Agora, an interdisciplinary journal grounded in the humanities, is a project of the Luther College Paideia Program. The Luther College Paideia Program encompasses many activities and resources for students, faculty members, and the broader community. It includes an annual lecture series, library acquisitions, student writing services, a faculty development program that includes sabbatical grants and summer workshops, and Agora: The Liberal Arts at Luther College. All these activities receive financial support from the Paideia Endowment, originally established through National Endowment for the Humanities grants matched by friends of Luther College. The Paideia owl logo was designed by Professor of Art John Whelan.
The primary Agora contributors are Luther College faculty; writing is also solicited from other college community members and, occasionally, from outside writers. Agora was established in 1988 by Paideia Director Wilfred F. Bunge, Professor of Religion and Classics, who edited the journal from 1988-1998. Other editors include: Mark Z. Muggli, Professor of English, 1998-2004; Peter A. Scholl, Professor of English, 2004-2014; and Martin Klammer, Professor of English, editor since 2014. Agora is distributed to on-campus faculty and administrators as well as to off-campus friends of the college. Anyone wishing to be included on the print copy list or donate to Agora should contact us at (563) 387-1153 or email agora@luther.edu.
To see the current issue and archival issues online, go to www.luther.edu/paideia/agora
Paideia Texts and Issues Lecture
Public Anthropology and the Common Good: Costly Lessons of Bearing Witness to War
Maryna Nading and Liudmyla Skorlupina
Seeing Vocation Differently: A Sabbatical Reflection
Biophysics
Ylvisaker
Cover: A commemorative coin issued by Ukraine's National Bank. The coin features the hands of a Maskuty volunteer weaving a camouflage net in the shape of Ukraine. Image courtesy of Maryna Nading
Storytelling
Cantacuzino and Louisa Hext
Star Conversations (January 10, 2024) Kristin
Honoring Our Asian Alumni and Students (February 16, 2024)
Hanna Stood Up (February 28, 2024) Allie
Introduction
by MARTIN KLAMMER, Professor of English, Editor of Agora
Martin Klammer
This issue of Agora features several compelling stories, none more so than the account by Liudmyla Skorlupina of Russia’s attack on her home city of Bucha, Ukraine. Liudmyla co-presented a Paideia Text and Issues Lecture in February with her fellow Ukrainian, anthropology professor Maryna Nading, which we feature as the first item in this issue.
I remember sitting spellbound in the CFL Recital Hall as Liudmyla recounted how she awoke early the morning in February 2022 to the sounds of “jets, helicopters, and distant explosions”— sounds “I had previously heard only in movies.” Liudmyla told not only of the life-changing difficulties of that day and the weeks that followed, but also of the comradery with her fellow citizens as they escaped Russian occupation and were reunited with family members to the west.
Maryna further developed the idea that “Because of war and perhaps despite it, new communities, solidarities, and webs of care have emerged.” The quite
literal “web of care” Maryna researched was Maskuty, a volunteer organization that weaves camouflage nets to protect Ukrainian soldiers and military vehicles. With such acts of selfless dedication to each other and to their nation, Ukrainians are showing that their experience of the war “is as much about love and care as it is about evil and hate.”
In this issue we feature two essays on the Bethany Indian Mission School in Wittenberg, Wisconsin by Anna Peterson and Hayley Jackson. Agora has already published two essays on the Bethany mission—by psychology professor Joe Breitenstein in 2017 and by Peterson and English professor David Faldet in 2019—so, one may ask, why again?
In the last few years, Anna has done additional archival research, and in this issue she describes how Luther College leaders were far more involved in the Bethany mission than was previously known. The Norwegian Synod, with significant connections to Luther College, founded the mission in 1883 with this stated good intention: “since we occupy the land which was once their land, and we are obligated to them.” Yet, as Anna shows, Luther leaders involved in the mission “participated in the construction of systems designed to assimilate and convert Native youth to Christianity (Lutheranism) and White culture.”
The mission did achieve some good, offering religious education as well as “material support to the Native peoples in the vicinity.” In the 1950s superintendent Ernest Sihler, a Luther alumnus, helped seven youth from the mission attend Luther. Their experience at Luther was mixed, but several of these Native American students went on to have “rich and full lives after college.” Anna’s essay helps us to view the history of the college with discernment, eager
to praise what is good but also honest to recognize how the college has been implicated in larger cultural projects, which may or may not benefit those whom they are intended to serve.
Bonnie Johnson (production editor) and I are excited to share this issue with you. In addition to the essays described above, the issue includes a history of the Luther College Concert Band by Benjamin Yates, sabbatical reports from faculty in English, chemistry, and Environmental Studies, chapel talks by two faculty, a staff member, and a student, and reflections from a London-based non-profit organization focused on forgiveness. We think this issue offers a diverse and interesting collection of writings that showcase the college as a place invested in the liberal arts and committed to serving for the common good.
Public Anthropology and the Common Good: Costly Lessons of Bearing Witness to War
by MARYNA NADING, Professor of Anthropology, and LIUDMYLA SKORLUPINA
Editor’s note: Liudmyla Skorlupina has taught ESL for the last ten years in Bucha, Ukraine, where her family has lived through the occupation. Liudmyla and her son have temporarily relocated to Durham, North Carolina. Liudmyla and Maryna and have known each other since their secondary school days in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine.
Acknowledgement
We are only able to share these ideas because people in Ukraine are putting their lives on the line every minute to resist the invasion, stand for our right of selfdetermination, and shield our neighbors from Putin’s regime. We deeply appreciate the support of the freedom-loving people from every corner of the world who directly or indirectly help Ukraine withstand the attack and fight to bring peace back.
Introduction
Maryna: In this essay that tells stories of war in Ukraine, we explore two critical questions about the common good: What lessons can the war teach us,
especially if it is still unfolding? And what are some spaces of solidarity paradoxically produced by war, besides its chaos and ruination? We wrote this for a general audience in the spirit of public anthropology, offering up stories of people with whom we and you, our reader, are unlikely to ever cross paths. Most of these stories will be told through the mediation of ethnographic research and one of them, Liudmyla’s story, will be shared by her directly. While writing this piece both of us struggled with the provisional nature of the lessons that the war can teach us, because it is unfortunately ongoing and our families’ and loved ones’ lives are far from settled. Yet, even in this limbo, we feel, there are important stories to tell.
We will first introduce the field of public anthropology, a part of which is collaborative work that is honored by us co-writing this essay, which also benefited from consultation with the Ukrainian volunteers whose stories we tell. After that, Liudmyla will transport you, even if briefly, to Bucha, Ukraine, in the first weeks of the invasion. We both hope that hearing from a firsthand witness will allow you to better understand the social context that compels people to organize and volunteer. Liudmyla will focus on her family’s direct experience of the occupation of Bucha, their displacement, and their plans for return. We will then delve into the ethnographic exploration of a group of volunteers called “Maskuty” who make camouflage nets for the Ukrainian army. Collectively, we explore how volunteering in the times of war can help us think about the questions of care and social reproduction, questions essential to imagining the common good.
Public anthropology
Public anthropology is a commitment of professional anthropologists to “illuminate the larger social issues of our times as well as encourage broad, public conversations about them with the explicit goal of fostering social change. It affirms our responsibility, as scholars and citizens, to meaningfully contribute to communities beyond the academy–both local and global–that make the study of anthropology possible” (Borofsky 2004). In addition,
Maryna Nading
Liudmyla Skorlupina
A camouflage net made by the volunteer group Maskuty in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
public anthropology seeks to infuse the anthropological wisdom into public debate–“transforming received, accepted understandings of social issues with new insights and frameworks” (The Center for Public Anthropology, University of California). In other words, public anthropology is firmly rooted in anthropological tradition, but seeks to directly respond to urgent issues that are most meaningful to communities, seeking to engage them in genuine collaboration. We seek to elevate emotional learning through telling of personal stories. “Emotional force may be one of the strongest analytical tools for the ethnographer to understand people they study as positioned subjects” (Rosaldo 1993: 19), but it may also be one of the strongest tools for readers to connect with people worlds away. What animates them? What is the “war of their hearts”? (Wilson 1939). As we were preparing our essay, we considered incorporating some of the established theories on war (Fry 2007, Mead 1940, Walzer 2000, Weil 1965). However, the cultural force of emotions came through much better in firsthand accounts. Besides, public anthropology felt right to me at the time of personal disorientation and worry for my family and friends in Ukraine. It also introduced me to a range of genres that I would not have thought of engaging with before. Among them are an op-ed in The Des Moines Register, a publication in the hot spots feature of the Cultural Anthropologist journal, an ethnographic vignette during the concert of Ukrainian music
that Decorah community put together, a pop-up panel right here at Luther, two podcasts, and other short, ethnographically dense types of engagements with the public. We would like to share Liuda’s firsthand account at this time.
Liudmyla’s Story
Liudmyla: February 2022 was an ordinary month for me and my family. The New Year celebrations came to an end, and we were preparing for the Valentine’s. My friend Anna and I were getting ready for a seminar for the English language teachers in Bucha. Sometime near the end of the month, I received a phone call from my American friend Sonia Scherr who used to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer at my school and now lives in Vermont. I remember cheerfully chatting about our upcoming teaching collaboration and other projects. Before Sonia hung up, she cautiously broached the subject of the looming invasion. She asked me if we were worried and if we were all right. Like others in the US, Sonia saw the dire warnings on TV. In contrast, our news anchors in Ukraine focused on reassuring messages. Unlike some of my wiser friends, I optimistically believed that invasion simply could not happen. My mother is from Siberia, and we have many relatives in Russia. I could not fathom that our neighbor could betray us this way. I did not feel the need to make any preparations or stock up my pantry.
I remember Thursday, February 24, 2022, very well. I woke up at 5:08 a.m.
to the sounds I had previously heard only in the movies. Something was in the sky, and it did not sound like a usual airplane. I woke my husband up and told him that something was happening. He said it was just a dream and to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, ten minutes later, our nightmare began. We no longer doubted what we heard–jets, helicopters, and distant explosions. We live in a wooded area several miles away from a large cargo airfield in the city of Hostomel, which was a strategic facility for the enemy attack. To say that everyone was panicking would be an understatement.
A flurry of phone calls ensued. My parents live in the western part of Ukraine, and jumping ahead I will tell you that eventually my family evacuated from Bucha and joined them. My in-laws were not so lucky. They lived in Mariupol. My father-in-law, an artist, eventually lost his life during the siege of the city. His body burnt to ashes inside their apartment after a Russian rocket hit it. Later, a friend was able to get to the top floor of their collapsed multi-story building, collect his remains, and scatter them over the Azov Sea. My mother-in-law, having endured more than I can share with you, eventually managed to leave Mariupol and is now staying at our house in Bucha along with my husband. We will be reunited in Ukraine this summer.
Something was in the sky, and it did not sound like a usual airplane.
In those early days, we had faith that everything would get sorted out, that the entire invasion must be a terrible mistake. So we stayed in Bucha. Besides, we had a dog and two cats, whom we could not leave behind. The first lesson of war is perhaps the hardest. Sometimes terrible things happen, and it is not possible to be prepared for what you cannot imagine. In the hardest moments, things come into focus and you can easily see what everyone stands for. Many of my relatives in Russia unfortunately continue to be silent about
Liudmyla with her English students in Bucha, Ukraine before the war
An older Ukrainian man making a net
atrocities committed against Ukrainian people or even find them acceptable. Terrible days and nights of constant bombing began, but the explosions seemed far from our house. At that time our phones still worked, and we had internet, gas, water, and electricity. Later these will all disappear. The street lights will disappear. In the evening, people will close the windows tightly and hide in their houses or their cellars if they have them.
It was not too long before we ran out of food and had to find a grocery store. Whatever businesses were still open were cash only, and ATMs were no longer working. My son was 10 at the time. We left him home and used the last of our gasoline to drive to town. What I saw there is carved into my memory forever. Desolate streets, tank tracks, disfigured young trees with twigs pressed into the asphalt below. We realized that the enemy was already in town. The most terrible thing I saw that day was a dead body of a person, a man, lying by the side of a road at a distance. People told me about more corpses in the city center. These were the first victims in our town.
My son made a hiding place in the closet, saying that he was safer there.
Until that point, we could cook our meals at home. I baked my own bread. Then communication and electricity went out. Gas and water followed suit. We had to cook our meals over the open fire in our backyard. We have an old well built in 1914. It saved ours and our neighbors’ lives. When the shelling started, it was the worst. We would all gather in one room–people and animals huddled together on our bed or on the floor. Then my son made a hiding place in the closet, saying that he was safer there. The phones did not work, but we remembered a gift set we gave our son for Christmas. It had several options for electronic builds, and radio was one of them. We managed to assemble a simple
radio. It became our lifeline and it gave us access to the news.
The last time we managed to get to the store was the day when a large column of Russian tanks entered the city. We did not know about their imminent arrival when we left the house. I was standing in a very long line for bread when the news had spread about the Russian tanks approaching Bucha. There was an atmosphere of camaraderie among the people as we were waiting for the oven to finish baking. I did not know then that I would never see some of them again. We must have been some of the last people lucky to buy that warm loaf of bread fresh out of the oven. I was happy. My family would have bread to eat. We rushed home using the backroads. Our son was home waiting for us and worried. The second, if provisional, lesson is probably the importance of simple things: our community; the safety of my son; the warm loaf of bread; simply living without the threat of violence.
On occasion my text messages or calls to friends and family went through. I knew then that my sister’s family was living in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, and my mom and dad were relatively safe in the western part of Ukraine. We lost all contact from my in-laws in Mariupol. We tried calling them every day with no luck. Then the street fighting began. One day, I was standing by my yard fence and sharing a few words with my sister on the phone when I heard a terrible roar. I realized it came from tanks approaching me from the end of our street. I hid behind the house and counted the number of the tanks. I passed this information on to the territorial defense unit when I got a chance. I know many people tried to communicate the enemy location to our armed forces. Then I saw the Russian intruders in person for the first time up close. They looked like ordinary young men, but I felt nothing other than disgust and hatred towards them because they came to rob and kill us. They stopped not far from our house. We heard them breaking the windows of a small grocery store nearby. They proceeded to eat the stolen food, sitting atop their tanks. They drove back and forth along our street, and we
heard gunfire at a distance. Eventually, we learned that the column of tanks was destroyed by the Ukrainian forces. If you saw any press coverage at the time, you may have seen my street with the remnants of those destroyed tanks.
They looked like ordinary young men, but I felt disgust and hatred toward them because they came to rob and kill us.
Two weeks had passed, peppered with hope, worry, and some dangerous attempts at finding food. One day our friend Zhanna let us know about an evacuation channel for women and children. She is a pediatrician who wound up working one continuous shift during the occupation. At the time, Russian forces did not allow civilians to leave the town on their own accord. We later learned about the tragic departure attempts of those who did not listen and were shot to death. Zhanna made up her mind it was time for her and her son to leave and she wanted us to go too. Our sons are peers and close friends. It was very difficult for me and my son to leave his father behind, but we had to accept it. So, we got a few things ready and ran for the evacuation buses that were supposed to wait in the city center. What we saw on our way cannot be expressed in words: gutted burnt buildings, facades destroyed by explosions, broken windows, damaged fences, scared animals everywhere, fresh potholes from the tanks, tree branches littering the ground, and shell damage on our beloved city sculptures. Even then we did not quite realize the actual number of victims. In 2023, a memorial plaque was installed in Bucha. It lists the names of 521 people who were tortured and killed in our town of 60,000 during those days.
Our evacuation bus never arrived. My son and I waited outside in the cold of winter along with many other women, children, and elderly. There must have been around 2,000 of us. On day two
of our wait, we got word that personal vehicles would be allowed to join the evacuation column out of Bucha. My friend Anna had a car, so we jumped in and drove off without a moment’s delay. There were eight people and two cats packed in that Jeep Patriot. Another boy was in the trunk. We were flagged to stop at three checkpoints, and our documents were checked. There were tanks at every checkpoint and there were soldiers pointing their guns at us. We raised our hands every time to show we were not armed. We wiped our phones to make sure no compromising information could be discovered. The ordinarily 20-minute drive took us an agonizing hour and a half. What was even worse is what we saw on the sides of the road: the remnants of cars, trucks, and minivans in the ditches. Those belonged to the people who tried to escape earlier. We all went silent as we slowly passed a white car with a cracked windshield covered completely in a reddish-brown solid stain. It stands before my eyes even today.
We rejoiced upon reaching our Ukrainian blue and yellow flag in the town of Bilohorodka, where the Ukrainian evacuation teams were waiting for us with tea, sandwiches, and transit to the train station. We stayed in Bilohorodka one more day waiting for my husband to join. He managed to borrow some gasoline and evacuated with other people in our car in the same evacuation column. Then we drove west, to Khmelnytskyi where my parents live. There, I was reunited with my parents and with my sister whose family also evacuated from Kyiv. Nine of us lived in a small three-room Soviet-era apartment in a five-story block building. Immediately after Easter, I decided to go back to Bucha, even though civilians were discouraged from returning to the newly liberated area. This is because Russians left mines–terrible “gifts” in people’s homes that they looted and vandalized. Many offices were still closed, public transportation was intermittent, and only some grocery stores were open. But I was anxious to get home. My husband and son stayed back with my parents at the time to see through their work and school obligations.
We will continue to mop up the mess and plant new trees. Life must go on.
Bucha greeted me with an unusual silence. There were still only a few people out and about. There were no street lights in the evenings. I cleaned our house from top to bottom, and I cleaned our yard. When I came to school and saw my colleagues, I was incredibly happy that we were all together again. We hugged and cried. Every person had a story to tell. Some of our colleagues from neighboring schools had been killed, some lost their loved ones, and yet others had family and friends injured. This is where I also learned the terrible news about several of our students who died at the hands of the enemy. During the occupation, Russians broke into our school, smashing doors, taking our computers and vandalizing our classrooms and hallways. There were only two people in the school during the occupation–our principal and the guard, both older gentlemen. Many windows in the school were broken by explosions. The roof in one of the buildings was damaged by a bomb and a fire was ablaze. Our school principal managed to put it out before it spread to the rest of the building. We cleared out the debris, washed and scrubbed, and we planted new flowers and trees. The war is ongoing and it is very difficult to realize that my story is far from the worst. I will continue believing in the good and that it will prevail someday soon. We plan to go back home this summer. We will continue to mop up the mess and plant new trees. Life must go on.
Maskuty. Who Are They?
Maryna: The war has killed, maimed, and left thousands destitute and forever changed. Because of war and perhaps despite it, new communities, solidarities, and webs of care have emerged. Our ethnographic research site is geographically removed from Bucha and from the current frontline, yet Khmelnytskyi residents are impacted by war in at least three major ways: many of them have family and friends who serve in
the army or have lost their lives; they live with air raids that sometimes last for hours on end multiple times a day and at night, not to mention occasionally hit the town and kill its residents; and their livelihoods and mobility are severely compromised. Volunteers today have many jobs, all unpaid. Some help animals who lost homes, some help run “free” stores where displaced persons can shop without money, yet others cook meals that will be transported to the frontlines. We could spend the entirety of this essay describing the different kinds of volunteering. However, in an anthropological fashion, we will instead look very closely at a volunteer labor of one specific kind–weaving of camouflage nets–and try to explain it from multiple angles.
