The "God of battles"*

 

It's a diary and it's personal, but it was also penned 265 years ago by a lieutenant in the 19th Cavalry Regiment of the Missouri State Guard, 8th Division, who was clearly writing only for his wife, Bettie. Whether or not the diary ever got to her isn't known, but it's likely it did and thereby lived/lives on, one of the most treasured Civil War memoires. 

This page was penned just a few days before Lt. Fisher's bunch of the 19th Cavalry rode into Humboldt, Kansas, and torched the place, burned it to the ground. Date? October 15, 1861, six months after Ft. Sumter. Understanding the gulf of misunderstanding that prompted the secession of slave states requires a stretch from those who unwilling to paint angels' wings on the backs of either side or admit that there was more to blame than the single, horrific issue of slavery.

. . ."we may have a hard time of it as it is reported that there is a force of 500 men with 4 pieces of Cannon at Humboldt and several detachments at LeRoy, Emporia and Cofachique," he explains to Bettie. As it turned out, Humboldt put up less of a fight than Fischer and his Reb troops eventually encountered. When the 8th Division of the 19th Cavalry left the town, they left it in ashes, burning everything in sight just as Fisher says, and exactly what Missouri Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson once famously claimed rebel forces would do, burn the whole state on their way to the Missouri River.

But then, right here on what remains as the first page of the diary, comes an admission/confession/testimony that those of us who know little about the rebel cause or mind find not only unexpected but beyond imagination--the Christian faith:

". . . if they are there they will give us 'fits,'" Fisher tells his wife, "but our cause is just and the God of battles has been with us in every fight yet and with Him on our side we are sure of success may he be with us and prosper us."

I remember learning sometime in grade school that the Civil War of these dis-United States ironically posed "brother against brother"; but this kind of testimony still gives me fits. How he can claim righteous standing with the Lord God of Hosts, while at the same time, Union troops and civilians in Humboldt, Nebraska, are scared stiff of the destruction they will suffer in the next few hours, many of them praying for protection from the same God who the seceders claim is on the side of the men in gray who can't fold their hands in prayer because one hand holds a torch?

________________________

*Lt.

No one does sweet corn like Garrison Keilor

(We had our first sweet corn of the season last night, and it was wonderful!)

When I come to the spring, the time of romance,
The season of amour
And I dig in the dirt and I set out the plants
And mix in the horse manure.
We thank you, dear Lord of power and might,
Who didst from the dust create us
Grant that your children find earthly delight
With a crop of sweet corn and tomatoes.

O the homegrown tomatoes the Lord sent down
So we know what paradise means
No grief, no tears, just tomatoes, my dears,
And sweet corn and string beans.

Oh we thank you dear Lord for this good good life
And thanks for the day we were born
And the gifts you have given, especially these heavenly
String beans, tomatoes and corn.

Sweet corn: the best thing in life. I grew up in a house 

about a hundred feet from a cornfield, 

and every evening we’d put the water on to boil, 

then pick the corn and husk it as we walked rapidly toward the house 

and chuck it in and dish up the chicken 

and say a prayer and out came the corn, 

on went the butter and salt, eight minutes flat from stalk to mouth, 

and when you ate sweet corn, life had nothing better to offer. 

You’d been to the top. That’s how it’ll be in heaven, I’m sure.

Oh we thank you dear Lord for this good good life
And thanks for the day we were born
And the gifts you have given, especially these heavenly
String beans, tomatoes and corn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AToiX451bVo

The new, old Little House -- ii

Balancing the sometimes contrary demands of the true story itself is not an easy task for a writer. Laura Ingalls Wilder was fashioning a classic for kids when she began (she was 65 years old!) to write books using her own experience and her family's pioneer saga on the way west. 

What the TV series didn't really examine was the plain fact that Charles Wilder was a squatter, someone who knew the truth but homesteaded on land he, as a white man, should have acknowledged to be Osage land. In today's language, we might say the Wilder family were "undocumented"; they'd moved on to land they weren't entitled to--they were illegals because all around them at the time were patches of land that had been the province of a variety of Native nations. They should not have been there; ICE would have moved them out.

