Scribbles

Page 1

A Magazine of Mesa Verde United Methodist Church

The American Red Cross: On the Heels of First Responders Kiley Hall: Net Dreams The Saint John’s Bible: A Modern Day Book of Kells Iceland Is Green; Greenland Is Icy: What’s That All About? Journey for the Cure: One Woman’s Quest to Fight Cancer Behind Barbed Wire: Life in a Japanese Internment Camp in the U.S. Labor Day: Restitution for a Strike

Vol. 2, No. 1

September 2013


How Best to View This Magazine To enlarge the print, move the slider at the top of your screen to the right or click anywhere on the page you want to read. You will see a hand on the page. It represents the location of your mouse. As you move your mouse, the hand will move the page. To turn the page, click on the arrows on either side of the spread or on the top of your screen. Alternatively, choose one of the thumbnails found at the bottom and click on it to be taken to the corresponding page. To return to displaying an entire page, click anywhere on it.

Copyright 2013 Š Mesa Verde United Methodist Church, Costa Mesa, CA. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. The magazine reflects the interests, views, and opinions of Mesa Verde UMC. It is not an official magazine of the worldwide United Methodist Church.


Table of Contents 2

The American Red Cross: On the Heels of First Responders

10

Kiley Hall: Net Dreams

16

The Saint John’s Bible: A Modern Day Book of Kells

44

Iceland Is Green; Greenland Is Icy: What’s That All About?

56

Journey For the Cure: One Woman’s Quest to Fight Cancer

64

Behind Barbed Wire: Life in an Internment Camp in the U.S.

76

Labor Day: Restitution for a Strike

On the Cover The cover photo is of the frontispiece of the Book of Genesis in the Saint John’s Bible, the first illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine Order in 500 years.


The American Red Cross: On the Heels of First Responders

S

uperstorm Sandy hit the East Coast the night of October 29, 2012, reaching landfall along the Atlantic City, New Jersey, shoreline and moving up through Rhode Island. Four days later, NBC sponsored “Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together,� a telethon to raise money for the American Red Cross. Despite the technologies that followed the course of the storm, predicted its effect, and recorded its force, nearly everyone was surprised by its resulting destruction, as if it could not have happened this far north; in recent history, hurricanes of such magnitude were a Gulf Coast phenomenon. No one was surprised, however, to tune into a nationwide fundraiser for the American Red Cross so soon after the calamity.

2


3 Daniel Cima/American Red Cross


Meanwhile, Barton nagged the government and the Army to let her take medical supplies to the front lines. Eventually, she got her way, visiting field hospitals set up during the battles of Fairfax Station, Chantilly, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Petersburg, and Cold Harbor. In addition to performing many of the same tasks she had undertaken previously, she wrote to families who were inquiring about men who had been reported missing. A month before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln wrote: “To the Friends of Missing Persons: Miss Clara Barton has kindly offered to search for the missing prisoners of war. Please address her…” [redcross.org/about-us/history/clara-barton] Barton established the Office of Correspondence with Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army, where she and other volunteers answered over 63,000 letters and identified over 22,000 missing men in a four-year period of time.

4

Mathew Brady

Clara Barton The American Red Cross was founded by 60-year-old Clara Barton in 1881. She was 40 when she first became involved in humanitarian efforts, working tirelessly on behalf of Civil War soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry who had ended up in Washington, D.C., many housed in the unfinished Capitol building. Working with such organizations as the U.S. Sanitary Commission, she learned how to solicit, collect, and store supplies used in relief efforts for these troops. In addition, she spent many hours with the men, reading to them, writing letters for them, talking with them, and praying with them.