Maskuty is a group of camouflage net weavers who create nets for the army vehicles and for the soldiers. It is one of 20 volunteer organizations under the umbrella of Zahyst group–which means protection. Its central location, where the Maskuty group meets every day, is in the old maternity hospital. Its rooms carry visible signs of this building’s rich history–bright ceiling lights in the former operation theater, tiled floors and walls in the checkup rooms, long corridors punctuated by wards that now house the volunteers. The word “maskuty” is made-up, and it can be roughly translated as “those who make masks or camouflage.” I got to know the people
Women of the Maskuty group making camouflage nets for the Ukrainian military
Because of war and perhaps despite it, new communities, solidarities, and webs of care have emerged.
of Zahyst through my childhood friend who is one of the weavers. When the full-scale invasion started in 2022 we spoke daily, trying to comfort each other about our families’ safety. She introduced me to other volunteers, and we have been communicating for over two years now. I was invited to work with them in person many times, and was finally able to do so this summer. My research methods are therefore a mix of in-person and technology-mediated ethnographic techniques. Among the in-person methods are participant observation in the course of August 2023 when I tried my hand at making the camouflage nets. I also participated in various events of the volunteer center, including birthday celebrations and group lunches, recording reports for social media, and helping with many small tasks. I interviewed volunteers and some of the visitors of the center, and the interviews varied in the degree of formality and duration. Among the technology-mediated techniques were key informant interviews, Zoom interviews, epistolary interviews, virtual tours of Maskuty space, collection of volunteer testimonies via social media and press coverage, as well as our reciprocal labor of organizing and carrying out fundraising events to help build bridges between people in the US who want to help in direct ways and people in Ukraine who need it. While the name of the volunteer group and the research site are true, the names of the participants have been replaced with pseudonyms.
The Labor of Care
Production of health and saving lives is often associated with clinical settings, hospitals,
clinics, paramedics, emergency vehicles, etc. Indeed, health care facilities have become targets of Russian aggression, with over 193 health facilities destroyed and 1468 damaged, evacuation corridors regularly attacked and ambulance vehicles shelled (Ukrainian Ministry of Health 2023). At the same time, clinical medicine depends on care performed by laypersons outside clinical settings (Briggs and Mantini-Briggs 2019). Many scholars have described care as a “vital element of social organization” because all people require it at some point in their lives (Thelen 2015:497). Ethnographic discussion of the camouflage net-making can help us understand the concept of care in an experience-near fashion.
Creation of a camouflage net depends on the collective work of many hands focused on completion of soldiers’ requests on a tight schedule. Since February 24, 2022, Maskuty has completed 2185 camouflage nets for army vehicles, evacuation buses, one small airplane, and 1340 kikimory (kiky, or camouflage uniforms) for snipers, intelligence, and watchmen and women. This is about
50,000 square meters of nets. It may be hard to visualize 50,000 meters, so let me paint you a picture. First, the base net is made from a firm synthetic thread. It is then filled with strips of fabric for vehicle camouflage or with patches of yarn for the uniform covers. Volunteers then cut out the sleeves and the hoods from the netted canvas and connect them to the bodice of the uniform cover. Some of the uniforms reach the ground and others look more like a conductor’s tuxedo with a short front and a cascading back to allow thorough coverage without extra fabric during hot summers. The precious meters of the camouflage net do not go to waste. Leftovers are used to make covers for helmets called “mokhnatky.” The process of figuring out the best way to camouflage a soldier while keeping them warm in winter or cool in summer never stops. Burlap thread was used at first, but it got wet and heavy with rain in the field conditions. So the volunteers switched to a lighter yarn instead. Maskuty test the final product outside–Zahyst building has a large courtyard shared with several apartment buildings, a dormitory, and a diagnostic center. They also share a spacious bomb shelter in use now, decades after the Cold War when it was built. To achieve the desired camouflage effect, shiny material is avoided to prevent reflecting light, and colors are intermixed to avoid any unnatural shapes, for example large squares of a single color. Volunteers learn by doing, and there are no written instructions. A palm of a hand is used as a guide to know when to switch to a different color combination. Each palm of a hand typically receives three different colors out of a total of 8-10 shades of green, grey, beige, brown, and white in winter.
Every patch of yarn is tied to the base net with a “medical” knot–a stable knot used in surgery that cannot easily come apart. Every strip of fabric that makes a larger camouflage net for a car, for example, is tied to the base net in a series of half circles, which end up looking like a snake. Based on
Camouflage nets depend on many hands.
the color scheme, volunteers distinguish between different types of kikimory. The green ones are called “zelenky” (the green ones) and are meant for the woodlands in late spring and summer. The brown-beige “stepky” protect soldiers in the steppe grasses and in fall. There are also “snizhky”–which are white and grey for the snowy landscapes. Nadiia, the retired accountant who maintains the Maskuty’s balance sheets, shared some of the soldiers’ stories of good camouflage. How a van full of Ukrainian soldiers outnumbered by the enemy held their breath as the Russian forces drove by without noticing them. How from an ambushed group of five the only soldier who survived had his kika on. Sometimes they send trophies back–remnants of enemy weapons, a piece of paper with a personal note, etc. Nadiia says, “we thank them, they thank us, it is so moving.”
A van full of Ukrainian soldiers outnumbered by the enemy held their breath as the Russian forces drove by without noticing them.
The labor of care also manifests itself in the gift-based nature of Maskuty volunteer work. The sheer parameters of the camouflage nets require a collective approach. When a net is completed, it is rolled into a bundle and is either packed for a speedy departure to the front or tied with some twine and hand delivered to the second floor of the main building where other volunteers make kikimory. I asked one of my interviewees whether volunteering was her main job, only to be corrected, “No, this is not our job. Volunteers do not get paid.” Maskuty therefore need to balance their volunteering with other work, including taking care of their own families. Diadia Pasha (uncle Pasha), for example, told me that although he is retired, in summer he has to negotiate with his wife who expects his help in their massive vegetable garden and their canning projects at home. But volunteers usually point out that their work
gives them more than it takes. Tamara found something positive about being away from home all the time, “It’s okay, my children learned how to cook their own meals this year.”
Maskuty are usually able to complete a net or a kika in just one day as long as three or four of them show up. Yana is one of the new additions to the Maskuty backbone. She lost her home to the military action not once but twice since 2014. She came to Khmelnytskyi this summer when the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam was blown up. She concurred that the demand cannot truly ever be met, because nets are generally a single-use item: they get burnt, they get torn up or left behind, they get ruined by the elements. Yet Maskuty do not think that a factory-made net can ever replace them. Not only does the army not have enough funds for such luxuries, but there is also something special about making the nets by hand.
While not outwardly religious, Maskuty have shared how important and even therapeutic it is for them to think positively while they are working. A mother whose son died in a landmine explosion says that she volunteers because she hopes that other children will live. Vitaliy is another regular, a young red-headed man in his twenties. He wants to be known as “a mysterious Maskut who weaves with a speed of a robot.” He challenged me to time him as he was completing a segment of a large camouflage net, and it was mere seconds. My friend Tamara says that the sacredness of the process lies precisely in the collective work by hands of seeming strangers connected by their common misfortune and their common hope. I was told that an average net may connect at least ten people from its inception as a piece of thread to its use on the frontline. It is this binding property of the net to envelope, protect, and bring
A mother whose son died in a landmine explosion says that she volunteers because she hopes that other children will live.
together that will be explored in the next section.
Reproductive Labor
As a reproductive substance, a camouflage net is literally intended to give life and it is figuratively intended to shelter and protect the nation from the existential threat of this war. Ukraine has endured centuries of oppression by Russia, so every family has a personal story of loss they endured. Just a couple of weeks ago, Maskuty received a special gift–a commemorative coin issued by Ukraine’s National Bank featuring hands of a volunteer who is weaving a camouflage net in the shape of the country of Ukraine. The coin captures well how Maskuty think of their work–as their contribution to the survival not only of individual soldiers, but of the Ukrainian nation as a whole. Social reproduction refers to “the activities, attitudes, behaviors and emotions, responsibilities and relationships directly involved in the maintenance of life on a daily basis and intergenerationally” (Laslett and Brenner 1989:383). Maskuty engage in socially reproductive behaviors by caring for soldiers, instilling a sense of belonging and a sense of national pride through their interactions with media outlets and workshops meant for the general non-volunteering public, and modelling leadership in their local community by making a positive impact on others (Crumdy 2024).
Ukrainian tank camouflaged by Maskuty net
The sacredness of the process lies in the collective work by hands of seeming strangers connected by a common misfortune and common hope.
While some volunteers are young adults, many are retired and see themselves literally as elders whose job it is to protect and nourish their children and grandchildren. Soldiers sometimes refer to them as angels, saviors, or as Berehynias. Berehynia is an ancient Slavic goddess, a protectoress of the home hearth. One of the weavers says, “The highest praise for my work is someone’s life. For the most part, soldiers could be my children in terms of our age difference. I want them to live. I want our children to grow up here instead of looking for their fortunes abroad….We are making a choice to help where and how we can.” Another mother of two young boys says she is raising her children to be independent, not someone’s appendage, referring to the russification policies that were rampant in Soviet Ukraine. Similarly, Tamara shares her story of becoming a more aware Ukrainian citizen: “Perhaps this war will be a reloading for the…entire nation of Ukraine…. In the first days (of war) when we were sitting here and making the nets we decided we needed to do two things. First, learn how to shoot a gun for self-defense. Second, buy the most comprehensive textbook of the history of Ukraine and read it from cover to cover…. What I mean is that…so much garbage has been force fed to us over the (Soviet) years. We now need to flush it all down the drain and become a true unified nation.” Others concur, “We will for sure not be the same as before the war. We are together now.” Priorities shift and what’s right and wrong becomes painfully obvious, uniting people living in Ukraine, of Ukrainian heritage, or those who simply share their values.
Some Maskuty provide not only their manual and meditative labor, but also engage with the press, maintain social media posts to fundraise and broaden
the volunteer pool, and educate students and the public. Iryna, for example, is a mathematics professor at a local polytechnic college. She is one of the Maskuty regulars, but because her zone of influence extends to students, she got them involved as well. With a little help, Iryna installed the base frames at her college, and students began to regularly contribute their time. Even before the war, many colleges have awarded some academic credit for student service. Today, it is even more relevant. Iryna wishes that young people volunteered even without this carrot and stick approach, but she is also unapologetic: “I think if a person does not naturally have a sense of civic duty, we need to teach it.” Some of the Maskuty have long résumés of involvement in civil society initiatives. Long before war, Diadia Pasha cleaned and restored historical fortresses and churches neglected during the Soviet era. Likewise, Nadiia was a member of Narodnyi Rukh political party, the party that ushered Ukraine to its independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. She is even creating a new vocabulary of Ukrainian nationbuilding. Kikimora (or kika)–a uniform cover–means a monster or a swamp dweller, and it is a word that originated in the Russian language. Nadiia is trying on other terms–chugaister, mavka, didko. All of these are used occasionally instead of or alongside with “kika” and refer to the pagan Slavic spirits, most of them dwelling in the woodlands and valleys, places not unlike the current locations of the Ukrainian forces whom the nets are called to protect.
Maskuty’s internal organization itself mimics that of a family. The volunteers eat their meals together, their children run around the building and the courtyard, there are always treats passing hands, and occasionally volunteers venture out to see a show, to relax after a long day at a sandy river beach, or go canoeing on a weekend. Sometimes volunteers are literally family members. Tamara explains, “In reality, the entire volunteering movement is based on many family connections….For example, if my husband is in the army and this other woman’s son is also in the army, and we live in the same village, we will get together and we will prepare some home-made food for them: some pierogis, some canned meat, something sweet. But of course, we won’t send it just to our men. Why not help others? So, we will send enough food for their entire unit….Zahyst finds us a van, some gas, our friends will help to get things ready….So, together we become volunteers, we become like a working mechanism to get things done.” This is precisely what Greta Uehling (2023) calls the “everyday war”–being pulled into the war because of the emotional connections to friends and family who find themselves in physical danger. Ueling writes, “[J]ust as war affects family, families affect war” in a number of “small, capillary ways” (2023:98,99), such as sending supplies to the frontline, buying just the right kind of winter jacket for a soldier whom one knows, or weaving camouflage nets. On a more somber note, Maskuty also attend more than their share of funerals. Every Ukrainian town unfortunately has got an unwanted addition–an alley of heroes commemorating the fallen soldiers. Cemeteries are bright with Ukrainian blue and yellow flags, a heartbreaking sight of young faces staring back from the gravestones.
Conclusions
On a lighter note, volunteers protect and nourish new life. On the last day of my summer visit as I was sitting in the bus on the Polish border, my friend phoned me to let me know that Maskuty’s resident cat named Camo gave birth to six kittens. Camo’s lifelong
Kikimory (kiky, or camouflage uniform)
partner Vasia is the real boss of the volunteer center. During my visit, an older displaced person named Tetiana wanted to be sure that I saw the area allocated to Vasia at the center: “here is his food, here is his brush, here is his medicine, here is his bed.”
He simply said, "I will weave till our victory."
One essential lesson that the war has taught us is to stay encouraged. There is absolutely no benefit in giving in to worry, well, maybe just for a minute. Volunteers not only believe in Ukraine’s victory despite all odds, but actively plan for it. They joke that they will make special kikimory to wear to the victory parade very soon. Some say they will make them pink, just for the hell of it. Some say they will them green, the color of hope. Nature does not have straight lines, they say. Not seeing a direct path to the end of this war does not mean that peace is too far away. In fact, love animates volunteering. Diadia Pasha explained, “Although there are around 300 volunteers in different areas of Zahyst, there is a palpable feeling of strong friendship, based on love.” During a virtual tour last year, the center’s cook Valentyna told me, “Kitchen is the best place to be, the tastiest. Every Monday and Thursday, we grill. If you would like, Tamara can make a video for you next time, how we cook with love and open hearts.” In summer, I was fortunate to
feel this particular kind of love. Because I was a guest, Valentyna made sure I got extra meatballs in my lunch soup. Tamara had a special word for love, “human factor.” When she was explaining to me how treats were always included along with the camouflage nets for the soldiers, she said, “We want to do something nice for our men….People who prepare the bundles for the front often spend their own money to add cookies, chocolates, or cigarettes….This is the human factor. I think this is why we are still standing. Our country stands on the shoulders of people who understand this.” What a beautiful way, I thought, to imagine love, and not hate, as a human factor. When I asked Diadia Pasha how much longer he will volunteer, his answer was swift and you can probably guess it. He simply said, “I will weave till our victory.” Paradoxically, then, war is just as much about love and care as it is about evil or hate. Although unwanted and unfair, war opens the eyes to things that really matter and provides a relief from superficial concerns, dwarfing them with its enormity. It is through this painful clarity that it becomes possible to see what the common good may look like–life lived with and for others, life in a community.
References
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Crumdy, Angela. 2024. Black Cuban women primary school teachers negotiating the responsibilities of social reproduction. Anthropology and Education. 00:1-15. Fry, Douglas. 2007. Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van der Geest, Sjaak, and Coleta Platenkamp. 2024. Care as Tyranny: Miscellaneous Observations. Anthropology and Humanism. 00:1-12.
Laslett, Barbara, and Johanna Brenner. 1989. Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives. Annual Review of Sociology 15(1): 381–404.
Mead, Margaret. 1940. War is Only an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity. Asia Journal. Nading, Maryna. 2022. “Solidarity Against Fear.” Hot Spots, Fieldsights. “Russia’s War in Ukraine, Continued.” Ries, Nancy, and Catherine Wanner Eds. March 28, 2022. https:// culanth.org/fieldsights/series/russias-war-inukraine-continued
Rosaldo, Renato. 1993. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.
Thelen, Tatjana. 2015. Care as Social Organization: Creating, Maintaining and Dissolving Significant Relations. Anthropological Theory 15(4):497-515.
Ukrainian Ministry of Health. News. Nov. 7, 2023. https://www.kmu.gov.ua/news/ za-ponad-20-misiatsiv-viiny-rf-vzhe-poshkodyla-1468-obiektiv-medzakladiv-ta-shche193-zruinuvala-vshchent.
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Yakovenko, Olga and Maryna Nading. 2022. Translated Op-Ed in Des Moines Register. March 17, 2022. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/ iowa-view/2022/03/17/displaced-ukrainefamilies-stories-reassurance/7048014001/
Alley of heroes commemorating fallen soldiers
Seeing Vocation Differently: A Sabbatical Reflection
by MARIE DREWS ('02), Associate Professor of English
When I started teaching as part of my tenure-track appointment in English in the fall of 2015, my daughter was only six weeks old. I’d teach back-to-back Tuesday/Thursday classes in Olin that term, and then head home to switch off with my partner, who was also balancing care for a new baby with a new job. Since that first semester of teaching, I had another child. I taught from home with my kids when a global pandemic closed the college. I successfully adapted courses to new term lengths and hybrid teaching models. And, I earned tenure.
It wasn’t until my sabbatical during the spring of 2023, my oldest daughter then eight years old, that I finally felt I had time to breathe, to read, to write, and to do a whole host of other things that are challenging to do during the school year and during the summer when kids are home from school. While my sabbatical research engaged representations of the spectrum of reproductive experiences in graphic narratives, a project that I continue to be excited about, it was an unexpected venture into conversations about vocation that seemed to give me language about the importance of time away.
In the year preceding my sabbatical, I had applied for and was accepted to the Network of Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE) seminar “Teaching Vocational Exploration,” a rigorous week-long seminar held in Indianapolis. I had always been a bit leery of the concept of vocation. Poet Mary Oliver’s query “what / is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” always seemed to me like a bit of an unfair question to ask seniors on the cusp of graduation. I had watched with empathy seniors who were physically distressed about their post-Luther plans: What if I can’t find a job? Where will I live? How
will I make my student loan payments? What could conversations about vocation bring these students, other than exacerbating their worries or pitting their acute concerns for their financial situation opposite the lofty questions of living a fulfilling life?
With the NetVUE work I did that summer of 2022 and again the summer of my sabbatical in 2023, when I returned for a reunion gathering with a host of other NetVUE participants, I settled into a definition of vocation and a method to help undergraduates read vocation in the texts around them. Paul Wadell, one of the seminar’s convenors, suggested that core theorizing associated with vocation, in all of its complexity, could be encapsulated into the question: “What brings you joy in your day?” Reconsidering vocation via this more accessible question gave me a valuable way to engage the concept in conversations with students, specifically in a way that might decouple discussions about vocation from those associated with career or work. Asking this joy-based question also strengthened my own vocational reflection. My spring away from campus gave me an opportunity for, as Darby Ray, another NetVUE convenor, suggested, “deep rest,” the meaning at the root of the word sabbatical, and also a mechanism for examining my next steps: What might bring me joy in my teaching? My scholarship? My time with my family?