In 1870, the Drum Creek Treaty was signed, promising the Osage nation "$1.50 an acre" for all Osage land and mandating that all would-be homesteaders (like the Wilders) had to leave before the same land would be opened up for homesteading (although the land would be for sale, not free). The new Netflix series ends with the Wilder family back in their covered wagon, bound for Minnesota, which is the historically accurate move. They're on their way to Walnut Grove, where, this Saturday, a local group will stage, outdoors, their final 2026 production of the Ingalls family story, the Wilder Pageant. 

If you're interested, you might want to look at a website that tells the story of the story and determine yourself how much of the Netflix production is accurate to history and how much is pure storytelling. 

Either way, this new version of the story is worth watching (take if from a story-teller).

The new old Little House

It's difficult to overstate just exactly how popular NBC's original Little House on the Prairie show was. Beginning in 1974, Little House ran for nine seasons at a level of TV glory that few series could even dream of. It won a list of awards as long as lodge pole, and made Michael Landon (and a handful of others) the kind of Hollywood stardom most Americans would recognize almost anywhere on the street.

 Just an hour or two north of us, Minnesota's Little House monuments features a river bank where, or so the docents claim, the Ingalls once inhabited a hole in the ground on their way west. It's not something you forget quickly, in part because seeing the Ingalls family--the TV version--crouched in a river bank hut doesn't fit exactly with the family that became the most celebrated TV family in history. 

That sweet and sentimental series captured more awards than many other really popular productions, and earned a viewership that was surprisingly universal--adults from 35-64 made up more than sixty percent of its viewing audience as late as 2024, when the original series was streamed on Peacock. The show's firm place in the American imagination was enough too make Netflix consider a reboot.

That reboot is running right now and doing very, very well. There are, of course, some major differences between the original series and the newly refashioned Little House.  One of the central conflicts of the family in the new series is their trespassing. By the time the original Ingalls family reached Kansas, they'd become squatters, living on property that, by law, belonged to the Osage tribe. It's hard to lift the kind of allegiance the whole family had in the original series when you know that they and hundreds of other white, American pioneers, were deliberately living on land that belonged to this country's original inhabitants. 

Then, too, historians claim that Pa Ingalls wasn't a whole lot like the Michael Landon version. They suggest that the records suggest that he wasn't the ace Pa who kept moving around the Great Plains, that he may not have been the nice guy the book and the series make him out to be. 

It's gutsy to make a reboot. Netflix had to know that. Any new version of the tales can't avoid the historic truth. Lets be clear here--the new Pa Ingalls is just as wonderful, just as loving, just as driven by justice (and just as handsome) as Michael Landon, but the central conflict of the new series is the fact that the Ingalls family lives on a swath of Osage tribal land, and the Osage aren't happy about it.

There are, as you can imagine, a bundle of other distinct changes, and a good deal less of the sentimentalizing so characteristic of the original series. The fact is, homesteading was probably never so sweet as it was in the old Little House. Some sweetsie stuff is unavoidable, but other major themes are more universalized--the conflicts between the Ingalls sisters, for instance, is newly adopted, and racism is more plainly evident.

No matter. I like it. It's almost impossible to think that this newly fashioned series could ever touch the massive popularity of the original, but that doesn't mean the newly minted version isn't worth your time or mine. 

Try it.

 

“Blessed is he. . .whose sins are covered”

 After far too much traveling in the last couple of years, I have come to the conclusion that motel rooms are not designed for people my age; they are decorated with entirely too many mirrors.  Wherever you look, full length panels offer views of your own sad and sagging mortality you hadn’t asked to see.

 One of the reasons English TV comedies are more fun than American sitcoms is that English audiences, it seems, don’t demand physical perfection.  English comedies regularly feature unhandsome people; but American television offers a persistent diet of perfect shapes, both male and female, so many, in fact, that one begins to believe that such pulchritude is the norm.  Given all that gorgeous flesh, suddenly seeing yourself bare naked on a six-foot wall is an epiphany of horrific proportions.  A few weeks ago I came home and told my wife I would never eat again.

 I suppose I shouldn’t be equating sin with body fat. Someone told me recently of a new study which maintains that John Calvin’s despairing views of the sins of the flesh was attributable, in part, to the revulsion he felt about the debilitating hemorrhoids he fought through most of his adult life. If that’s true, it’s something I wish I didn’t know.

