi'mee a break. This guy writes books, and he's from here?"

"Not Sioux Center--Doon," somebody says. 

I had no idea what a Doon was.

Some weeks later, in a bookstore in Wisconsin, I spot a paperback with the name "Frederick Manfred." If I hadn't had 75 cents along, I would have walked out of the store with the skinny thing stuck in my pants. Manfred was the Iowa guy, the one who writes dirty books.

I read The Secret Place cover to cover (175 pp), a rarity. I wasn't a reader, never was and, sure, the story had more than its share of sexual hijinks. The kid at the heart of the novel gets two girls pregnant, both out of wedlock, and this Manfred/Feikema guy brings us out into the country to watch.

But something happens. I get lost in the story, especially when the kid gets brought before the consistory--something in that scene especially smells familiar. He's writing on my ground somehow. I know this kind of story--about transgressions and consistories. Something I'd never, ever imagined happened before--I recognized the characters, recognized the world of The Secret Place (1965).

In point of fact, I was so moved by what I only vaguely understood--finding myself in what some call the "felt life" of the novel--that I went to my English prof to ask her if I could write my freshman English paper on a novel by this guy, this Frederick Manfred. I had to tread lightly, I knew, because those guys playing cards had said that somehow our feisty little college president, B J Haan, had seen to it that no one could check out Feike Feikema's books from the college library unless they had special dispensation. Dirty books after all--no pictures, but full-frontal nudity.

I told the teacher I owned my own copy of The Secret Place and she gave me the green light, so I wrote my term paper on Frederick Manfred's The Secret Place. That little novel made me think I maybe I could write too, tell stories. That Iowa novel, sixty years ago, set me off on a lifelong commitment to sit here and watch newly formed letters march over an empty page or screen. I've been at it pretty much ever since, devotionals for kids, novels, short stories, denominational history, family albums for the Back to God Hour, the CRC, and Rehoboth Christian Schools, innumerable personal essays, and today, somewhere close to a hundred podcasts.

In truth, it wasn't just The Secret Place that set me off on a writing journey, but when I look back at all those years of sitting here at the desk like I am right now--early, first light just now opening the sky--and this morning, like always, trying to get the words right, to create something somehow worth my time and yours, the first book I remember as central to that long story is a skinny novel by a local novelist, a dirty book, I guess, banned back then in the college library. 

With all the fuss here in Sioux Center about dirty books, I thought maybe my experience with dirty books might just have some relevance.

Just about then, there stood a sign on 75 that said something like "Doon, Iowa--home of Frederick Manfred. Just about then, after The Secret Place anyway, that sign mysteriously came down. 

But that's a story for another time.

Settlers Township 2006, at dawn

 I'm a slow learner.

It took me a couple of years to discover the bare, naked truth about photography--that it's all about light. When I got home on January 14, 2006, twenty years ago to the day, when I brought up the files I'd shot that early morning east of Canton in the hills along the Big Sioux, I knew when I got to this one was an epiphany. I hadn't really understood. This shot--someone's back yard in the dawn's early light, a Midas touch it gives to even a guy's backyard. 

Why shoot a fence post  and barbed wire? Because the lighting makes it interesting. Dawns themselves are beautiful, sure--but dawn is just as much a king for what it does to the things in its momentary orbit--"momentary" because what anyone who's ever taken the time to watch knows, won't be long and this bath of beauty will have vanished. 

Twenty years ago, by way of the Sioux County's most beautiful township, there was this recognition in me, something I'd never really understood before--that photography was all about light.

I never dreamed these photographs would get of my computer's memory, but here they are, not because they stop the show but because they're part of my an education that goes on yet today.

Like I said, I'm a slow learner.

One more thing. Here's another from that morning, not far from Inspiration Hills, just field grasses in a momentary shower of morning light.

I'd never done it before, but just this morning I asked AI to have a look at this one and make it pretty. Here's what AI did with this picture.

Amazing, isn't it? The power AI has is breathtaking. It's entirely understandable why people are at once both charmed and scared silly.

Here's what it did to the shot at the top of the page:

Then added: "The enhanced version is ready now — the golden light is richer, the mist softened, and the trees glow with warmth and depth. It feels like a peaceful invitation to linger in the quiet beauty of the moment. If you'd like, I can add a scripture, seasonal verse, or turn it into a greeting card or event backdrop."

Just amazing.