While enlivening my teaching, this expanded approach to vocation has also helped me consider where and how questions associated with vocation might emerge in culture in ways that can prompt useful conversations with students. Following is a revised version of a well-received short talk, which I gave as part of the webinar “Vocation in Film – Finding Meaning at the Movies.” It serves as an example of how
vocation might provide a worthwhile entrance point into 2023’s biggest box office hit.
3 3 3
Following its release in summer 2023, Barbie became one of “the top 20 highest-grossing movies ever, not adjusted for inflation” (Ulaby), earning nearly 1.3 billion dollars after only a little over a month after its premiere. Currently, number 11 on the list of all time domestic box office earners, behind films that are part of the Star Wars, Avengers, Avatar, and Spiderman franchises, Barbie is speaking to viewers–giving them something they need. Maybe it’s nostalgia for a doll that played a special role in the lives of millions of girls. Maybe it’s escapism into the world of fluorescent pink. Or, maybe it’s that Barbie, in its own quirky way, is speaking to a postpandemic world full of questions about what it means to live a meaningful life.
I’d like to argue that the film, directed by Greta Gerwig, and written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, is about vocation and the complicated process of vocational discernment.
Marie Drews
PHOTOS
The film begins with an introduction to Barbieland, a utopic space in which all of the Barbies go about their everyday lives. As the film’s opening sequence shows, Barbie is the doll that changed girls’ relationships with pretend play, opening them up to possible futures not restricted to motherhood alone. “Because Barbie can be anything, women can be anything,” our narrator says, as the white screen pans out to a phalanx of dolls, each adorned with the flair of their professions.
The success of Barbie is situated within a capitalist framework: because Barbie “has her own money, her own house, her own car, her own career,” as our narrator explains, she gives evidence to girls that they can “achieve anything and everything they set their minds to.” Of course, the narrator says this in a tongue and cheek way: due to the vast array of professional identities Barbie has been able to become, “All problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved . . . at least, that’s what the Barbies think.”
Descending on Barbieland, to Lizzo’s “Pink” anthem, viewers witness a space where there’s no separation between what Barbie does and who Barbie is. Reporter Barbie, President Barbie, Lawyer Barbie, Construction Worker Barbie, Supreme Court Justice Barbie, Mail-
woman Barbie: Barbieland is comprised of successful, career-driven Barbies who do their work–and of course have sleepovers, dance parties, and beach fun. But they have no names beyond their profession, and we learn next to nothing about them.
Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie is one of the few who is not identified with a career–she is simply a witness to other Barbies’ experiences, Barbieing around in her Barbie way. Perhaps it’s because of this that we wouldn’t necessarily be surprised that she is the character that experiences a crisis of identity. First, it comes in the form of asking existential questions about death. Then it comes with a recognition that to connect with her “human” she must open herself up to recognizing the ways her human might be hurting–and thereby seeing, as she looks around from the bench in her hot pink Western wear, that people can feel both sorrow and joy at the same time. When Barbie returns to Barbieland and faces failure in the Kens takeover, she questions first the crisis caused by change: “I’ve never wanted anything to change,” Barbie says. Gloria responds: “That’s life. It’s all change.” Barbie, in her tantrum, exclaims: “That’s terrifying.” Yes, Barbie. Yes. The change Barbie has faced is fueled by self-doubt: “I’m not smart
enough to be interesting, I can’t do brain surgery, I’ve never flown a plane, I’m not the president . . . I’m not good enough for anything.” It’s only when Barbie has been schooled by Gloria’s human experience of contradictions and finds her talent in helping mobilize others that she recognizes the limits of her former identity and her need to transition to the Real World, with Ruth Handler as a guide.
Ken also offers important opportunities for reflection as he has his own vocational crisis. In much the same vein as Barbie, Stereotypical Ken plays no other function than his job as Beach and his identity in juxtaposition to Barbie. In Barbieland as feminist utopia, this isn’t necessarily a problem for him until he is caught in the trappings of patriarchy, which are the only fuel he has to recognize the power he’s missing. When that begins to fall apart after the Mojo Dojo Casa House is returned to its rightful owner, he faces a question that I think a lot of college-aged students face in their relationships and group identities: He has no idea who he is outside of his relationship to Barbie. Only through realizing that each has a separate identity (“It’s Barbie and it’s Ken”) that Ken can begin to see himself as Kenough.
Vocation can be encapsulated into the question: "What brings you joy in your day?"
To talk about Stereotypical Barbie’s crisis of self within the context of living a good life is not a stretch by any means, and, in fact, the sequences where Barbie is sitting on a bench after she’s gone to the real world or reflecting on the real world in her conversation with Ruth Handler at the end of the film open up a space to talk about a meaningful life as one that is “messy,” simultaneously joyous and sorrowful. It is possible to continue this character-specific conversation with any number of the characters. What do we think of Alan? Weird Barbie? What are their special reserves that allow them self-definition and community?
Barbies on the bookshelves in the Center for Ethics and Public Engagement, November 2023
Perhaps, however, if we extend beyond just the individual characters, there’s also ways to talk about how spaces inform the relationship that we find between living a good life and the work that we do. Certainly Barbieland’s linking of profession and identity has significant limits. There’s a reason why so many Barbies can immediately be duped by the Kens. They have no other anchors: once their jobs are taken over, they simply become another typology.
I am particularly interested in the way that questions about vocation, and finding meaning in one’s experience, translate to questions of justice and oppression, for this connection is tied to the ways in which communities are structured. There’s something worth talking about as Ken decides who he wants to be after going to the Real World. His learning about the joys and possibilities of patriarchy are at once amusing and telling. What is the promise of patriarchy as we think about discerning our vocation? To what extent might patriarchy inform someone’s discernment of who they want to be and how they want to be with others in community?
Although unexpected, Barbie has the potential to open useful discussions about what it might mean to find one’s purpose. Although Barbieland initially seems free of problems, what Stereotypical Barbie comes to find is that living a joyful life, seeing beauty, and building meaningful relationships involves the hard things and the ordinary rather than the ease of perfection.
Biophysics Textbook + Ylvisaker Grant w/RV
by JOHN JEFFERSON, Professor of Chemistry
My sabbatical from Luther began in the fall of 2023 and continued through January term 2024. The primary focus of the sabbatical was the preparation of a textbook on biophysical chemistry to be used here at Luther. In addition, with funding from the Doris and Ragnvald Ylvisaker Endowment for Faculty Growth, I made visits to four other institutions where similar courses in biophysical chemistry are taught.
These visits were in line with the three guidelines for this grant which were: i) to expand the impact of the project by supporting the submission of a publication; ii) to have a broader influence beyond the campus through collaborations with other institutions of higher education; and iii) to encourage discussion of the project through a presentation on campus during the ensuing academic year.
The presentation requirement of these guidelines is part of the Biology Department’s Research Colloquium series. The proposal to prepare a biophysical chemistry textbook was approved by the publication division of The Royal Society of Chemistry, and the travel accommodations for the Ylvisaker visits were accomplished with the use of an RV-pull behind trailer. The itinerary for the trip was designed to take advantage of places my wife Marion and I wanted to visit and included stops at both small colleges and large research universities. The writing was made easier by converting a small “toy-garage” in the RV into
an office. We left Decorah on August 26 and spent the next four months on the road.
The trip was an epic journey during which we learned new things about RV-ing, textbook writing, and each other–almost every day. As we headed west through Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, Marion and I settled on a regular routine of me getting up early each morning to write (usually before 5 a.m.) and then taking time in the afternoon to visit the sites in the area. I had never before experienced the luxury of visiting locations for weeks at a time, and each new place became like home.
I kept a daily log of my progress on the book and found that writing came easily in the morning, as I would wake early after dreaming about giving a lecture, and then sit down and write the corresponding
section of the book. The office area in the “toy-hauler” was a perfect hide-away especially after we purchased an electric space heater to counter the cold mornings. It was during this early part of the trip that I found my “voice” for the narration of the text.
I visited two small liberal arts colleges similar to Luther–Lewis & Clark in Oregon and Colorado College in Colorado Springs–and two large research universities: Oregon State University and University of Arizona. At each location I was treated to a warm welcome and came away with new insights into
John Jefferson with his wife Marion exploring the Columbia Gorge
Working in the toy-hauler
The RV trailer—home for four months
the process and a great deal of encouragement for the type of textbook I had set out to write.
All the suggestions I received were valuable, but one in particular was quite novel, both because I heard the same idea expressed to me on more than one occasion, and because it was a direction that I had not envisioned for the textbook. Both the teachers and researchers in the field told me that they were somewhat frustrated by the tendency of their students and colleagues to limit themselves by only addressing questions from the perspective of their own discipline. For example, one analytical chemist told me that if the examination of a biological system is simply done as a way to improve on analytical techniques, it is a missed opportunity to follow through and address the fundamental biological questions involved. And a physicist told me that a good deal of physics is done with the aim to make more precise measurements and take better pictures, without a clear focus on answering the big questions in the field.
changed so that the disciplines became integrated rather than separate. And second, the current big unanswered questions in the field of biology needed to be highlighted and included as a motivation for the learning process. To paraphrase one colleague at Colorado College, “We spend more time teaching the students about what we already know and understand, than we do encouraging them to investigate the things we don’t understand.”
I incorporated these ideas into a seminar that I gave at Colorado College. I began the seminar with a short description of some of the relevant big questions in the field and then proceeded to describe areas where each of the subdisciplines overlapped, highlighting the interdisciplinary approaches that have yielded new insights. The response was so positive that the students stayed and asked me questions for over an hour. My take-home
discovery was that I had found my audience, both from the perspective of the students as well as from that of the professors!
Of course, this change in direction multiplied the amount of work that was needed on the text and I soon found myself behind schedule with respect to the publisher’s deadline of January 15, 2024. My colleague at Lewis & Clark, who had just completed a textbook on the use of microscopy, pointed out that my aspiration to write a complete textbook during a one semester sabbatical was a bit too optimistic. But, to my great relief, the publishers at the Royal Society of Chemistry agreed that the new direction was worth the delay and extended the deadline to June 1, 2024. In addition, the Chemistry Department at Luther has agreed to let me teach the course this spring, and I am including feedback from the students to help focus the writing of this new organizational scheme.
During the trip, Marion and I often reminded ourselves that a sabbatical should include time for reflection, which was easy to do while exploring the Columbia Gorge and the beaches on the Oregon coast, or visiting the Linus Pauling Center at Oregon State University (he's one of my heroes). As the weather turned cold, we headed south to Arizona, to enjoy the wisdom of old friends like H. George Anderson, president emeritus of Luther, and the wonders of nature such as the Grand Canyon. After four months on the road, both Marion and I agreed that it was good to get back to Decorah and continue to reflect on what we had learned.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of this, but eventually two themes emerged that directly affected my work. First, the organization of the text had to be
Visiting with Luther College President Emeritus H. George Anderson in Arizona
Enjoying the wonders of the Grand Canyon
Working at the Linus Pauling Center
Lessons in Geochemistry: Volcanoes, Energy, and Climate in Iceland
by LAURA PETERSON, Professor of Environmental Studies
Traveling in Iceland during my recent sabbatical, I caught a glimpse of the ice-covered top of Eyjafjallajökull volcano while hiking up along the Skoga River, which cascades down from the ice cap in a series of stunning waterfalls. Eyjafjallajökull is a volcano that students in my Earth System course know because of an activity we do using volcano monitoring data. After we make some attempts at pronouncing the name, we take a look at data collected before the volcano’s most recent eruption and students learn how, with monitoring systems in place, volcanic eruptions can reasonably be anticipated by scientists in time to issue warnings to the public and keep people out of harm’s way.
If many Americans have heard of Eyjafjallajökull, it is most likely because of its infamous eruption in 2010, when the ash emitted by the volcano grounded flights throughout Europe for six days. Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption released not just ash but also less visible carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—roughly 150,000 tons of CO2 per day. This might sound like a lot of CO2, but the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason quips that it may have been the most climatefriendly volcanic eruption in history,
since Eyjafjallajökull prevented around 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions from air travel during each day of its eruption.
Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption demonstrated that a single volcanic eruption can be roughly on par with a day’s worth of regional air travel when it comes to spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. But across the globe, the fires of fossil fuel burning release well over 100 times more carbon to the atmosphere than volcanoes do, in an ongoing, exponentially scaled-up human eruption. Although a fiery volcanic release can easily catch our attention, Magnason points out, “we don’t see that we are the Earth’s largest volcano…We are the eruption.”
Students in my Earth System course quickly come to see how monitoring systems installed on Eyjafjallajökull and other volcanoes throughout the world can detect the warning signs of an imminent eruption and are powerful tools in protecting lives from the hazards that come with living on a tectonically active planet. No alert was issued when humanity first started combusting fossil fuels, but by now, most of us know the alarm bells would be ringing, loudly. In the language of the US Geological Survey’s alert-level system, the human volcano has surely reached “warning” status—the highest alert level, issued when a “hazardous eruption is imminent, underway, or suspected.”
Anyone alive on the planet today was born to an atmosphere containing more carbon dioxide than it did when their parents, and even their older siblings, were born. Fossil fuel combustion currently amounts to a volcanic system that has
roughly doubled in size over the last 50 years. To stabilize the climate system, the task ahead for humanity is to simultaneously become a vastly smaller “volcano” and to build our capacity for carbon dioxide removal in order to accelerate the Earth’s absorption of carbon that has been accumulating in the atmosphere since we began burning fossil fuels.
As it happens, the same geologic forces that make Iceland so volcanically active also allow Icelanders to live with relatively low rates of human volcanism. Geothermal energy provides the country with abundant low-carbon electricity, as volcanic heat from below the surface is used to power turbines that generate electricity. Electricity from geothermal energy makes up around one quarter of Iceland’s power supply, with most of the remainder coming from hydroelectric power stations, another low carbon energy source.
The heat from geothermal energy in Iceland can be used not just to generate electricity, but also as a source of hot water that is piped directly to homes and businesses for heat and hot water. Above-ground pipelines carrying hot
The ice-covered peak of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland
Laura Peterson
water from Iceland’s largest geothermal energy station into Reykjavik could be seen along the roadside, and even smaller communities operated their own district geothermal energy systems, supplying heat not just to homes but also to greenhouses and public swimming pools, complete with their own hot tubs in an array of different temperatures. As energy systems go, coming up with less “eruptive” ways of making electricity is easy. At power plants, fossil fuels are combusted in order to release heat and create steam that, under pressure, will spin a turbine to generate electricity. But there are a lot of ways to spin a turbine without combusting fossil fuels—geothermal, hydroelectric, wind, and nuclear energy can all produce power without substantial carbon dioxide emissions. Photovoltaic solar cells are another “non-volcanic” power source. When it comes to having heat and hot water in our homes, however, the alternatives to fossil fuel combustion are less obvious. With the exception of Iceland and other areas with active volcanism, most places on Earth don’t have an underground heat source to tap into. Instead, we have a proliferation of miniature volcanoes—natural gas and propane furnaces and water heaters, right inside our basements. Setting fire to these fossil fuels in our homes, we essentially take showers in the warmth of sunlight that is millions of years old, and requisition heat from the time of the dinosaurs to warm up our houses on chilly winter days.
To slow down the human eruption, we will need to put out the fires of fossil fuel combustion—not just the large fires at power plants, but also the miniature fires in our own homes. In Iceland, geothermal heat can provide an alternative to in-home combustion, but for most of us, converting natural gas or propane furnaces and water heaters to their electric heat pump equivalents will be the most effective way to turn down the eruption; electric vehicles can do the same for transportation.
But meanwhile, if “we are the eruption,” as Magnason says, what can we learn by understanding how the earth has processed volcanic CO2 throughout
its long history? The planet we live on would not have been able to remain habitable throughout eons of geologic time without some capacity for equal and opposite reactions that maintain a degree of equilibrium within the Earth system. In the case of the carbon cycle, carbon released from the interior of the Earth during volcanic eruptions is eventually reabsorbed as part of the Earth’s crust in the form of limestone sediment, made from the carbon-containing shells of marine organisms that accumulate on the seafloor.
This transformation of carbon from air into stone is like a form of reverse volcanism, and while it happens naturally on the earth over very long timescales of many thousands of years, a sort of inverse volcanism is currently happening not far from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökul volcano at the Climeworks Orca project, where carbon is removed from the atmosphere and pumped underground to react with Iceland’s volcanic rock. There it reforms into new rock—chemically the equivalent of limestone—in a massive, human-engineered carbon shortcut. If the Orca project can be seen as an inverse volcano, it is a miniature one by any standard. It is estimated that Orca will remove about 4,000 tons of CO2 per year, making it tiny in comparison to Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption, much less the collective human volcano, currently responsible for releasing an almost unfathomable 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
On the other hand, is the Orca project just one more sign of a tide that is starting to turn?
Over the last decade, the growth in global CO2 emissions has begun to slow, thanks in large part to wind and solar power production that has replaced the fires of fossil fuel combustion. The International Energy Agency has even predicted that the world could
reach peak emissions in 2024, as renewable energy growth and the transition to electric vehicles accelerate. Reaching climate goals will still take monumental effort, to be sure, but for the first time, it seems that the human eruption may be reaching its pinnacle.
Following a volcanic eruption, continuous monitoring of volcanic activity allows geoscientists to reassess the hazards and issue updated alert levels, which may drop to advisory status (“volcanic activity has decreased significantly but continues to be closely monitored for possible renewed increase”) and eventually, to normal status: “volcanic activity has ceased and volcano has returned to noneruptive background state.” Climate change is not the only hazard people have generated nor the only emergency faced by communities across the world. But as people start to extinguish the large fossil fuel fires of power plants, along with the miniature volcanoes of in-home combustion appliances and personal vehicles, and even as humanity explores new versions of inverse volcanism, perhaps we’ll see the day when the alert level for human volcanism can be revised to advisory, or even a noneruptive, background state. Alert level: normal.
FOR FURTHER READING:
On Time and Water, by Andri Snær Magnason Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for a Clean Energy Future, by Saul Griffith
At the Climeworks Orca Project, carbon dioxide is injected underground into Iceland’s volcanic rock, with which it forms new rock.
Luther College and the Bethany Indian Mission
by ANNA M. PETERSON, Associate Professor of History
At a moment in time when institutions of higher learning, such as Harvard University, are attempting to reconcile with the ties they have to slavery, news coverage of the discovery of mass graves at former Indian boarding schools pepper the headlines, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has started a TruthSeeking and Truth-Telling Initiative on Indian Boarding Schools, I think it important to lay bare the close relationship Luther College had with the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin.[i]
What is clear from the research I’ve done, is that Luther played a significant role in the history of this Mission. Both entities were founded and supported by similar people engaged in the work of building the Norwegian Synod and its missions at home and abroad. The college trained and educated many of the pastors, as well as the teachers, who served in instrumental positions at the Mission.
I want to start by detailing the origins of this entangled history of Luther College and the Bethany Indian Mission, starting in the late nineteenth century.
