“The Mighty One, God, the LORD, 

speaks and summons the earth 

from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.”

 As far as I know, the county in which I live, Sioux County, Iowa, has no citizens of Sioux descent. What’s more, the town in which I lived for forty years—Sioux Center—is in no way a "center for the Sioux."  For most of 150 years now, it’s been a center for the Dutch, who were and are of no close relation to the Sioux. There lies a tale, of course, one that everyone knows: here and elsewhere across the plains, we won and they lost.

 A friend of mine, a congenial soul who loved repairing bridges we built with our prejudices, once asked a Sioux religious man to visit the college where I taught, asked him to speak in chapel.  Because chapel was a religious event, our guest took with him a sacred pipe.  Before he spoke, he lit the pipe, then turned to the four directions and led paleface kids through a ceremony meant to evoke God’s presence.

The symbolism, Black Elk says, works something like this:  the south brings warmth and new life in spring; the east, peace and light; the north is the source of cold, and thereby strength of character; and the from the west comes thunder and rain.  By raising the pipe to the four directions, the Lakota traditionally believe the spirits of the directions—all part of the God of the universe, Wakan Tanka—were being invoked for aid and comfort and trust throughout the ceremony.

 Such things simply aren’t done in the center for the Dutch. Some kids hit the warpath. What on earth was a pagan doing with holy smoke, bowing to the four winds or whatever?  The whole thing was, to some of them—and their parents--off-the-map heathen.

The opening lines of the mighty song of Psalm 50 make me wonder if the psalmist—whoever he was—would mind beginning worship with some sense of God’s hugeness, some kind of ritual meant to point towards a deity who is forever outside of time and space.      

 Honestly, I hear more Lakota in verse one than in a lot of evangelical Christianity.  Interesting, isn’t it, that the psalmist actually begins with three names—“the mighty one, God, the Lord”—each of which, in ancient Hebrew defined slightly different dimensions.  It’s as if the poet really wants to get all of this deity covered.  He doesn’t want to miss a characteristic.  He knows he can’t get all of God in focus, but, in humility, he wants to do the best he can, so he invokes with every possible name.

The second half of verse one moves east to west, not unlike the Sioux ritual.  There’s no sacred pipe here, but it doesn’t take all that much imagination for us to picture the possibility that some ancient Hebrew may have gestured just as broadly as that Native guy in our chapel.  To me, the line just feels Native.

One pair of seemingly irreconcilable characteristics of our God is that he is, at once, both imminent—right here beside us—and transcendent—forever somewhere beyond us.  The opening lines of Psalm 50 force us to consider his transcendence. Most of us, I think, would prefer a teddy bear.

 In fact, it’s not all that difficult to make verse one sound, well, primitive.  Give me a pipe, or an eagle feather and a smudge pot, I bet I could recite it in our college chapel this week and set some sweetly self-righteous kids on a heresy hunt. 

 But then, there’s not a Lakota in the neighborhood.  

June 6

June 7 will forever be "June 7," but to me June 6 will forever be something different, not because someone I knew was there on a beach in Normandy, but because of what went down there. Everyone connected with the secrecy of the operation on D-Day knew that the invasion would cost the Allied powers thousands of lives and it did--over 4000, with an equal number on the German side, if not more, considerably more. 

I don't know what goes on today, but the Memorial Day celebrations in my hometown, way back when, used to include--feature, in fact--the hometown vets from World War II. There were dozens of them when I was a boy, the wars in Europe and the South Pacific only a decade behind us.

But one of those vets always lit my childhood imagination more than others because my dad gave that man special honors, not because of memorable bouts of unquestionable heroism but because of where that WWII vet served--he was there, at Normandy, on June 6. Honestly, I don't know if my own perception is right--whether a man named "Linky" was there on the beach or not--but I know his face will forever be the face of D-Day in my mind because I'm quite sure my dad told me, long ago, that he was, and my boyhood imagination placed him there, on those killing beaches. 

"Linky" made it, even though 4000 of his buddies did not. He and his family lived just outside of town in a big corner house where he pulled on his khakis every Memorial Day for the parade. To my mind, he wasn't just a vet--lots of men my dad's age were vets; he was special because he was in one of those barge-like landing crafts, the LCVPs, as they were called; he was among those emptied onto Omaha Beach with thousands of others, many hundreds of whom would never move another step. Linky made it. When he'd march by on Memorial Day, I used to dream of the stories he could tell--if he chose to, and not every vet did. He was there.