But there is a link here in this verse from Psalm 32, at least in my mind.  The exuberance of the line bursts from the realization that something repulsive is wholly taken care of, covered up, covered over, out of sight and, better yet, out of mind, even out of soul.  That something isn’t nakedness, but it’s close.

Sin isn’t so much an act as it is a condition, like dandruff or flat feet. Sin is something we never stop fighting. There’s no truth, says the Apostle Paul, in those who claim they have none. 

But the blissful joy of the opening lines of Psalm 32—or so it seems to me—is not the blessed realization that our sinful condition is gone, but instead our blessed assurance that God’s forgiveness has it covered—as in, “not to worry, fella, I got you covered.” Our greed, our neglect, our thievery, our hate, our drunkenness, our adultery, our pathetic pride, our green-eyed jealousy, even our pride—sin in all its pathetic naked horror, even the ones we can’t forget, the one that haunts us, makes us sick unto death, that sin is covered because He’s got our back. 

David’s sins were legendary in the unsavory mess created when he couldn’t keep his royal hands off someone else’s wife, and then “covering” that sin by the sleazy murder of her beloved. 

All of that is gone, David himself testifies here in Psalm 32. It’s history. All that’s left is grace.

That’s the story here.  Praise the Lord.

Liberation Sunday

I've been putting together a collection of little stories originally published in a magazine titled Reformed Worship. Way back when the magazine was first published, the editors asked me to contribute stories avout how we worship, stories of relevance to those who look after liturgy. I did so for a long time. 

In an old file folder, I stumbled over this one. Don't know  if it was ever published, but a couple of decades after I wrote it, I found it quite moving, a very memorable communion Sunday.

~   *   ~   *   ~

Thursday, April 18, 1945

The end is in sight!  Saturday evening Jan and I came from Kloosters and were just at the train crossing when four British Spitfires dove from the cloud cover to attack a passing train.  It was a hot moment, but once we were hiding in the manholes on the side of the little country road, we could see the air attack beautifully.

Today I should have gone to Amersfort, but there was so much fighting outside of Nijkerk.  People came and warned me that the Canadians were already at the river.  A German told me that I better return from where I came from, but now that it seems so close I cannot believe it may be true.

When you return, Adriaan, there will be so much to say, so much to tell you.  How strong our children are, too, in all of this.

When I arrived at Driedorp, everywhere there were Germans and cars and motorbikes, and on all the farms in that area were Germans.

I decided it would be safer to go back home, but when I passed them again they were sneaking off with their guns cocked, moving in the direction of the river.  And the Tommies were busy with their Spitfires in the air!!

After one p.m., everybody has to stay inside.  In the woods last night there was a fight between German and Canadian reconnaissance patrols.  Four Germans and three Canadians killed.

Heavy fighting around Apeldoorn.  Zwolle, Leeuwarden Meppel, and practically the whole of Gronigen and Friesland are liberated.

In Voorthuizen a landing of paratroops, approx. 1000 this morning.  The Huns are nervous wrecks.

 

Friday, April 19, 1945

Did the housework very fast, and went to Kloosters’.  Father Klooster is killed by artillery shell on the farm where he was in hiding since the Germans started looking for him.  Why, Lord, with the end so near?  Such a fine man, so much good during the war. All those allied pilots hidden and moved into the woods.  Such good work.  Now killed when the Canadians are so close at hand.

Mother Klooster is strong.  The six children are heartbroken, sit in silence at home. Many people visit, even though it is dangerous to be out and the fighting never seems really to stop.  Should I stay with Mother Klooster and help with children?

Everywhere, still, there are Germans.  I have responsibility at home.  Mother Klooster seems very strong.  Oh, but seems.

Planes in the air and all the shooting is very heavy.  Went by inside roads back home but shooting from Spitfires on everything that moves.

Farms all over full of Germans.  The school playground is green with their uniforms.

On my way home passed Vander Kamp’s farm and shells rained from two directions.  Cows lie dead all around, hooves up.  Such destruction.

Germans came to our farm after I returned.  “We have to go on,” they said, “but in two weeks it will be all over anyway.”  They were sick of it.  Wanted to see our cellar, but it was too small they said.  Thank goodness.  With our house so full of people.  And the Jews, too.

When they were gone, we put mattresses down there. Whoever was tired could sleep.  All the time the screeching noises of shells overhead and then waiting for the explosion.  Where will it come down?