Further on, I will explain how this special relationship led the Superintendent of the Mission to send seven Native American students to Luther in the 1940s and 1950s.
In all of this my hope is to detail the ways in which Luther founders, faculty, students, and alumni participated in the construction of systems designed to assimilate and convert Native youth to Christianity (Lutheranism) and White culture. They participated in the settlercolonial project of dispossessing Native peoples and offering them “the book” as well as an education designed to further bolster White control over them in return. Importantly, Native families were not passive recipients of this missionary work. They engaged in the process, negotiated its effects, and as we will see, they worked to take advantage of the special relationship that developed between Luther College and the Mission. The origins of Luther College are complicated but, in all cases, the college was founded in an effort to provide an education for the growing Norwegian Lutheran immigrant community in the Upper Midwest. These immigrants were settlers. Most of them were farmers and while the majority did not directly dispossess Native Americans of their land due to the timing of their migration–this excepting those who homesteaded on reservations after the Dawes Act of 1887 enabled them to do so–all benefited from U.S. policies of Indian removal and imperialist expansion.[ii] In
this way, the history of Luther College through its presence in the Oneota Valley and its educational support of settler-colonists was bound up with the history of Indigenous land dispossession and forced migration.
The guilt, or perhaps sense of responsibility, Norwegian Americans felt over their role in the land-taking was one of the primary motivations behind the creation of the Bethany Indian Mission in 1883. When Luther College graduate and recent immigrant from Norway, Even Johnson Homme, implored the Norwegian Synod to start a mission to serve Native American tribes in Wisconsin, the Synod initially rejected his proposal. But one year later they reversed this decision, stating among other reasons for this change of heart: it “is right to begin a mission among the Indians since we occupy the land which was once their land, and we are obligated to them.”[iii] Within a year, another Luther College graduate, Erick Olson Morstad had answered the call
Anna M. Peterson
Bethany Indian Mission's girl's building. In the basement is a large kitchen and a big dining room. The second and third floors are occupied by wards, matron’s rooms, and a store room.
Green Bay. Prior to their settlement in Wisconsin, most Oneidas had already converted to Christianity. [vii] Due to the Oneidas’ early contact with Christian missionaries, Whites generally viewed them as more assimilated and civilized than the Ho-Chunk. This perception was the source of much conflict at the Mission.
can better understand Luther College’s relationship with the Mission. From 1884 the Mission was funded and run as a domestic mission by the Norwegian Synod, later merging with some other churches to form the Norwegian Lutheran Church. The Norwegian Synod was also the institution behind the creation of Luther College and so it is not so difficult to understand how and why these two histories became entwined.
to serve as missionary and the Bethany Indian Mission started its work in 1884 in Wittenberg, about 30 miles east of Wausau.
In operation from 1884 to 1955, fellow Luther College alums and first- and second-generation Norwegian immigrants, followed Morstad in the deeply ambiguous work of offering religious and secular instruction to Native American tribes in Wisconsin–mostly Oneida and Ho-Chunk but also Stockbridge-Munsee, Menominee, Potawatomie, and Ojibwe.[iv]
Notably, the Ho-chunk and Oneida had divergent histories in Wisconsin. The Ho-Chunk at the Mission were descendants of those who refused to leave their traditional homelands in Wisconsin despite federal efforts to move them by force between 1830 and 1865.[v] They did not have a reservation, but used the Homestead Act of 1862 to secure their residence in the state. Ho-Chunk settlement in the state was and is concentrated around Black River Falls, Wittenberg, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin Dells, Tomah, and La Crosse.[vi]
Until 1933 the Mission primarily functioned as a boarding school where local tribes sent their children to receive an education along with room and board. After that point, the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America decided
Founders of the college, including men like Ulrich Vilhelm Koren, who purchased the land Upper Campus now sits on in 1860, and second president of the college, C.K. Preus, sat on the board of the Indian Mission and made decisions about it, including where the Mission should be located, due to their roles in the Norwegian Synod. Beyond these Luther leaders, many of those who were involved in the running of the Mission were Luther College alumni such as the founder of the Mission, Homme, and its first missionary, Morstad.
A member tribe of the League of Iroquois, the Oneidas migrated from their traditional homelands in New York to Wisconsin in the 1820s and 1830s, just as the federal government was beginning to forcibly remove the Ho-Chunk. In contrast to the Ho-Chunk, the federal government recognized the Oneidas’ presence in Wisconsin in 1838 with a reservation along the Fox River near
to close the boarding school at the Mission, and the Native American children were expected to attend local public schools. Between 1933 and 1955, when the Mission closed, the Mission continued to offer religious education through an integrated vacation Bible school (VBS), as well as offered material support to the Native peoples in the vicinity, including the distribution of free clothing and the facilitation of basket sales between Native weavers and Lutheran congregations. Given this overview of the Mission and the people it served, we
Other alumni served in various roles, including: Brynjolf Hovde (superintendent, 1893-1902) and his son Kolbein Sigvart Johannes Hovde (financial secretary, 1901-1902), Ingvar Groethe Monson (board member, 1892-1896), Martinus Christan Waller (teacher of religion, 1908-1913), Axel Jacobson (superintendent 1888-1930s), and Ernest Sihler (superintendent, 1933-1955).
Some of these alums taught at both Luther and the Mission, such as Oscar Adolph Strom who taught algebra at
This building housed two classrooms and a chapel. A stone bell tower stood to its right.
Luther College graduate Angeline Hopinka ('53) presides over a group of children at mealtime.
Mrs. Whitewing and Mrs. Hopinka weaving baskets
Luther from 1895-1897 and served as missionary at the Mission from 19021907.[viii]
We can see here how instrumental Luther College was to the history of the Mission. The Mission’s founder, members of its board, and its staff had very strong connections to the college.
Guilt about the role Norwegian Americans played in dispossessing Native Americans was mixed with an acute sense of fear of Indians.
These connections would shape the education at the Mission and later provide a network that Native students hoping to attend college could utilize. This did not happen right away. In fact, in the early years of the college, while there may have been some sense of guilt about the role Norwegian Americans played in dispossessing Native Americans this was mixed with an acute sense of fear of Indians. In the late 1870s the students at Luther even formed an armed military company, called Phalanx, to protect the college against potential Native American attacks.[ix] You can imagine that this was not an environment that was welcoming of American Indian students.
Yet surprisingly, two Native American students from the mission did enroll at Luther in the 1890s. David Pallado (Palladeau, Oneida) and Simon
Palmer (Stockbridge) came to Luther in 1893 from Wittenberg.[x] They were the first Native American students to attend Luther, and the mission paid for their tuition. David was 20 years old and Simon 14.[xi] They only stayed at Luther for one year, and then went their separate ways. It is difficult to know what their experiences at Luther were like, but I can imagine it was difficult for them to feel a sense of belonging here. Nonetheless, they were able to use their education at Luther as a stepping stone for other opportunities. David went back to Wittenberg where he was employed at the Mission as an industrial teacher, band master, and disciplinarian and Simon to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1901 (his mother later served as matron at the Mission).[xii]
I don’t have any evidence for other Native American students attending Luther between 1893 and the 1940s. When more Native students began coming in the 1940s it was again with the help of the Mission. In the 1940s and 1950s, Superintendent Ernest Sihler, a Luther alum, helped nine youth from the Mission attend Norwegian Lutheran colleges. Due to Sihler’s connections to Luther and Luther’s special relationship with the Mission, seven of the nine attended Luther. The others went to Pacific Lutheran University and St. Olaf.[xiii]
The names of the students who attended Luther were Dolly (Angeline) Hopinka, Helen Miner, Bertha Wabshagain, Larry (Lawrence) Martin, Connie (Constance) Rockman, Chauncey Hopinka,
and Douglas Long. All of the students were Ho-Chunk except Larry who was from the Chippewa/Ojibwe tribe. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on these students who attended Luther, demonstrating what Luther’s campus climate was like in the 1940s and 1950s for Native American students, and the ways in which they navigated this complex environment.
Of the seven, Helen, Larry, Connie, and Dolly completed college and graduated with bachelor’s degrees. Impressively, Helen Miner and Larry Martin would both later go on to complete Ph.Ds. Regardless of their graduation status, all the students demonstrated educational resilience during their time as undergraduates.[xiv] These students were able to take advantage of, and even create, support systems that enabled them to navigate adverse educational environments, leading to success in and outside of school. Like Native American college students today, these students’ success was due to several factors, including their pre-college preparation, family support, and access to financial assistance. Their motivation to succeed in order to give back to their tribal communities also gave them a larger purpose to cling to when challenges arose.
Additionally, those who persisted tended to have the closest relationships with
Luther leaders connected to Bethany
Dolly (Angeline) Hopinka
Sihler. Beyond the financial support he mediated, they used the spiritual, emotional, and practical support he offered to navigate the academic and social cultures of college. This was especially significant for orphaned students, but those with engaged family members also embraced his paternalism. They used his cultural knowledge, personal connections, and practical advice to assist them in overcoming the gap between themselves and their White peers.
Sihler’s relationship with the students was not without its problems. His paternalism was informed by a culture of racism embedded in a long history of interactions between religious authorities and Indigenous peoples. Yet his relationship with the students was not one-sided. They did not passively accept his help or the expectations that came with it. They selectively used the support he offered to better their lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of their people.
The students acted as agents in their higher education journeys, even during a time when little diversity existed in the academy and even when White benefactors facilitated their enrollment. My research on these students demonstrates the ways in which Indigenous youth and their families used the missionary context in which they and their ancestors lived to their distinct advantage in the postwar period. At a time when higher education was becoming more and more crucial to community success as well as economic and social mobility, these students seized the opportunity to go to college. Their choice to enroll was not without its challenges. Yet far from merely adapting and adopting the dominant White academic culture they encountered, they actively shaped the higher educational setting to their own as well as their tribal communities’ benefit.
For the students, success at Luther required navigating competing interests and goals. They carefully balanced the need to placate and support the interests and norms of the dominant, fundamentally racist, White college cultures with their desire to remain true to their tribal communities and identities. Several of them, such as Helen Miner, Dolly Hopinka, and Larry Martin, were able to thread this needle adeptly and successfully. Their selective use of resources at their disposal, including, but not limited to a local missionary and his contacts at Luther, ultimately led to farreaching consequences for themselves, their communities, Sihler, and the institutions they attended.
Though much has been written on the history of Native American education, especially missionary activities and boarding schools, historical scholarship on Native Americans in higher education is lacking.[xv] What we do know is that there is a long history of cultural conflict for those Native Americans who chose to attend college during the past three hundred years. Bobby Wright and William G. Tierney characterized the history of American Indian higher education as one of “conflicting outcomes reflect[ing] the clash of cultures, the confrontation of lifestyles, that has ensued on college campuses since colonial days.”[xvi]
Their description of the college campus as a stage for the cross-cultural drama between Euro-Americans’ effort to assimilate Native peoples and Native peoples’ struggle to preserve their cultures also held true for the students who attended Luther in the postwar period. While Sihler and administrators hoped to use higher education to assimilate Indian youths as well as their tribal communities through educating the students as teachers and pastors who would then aid in the conversion of their peoples, the students had their own goals.[xvii] They may have pursued education and religion as areas of study, but also as means of survivance for themselves and their communities.
Sihler began serving as pastor and superintendent at the Mission at the critical juncture in its history when the Church decided to close the boarding school. A graduate of Luther College (B.A.), Luther Seminary in St. Paul (B.Th.), and Princeton Seminary (M.Th.), Sihler’s first years at the Mission were tumultuous. Tensions between Sihler and his congregants over the Native American Church as well as what they termed his inhumane actions towards them ultimately led to a majority of the Ho-Chunk congregants formally calling for his removal in 1938.[xviii]
The Norwegian Lutheran Church did not remove him; Sihler stayed in his position at the Mission until the Mission closed in 1955–nearly twenty years after the Ho-Chunk made their demands. During this period, Sihler had to work hard to gain the trust and acceptance of local families. In spite of the Church’s 1938 declaration that the Mission
Connie Rockman
Larry Martin
Pastor Ernest Sihler and his wife, Mabel
would no longer distribute free clothing or facilitate basket sales, Sihler continued to do this work and even implemented new programs such as opening a religious summer school for American Indian children. He also attempted to ease families’ transition to integrated schooling by creating an “adoption” project where Ladies Aid societies sent school clothing to the children enrolled in public school.
His interest in educational initiatives also led him to pursue higher educational opportunities for some of his congregants and other Native American youth. Many of them had attended the religious summer school Sihler had started and some of them had been baptized and/or confirmed by Sihler.[xix] Sihler became known for this work. For example, by the time Larry was interested in going to college in 1950, his pastor in Pulaski, Wisconsin knew Sihler was the person to contact for help.
The students Sihler helped attend college were a rarity in the 1940s and 1950s in more ways than one. In the 1940s only 15% of the total population of 18-24-year-olds in the United States were enrolled in college or university. This rose to 24% in the 1950s.[xx] For Native Americans this number was considerably lower.
A survey on higher education conducted by Ruth Muskrat Bronson (Cherokee) in 1932 found that only 385 Indians were enrolled in college in 1932 and there were only 52 Indians with college degrees nationwide.
Given the historic and current rates of American Indian college attendance, the seven students who attended Luther between 1945 and 1955 represent a select group of Native Americans. Their experiences offer insight into what college was like when few Native Americans went to college and even fewer completed their higher education: the challenges they overcame, and the ways they used resources to excel in what were, at times, foreign and hostile environments.
It’s worth looking at one particular challenge for the students–the campus climate.[xxi] Though the Native American students attending Luther had graduated from White-majority high schools, navigating a predominantly White campus environment could prove difficult.
According to the records, these students encountered overt racism on campus and sometimes had a difficult time getting people to take these acts seriously. At the time, Luther College was a small undergraduate Christian institution with a homogenous student body. Nearly all of the students were White in the 1940s and 1950s. Most of them came from Norwegian-American, Lutheran families. The students, faculty, staff and administrators had few personal experiences with students from minority backgrounds.
During Larry Martin’s first semester at Luther College a guest speaker on campus made offensive remarks about Native Americans and Larry went to his religion professor, Gerhard Frost, with concerns that he was being discriminated against and avoided by other students. Frost dismissed Larry’s concerns as overly “sensitive” and tried to assure Larry that he was “imagining this, as the students [had] liked him from the start.”[xxii] Frost’s response did not reassure Larry, as Frost reported that he was afraid for a few days that Larry would leave the college.
Larry Martin’s obituary also includes an incident that occurred during what was supposed to be his last semester in 1954. Just a few months prior to graduation, a college advisor told him that “society was not ready for an American Indian Lutheran pastor and that he would not be able to graduate.”[xxiii] Though the college’s official reason for Larry not graduating until 1960 remains unclear, the impact of this experience on Larry’s life is evident by its inclusion in his obituary.
Despite the incredible challenges that came with being some of the few, perhaps only, non-White students on campus, the majority of the students developed strategies to cope with feelings of alienation. Some of the Native American students found solace in the religious character of the colleges. Soon after arriving at college, Helen Miner reported that the “religious atmosphere help[ed] [her] feel at home.”[xxiv] Many of them not only attended daily chapel, which was an expectation, but also became actively involved in religious study groups, prayer meetings, and religious organizations.[xxv] These activities may have been familiar and thus comforting for some of the students, and they also helped them develop relationships with their peers. For example, Dolly Hopinka wrote of her gratitude for the “Christian fellowship with other students.”[xxvi]
Most of the students at Luther kept busy with school and work, and participated in extracurricular activities as well. They performed in plays, sang in
Annie Little Wolf, Mrs. John C. Decorah, and Annie Henzley. Mrs. Little Wolf and Mrs. Decorah were among the signatories of the 1938 petition to remove Sihler.
Dolly Hopinka and Connie Rockman represented Luther women at Sports Day in 1952.
choir, wrote for the college newspaper, and participated in sports.[xxvii] Through these and other activities, they developed strong friendships with their peers. They described their fellow students as “friendly” and “the nicest.”[xxviii] When they were away during summers or breaks, many were “anxious” to “get back to their friends” on campus.[xxix]
The friendships students developed were an important means of coping in an alien cultural environment. As a 2012 study of Native Americans attending White high schools found, cultivating supportive friendships was the most important factor in building student resilience to meet educational challenges.[xxx] Partly due to these friendships, many of the students described their time in college as joyful and fun. They used words like “wonderful,” “beautiful,” and “grand” to tell Sihler about their experiences and assured him they were happy.[xxxi] After first settling in, Larry Martin wrote to Sihler to share with him “the joys …which is mine both physically and spiritually here at the college. A busy life, but I like it.”[xxxii]
The happiness the students felt at being at college mixed with other emotions like homesickness and loneliness. The cultural shock they experienced likely contributed to these negative feelings. Many of the students talked of trouble adjusting to their new environments especially after returning to college from time back home.[xxxiii] Bertha Wabshagain talked of “lying [in her room] feeling lonesome.” They missed their families and worried about them. Connie Rockman admitted to Sihler that “I do have some sad moments here alone in my room sometimes when I’m studying just thinking about my folks.”[xxxiv] For others, missing home took the form of craving “fry bread and deer meat.”[xxxv]
Beyond the friendships they cultivated with their classmates, the students who attended Luther at the same time were able to mitigate some of these feelings of homesickness and isolation by spending time together. Dolly, Larry, Connie, and Chauncey’s time at Luther all overlapped. They became important friends and allies, offering vital access to necessities like rides home.[xxxvi]
When Dolly graduated from Luther, Connie worried about returning that fall, stating that “It’ll be good to get back to school again but I think of how it will be without Dolly there.” Her worry was misplaced because even after graduating, Dolly continued to be an important source of support for Connie. They exchanged letters frequently and visited each other on weekends and during breaks.[xxxvii] This community the students had created helped stave off some of the worst feelings of isolation and cultural disconnect.[xxxviii]
Though it is difficult to know the long-term effects attending Luther had on these students, it is clear that they went on to have rich and full lives after college. Dolly Hopinka went on to marry Maurice Big John and have eight children after graduating from Luther College in 1954.[xxxix] She taught physical education and English at schools in Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin. She also worked as Native American Coordinator at Bowler High School in the 1980s. She helped her people in additional ways, including active participation in tribal governance. She served on the Great Lakes Intertribal Council as Head Start coordinator in the 1970s. In this position, she helped establish a permanent dental clinic in Oneida,
Wisconsin.[xl] In 1977 Wisconsin
Governor Martin J. Schreiber appointed Dolly to the Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy for people with developmental disabilities.[xli] She also served on the Wisconsin Winnebago Business Committee in the 1990s. She died at the age of 87 in 2018.
Dolly was not the only one to have personal and professional success after college. All of the students married, and many of them went on to have notable careers. Larry Martin and Helen Miner went on to obtain doctoral degrees, an achievement that remains rare amongst Native Americans today.[xlii] Tribal activities and governance became an important part of their lives as well.