My dad spent D-Day in the South Pacific aboard the kind of tugboat whose job it was to move battleships around foreign harbors. I don't know this for certain, but I can't help but believe that he never pulled on his Coast Guard uniform after the war because he believed in his heart that because he'd never seen action, spent his years of service on a tugboat, Memorial Day was meant for the Linkys, not the guys who never heard a bullet slash the air. 

Today is Linky's day--that's what I can't help feeling. Last weekend we went to Pressure, a finely crafted movie whose heart is in the Normandy invasion, June 6, 1944. 

My mother-in-law lost her fiancé this morning, 82 years ago, June 6, 1944. His name was TerHorst, and he was trained as an engineer. His job that morning to demolish the "hedgehogs," as they were called, the sharp obstructions meant to keep the Allies off the beaches. I don't think he got out of his LCVP. 

In this country, that June 6 is not a holiday doesn't mean it's not somehow remembered, even by those who wouldn't be born until after the end of the Second World War.

I wasn't born until 1948, but that doesn't mean I don't remember. Lots of us haven't and won't. 

And that, I'd like to think, is as it should be.

This morning I'm thankful for an abundance of gifts on this June 6.

Kit Carson and Singing Grass

 

 Christopher Carson, people said, would expose himself to the full light of the campfire only when he lit a pipe. His closest companions were his pistols and the rifle he kept beside him even when he slept.

Daniel Boone stood no taller than 5'8"--not a peewee, but by no standards was he physically formidable. For the record, Davy Crockett, coonskin cap and all, was no bigger; in fact, Crockett would have measured up equally had the two of them ever stood toe to toe. The real Kit Carson, who ranks with Boone and Crockett in legendary prominence as American frontiersman, was even smaller--5'6" in stocking feet, wiry and by no means muscle-bound. Mythically, however, Kit Carson was a giant.

For a man who lacked any formal education, Carson was smart, even cagey, a quick learner who determined in a hurry how to get along in the American frontier of the early 1800s.  As a trapper and frontiersman, he could converse--I'm serious!--in Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Blackfoot, Shoshone, Piute and Ute, and he knew the sign language used by mountain men throughout the West.

I don't need to say that the diminutive Carson was a tough cookie, but he was, even though he was never, ever so full of himself that he'd tell you he was. He just was. 

He must have looked like a wimp to a French-Canadian trapper named Joseph Chouinard. Seems an Arapaho woman named Singing Grass, quite the looker, people say, got courted by both of them at a "Rendezvous" somewhere around what would become Fort Laramie, in what would become southern Wyoming. The event--for the record--would be the last annual "Rendezvouz" on the Upper Plains, an annual event when the entire congregation of mountain men went sort of nuts, binging for a week or so, drinking and gambling, swapping stories and then doing more drinking and gambling. Was, for certain, a high, old time.

Oh yes, and "womaning." In other words, a little of everything, and not a Sunday School picnic.  The sharp edge between Kit Carson and this  French trapper named Chouinard was put there by an Arapaho woman named Singing Grass, who found herself the subject of both men's attention because neither of them could take their eyes off her.

Guns were drawn, shots were fired, and in what must have been an unusual duel--it was on horseback. Chouinard's shots struck nothing of any danger on Kit Carson, but Carson's shots ripped the man's thumb off his hand. Singing Grass left the shooting match with Kit Carson, who, by all accounts, had been already her chosen victor.

Together, Carson and his French wife had two girls; the complications of the second birth took the life of Singing Grass and sent Carson into deep grief.

Kit Carson was a hero to thousands of 19th century readers, who ate up the Carson stories regardless of the stories' authenticity. 

And he was, you better believe, at best a part-time hero. Ask any Navajo about Kit Carson and the Long Walk, and be ready to field some authentic anger, a wild west guy whose famous pistols, even at night, were always half-cocked.

At least we know he's no commie

  

   "Communists always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years! But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL! Great Violence proceeds at levels never seen before, and the entity dissolves into Poverty, Squalor, and Crime. Remember, breathtaking ‘Popularity’ first, and then, guaranteed DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” 

Sleep well tonight. The Nightwatchman is awake, tweeting old fears. 