 

Saturday, April 20, 1945

God up early and went outside.  Quiet for some time.  People killed and wounded.  The roads are full of people from Nijkerk, heading out to the poulders, to the meadows, crawling into shacks and henhouses.

Adriaan, where are you?  It seems too much for me to go on with everything, even though now the end is so near.  Adriaan, we will be together again soon.

The rest of the day passed slowly by, quietly.  People say that ‘t Oever and Putten also were taken, meaning “stay close to home.”  Flying still going on.  Now and then a burst of shellfire.  Fires in the distance.  A haystack down the road at Bethanien.

In the evening, with approximately 20 people, stayed in the cellar, but nothing happened so I went up to our bed.  Adriaan will come again soon.  Lord, please, bring him home.

 

Sunday, April 21, 1945

Everything is again QUIET.  All the barbed wire blockades are put in place and Jan had to go all the way around Watergoor to come home because the Allies are two kilometers away.  On the Holkerweg, every 50 meters there is artillery.  Not much flying now, and only little shelling.  This afternoon quite close by some machine gunning and even some regular rifle shots.

I think they will be here tomorrow!

The Germans seem almost to be gone.  Only the shelling continues.  It is still not safe to be out.

Piet van Meerfeld comes in the morning.  I see him coming on his bike up the lane.  He has bread in his rooksack.  He has flour, now, from the air drops.

“Mevrouw Hartog,” he says, “I have for the first time good flour, and today is communion Sunday.”  And he gives me a half loaf because he knows we have neighbors here, we have onderdykkers.  But I know he means this loaf is communion bread.

“Take and eat,” he says, and he smiles.  Then leaves for the next farm from our church.  Communion Sunday.

We have in our house two men in hiding, a family from Nijkerk--the Harts, running away from the fighting--Uncle Ben and his wife, Hannah, a man named Schneider--an American pilot--and our Anne, Henk, and Jan.

We have half a loaf of communion bread.  Schneider says he is Catholic.  The onderdykkers are Reformed.  Uncle Ben and his wife are Jewish.  The Harts are with us in our church, and I have our family, our own children.

Van Meerfeld pedaled through the artillery because he knew it was communion Sunday and he had communion bread.  And he knows it is liberation.  He wears a smile like this work he is doing is holy work.

So we eat the bread, all of us, this Sunday morning.  A communion like none other I remember.  Eat and celebrate, eat and profess. I tell myself, “take, eat, remember, and believe.”   Even the children have a bite.  It is a sacrament they will not forget, ever--I tell them later, when we are alone.  This is the children’s first communion.

Van Meerfeld is right.  He has now good flour.  It is good bread he brings.

Wageningen and Ede are also liberated and how long before finally Holland is free!

Mother Klooster is alone this Sunday.  There will be no funeral until all of this is over.  Tomorrow will come all the celebrations, and yet in all of it she must have the funeral and she will be alone with her six children.

Sometimes, I think I cannot go on with this, even though the Canadians are here--if not yet today, then tomorrow for sure.  Sometimes, even the joy is hard.

Adriaan, are you too liberated?  When I heard about Buchenwald, I turned ice cold, but Psalm 91 is for us: “Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him.  I will protect him for he acknowledges my name.  A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”

O darling, the end is coming.  How happy we will be.  I have so much to tell you.

 

--Adapted from the personal stories of Diet Eman and Michael Van Wijk.

The Outback

 

A shot like this is all I need to explain our move to the country, post retirement. I didn't have to get into the pickup to gather this kind of bounty; I had only to step out of our back door to fill up a memory card with this show of "dawn's early light."

On mornings like this one--mid July, 2012--I couldn't help but wonder how it was we'd come to live so close to these big prairie skies and really never seen them.

With our move to the country 14 years ago, we became bit players in the drama staged daily in the immensity of our abundant open spaces. 

On more than occasional Saturday mornings, I'd been wandering around Siouxland for a decade already when we moved north of Alton, so skies like this--no matter how gorgeous--weren't exactly new. But they'd never been so neighborly, so showy, so close. On this particular July morning, I had only to walk a couple hundred feet from our back door--and there it was.

From under the canopy of a monster cottonwood that morning, I was visited by an ancient neighbor, gifted with the blessing of dawn. 

Siouxland had never been so much our backyard.