After graduating from Luther, Larry went to the University of Michigan to pursue a master’s degree in social work administration. In 1988 he graduated with a doctoral degree from Penn State University. He went on to teach at St. Olaf College, the University of Minnesota-Duluth and the University of Wisconsin-Superior. While at St. Olaf, Larry was the coordinator of Native American affairs and developed a Native American Students Program there. Larry was also one of the founding members of the Upper Midwest American Indian Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[xliii] He died in 2017 at the age of 85.[xliv]
Helen Miner followed through on her own instruction that education should be used to “preserve and revere” the Winnebago/Ho-Chunk heritage. After graduating from Luther College, she held a number of positions teaching business in Minnesota and Hawaii. [xlv] She received a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1967. In 1975 she graduated with a doctoral degree from Northern Illinois University, having written her dissertation on attitudes toward personal finances amongst Ho-Chunk and White youth in Wisconsin public schools.
Helen devoted her life to advancing the interests of the Ho-Chunk people. She was instrumental in using the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act to form a federally-recognized government for the Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin. Following the
Dolly Hopinka in 1955, teaching English and physical education at Lake Crystal High School, MN
COURTESY THE LAKER YEARBOOK, LAKE CRYSTAL, MN
writing of the Winnebago/Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin’s constitution in 1962, Helen became the tribe’s first chairperson. Along with anthropologist Nancy Oestreich Lurie, Helen completed a study of Ho-Chunk needs for the Social Security Administration’s Department of Housing, Education, and Welfare in 1963.[xlvi] She was also a co-author of The Wisconsin Winnebago People published in 1967.
Like Larry, Helen became a professor and helped new generations of Native American students in the 1980s and 1990s. She taught at Black Hawk College in Kewanee, Illinois where she served on the Native American Recognition Committee.[xlvii] Helen currently resides in Wisconsin.
Even students such as Chauncey Hopinka who did not graduate from
their programs went on to play instrumental roles in their tribes. After leaving Luther, he worked for the Marathon Park Department and the Wisconsin Winnebago Business Committee. He also served as chairperson and vicechairperson for the tribe.[xlviii] Chauncey died at the age of 73 in 2002.
In 1976, Helen Miner was invited to give the commencement address at Luther. She chose to speak on the topic of faith, and in reflecting on her own education she noted that “It is faith that has brought you and I together here today. It was faith on the part of Lutheran missionaries and the administrators of Luther College that offered impoverished, young Winnebago Indians an opportunity for higher education.”[xlix] Though she credited these individuals with “being ahead of their time,” she
emphasized that “if there should be one person explaining the direction of my life, it would be the teachings of the tribe and my mother.”[l] Sihler and others may have provided crucial access to a college education, but for Helen it was her tribe and her mother who guided her along the way.
It might be tempting to conclude with Helen’s speech, but the Luther-Bethany connection didn’t end when the Mission closed in 1955 or when Helen gave the commencement address in 1976. Upon the Mission’s closure Ernest Sihler gifted many material objects, including traditional items, baskets, and student art projects, to the Luther College Museum. Those artifacts are now a part of the Luther College anthropology collection.[l]
These materials have been viewed and handled by countless Luther students, some of them my own, they have also been the subject of student research projects, and they have been exhibited in display cases.
I started this piece with the mention of headlines–Harvard’s ties to slavery and the discovery of mass graves at boarding schools and missions. The University of North Dakota also made headlines in August of 2022 when it was brought to light that the University was storing Indigenous sacred artifacts and Native American human remains in a basement on campus. In clear violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the University is now consulting with the relevant tribes to repatriate the remains and objects.
Luther’s collection also contains sacred objects–medicine bags are one example–and Destiny Crider, the head of the Luther anthropology lab, is in communication with tribal leaders to repatriate these objects as soon as possible. Yet other objects will stay at Luther–the baskets, children’s drawings, doilies, beadwork–housed in the basement of Preus Library. In this way, the Mission’s relationship to Luther will continue, the physical remnants of this past preserved at a college with which it shares a complicated history.
Professor Gerhard Frost, Helen Miller Miner, and President Elwin D. Farwell, Luther College Commencement 1976.
NOTES
[i] For more information on the ELCA’s work, see: https://elca.org/ Our-Work/Congregations-and-Synods/Ethnic-Specific-and-Multicultural-Ministries/ Indigenous-Ministries-and-Tribal-Relations/ Indian-Boarding-Schools/Truth-Initiative.
[ii] For information on Scandinavian settlers who homesteaded on reservation land, see: Karen V. Hansen, Encounters on the Great Plains. Oxford University Press, 2013.
[iii] Committee Minutes in A Brief History of the Bethany Indian Mission at Wittenberg, Wisconsin, June 25, 1944.
[iv] For more information on the Bethany Indian Mission, see: Betty Bergland, "Settler Colonists, ‘Christian Citizenship,’ and the Women’s Missionary Federation at the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 1884-1934." In: Barbara ReevesEllington, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Connie A. Shemo, eds., Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation and the American Protestant Empire, 1812-1960. London: Duke University Press, 2010.
[v] While historically, the entire group had been referred to as Winnebago, it was those who agreed to removal and a reservation in northeastern Nebraska that became known as the Winnebago tribe of Nebraska. Those who stayed are now known as members of the Ho-Chunk nation.
[vi]Nancy Oestreich Lurie, Wisconsin Indians, (The Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2002), 12-13.
[vii] Evelyn E. Smith-Elm, “The Oneida Methodist Church, 1816-1975,” in A Nation within a Nation: Voices of the Oneidas in Wisconsin, (The Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2010), 31.
[viii] This information was largely found thanks to the Luther College Archives’ Norlie Database on Pastors of the Norwegian Lutheran Synods, 1843-1927: https://norlie.luther.edu/ search.php
[x] Luther College Through Sixty Years, Minneapolis, Minn. : Augsburg Publishing House, 1922, 229.
[xi] Baptismal Record, 1893, First Lutheran Church, Wittenberg, Wisconsin, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives; Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Congregational Records
[xii] “David Pallado,” Indian School Service, Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census. Official Register of the United States, Containing a List of the Officers and Employees in the Civil, Military, and Naval Service. Digitized books (77 volumes). Oregon State Library, Salem, Oregon; “Simon Palmer” Carlisle In-
dian School Records, National Archives and Records Administration, RG 75, Series 1327, box 138, folder 5434.
[xiii] For a fuller description of these students’ experiences, see: Anna M. Peterson, “A Desire to Learn: Native American Experiences at Lutheran Colleges, 1945-1955” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 1, Winter 2023.
[xiv] In their 2007 study, Morrison and Allen defined educational resilience as “the heightened likelihood of success in school and other life accomplishments despite environmental adversities brought about by early traits, conditions, or experiences.” “Promoting Student Resilience in School Contexts,” Theory into Practice, 46, no. 2, 162.
[xv] Now in its third edition, Margaret Connell Szasz’ Education and the American Indian provides an important overview of educational policy in relation to Native Americans though her treatment of higher education is relegated to a few passages and chapters. Cary Carney’s publishing of Native American Higher Education in the United States in 1999 offers the first comprehensive look at the history of Native Americans in higher education tracing this history from the colonial period to the 1990s. While both of these books made significant and lasting contributions to the historiography, their focus on policy, politics and other structural frameworks left out the voices and perspectives of Native American students.
[xvi] Bobby Wright and William G. Tierney, Change. Mar/Apr91, Vol. 23 Issue 2, p11.
[xvii] These same goals of educating Native peoples as teachers and preachers so that they would aid in the conversion of their tribal communities has a long history dating back to the earliest creation of colonial colleges. See Bobby Wright, “The ‘Untameable Savage Spirit’: American Indians in Colonial Colleges,” The Review of Higher Education, Volume 14, Number 4, Summer 1991: 431.
[xviii] For more detail on this incidence and its repercussions, see: Anna Peterson, “Resistance, Transculturation, and Survivance at the Bethany Indian Mission, 1938-1955” Social Science and Missions; forthcoming.
[xix] Bertha Wabshagain was the first student Sihler helped. She was from Baraboo, Wisconsin and attended Luther College from 19451947. In a letter Sihler wrote to her in 1947, he expressed his desire to assist her: “We have watched you grow up and have been eager to befriend you in your days of good fortune and sorrow.” Ernest Sihler to Bertha Wabshagain, Jan. 16, 1947, “Bertha Wabshagain” BIM Correspondence. Re Native Americans Attending ALC Academies and Colleges, Bethany Indian Mission Collection, Luther Seminary Archives, St. Paul, MN (Hereafter BIMC).
[xx] Thomas D. Snyder, ed., 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait, Center for Education Statistics, 1993, 65-66.
[xxi] More information on these students and those who attended other Norwegian Lutheran colleges can be found in Anna Peterson's article "A Desire to Learn”: NativeAmerican Experiences in Lutheran Colleges, 1945–1955.” The American Indian Quarterly 47, no. 1 (2023): 26–69."
[xxii] Gerhard Frost to Ernest Sihler, Apr. 14, 1951, “Lawrence Martin,” BIMC.
[xxiii] Northfield News, Nov. 8, 2017.
[xxiv] Helen Miner to Mrs. Wold, Oct. 15, 1945, “Helen Miner,” BIMC.
[xxv] See, for example: “Lawerence Martin,” and “Constance Rockman,” BIMC.
[xxvi] Dolly Hopinka to Ernest Sihler, March 4, 1951, “Angeline Hopinka,” BIMC.
[xxvii] Clair Kloster to Ernest Sihler, Feb. 10, 1953, “Chauncey Hopinka,” BIMC; Connie Rockman to Ernest Sihler, October 14, 1952; Connie Rockman to Ernest and Mabel Sihler, November 8, 1952, “Constance Rockman,” BIMC.
[xxviii] Ernest Sihler to Connie Rockman, Sept. 13, 1954, “Constance Rockman,” BIMC.
[xxix] Connie Rockman to Ernest Sihler, Dec. 9, 1952.; Connie Rockman to Ernest Sihler, Aug. 2, 1953, “Constance Rockman,” BIMC; Helen Miner to Ernest and Mabel Sihler, July 11, 1948, “Helen Miner,” BIMC; Dolly Hopinka to Ernest Sihler, Sept.24, 1950, “Angeline Hopinka,” BIMC.
[xxx] Stotts and Olson, “The Experiences of Native American Students Living on a Reservation and Attending a Predominantly White High School,” 34.
[xxxi] Helen Miner to Ernest Sihler, Sept. 27, 1948, “Helen Miner,” BIMC; Hopinka to Sihler, Sept. 24, 1950; Dolly Hopinka to Ernest Sihler, March 4, 1951, “Dolly Hopinka,” BIMC; Larry Martin to Ernest and Mabel Sihler, Sept. 20, 1950, “Lawrence Martin,” BIMC.
[xxxii] Martin to Sihlers, Sept. 20, 1950, “Lawrence Martin,” BIMC.
[xxxiii] Sihler to Ridgway, Dec.13, 1947, “Helen Miner,” BIMC.
[xxxiv] Lydia Sundby to Mabel Sihler, Undated, “Bertha Wabshagain,” BIMC.; Rockman to Sihler, Dec.9, 1952, “Constance Rockman,” BIMC.
[xxxv] Janet Mallory to Ernest Sihler, Dec. 3 (no year given), “Janet Mallory,” BIM Correspondence. Re Native Americans Attending ALC Academies and Colleges, BIMC.
[xxxvi] Connie Rockman to Ernest and Mabel Sihler, March 3, 1954, “Constance Rockman,” BIMC; Hopinka to Sihler, March 4, 1951, “Angeline Hopinka,” BIMC.
[xxxvii] Connie Rockman to Ernest and Mabel Sihler, Apr. 8, 1954, “Constance Rockman,” BIMC.
[xxxviii] This is true for Native American students today as well. Students now either join existing campus groups such the Native American Student Association or create their own communities. For a discussion of how this works at the doctoral level, see: M. J. Williamson, Strengthening the Seamless Web: Fostering Minority Doctoral Success With Mexican American and American Indian students in their Doctoral Programs. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 4–8, 1994, New Orleans, LA.
[xl] “Marquette Student Dentists Want Experience; Oneida Will Get a Clinic,” Green Bay Press Gazette, March 21, 1971.
[xli] “Big John Named to Coalition,” Wausau Daily Herald, Dec. 16, 1977, 8.
[xlii] In 1977, Native Americans received only 240 of the 91,218 doctoral degrees awarded nationwide (.02%). In 2018, that number jumped to 707 but still only represented 0.03% of the total number of doctoral degrees awarded. Digest of Education Statistics 2019, Table 324.20. Doctor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and sex of student: Selected years, 1976–77 through 2017–18.
[xliii] Jacob Maranda & Claire Strother, “Messenger Changes its Name, Denounces Racist History” The Olaf Messenger, Oct. 1, 2020.
[xliv] This biographical information for Larry comes from his obituary published in the Northfield News, November 8, 2017.
[xlv] Sihler to Sanne, Sept. 14, 1954, “Herschel Hill,” BIMC.
[xlvi] Grant Arndt, “Rediscovering Nancy Oestreich Lurie’s Activist Anthropology,” American Anthropologist 121 (no. 3, 2019), 726.
[xlvii] “Black Hawk East has Booklet on Namesake,” The Rock Island Argus, October 16, 1992.
[xlvix] Luther Magazine, 13, (no.1, June 1976), 7.
[l] Luther Magazine, 13, (no.1, June 1976), 7.
[li] For examples, please see: https://anthrodb. luther.edu/index.php/MultiSearch/Index?sea rch=bethany+indian+mission
The Challenges of Documenting Luther's Connection to the Bethany Mission
by HAYLEY JACKSON, College Archivist
Editor’s Note: This talk was given at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Decorah. We publish it as a complement to Anna Peterson’s essay on the Bethany Indian Mission.
Good morning, and thank you for having me. As the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America continues to work on its Truth and Healing Movement and reckoning with our institutional complicity with indigenous oppression, I appreciate the chance to talk to you all today about the records we have in the Luther College Archives related to the Bethany Indian Mission. I’d like to share my experience with these records, what materials it is we have, how Luther came to have them along with other missionary records, the challenge of stewarding these collections, and our future plans for them as it stands right now.
To start, I’d like to review the institutional connection between Luther College and the Bethany Indian Mission. For some of you this will be a refresher, but I’ve found that this explanation helps demonstrate why so many Luther-affiliated individuals were involved with the mission.
Luther College and the Bethany Indian Mission were both projects of the Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, more commonly known as the Norwegian Synod. The Synod was a church body formed by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants to the United States. It was founded in 1853 and initially consisted of a handful of congregations. It was not the only Norwegian Lutheran body formed in the early days of immigration, but it was one that adhered, as I understand it, most closely to the theology of the Church of Norway. Over time and several mergers, the Norwegian Synod eventually became part of the ELCA.
The Synod established Luther College (then known as the Norwegian Luther College) in 1861. The goal of founding Luther, among others, was to train up young men to attend seminary and fulfill pastoral needs for the many Norwegian communities that were growing in America, as the supply of ministers from Norway could not keep up with demand. It also provided an opportunity for Norwegian immigrants to send their children to college.
In its early years, the Norwegian Synod did not have evangelizing missions of its own. Such projects required considerable resources and so, for the first several years, the Synod supported missionary efforts already established by other Lutheran bodies, such as the Schreuder Mission in South Africa. Scholar Betty Bergland aptly points out that the main priority for several immigrant churches in North America was serving their own communities.1 Andrew S. Burgess makes a similar observation, citing the “heavy and pressing burden of caring for thousands of Norwegian immigrants who were flocking to America” as being the primary focus of the new church.2 Despite this, the interest in missionary work was present and gradually the Norwegian Synod began establishing its own external or “foreign” missions. These included the Bethany Indian Mission.
The founding of Bethany was complicated. The Norwegian Synod initially formed a committee to investigate the idea of establishing an Indian mission. After the committee reported to Synod leadership in April 1883, the Synod decided not to move forward. The committee members–Rev. Even Johnson Homme, Rev. Tobias Larsen, Rev. Martin Pederson, and Rev. Jens Martin Dahl–decided to proceed on their own, buying property to build the mission. After an appeal from Rev. Larsen later
Hayley Jackson
in 1883, the Synod reversed course and agreed to support the committee’s work, eventually calling Erik Morstad to come serve as its first missionary.3 The Bethany Indian Mission operated until 1955, with the aims of Christianizing the local Native American tribes, as well as providing them food, shelter, clothing, and educational opportunities.
The bulk of records documenting the mission was eventually deposited at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, which today serves as the ELCA’s Region 3 Area Archives. However, a handful of documents made its way to Luther College. It’s that handful I’m going to talk to you about today.
I came to know the Bethany Indian Mission records rather early in my tenure at Luther. When I arrived in 2015, I met with Dr. Destiny Crider, manager of the Anthropology Lab and Collections and program director of the Museum Studies Department. We started many projects that year, and one of them involved the mission-related collections for which we were responsible.
The first page of the original manuscript accession log for the Luther College Archives. The page lists the first donations from the Koren and Preus families.
Both the college archives and anthropology collections have materials related to Lutheran missionary work, but for researchers interested in that material, it wasn’t always clear who had what. It also wasn’t clear when the material a researcher was seeking was located at a different institution, such as the ELCA Central Archives in Elk Grove, Illinois (near the ELCA headquarters in Chicago), or the Region 3 Archives at Luther Seminary. Surely there had to be a way to gather all this information in one place.
As such, we decided to create a guide to the missionary collections. We envisioned the guide would contain brief descriptions of each mission, list who was involved, and who had relevant collections. Over time, we would add relevant secondary source material written about the different missions. We would use this guide to direct researchers to the appropriate institution, depending on their projects. Developing the guide would thus have two very practical purposes. First, it would allow us to figure out who had what, enabling us to direct researchers to the correct institution. Archivists call this kind of work “intellectual control”–creating documentation that enables access to archival collections. After all, if you don’t provide ways of knowing what is in a collection, you cannot provide access to it. Second, it
would allow us to spend time untangling Luther College’s connection to these many missions. We were both relatively new, unaware of how Luther College fit in with Lutheran missionary work and why we had material related to the Alaskan Brevig mission or the Bethany Indian Mission. So we dove headfirst into what has become a very webby project that continues to grow, eight years later, as we continue to find new information and new connections.
The Bethany Indian Mission was of early interest to us, given the significant artifactual holdings in the anthropology collection and clear identification of the donor of several of those items: Axel Jacobson. I was able to locate several documents written by Jacobson in our holdings. In 2017, we were fortunate to have a student from Norway, Froeydis Ronnenberg, working in the College Archives. She had worked with Dr. Øyvind Gullicksen on the transcription of Elisabeth Koren’s letters to Norway, and was experienced in working with Dano-Norwegian. Froeydis was able to begin the process of roughly translating some of these documents for us, giving us a brief glimpse into their content and establish why Jacobson gave these artifacts to Luther College. I was also able to pinpoint that Luther Seminary held far more material than we did, and that we should direct researchers there for in-depth investigations.