A poisoned candidacy

Feenstra, with glasses, behind the President

He is, by any definition save one, my brother. He is kindred, not family but closer to me than anyone else making national news this morning. He is--or was--a leading Republican candidate to become Governor of Iowa, his home state. He is--and will forever be--a child of Sioux County, Iowa, a man whose birthright is "Dutch Reformed," by birthright, if not by choice.

He grew up here, went to private, Christian schools, Dordt College (now University), where, several years later, (as did I) he taught. In the doctrinal language of the heritage he and I share, he's a "covenant child," born and baptized in a tradition whose history and character I've wandered through for most of my life.

I should, one would think, support his candidacy to be the next Governor of the state of Iowa (he is running, or was, until last night). Not only was he running, he was also the favorite, given his husky endorsement by the President just last week. Trump was for Randy Feenstra for Gov. "He's in," people thought.

Sorry. Yesterday, despite that hefty, prized endorsement, he lost. He has conceded.

Every news network used his loss as one of its headlines after yesterday's series of primary elections. He wasn't alone on the ballot; he was one of three candidates for gov, only two of which were positioned to grab the nomination. He came in second, lost the race by just 1500 votes. His loss was a huge story, a national headline because of someone else: he held the golden support of a man who's shown himself once again, recently, to be the ticket to victory. This time it may have been the kiss of death; Trump's support didn't do the job--his hand-picked boy and Dordt's most famous graduate went down to defeat.

And I voted against him. I didn't campaign against him, didn't say a word or write a sentence saying mean things or disparaging his candidacy; but neither did I vote for him, a fine man, a brother Hollander. I didn't vote against him; I voted in the Democratic primary for the man who did win his party's nomination--Josh Turek, a relative newcomer who opposes most everything our President, and Randy Feenstra, stands for. 

And there lies the difference. I don't know if it occurred by choice or request, but President Trump's endorsement of Randy Feenstra soured me. I wasn't registered to vote Republican anyway, but even if I had been, Trump's endorsement would have sunk anyone else's candidacy in my estimation too.

What the headlines missed is the significant issue of private education. Recently, in the state, more funding has found its way into private (in this case, Christian) education. Trump supports it, so did Randy Feenstra, with his family, his politics, and his contributions. 

That commitment was likely sufficient--even here-- to bring down his candidacy. He did well, just not good enough to win, and the difference, last night, between winning and losing, in his case, could well have been the voters, even here in Sioux County, his home, many of whom have opposed increased state aid for private education. Somewhere in the neighborhood, I'm sure, some people who love Trump don't like state funding of private education. No national news sources I saw this morning mentioned that in their analysis.

I'm sad about it, but, truthfully, I feel more sad that a man with his moral framework (which is to say, a moral framework I understand) would covet the endorsement of a man like Donald Trump (28 tweets in the last 24 hours). 

For me, Trump's support--and Feenstra's whole-hearted acceptance thereof--was cause enough to avoid him and his poisoned candidacy.

What didn't happen on 6/5/44

Truth be known, we didn't go to Pressure, the movie, because I'm a history buff. We didn't go because my father-in-law walked over D-Day beaches two weeks after the first wave of Allies, nor did we go because a Lakota woman I knew took precious amounts of her time to tell me her story, a nurse, right there in the middle of action that took place two weeks or so after the invasion. Nor did we go because my mother-in-law lost a fiancé on Omaha Beach just after he walked into the channel and departed the landing craft. 

We went for a pretty crappy reason, really--because we were bored. The local theater was offering Pressure, a movie I'd seen advertised featuring a portly Eisenhower (who wasn't skinny) in full uniform at a beach all too reminiscent of a half dozen truly memorable beaches, stories about D-Day, this one, strangely enough, about the weather. I'd like to say we went for some truly noble reason--after all, I'm a registered WWII buff. One of the major motivators was sheer boredom on a holiday weekend--and Pressure, strangely named, was on the big screen right here in town. 

We looked, we found, we went, and we loved it. Number me among those who find it hard to say what I just did--how can anybody love a war movie? Okay, talk among yourselves, but I did.

Let me take the edge off that claim, I really liked it, okay?  It's hard to say you "loved" D-Day or anything connected with the carnage on Normandy's beaches. But I remember what the theater looked like where I sat through D-Day, the first of the really big shows. Band of Brothers has a permanent place in my memory, and, of course, Saving Private Ryan is wholly unforgettable.