Since then, we’ve done research to locate where other records of these different missions are held, and the names we’ve come across to try and piece together as much information as possible without having the language to read the documents themselves. I’ve seen my role as one of connecting dots for context–these are the people we know were involved, this is what we have, this is how we are connected to it.
Not long after, in February 2018, Dr. Anna Peterson emailed to ask if we had anything related to the Bethany Indian Mission. I told her what we had, but suggested Luther Seminary was going to have far more than our collection. The rest is history.
So if the bulk is at Luther Seminary, what exactly is it that we do have?
The core of the Archives’ collection is three folders of correspondence dating from 1883-1893. These are located in our collection of records from the early Norwegian Synod. Thanks to Froeydis’s rough translation, we’ve ascertained that many of these letters are either reports to Synod leadership on the progress of the mission or very practical documents about calling pastors and missionaries and purchasing property. These documents are from the earliest years of the mission, what Betty Bergland calls the “early, formative period.”4 Without full translations, it’s difficult to fully appreciate what they can tell us about the mission. However, I am confident that rather than being the records generated by individuals running the mission for its day to day function–student records, receipts, inventories, promotional material, that sort of thing–these are records from those running the mission reporting back to Synod leaders. This correspondence is primarily addressed to H.A. Preus, who was serving as the president of the Norwegian Synod at the time.
A handful of men wrote the majority of letters and reports that we have in this collection. They include Rev. Tobias Larsen, who served on the committee establishing the mission and as superintendent of the mission from 18841887; Brynjolf Hovde, who served as the superintendent from 1893-1902;
Axel Jacobson, who served as a teacher and superintendent off and on between 1888 and 1933; and Ingvar G. Monson, a member of the Norwegian Synod’s Indian Mission Committee from 1892 through 1896. All but one attended or graduated from Luther College.
I want to make one point of clarification. When we initially started working with these records, I thought the Brynjolf Hovde who served at Bethany Indian Mission was the same Brynjolf
Hovde who graduated from Luther College, taught on the faculty, and later went to take a position at the New School in New York. Further research indicated that this is not the case. There were two men named Brynjolf Hovde–a grandfather and grandson. The Hovde who worked at the mission was born in Voss, Norway in 1839, immigrated to the United States in 1857, attended one year at Luther College (it’s first academic year) but completed
his schooling at Concordia College in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He served as the superintendent of the Bethany Indian Mission from 1893-1902.5 His grandson, Brynjolf Jakob Hovde, graduated from Luther College in 1916 and never had any affiliation with the Indian Mission. This Hovde family does not seem to be related to Oivind Hovde, another Luther graduate who later served as head librarian at Luther College.
Additionally, we have an oral history from Stella Peterson, who taught at the Bethany Indian Mission during the 1920s, taken by a student in Dr. Jackie Wilkie’s public history course in 1989.
Many of our early collections are written, like the letters in these three folders, in Dano-Norwegian. This language barrier presents another tantalizing question to answer: what else might we have but of which we are currently unaware? Many of those involved in the Bethany Indian Mission were in contact with Norwegian Synod and Luther College leaders. Some of these letters survive in different manuscript collections. Due to the language barrier, we don’t know the contents of these scattered letters. These collections may have additional material. Alternatively, they may have nothing to do with the Indian Mission at all. Given the interconnected nature of Norwegian Synod projects, there were many reasons for this same group of men to write to one another. I bring these up for two reasons: first, to highlight how vital language skills are for fully investigating this history; second, to demonstrate how interconnected all these people were in the early years of the Norwegian Synod.
Several men with connections to the Indian Mission have letters in our collections. Even Johnson Homme was a pastor in Wittenberg, Wisconsin who had established a home to care for orphans and the elderly. He was the first to advocate to the Norwegian Synod that provisions should be made for the local Native American tribes and served on the first Synod committee related to the mission. Erik Mørstad was the first called to serve the Native Americans at the mission, serving from 1884 to 1886. Oscar A. Strøm and Martinus C. Waller were Luther College graduates
A letter from Tobias Larsen to H.A. Preus, May 6, 1893 on Indian Mission letterhead
A letter from Brynjolf Hovde to H.A. Preus, April 30,
who served as pastors and missionaries in Wittenberg. Letters from these men appear in the papers of Laur. Larsen, H.A. Preus, and Jorgen Nordby, among others. Similarly, letters from Axel Jacobson, Tobias Larsen, and Brynjolf Hovde also appear in these collections.
So how did this material come to us?
Why do we have it, not Luther Seminary or the ELCA Central Archives? To explore that, I want to look at a couple of things, including the role of college and university libraries in manuscript collecting, the proximity of Luther’s founders to missionary work and Norwegian Synod leadership, and the role of what was then known as the Norwegian-American Historical Museum. Libraries at colleges and universities have long been centers for collecting historical manuscripts. Koren Library, at Luther College, was no exception. Manuscript collecting at Luther began in the 1920s. While researching Koren Library back in 2021, I came across college librarian Karl Jacobsen’s 1926 annual report, where he noted: “For two or three years past a [indecipherable] number of manuscripts have been turned over to the library.”6 This date, in retrospect, makes quite a bit of sense, as
1892
1925 was a watershed year for Norwegian-Americans. That June the NorseAmerican Centennial was held in Minneapolis. It was a large celebration held to honor the first Norwegians who immigrated to the United States. Knut Gjerset, professor of history at Luther College and curator of the Luther College Museum, was highly involved in this event, serving as the chairman of exhibits.
According to the Norwegian American Historical Association (also known as NAHA), this event led to greater interest in preserving Norwegian-American history. NAHA itself was established by Gjerset and Ole Rolvaag that October and formally incorporated the following February.7 Additionally, Gjerset changed the name of the Luther College Museum to the Norwegian-American Historical Museum that same October.8 I would argue, though I cannot concretely prove, that these events had an effect on when manuscripts were first donated to Koren Library. Even today, events celebrating historical milestones often lead to a surge in donations of manuscripts and artifacts.
Luther College made a lot of sense as a center of manuscript collection. In 1925,
Koren Library was new and considered to be a state-of-the-art library. Many men in Synod leadership had close ties with Luther College—the oldest Norwegian-American educational institution and the first school created by the Norwegian Synod—either as former students or professors. It made sense that they or their families would gift their records to Luther College. This is still common today. You may have heard in the news recently that Senator Grassley intends to leave his vast archives to the University of Northern Iowa, his alma mater, when he retires. This is the same principle: Luther would be a home for manuscript collections of Synod leaders. In fact, the families of U.V. Koren and H.A. Preus were the first two donors of manuscripts, as seen in the original accession book. I am not sure when Laur. Larsen’s family donated his papers—likely after 1936, when his daughter Karen published her biography of him. In the acknowledgements, Karen wrote that these papers, which she used as sources for her book, would be deposited at Koren Library.
Unfortunately, the accession book has gaps. It does not record who gave us the material that we refer to today as the Norwegian Synod records. In fact, it is possible that what we have grouped together as a collection today may have been donated by multiple people at different times. We do have a clue. If you look at the donation of papers from H.A. and C.K. Preus, both entries list “letters re: affairs of the Norwegian Synod” in their contents. In an era before an official headquarters, these records were likely in the possession of Norwegian Synod leaders. Several of these influential leaders were closely connected to the founding of Luther College. Let’s take a look at the three founders of Luther College and see just how entwined leadership was with Luther College.
Rev. Herman Amberg Preus was an original signatory on the founding documents of the Norwegian Synod. In addition to serving as minister at several churches, he served as the synod’s president for over thirty years. He also sat on Luther College’s Board of Trustees. As it happens, he was very passionate about
evangelical missionary work; he and Laur. Larsen encouraged churches to send funds to the Indian mission established by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. His niece, Thekla Breder Astrup, was serving as a missionary in South Africa with her husband. 9
Laur. Larsen is best known as Luther’s first and longest-serving president, giving over forty years of his life to teaching and managing the college. He also served as the vice-president of the Norwegian Synod, sat on the Synod’s committee that supported the Schreuder Mission in South Africa, and, as I mentioned, was an advocate for donating funds to the Missouri Synod’s Indian mission. His brothers-in-law were missionaries in South Africa, and three of his children engaged in missionary work. His daughters Hanna and Marie were in South Africa with their uncles. Marie would become ill and die while there in 1899. Hanna would return home and write about her experiences in a book, Skisser fra Zululand, or Sketches of Zululand 10 His son, Rev. Nikolai Astrup Larsen, served with his family in China from 1913 to 1927.
U.V. Koren is remembered today as the man who purchased the original 30 acres of Luther’s campus and as the husband of Elisabeth Koren, the famed pioneer diarist. He held the role of secretary, vice-president, and president of the Norwegian Synod during his career, as well as presiding over the
Iowa District of the Synod for twenty years. He also served as the secretary of the Luther College Board of Trustees and briefly taught Norwegian. Koren had the advantage of being geographically near Luther College. While Preus was based in Spring Prairie, Wisconsin, Koren was based at Washington Prairie, only a few miles from Decorah and the college.
It is important to remember that the Norwegian Synod was a relatively small operation–the same handful of men were involved in a multiplicity of projects. My conjecture is that these Synod records, including the correspondence regarding the Bethany Indian Mission, were probably in the hands of at least one of the officers of the Synod. If this were the case, it would make considerable sense for them to have been deposited, along with their personal papers, at Luther College. There were no official Norwegian Synod archives. There was also no church policy that dictated where the records should be kept. NAHA was brand new. Luther College had a library with a librarian. It was a focal point for those who had ties to the Norwegian Synod, rather than St. Olaf, which was a college of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church. From the perspective of these church leaders, donating their papers to Luther College just made sense.
Luther also made sense because at the time we were home to the Luther College Museum. The museum had long
been a collector of assorted items and did not adhere to what we would call today a “collection development policy.” In its early iterations, the museum accepted a wide variety of artifacts, ranging from natural history (the first acquisition was famously a nest of bird eggs), old coins, Norwegian newspapers and Luther memorabilia, to ethnographic artifacts from around the world, copies of famous artworks, and other assorted items. The November 1899 College Chips lists a handmade flint gun as an acquisition, along with a medal made from the metal of a German cannon.11 Many of the ethnographic objects included artifacts picked up by graduates serving as missionaries.12 The November 1898 College Chips mentions Rev. Tollef Brevig, a Luther graduate, bringing some Inuit items from his post in Alaska for the museum.13 Hanna Larsen donated her collection of Zulu artifacts to the museum in 1900.
It wasn’t until the 1920s that Knut Gjerset reoriented the museum to focus on Norwegian-American heritage.14 As we know, it has since split and evolved into the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School. Several items from this original Luther College Collection have been given back to Luther over the years, including missionary items. All of this is to say that Luther was already a focal point of donation of missionary and historical material. The leap from artifacts to manuscripts, especially in the new Koren Library which had been built to host the museum, is not a large one.
So what challenges do these records present? A few. The biggest one for us is the language barrier. Not only are these records primarily written in Norwegian, they are written in the old Dano-Norwegian that was spoken by the community here and is beyond most of our students studying Norwegian. It’s hard to explain what we may have or understand what the records may tell us about this mission if we do not have the language skills to translate the documents. We have what Froeydis started, but she did not translate everything. It will take time and expertise to accomplish that.
Luther College President Peter Lauritz (Laur.) Larsen
Pastor Ulrik Vilhelm Koren
In addition, the language barrier prevents us from easily identifying any other items across the collection that may relate to the mission. As I mentioned earlier, several of the men involved in the mission wrote letters to Synod leaders that appear in other collections. Although I have learned the Norwegian word for Indian Missions–“Indianmissioner”–and could identify other potentially relevant items, the language barrier remains a challenge. I cannot always tell if those letters are related to mission work, if they are about other Synod business, or if they are friendly letters that have nothing to do with work at all. In the materials we have from meetings held by the Norwegian Synod, I cannot tell if those records mention Synod-wide discussions of the Indian Mission. So there could be more records! The only reason I know what we have is that Oivind Hovde, then director of Preus Library, and Linda Burri, a cataloger, had enough Norwegian to identify certain folders as being related to the Indian Mission while inventorying the collection in 1975.
Providing sensitive access to materials is another challenge. Once again, given the language barrier, it’s very hard for me to point to a specific item and identify it as potentially “triggering” the way I can with other collections. I can, however, appreciate that these items have a higher chance of causing emotional reactions with students or researchers, and wanting to handle them sensitively. Archivists are currently working on balancing our role of preserving history–the good, the bad, and the ugly–so that it is not forgotten, while also recognizing that people who come to us to use collections all come with their own experiences and wanting to mitigate their potentially traumatic reactions. Many of my colleagues who work with upsetting material are working with their faculty on using trauma-informed pedagogy, such as my mentor Abbigail Nye at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archives. Last spring, I attended a presentation given by Nye and Dr. Krista Grensavitch on this topic. The UWM Archives hold the papers of civil rights activist Fr. James Groppi. The UWM Archives hold the papers of civil rights activist Fr. James Groppi. Among his
materials are voluminous files of some vile hate mail. Nye and Grensavitch shared how they have collaborated on using trauma-informed pedagogy that allows students the chance to interact with these records and the darker side of history while minimizing distressing effects on students.15 This has inspired my own thinking about providing access to the Bethany Indian Mission records.
Additionally, archivists and cultural heritage workers are working to ensure that items and descriptions of cultural practices sacred to Native American tribes are handled sensitively. Given what I know about our collections, I do not expect them to have documents with this type of information. Regardless, in the event that we were to identify that these materials documented sacred Native American religious practices not meant for widespread distribution, we would want to handle those with great care.
So what are the next steps for us? The first priority for me will be to carefully digitize the records we have and send copies to the ELCA Central Archives. As I understand it, there are conversations being held about how to make these records available to tribe members and those who had family involved with the mission. I think it is vital to support that work, however it ends up looking. As I have time, I would like to review our other manuscript collections and see what I can identify, to the best of my ability, that may be related to the mission work. The scholarship that has been done on Bethany Indian Mission has made little use, to my knowledge, of the documents we hold at Luther. These records could shed light on the earliest days of the mission, and I would like to support scholars who are conducting this important research.
In my fondest hopes and dreams, I would like to have these records translated into English and make the translations available. This would likely be a time-consuming project that would require some level of funding to accomplish, whether through grants or a temporary position. Regardless, I think this work would be a large step forward in this work of reconciling with our past complicity, and for historical inquiry.
In an October 1978 paper prepared for the White House, historian and activist Vine Deloria Jr. explained his view that the federal government’s treaty with Native American tribes required it to be accountable for the tribes’ educational “need to know; to know the past, to know the traditional alternatives advocated by their ancestors, to know the specific experiences of their communities, and to know about the world that surrounds them.”16 Deloria advocated for federal support towards, among other initiatives, duplicating and making accessible Native American records.17 It is my aim that we at the Luther College Archives heed Deloria’s call and make our collections, however small, available to Native American communities and the broader historical community.
NOTES
1. Betty Bergland, “Norwegian Immigrants, Wisconsin Tribes and the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 1883-1955,” in NorwegianAmerican Essays 2004, ed. Orm Overland (Oslo: NAHA-Norway, 2005), 72-73.
2. Andrew S. Burgess, “Burning ZealMissionary Endeavor,” in Norsemen Found a Church: An Old Heritage in a New Land, ed. J.C.K. Preus, T.F. Gullixson, and E.C. Reinertson (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1953), 340.
3. Bergland, “Norwegian Immigrants, Wisconsin Tribes and the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 1883-1955,” 75-76.
4. Bergland, “Norwegian Immigrants, Wisconsin Tribes and the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 1883-1955,” 79.
5. Rasmus Malmin, O.M.Norlie, and O.A. Tingelstad, Who’s Who Among Pastors in All the Norwegian Lutheran Synods of America, 1843-1927, 3rd ed., (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1928), 265.
6. Library Report for 1926 by Karl T. Jacobsen, written to President Oscar L. Olson, January 25, 1927, RG07 SR02 SBSR13 Box 46, Folder 4, Records of the Library Department, Luther College Archives, Decorah, IA.
7. “NAHA History,” Norwegian-American History Association, https://naha.stolaf. edu/about/naha-history/
8. David T. Nelson, “The Museum Under Gjerset,” The Palimpsest 46, no. 12 (1965): 627, https://doi. org/10.17077/0031-0360.21678.
10. For more on Marie and Hanna Larsen, see Rachel Vagts, “A Transforming Journey: A Story of Service at Luther and Beyond,” Agora 23, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 33-39.
11. “Locals,” College Chips, November 1899, Luther Digital.
12. David T. Nelson, “In the ‘Chicken Coop,’” The Palimpsest 46, no. 12 (1965): 617, https://doi. org/10.17077/0031-0360.21681.
13. “Locals,’ College Chips, November 1898, Luther Digital.
14. Nelson, “The Museum Under Gjerset,” 625-627.
15. Abigail Nye and Krista Grensavitch, “Trauma-informed Pedagogy in the Archives Classroom (pop-up presentation, Midwest Archives Conference Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 14, 2023).
16. Vine Deloria, “Vine Deloria, The Right to Know: A Paper (prepared for the White House Pre-Conference on Indian Library and Information Services on or Near Reservations), Office of Library and Information Services, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 1978, 1317, as quoted in Jennifer R. O’Neal, “‘The Right to Know’: Decolonizing Native American Archives,” Journal of Western Archives 6, no. 1, Article 2 (2015): 2-3, https://doi.org/10.26077/ fc99-b022.
17. O’Neal, “The Right to Know’: Decolonizing Native American Archives,” 3.
WORKS CITED
Bergland, Betty. “Norwegian Immigrants, Wisconsin Tribes and the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 18831955.” In Norwegian-American Essays 2004, edited by Orm Overland, 67-102. Oslo: NAHA-Norway, 2005.
Burgess, Andrew S. “Burning Zeal - Missionary Endeavor.” In Norsemen Found a Church: An Old Heritage in a New Land, edited by J.C.K. Preus, T.F. Gullixson, and E.C. Reinertson, 329-364. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1953.
“Locals.” College Chips. November 1898. Luther Digital.
“Locals.” College Chips. November 1899. Luther Digital.
Malmin, Rasmus, O.M. Norlie, and O.A. Tingelstad. Who’s Who Among Pastors in All the Norwegian Lutheran Synods of America, 1843-1927. 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1928.
“NAHA History.” Norwegian-American History Association. Accessed April 1, 2024. https://naha.stolaf.edu/about/naha-history/..
Nelson, David T. “The Museum Under Gjerset.” The Palimpsest 46, no. 12 (1965): 625-634. https://doi.org/10.17077/0031-0360.21678.
Nelson, David T. “Ten Years in the Chicken Coop.” The Palimpsest 46, no. 12 (1965): 615-620. https://doi.org/10.17077/00310360.21681.
Nye, Abigail and Krista Grensavitch. “Trauma-informed Pedagogy in the Archives Classroom.” Pop-up presentation given at the Midwest Archives Conference Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 14, 2023.
O’Neal, Jennifer R. “‘The Right to Know’: Decolonizing Native American Archives.” Journal of Western Archives 6, No. 1, Article 2 (2015): 1-17. https://doi.org/10.26077/fc99-b022. Records of the Library Department, Record Group 7, Series 2, Subseries 13. Luther College Archives. Decorah, IA.
Vagts, Rachel. “A Transforming Journey: A Story of Service at Luther and Beyond.” Agora 23, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 33-39.
A Brief History of the Luther College Concert Band
by BENJAMIN YATES ('08)
Editor’s note: Benjamin Yates is associate professor of trombone at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was visiting associate professor of music at Luther in fall of 2023. He also teaches low brass at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy & Festival.
In 1878, just 13 years after the college’s first semester in the original Main Building, the Luther College Concert Band officially started as a student-led organization. A group of students under Hans B. Thorgrimsen raised money to buy instruments and music and start the extracurricular ensemble. As a training site for Lutheran pastors, it was important early on that Luther College include music in its curriculum. Not only was music a central part of Lutheran religious services, but the Luther College founders also wanted the school to represent the importance of cultural education, including music.
church instruments (organ or piano), the ministry students were taught choral and instrumental music.1 This requirement for pastors to have a musical background created a strong music presence on campus and in the surrounding regions. The college administration’s clear dedication to music led the way for the Luther College Concert Band, under Thorgrimsen, to become a major ensemble at the college.
This Luther College band first toured in the summer of 1886. The band traveled for nearly a month starting in Spring Grove, Minnesota, and concluding at Harmonia Hall in Minneapolis. The Concert Band took a more extensive tour in June and July of 1890. Although the student directors led the tours, Luther President Laur Larsen provided much of the financial assistance with an interest in using tours as a recruiting opportunity. The college administration considered these tours a success at educating the current students and recruiting new students.
The new college’s leaders were specifically aware that music training would be important for the ministers preparing for the settler congregations in the Midwest. Because so few congregations in the newly settled areas of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had traditional
In 1894, the first non-student leader of the band, Haldor Hanson (1883), was hired and continued the work of the student organization leaders and college administration. He directed the orchestra, band, and chorus. Hanson was instructed to transition the college music ensembles from student-led organizations into academic areas of study. Hanson developed the band in many ways, including securing a recurring budget from the college administration
and creating a second band on campus. In addition to the Luther College Concert Band, Hanson organized and directed the Beginners’ Band, dedicated to students in the initial stages of learning wind instruments.
Carlo Sperati took over the position from Hanson in 1904 and remained in the position until 1945. Sperati inherited a band program that was young, but on the rise. Sperati helped the Concert Band grow from a small regional college concert band to an international touring organization. The Luther College music department quickly became one of the largest departments on campus. Sperati directed the Concert Band, Second Band, and Beginners’ Band. With his family and friend connections in Norway and former colleagues in Washington state, and his enthusiasm as a promoter of the band, Sperati became one of the major instigators of the band touring program at Luther College.
After Sperati, Sigvart Hofland directed the Luther College band from 19451946. He taught music theory and composition at Luther College from 1942
The Luther College Concert Band, 1878 tour promotion photo
Benjamin Yates
until 1956. The Luther College Concert Band was successful under Sigvart Hofland, despite difficulties with recruiting during the war.
A former Luther band student, Sigvart Steen, became the next band conductor. Steen graduated from Luther College in 1923 after performing with the band for four years under the direction of Carlo Sperati. Under Steen’s conductorship, the Concert Band took two tours of the Midwest in 1947 and 1948.2 Extensive touring and radio appearances were important to Steen and his recruiting plan, since the war had removed many students from the college.
Another former Luther student became the next band conductor. Weston Noble graduated from Luther College in 1943, just before heading to Germany to serve
in the U.S. Army as a tank driver. Noble returned to Luther College in 1950 to direct the bands and choirs. Under Noble’s direction, the Concert Band toured domestically and internationally, performing in major music halls throughout the United States. Noble started the Dorian Music Festivals that quickly grew in student numbers. He felt he was able to rebuild the band program after the war had affected numbers and interest in the Luther College music program.
In 1973, Frederick Nyline was hired as the Luther College director of bands. Nyline was already familiar with the program as he had heard the band perform several times. What fascinated him was the school’s tradition and the broader impact the small school was having on music education and wind
band music. As soon as the committee interviewed Frederick Nyline, Noble knew the band program would flourish and grow under Nyline’s leadership. During his time as Luther College Concert Band director, Nyline took the band on annual tours that eventually rotated among the Midwest, the West Coast, Europe, Japan, and China. The band also played at festivals and conventions throughout the United States and recorded for several major publishing companies.
Joan deAlbuquerque was appointed as Luther College director of bands in 2011. Dr. deAlbuquerque focused on raising awareness of the band program in regional and international associations, including the Iowa Bandmasters
Frederick Nyline
The Luther College Concert Band at Orchestra Hall, Chicago 1936, Carlo Sperati, Conductor
Luther College Concert Band, Weston Noble conductor, undated photo from the early 1950s
Association and College Band Directors National Association. She was highly involved in the local high school and middle school band programs where she assisted band directors and gave clinics. Dr. deAlbuquerque worked to raise the quality of the band performances through high expectations for both music majors and non-majors alike. She also taught and mentored music education students, working closely with the music education faculty in the Music Department. Joan deAlbuquerque continued the tradition of student-led officer positions and other leadership opportunities.
Cory Near started as director of bands at Luther College in the spring of 2020, just as the college sent students and faculty home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Near worked to build the program coming out of the pandemic instability through student recruiting, increased visibility of the bands, and offering his own musical connections to the Luther community. Near continues this work at Luther College, commissioning new music for the band and performing important band literature. The following is an interview conducted with Dr. Near.
What do you bring to this position from past conducting experiences?
I feel fortunate to have fallen in love with band repertoire, especially programing. It’s one of my favorite things
to do. I spend hours over the summer drafting programs, coming up with ideas, and coming up with interesting themes and connections.
I like to think about the overall architecture of a program from start to finish and about what we are trying to say. For example, what do I want our audience to hear in a 90-minute performance? I’ve had teachers and mentors who pushed my curiosity in a wide variety of repertoire or genres. I’m always eager to try new things, to experiment, and to take risks. I try to do that with all the ensembles at Luther. I
also happen to love any type of aleatoric or post-tonal music. I like giving those opportunities for students–who otherwise wouldn’t know this music–so they can learn more than just the same music every concert cycle. I like it when audience members say they never know what to expect with music from the Concert Band or Symphonic Band.
On the classroom side, I often rely on my experiences teaching at the middle and high school levels, especially with band methods and marching band methods. I can bring those real-life experiences and stories to students, and I think that they appreciate hearing those.
As the director of bands, what are your specific goals for the band and Music Department? Where do you see the program headed? What is your vision for the program?
I’m lucky to be at an institution where the bands do a lot of traveling. I would like to see the band performing at music conferences, whether that be at state, national, or regional level to showcase what we’re doing at Luther. Of course, we continue to tour, work to broaden our audiences outside of Decorah, and show a wide variety of listeners what we are doing.
Within the Music Department, I want the bands to keep pushing boundaries, to continue to be innovative, to be passionate with programming choices, and
Director of Bands Cory Near
Joan deAlbuquerque with the Concert Band in 2012
to explore a wide variety of performing opportunities.
What sorts of repertoire are you considering for the future bands? What repertoire are you passionate about?
Broadly speaking, I want to do a mix of new music. I also want standard repertoire to be part of my programming. The bands played a lot of new music last year (2022-23), so this year we are exploring a lot of standard repertoire.
I have a list of pieces that I think are standard core band repertoire that I want band students to have in their folders. We will do the Persichetti Symphony for Band in the next year or so. I want to do Music for Prague 1968 [Karel Husa], Schoenberg’s Theme and Variations, pieces that mean a lot to me and the band world.
Since 2020, the bands have performed the Gould Symphony, both Holst suites, and we’ve been able to tackle a lot of core repertoire. I want to continue exploring new music. I’m excited that the Symphonic Band is part of two consortiums for this [spring] semester. A dear friend Kevin Poelking has written a set of two pieces that is supposed to mimic Percy Grainger’s Irish Tune from County Derry and Shepherd’s Hey. It’s a slow lyrical piece and then kind of a fast, fun, more technical piece. Also, the Symphonic Band is doing a work by Haley Woodrow that is like an homage to pets and family pets.
What are some of the commissioned works you’ve conducted with the Concert Band and Symphonic Band?
2022: Fanfare deAlbuquerque by Brooke Joyce [Professor of Music and Composer-in-Residence] (Concert Band)
2023: Paideia Fanfare by Maxwell Lafontant (Concert Band)
2024: Life Unto the Age by Haley Woodrow (Symphonic Band)
2024: Light Descending by Kevin Poelking (Symphonic Band)
2024: Title TBD by Kevin Poelking (Symphonic Band)
What other things do you envision in the future of the Luther College bands?
We tour a lot, which is very enjoyable. I also think seeing the band showcased at conferences is an exciting future for the ensemble. And the Concert Band is doing an exciting recording project after talking about it for several years. We hope it appropriately honors the pandemic years as well as the passing of former band directors Joan deAlbuquerque and Fred Nyline while considering the needs of Luther College band alumni.
I want the alumni of the band and all Luther College alumni to know that there’s a long tradition of excellence with the band organization and Music Department at Luther. I think they would be excited to know that the tradition is still very much here. We are
looking ahead to continue to be innovative, to explore, and to take risks.
When alumni come back, I love hearing stories about their time at Luther. I love going through old concert programs of the Luther bands, trying to make connections with what they did on tour, to determine how the band should bring a work back for a reunion weekend or homecoming.
I’m proud of what the Luther College bands are doing to continue this great tradition. I’m honored to continue this great tradition and lead this ensemble. We have a rich and storied history and will build on that.
2. Campbell, Janet. Seventy Seven Years with the Luther College Concert Band. Senior Paper, Luther College. 1955. Page 89.
Cory Near conducting the Luther College Concert Band
How Storytelling Can Shift Our Perspective and Increase Empathy for Others
by MARINA CANTACUZINO, Founder and Co-Lead of The Forgiveness Project
In the middle of Decorah’s first severe snowstorm last March, 2024, The F Word exhibition came to Luther College, instigating much lively discussion among students. The F Word exhibition was created by the London, UK-based charity, The Forgiveness Project, and is an important tool with which we explore subjects of forgiveness, reparation, and restorative justice.
One of the reasons I believe The F Word has such a strong appeal to young people is that it presents the subject of forgiveness in a way that doesn’t drive people to forgive. Forgiveness isn’t held up as a magic bullet or a panacea for all ills but as a moral choice which is difficult, painful, and costly, while also potentially transformative. Onlookers are invited to consider these compelling examples of hurt and trauma as a means of examining their own unresolved grievances and supporting them to find their own answers.
Having worked for many years as journalist, I was moved by the Iraq War in 2003 to create The F Word exhibition. I felt a level of frustration and fury that I’d never felt about any political situation before and my counter-protest to the narratives of division and dehumanization that were grabbing all the headlines was to start collecting stories of compassion, restoration, and forgiveness.
I was looking for evidence. I wanted to find examples of parents who had forgiven their child’s killer, victims who had met their attacker, former perpetrators of violence who had transformed their aggression into a force for peace. I chose this subject of forgiveness because gentle people attract me more than resolute ones, vulnerability more than strength, and because I have always believed there are very few truly malevolent people in the world out there.
I wanted to create a portfolio of stories that displayed people’s personal healing journeys, that expressed their power as well as their pain, and most importantly I wanted these stories to be accessible to a wide range of people by revealing the gritty, messy, risky but authentic narratives of forgiveness.
The story-collecting phase of this work was carried out in my spare time, on a scant budget, and with a photographer friend, Brian Moody. In the course of our daily journalistic work in which we travelled to South Africa, Israel, Palestine and America, as well as across the United Kingdom, we searched for stories that unpacked and wrestled with
notions of forgiveness. Talking to people about the limits and possibilities of what it means to forgive revealed what contested and contentious territory this was. As a result, I called our collection of stories The F Word exhibition because forgiveness seemed to inspire and affront in equal measure.
The F Word exhibition became a space of inquiry, a conversation about forgiveness and revenge, a place not to promote forgiveness as the only way to heal past wounds, but rather to explore its limits and possibilities through individual personal experience in diverse settings and multiple circumstances. The stories reflected the complex, intriguing, and
Louisa Hext of the Forgiveness Project, speaking at the reception for The F Word exhibition
deeply personal nature of forgiveness, providing a vehicle for analysis and inspiration rather than dogma or the need to fix. Rami Elhanan, for instance, a member of the peace organization The Parents Circle, says of the suicide bomber who killed his daughter in a Jerusalem market in 1997: “I don’t forgive and I don’t forget…but the suicide bomber was a victim, just like my daughter, grown crazy out of anger and shame.”
In the end, while not all who feature in the exhibition have forgiven, every storyteller is in no doubt that revenge only fuels further fear and violence and locks us into a cycle of conflict. The protagonists have all used their agony as a spur for positive change, harnessing grief and trauma to drive social change.
Six thousand people saw the original exhibition in London in January 2004, with media coverage reaching 30 million people worldwide. Organizations and individuals all over the globe were asking how they could use The F Word as a resource for their own peace and conflict resolution work. Many visitors left powerful messages in the feedback book. One woman wrote candidly:
“Now I would like to be photographed next to the man who attacked me.” I was overwhelmed; nothing I’d written about in my many years as a journalist had grabbed the public’s attention like this. These stories seemed to tap into an urgent public need for alternative and peaceful responses to violence. I’d had no idea that exploring the subject of forgiveness through personal stories would have such an impact, nor that being exposed to other people’s healing narratives would stimulate visitors’ own personal inquiry.
The success of the exhibition led to me founding The Forgiveness Project, a London, UK secular nonprofit that sets out to explore how ideas around forgiveness, reconciliation, and conflict resolution can be used to impact positively on people’s lives, through the personal testimonies of both victims/ survivors and perpetrators of crime and violence.
One of the main aims of The F Word exhibition is to give people an appetite for difference and an understanding of the story of the other. So in today’s era of mounting sectarianism and religious fundamentalism it feels more relevant than ever.
This year is the twentieth anniversary of The Forgiveness Project and The F Word has grown and evolved alongside it. It has now been shown in 17 countries, seen by 90,000 people, in venues as diverse as correctional institutions throughout Minnesota, shopping centers in Sydney, Australia; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada; and hospitals in Southampton, England and Midland, Michigan. It has been displayed in multiple faith and educational institutions, as well as at the European Union buildings in Brussels to commemorate the centenary of First World War. The F Word has also been in Kenya, Africa (including additional stories collected from the region) to support peace in the lead up to local elections that so often end in bloodshed.
The stories shared in the exhibition tend to be high-profile stories connected with crime, violence, and trauma—stories that may already be in the public domain, though presented here through a different lens. The focus is on a restorative narrative—in other words stories that address harsh realities and yet show a healing progression whether from revenge to forgiveness, or hopelessness to meaning-making.
While the smaller stories of everyday familial grievances and hurts that we are all too familiar with do not feature significantly in the exhibition, we know from twenty years of feedback that the stories we share play an enormous part in helping people resolve their own inner conflicts. After Luther College students participated in the installation of and attended the exhibition at the Center for Faith and Life, they were asked to share their own reflections–for example, their chosen definition of “forgiveness,” how the exhibition had changed their perception of forgiveness, and what the impact was of exploring the subject through storytelling. Their responses demonstrated the depth of their engagement and were useful learning tools for all of us at The Forgiveness Project. Here is a small sample of what the students wrote:
“The impact of the personal storytelling was that the stories carried more emotional weight and had a larger impact on me.
Student viewing F Word banner in the Center for Faith and Life
LUTHER COLLEGE
PHOTO BY ARMANDO JENKINS-VAZQUEZ
These stories stayed with me and made me reassess my actions to myself and to other people.”
“I always wanted the person to apologize first, but now I think that has changed.”
“Self-forgiveness is something I want to achieve and The Forgiveness Project has motivated me to do so.”
“What stood out to me the most is people’s ability to see past preconceived notions of each other to come to a place of acceptance and forgiveness, even when society has put them at odds with one another.”
“These stories made me think that forgiveness is one of the most important things a human can do.”
“There were levels of forgiveness that I never thought people could achieve, but The Forgiveness Project showed me that people truly can.”
“Forgiveness does not always mean acceptance of what has been done to you or others but accepting of the person as a fellow human being.”
the exhibit. When I arrived at Luther College, the students were beginning to convene in the Center for Faith and Life. I was able to connect with many one-to-one and felt truly welcomed. I suddenly had this idea: what if the students chose the ordering of the installation and hung it themselves? Typically, I have a tendency to want “to do it all” myself, but in this situation I just released the installation to the students. They immediately got into small groups and decided the ordering of each of the 18 banners and where they would go.
Many were students, plus several faculty and Decorah community members. The majority of the students from the J-Term “Psychology of Forgiveness” course–primarily first-year and sophomore students–came to the reception with their friends and partners. My sense is they wanted to be there rather than were told to be there.
I was initially surprised to see that Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s story wasn’t one of the two banners selected for the entry way in the lobby of the center. Typically, his story is chosen as the pivotal story to introduce the installation. The students selected the banners representing Israel and Palestine–the stories of Rami Elahan and Ghazi Briegeith from the joint Israeli/Palestinian organization The Parents Circle Families Forum–and Mary Blewitt whose story is about the Rwandan genocide. I asked them their reasoning and they referenced the October 7, 2023 invasion of Hamas into Israel and the Israeli response. A couple of the students were also keenly aware of the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Additionally, I find that many viewers of the exhibit under 50 and particularly Americans do not know who Archbishop Desmond Tutu is.
The next morning, I met with the students over coffee prior to returning to Minneapolis. There was another snowstorm that evening. It was quite surreal. I was incredibly heartened by how engaged the students were, and how much they had taken from reading the stories of forgiveness. I’m so very grateful to Professor Loren Toussaint from Luther’s department of psychology and Pastor Melissa Bills, director of College Ministries, for engaging with The Forgiveness Project and realizing the exhibit would be a key tool for understanding the psychology of forgiveness.
A month later, in April, Marina and I returned to the Luther College campus where Marina participated in a mutual public conversation with Father Michel Lapsley, one of The Forgiveness Project’s storytellers. The conversation was well attended by students, faculty, and community members alike. Thanks to Guy Nave, professor of religion, and others at Luther College who made this opportunity possible. On April 18, Marina and I met with interested students to continue our forgiveness conversation. We look forward to a continued relationship with Luther College to unpack forgiveness and it’s limits and possibilities!
Reflection by
Louisa Hext North American Exhibition Curator and Coordinator
One of the most powerful things about the visit with the students was the serendipitous and organic installation of
Watching the young people choose the positioning of the exhibition, I realized that younger people connect with different stories. Their contribution to the exhibit installation was powerful.
At the opening reception I had the privilege to speak to about 40 people.