It's hard to know where I'd put Pressure (the pun is adorable, but silly--absolutely nothing about D-Day is "adorable") in the list; what I'll say unequivocally is that what we saw on Saturday night earned a place in the best of the D-Day films. I was captivated the entire time, even though there's far less blood than there could have been, far less carnage, far less battlefield ugliness than anyone human would like to see. 

Pressure doesn't glorify action, it sets up heroism where it dwells most abundantly, with decisions that have to be made in every battle and almost always determine at least something of ultimate battle outcome. In Pressure, it's the decision of the weatherman: is the ocean going to be on the side of the Allies, or is it going to arise in defense  of the defenders already set up and in place for a battle just about everyone had to know would determine the outcome of what Hitler jump-started in Poland.

Does it glorify the carnage? War movies can do that, but Pressure doesn't. The battle itself is horrifying and bloody, as was the invasion; but the conflict between one man's determined vision of the weather--what it might be--on June 5, the day plotted for the invasion against the immense pressure created by months of American troops in England. 

One man says no, and that one man's refusal to reshape his forecast makes all the difference. He's the protagonist of the story, but the movie doesn't cast him as hero. Instead, it's the paunchy Allied Supreme Commander with the sad comb-over, a warrior America chose to call Ike, who chose to believe the scorned forecaster who told him to wait.

Which he did. It's likely, the movie claims, that the Allies waiting on June 5 made all the difference.

The praise for Pressure hasn't been all that glorious, but I say seeing it on the big screen is worth shelling out the bucks for a ticket or two. In my estimation, Pressure is really a great story, very much worth getting up off the couch and back in the theater.

We did. It was terrific!

Sunday Morning Meds from Psalm 50

“And the heavens proclaim his righteousness, 

for God himself is judge.” Psalm 50:1

 My uncle told me about it. I’m not at all sure my father even knew. He said that he’d once heard that his own grandparents, the immigrant Dutch Calvinist folk who came to this country in the late 1860s, were buried in the cemetery in Orange City, Iowa, just a hop, skip, and jump from where I’d just taken a job. “You ought to look once,” he said.

I don’t remember what finally tugged me out to that graveyard. At the time, I knew no one else who’d been buried there; but finally I went, dutifully determined to find that headstone. I scouted the oldest parts of that cemetery, where the ancient headstones stand like marbled tongue depressors, leaning in various degrees of sleepy repose. No Schaaps—or at least not C. C. and his wife Neeltje. Maybe my uncle, the family historian, was wrong, I thought. I kept looking.

I found it in the neighborhood of newer graves, a barrel-like, granite monument clearly carved with the family names, relevant dates, and a scripture verse, in Dutch, on each side, for each grandparent.

It’s difficult to describe what I felt right then, and likely impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced such a palpable sense of rooted-ness. Even though I’d never stepped a foot in that cemetery before, I felt, strangely enough, as if I were home. Does that make sense? There was an unmistakable sense of life in the grave at my feet.

It’s 110 years now, since C. C. Schaap died, 102 since Neeltje passed away; but once I found the spot, I felt as if I’d been somehow summoned, and those great-grandparents, who died long before my father was born, were looking me over—Grandpa nodding, Grandma turning up my collar against the cold prairie wind.

Just three days ago I went back to that cemetery, took a nephew out to visit. When we found that barrel-like monument back, there they were, smiling, as grandparents do.
I think of that this morning, as I consider this line from Psalm 50—how heavenly spectators stand there in awe before the Judge. I can’t help but imagine what that Orange City cemetery might look like, the ancient ones standing atop their monuments, a most astounding crowd of faithful.

One of the dreams of the Ghost Dancers in the late 1890s was that “the old ones” would return from the dust, would walk silently into camp and take their places around the campfires. It was a beatific and celestial Lakota vision.

And it’s here in Psalm 50. “The heavens declare the glory of God” is the central line of Psalm 19, a psalm that reverences the heavenly preaching God does each day in sermons the wide open skies proclaim. But here there’s a homily with a different blessing, a new twist, a cloud of witnesses, a ton of great-grandparents, waiting for the word of the Lord.

If I could choose a place to be when such a court is assembled, I think I might choose a cemetery, just to be there when all those ancient tongue depressors fall on cue and the righteous emerge.

Wouldn’t that be fun? There’d be lots to talk about, lots of songs, lots of stories, lots of smiles.