The F Word banner showing Father Michael Lapsley, a South African chaplain injured by a letter bomb in 1990. Father Lapsley participated with Marina Cantacuzino in a mutual public conversation at Luther.
AGORA
PHOTO BY MARTIN KLAMMER
Star Conversations
by KRISTIN A. SWANSON, Professor of Religion JANUARY 10, 2024
Today’s text is Genesis 1:14-19 (my own translation):
“And God said ‘Let there be lamps in the expanse of the heavens, to separate the day and the night; and let them be for signs and seasons and days and years. And let the lamps in the expanse of the heavens shine upon the earth.’ And it was so. God made the two big lamps, the bigger lamp to rule over the day and the smaller lamp to rule over the night; and the stars. God put them in the expanse of the heavens to shine upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to separate the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And it was evening, and it was morning: the fourth day.”
The excerpt we just heard is part of a larger creation story that consists of the entirety of the first chapter of Genesis and the first few verses of chapter 2. This small portion of the text nicely illustrates how structured the narrative is. The creation of the cosmos is described within a framework of seven days; key words and phrases are repeated throughout, such as “and it was evening, and it was morning, day (fill in the blank)”; “and God said”; “God separated”; and “God saw that it was good.” There is structure within the structure: God creates things (the Hebrew verb bārā’) on odd days, and makes things (the Hebrew verb `āsâ) on even days.
What gets created when is also interesting within this very structured narrative. The first thing that God creates
on Day 1 is light; yet, the “big lamp,” what we can safely assume to be the sun, isn’t created until day 4, as we just heard. Hebrew has words for “sun” and “moon,” so the fact that they aren’t used here is striking, as is the almost offhand mention of the stars. As a result, the immense and awesome grandeur of the night sky feels understated. On the other hand, later in the narrative, the creation of humanity is heavily emphasized; another narrative structure, parallelism, draws attention to humanity being created in the “image of God,” and humans are given dominion over the earth and living creatures. One might expect the narrative to end on a note of active creativity such as this— but it doesn’t! Instead, God rests, creating a model for a set-aside, separate, and sanctified day.
Context can help us understand these features. In 586 BCE, after the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah, they exiled governmental officials and priests from the Jerusalem temple to Babylonia. These were literate Judeans who had had a significant stake in the traditions and worship of the LORD back in Jerusalem, and now found
Kristin A. Swanson
The Whirlpool Galaxy
IMAGE COURTESY OF JEFF WILKERSON
themselves living in communities with other Judeans but in a new context and culture, one which recognized the god Marduk as supreme. Free to participate in Babylonian culture, we can imagine that the question of whether and to what extent to participate in or even adopt Babylonian cultural practices would have been pressing especially the question of worship of the god Marduk. Marduk’s supremacy was celebrated every year at the Akitu New Year’s festival, which included a re-enactment of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story. In this narrative, Marduk battles an ocean deity, Tiamat, and after he kills her he uses her “ocean body” to create the heavens and the earth. He then organizes the moon and the stars—all deities—into the recognizable patterns of the night sky. Humans are created from the blood of a renegade god who allied with Tiamat to be slaves to the gods.
Whereas Marduk has to fight and
win a
battle to create the heavens and the earth, the LORD simply speaks things into being.
With these aspects of Babylonian culture as a backdrop, we can understand our creation story making assertions about the LORD as compared to Marduk. One is about the LORD’s power—whereas Marduk has to fight and win a battle to create the heavens and the earth, the LORD simply speaks things into being. Not only that, Genesis 1 emphasizes that the LORD is the only god! Those lamps in the sky are just that—lamps—not gods! The astral deities are just the stars, no big deal. In addition to assertions about the LORD, Genesis 1 also makes assertions about humans. In the Enuma Elish, humans are created from a renegade god to be slaves to the gods; in Genesis 1, humans have dignity and agency. In the context of exile, the biblical creation story provided a powerful alternative, rooted in Judean tradition, to surrounding Babylonian culture.
Context notwithstanding, we still have a narrative that seems to give humans license to crush and ravage the earth at will—this is what the Hebrew words used to express human “dominion” mean. Recognizing that that is what’s in the text, and that the text has been interpreted in just that way, we can approach the narrative honestly and engage with other texts that provide alternative narratives as we strive to care for creation. Perhaps this narrative can help us do the same for the night sky. In Genesis 1:14-19, the sun, moon, and stars seem to be downplayed in service to emphasizing the LORD’s power. As part of our “star conversations” this month, how can we actively think about the night sky as part of creation that requires the same attention and care as other aspects of the natural world? What texts and people can we engage with as conversation partners for this work?
This image of Scorpius and Saggitarius over Luther campus illustrates the washout from campus lighting.
IMAGE COURTESY OF JEFF WILKERSON
Honoring Our Asian Alumni and Students
by BRIAN CATON, Associate Professor of History
Astudent organization, the Asian Student Association and Allies, has now reached the age at which many in the United States begin to receive birthday cards informing them that they have gone, or become, “over the hill.” A cheerful reminder that one’s death approaches ever more quickly, now that one has reached the presumed halfway mark. Perhaps a fitting sentiment during Lent. But also it’s a gentle nudge that one’s cool factor, one’s cultural relevance, has passed, so stop trying, Dad. OK, boomer.
Since I won’t have a career in standup comedy, I’ll fall back on my training as a historian to say something about where the Asian Student Association came from and where it might be going. Luther’s first Asian student arrived in 1954, a student who brought enough credits from his prior study in China
that he obtained his degree after only one year here. The first woman of color to be crowned Luther’s Homecoming Queen was Helen Liu, a junior from Taiwan, in 1957—a fact invisible to the Luther community unless one is looking for it in the archives of Chips and the Pioneer. Luther’s first Asian American student arrived on campus in Fall 1965, in the midst of President Elwin Farwell’s drive to recruit more African American students from the Chicago metro area. Luther never had more than four or five Asian students on campus at one time, and had fewer than ten total Asian American students in its history up to 1980.
The retreat of US personnel from Saigon in 1975 set off waves of migration, encompassing a wide range of ethnicities exiting Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and entering refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere. Many of these refugees moved from the camps to further destinations elsewhere, including Decorah. Private and public programs emerged to support adult refugees who needed to integrate themselves into local economies and communities, and the youngest children learned English in local schools. Luther sociology professor Kenneth Root saw the need to develop a program aimed at older adolescents, who needed the language skills that would allow them to succeed in college education. At his initiative, Luther developed an English as a Second Language program for southeast Asian refugees, which allowed these students to take a reduced course load to accommodate their ESL coursework. The first batch of these ESL students started their work in 1981, and by 1983 they outnumbered Luther’s international student body–which should give you an idea of how few international students studied at Luther in those days.
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
In fall 1983, the ESL students, with some international students, applied to create a new student organization, the Asian Student Association, which was approved by the Community Assembly on February 14, 1984. Membership was open to any Asian student, and their primary mission was to bring their history and culture to the Luther faculty, students, and staff. Their first major event was “Ethnic Arts ’84,” which included the sharing of food, performance, and material culture. But why have such an organization, if these students saw each other regularly in ESL and other classes?
Luther culture, then as now, orbited around academics, athletics, and music. The ESL students’ obligations, and their need to spend additional time working through readings in English, meant they were effectively excluded from athletics and music. Paideia, in those days, had a weeks-long unit on China, but few of the refugee students were ethnic Chinese and did not see themselves in that
Luther Homecoming Queen Helen Liu and her court in 1958
Brian Caton
The Asian Student Association was established in 1984 at Luther College. This image from the 1987 edition of the Pioneer yearbook shows ASA members in the old atrium in Valders.
curriculum, nor in any of the courses in other departments. They wanted to be seen. A sociology senior project in 1987 reported some of what we now call microaggressions that refugee students suffered, notably the complaints when they tried to make their own comfort foods in dormitory kitchens. As a community, we did not welcome the stranger in those days.
Are things different or better now? I don’t know. Luther certainly has more Asian and Asian American students now than it did in the 1980s, and some of those students have entered the life of the college in athletics, music, and other co-curricular activities. The Asian Student Association has undergone many changes before and after changing its name in 2003 to the Asian Student Association and Allies. Many Asian and Asian American students have felt unwelcome or unqualified to join ASAA, feeling “not Asian enough.” Perhaps others felt more at home in other organizations on campus. The college now has a Center for Intercultural Engagement and Support, and a handful of faculty strongly committed to making Asian culture more visible in existing courses. Do Asian and Asian American students feel that this is enough, and that they do not need to join ASAA in significant numbers? Are Luther courses so difficult now that our Asian students, like those in the 1980s ESL program, don’t have time to make ASAA a vibrant and meaningful organization? Is it the sole responsibility of the CIES office to plan or advertise a series of events to commemorate Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month in April? Will Asian students never need to carry out
an “Ethnic Arts ‘24” because the College has planned for Culture Fest ’24? What, or who, is ASAA for? It is our responsibility—faculty, staff, and above all students—to do the hard work of answering that question.
Please honor our Asian alumni by making them, and their dreams, visible. Honor our Asian students by seeing them.
Hannah Stood Up
by ALLIE SCOTT, Director of Annual Giving and Engagement
Doing justice…loving kindness…walking humbly.
Always here for justice. Big fan of kindness. I have occasionally… struggled with humility.
Not because I think I’m better than most people, or because I think more of us should have oversized heads on our shoulders. Lord knows there’s folks out in the world I’d love to have knocked down a few pegs for the good of all humanity. But I’ve seen humility diluted into idealizing not thinking much about yourself, about always putting others first, even to your own detriment. And often, it’s women, and people of color, and other minoritized groups that are encouraged to stay humble. I had a pastor who, in that good “don’t ask don’t tell” sort of way, said that being gay was fine, but celebrating pride was not— since after all, humility is a virtue and pride is its antonym.
That is, as they say, hogwash.
At some point, I think when I was in college, I realized that humility came from the root word humus, meaning earth, ground, dirt. Which means that to be humble means to be grounded. And so from then on I began understanding humility as being grounded in who you are (fully), and honest about where you stand.
Which is why this morning, I want to tell you a story about one of my favorite women in the Bible: Hannah.
Hannah is one of those women that we see scattered throughout the Bible–she exists in a brief episode, is easily glanced over as a side character in a larger, more important story…but who is a baller in her own right, if you give her the moment she’s due.
And while Hannah’s backstory is worth knowing, for now let’s say she’s
lived through her share of heartbreak and trauma. During a period of deep distress, she went to the temple on her own to pray.
And Hannah wasn’t praying the way your Sunday school teacher taught you to—quiet, demure, hands a particular way—but in a way that was raw, honest, incredulous. I’d argue, in a way that is humble: grounded in the clear knowledge of who she is and who God is. She left it all out there, because she knew God could take it, could hear her brutal honesty and still love her.
When I imagine Hannah praying, I see tears streaking down her cheeks, her body shaking back and forth as she rages and grieves there in the empty temple, her mouth moving like a kid just learning to read silently, no words actually coming out.
The head priest, Eli, sees her, and he makes a host of assumptions about Hannah—not the least of which is that he thinks she’s drunk. So he goes over to this crazy woman, in his mind, to tell her to simmer down and sober up. Because it’s making other people uncomfortable—which is to say nothing of what years of distress, abuse, and grief have done to her.
So Hannah plants her feet on the ground, stands up, and tells him no.
“No,” she says. “I am staying here.
“I am a faithful woman, and I matter. My prayers matter. My grief matters. I will stay here because I belong here. You will NOT kick me out. People are always expecting that I’ll quietly sit and accept my lot in life. But my God will not dismiss me. No sir. Not my God.”
That’s 1st Samuel 1:15-16, the Allie Scott translation.
I love this story about Hannah. Not because it’s about a woman who prays
February 28, 2024
hard enough to get what she wants, but because it’s about a woman who knows her worth. She’s heard what her family, her society expects of her. Even her church told her she was too much. But she didn’t puff up in defense, or shrink down in shame—she simply stood her sacred ground, knowing deeply who she is. And that, I believe, is what humility is fundamentally about.
Many of us have been told to stop worrying about things we think are important. We’ve been called scattered or “over-eager” when we lead with passion. We’ve been called angry when we insist on being heard. Been called naive when we celebrate something wonderful. Been dismissed for our size, age, sexuality, heritage, family background. Each of you, I’m sure, knows what it’s like to be Hannah—to want something, to desperately want something, and to feel completely alone. Or worse, to have someone police your tone and the way you proclaim your need; after all, Eli asked her to leave the temple unless she started praying in the way he thought she should.
Allie Scott
But Hannah stays humble–that is, Hannah stays grounded in all her fullness. She refuses to do anything but be seen in all her complexity to stand up as a beloved child of God, worthy of love, belonging and respect. As she is.
She doesn’t rage at Eli for calling her drunk, but she doesn’t cower away, either. She looks him dead in the eye and demands that he see her—all of her. And Eli, to his credit, does. He sees her for the woman she is: broken, hurting, and deeply, deeply, loved.
And in the end, he grants her peace— and I believe leaves changed for the better, because of Hannah.
May you have the humility—the groundedness—to remember, at all times, all of who you are. With all your gifts, and all your flaws—cuz Lord knows we’ve all got those, too—you are, at your core, a beloved child of God. The trick, of course, is having the humility— the groundedness—to remember that, at the end of the day, so is everybody else.
I love the story of Hannah, because I love a story about someone claiming their sacred ground. Who will not give up because someone else is uncomfortable. A person who knows their worth because they know their God.
My friends: your passions, your gut feelings, your life experiences, are important. In fact, they are gifts from God, ways that God has made you and created you to have an impact on the world around you. Do not shy away from what you care about, from being seen as who you are, even if the voices around you say otherwise and make you doubt it’s really true. This world needs you.
I’ll close this reflection on this last day of Black History Month with a statement from the first Black dean at my alma mater, the Rev. Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Walk humbly, firmly grounded in the knowledge that you are beloved, you are worthy, and you are exactly who the world needs you to be.
Thanks be to God. And Amen.
Hearing Stories and Doing Justice: A Reflection on Micah
by ETHAN KOBER ('24)
After three years of writing potentially problematic CHIPS articles and opinions, I’m a little surprised to be given a mic. I mean, “Chapel Should be Mandatory” was a little problematic for some. Others loved it. You’re here anyway. “Peeved About Parking” was potentially walking on thin ice with admin, but Bob Palmer [director of Campus Safety] gave me his stamp of approval. “Norse or Nazi, Confronting the False Fantasy of Nordic Narratives” though, that’s stepping over the line for some, hitting the nerve of shared identity and tradition.
Perhaps there is validity to feeling offput by what I’ve written for CHIPS over the years, but I write and research because I care deeply about this community. I don’t write or research because I have a maniac desire to watch our institution burn, but because I want to start dialogue. To “live in community” means talking about what our community is and can be for us, where it serves current faculty, staff, and students, and where we see room to grow and prosper. In short, writing is something that I can do to further that goal.
So it should come as no surprise that I love a chapel theme that begins with the words Doing Justice. Really, what better message to help us build a better community than do justice, love kindness, walk humbly? What better way to send seniors like myself out into the world than with that mission in mind?
To a United Methodist like me—yes, my apologies to the Lutherans in the room, forgive me my Methodism—Micah 6:8 is a reminder of what I hold most dearly. We Methodists, for all our faults, and yes we’ve got them, have got this right: method. To me faith is only faith if it can be something that moves things, that gets things done.
In the words attributed to the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
Both Micah 6:8 and John Wesley’s phrases have their problems though. They don’t show us what “Doing Good” or “Do Justice” is, what it looks like. And when one group’s “justice” is the annihilation and genocide of another… we’ve got a problem.
So perhaps you come to Micah 6:8 already shaking your head. It is a phrase, but nothing more, just empty words ringing hollow. Perhaps a method, but not strong enough. Perhaps you’ve come to Micah 6:8 with the realization that in our world it is increasingly trite, tried, and tired.
However, there is more to Micah than that one iconic line. It comes from a larger context, where Micah, this peasant prophet, speaks to the injustices he sees in his hometown, Moresheth. What used to be a farming community has been overtaken by injustices; big landowners buy out the smaller ones, leaving people without jobs, homes, or clothing. The courts are corrupt and can be bought out by the highest bidder. The priests, according to Old Testament scholar James Limburg—who was a Luther grad—“have become more concerned about fees than faith, about honoraria than honor.” So I bring your attention to Micah’s biting words in chapter 3:1-12. I commend the whole chapter to you, but I’ll just read a selection from verses 9-12.
Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice
MARCH 13, 2024
and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong. Its heads give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for hire, its prophets divine for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No evil shall come upon us.”
Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
Micah doesn’t pull his punches, instead going for the chin time and time again. Micah is calling out what the injustice is, because he watches it happen. Dr. Ehud Ben Zvi, a scholar of Ancient Near East texts like Micah, tells us that the priests “are described as those who have absolutely disregarded the basic socio-ethical principles of justice in general and of the administration of justice in particular.” Dr. Ben Zvi goes on to say that the priests “are supposed to know” what’s right, and instead reject that knowledge that they have been trained in.
Ethan Kober
So of course Micah is going to go for the throat, he wants the authorities to do something, mainly: justice, their job From the vantage point of chapter 3, we can better understand what doing justice is. It is a real thing, a laundry list from Micah about specific injustices of oppressive systems that make the marginalized penniless and homeless and it is never resolved.
We, too, know what justice is. But in the words of Loretta Ross, advocate for reproductive justice, “It’s easy to define. Hard as hell to achieve.” That applies to more than just reproductive justice but all forms of injustice: Gaza, Ukraine, you name it, the time where swords are beaten into plowshares sounds like a distant, if not impossible challenge.
But this is not the time for comfortable theology. It is not the time for theologies only of success and prosperity as Micah’s opponents would give, but of sweat. This theology is enacted, done, not prayed over, but walked with.
This
theology is enacted, done, not prayed over, but walked with.
That being said, I know that I am asking an audience to do justice who has little funds to spare, little time to share, and potentially not many “F’s” left to give. But anyone, Christian or otherwise, can join Micah in the first step. While this reads as a monologue, Limburg reminds us that it was not. There are other sides to the story, more voices that are lost, unwritten. It is our job to hear the voices that are pushed to the margins because their stories matter. If we are to preach or live in a way that leads toward justice, it must, like Micah, center those stories, stories of the civilian in Gaza, the migrant on the Texas border, and yes, even the birds, the animals, and the species with which we share this planet.
Learning their stories equips us with the knowledge that we are not alone, but that they should not be either. Learning their stories means that we have the responsibility to hold them, to share in
their reality, and to bring them to the light. A seven-minute reflection or 500 words of a CHIPS article is not going to change the world. But that is enough time to share a story and perspective that can stay with us and compel us to keep the story alive.
Find the current issue and back issues of Agora online
You can read the current issue of Agora online, and you can also find and search all back issues by going to our webpage: www. luther.edu/paideia/agora.
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The image at left illustrated early issues of Agora. The journal was established by the Paideia Program, and paideia translates as education. The image shows a teacher with his tablet on his lap and stylus in his hand.
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