While visiting Europe in 1869, Barton stumbled across the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. Subsequently, she read a book by Henry Dunant, making the case for international agreements to protect the sick and the wounded without respect to nationality and calling for the development of national aid societies to operate on a neutral basis. The idea was embodied in what is now known as the Geneva Conventions. When Barton returned to America, she successfully fought for ratification by the U.S. (signed by President Chester Arthur in 1882). In addition, she worked with Dunant’s newly created International Red Cross in the Franco-Prussian War. In the interim, Barton formed the American Association of the Red Cross. Two years later, the


organization was reincorporated as The American National Red Cross. In order to “sell” the organization, Barton suggested that the American Red Cross provide disaster relief as well as wartime services. In 1905, the Red Cross was granted a congressional charter to “carry on a system of national and international relief… and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods, and other great national calamities, and to devise and carry on measures for preventing the same.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_ Cross] The charter explains, at least in part, the au-

thority of the Red Cross to act as an early responder when it is not, in fact, a government agency. The American Red Cross continued to be part of war efforts over the years, growing exponentially during World War I, staffing hospital and ambulance companies and recruiting 20,000 nurses to work in the military. World War II saw the organization enroll more than 100,000 nurses for military duty, prepare 27 million “care” packages for U.S. and Allied prisoners of war, and ship more than 300,000 tons of supplies overseas. The organization

Page opposite: Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.

Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

Below: May 25, 2013. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. An American Red Cross emergency response vehicle tours through an Oklahoma City neighborhood to deliver supplies after a series of tornadoes tore through the area.

5


Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

also initiated a national blood drive, collecting 13.3 million pints of blood for use by the military.

Daniel ss Red Cro merican Cima/A Daniel Cima/American Red Cross

Top: Oklahoma tornadoes 2013. Red Cross volunteer nurse Sydney Rosengren administers a tetanus shot to resident Christina Butterworth. Red Cross health services volunteers also offered services at emergency aid stations, such as helping people replace prescriptions and other medical items. Middle: Hurricane Issac 2012. At the American Red Cross warehouse in Port Allen, Louisiana, American Red Cross volunteers work side by side with the National Society of Mexican Red Cross volunteers, unloading tractor trailers filled with items to be distributed throughout the communities devastated by the disaster. Bottom: Indiana tornadoes 2012. A Red Cross emergency response vehicle hands out coffee, hot chocolate, comfort kits, work gloves, blankets, and hand sanitizers. Volunteers also provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner to people in the area.

6

Disaster Relief Today, the American Red Cross is an affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It is often the earliest organization on the ground after first responders, providing food and temporary shelter, ensuring access to health services, helping loved ones find one another, and addressing other emergency needs. Red Cross volunteers feed emergency workers from other agencies, provide blood and blood products to disaster victims, and direct victims to other available resources. The American Red Cross is a member of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) and works with other emergency support organizations, such as the Salvation Army, through memoranda of understanding. All of which helps to explain how support can be provided by numerous organizations without serious overlap of services. The Red Cross is also part of the federal government’s National Response Framework, acting as co-lead with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In addition to providing domestic disaster relief services, the American Red Cross is also involved in international relief and development programs. Blood The organization has long been associated with local blood drives, supplying between 40 and 60 percent of the donated blood in the U.S., provid-


Serving Military Families The American Red Cross has been part of every American war effort since its founding, including the more recent Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf wars, as well as the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. While much of the care of troops in these conflicts has been undertaken by the larger Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the American Red Cross Cesar Rodriguez/American Red Cross

ing almost 50 percent of the blood used by hospitals. In 1999, the American Red Cross became the first blood bank to introduce Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT). NAT is used to determine whether there is HIV or hepatitis C (HVC) in the blood. In 2004, the organization opened the largest blood processing facility in the U.S.; it is located on the campus of Cal Poly Pomona.

Colorado wildfires, 2012. In 2011-2012, Colorado had an extremely dry winter, with only 13 percent of the average precipitation and summer temperatures topping 100° F. The state experienced a devastating series of wildfires, including several separate fires throughout June, July, and August 2012. At least 34,500 residents were evacuated in June alone. Six-year-old Lacy, a Golden Retriever, is the Pikes Peak Chapter of the American Red Cross’ only therapy dog. She showed up at numerous evacuation centers, where children took turns petting and brushing her as she lay at their feet. Lacy is one of a handfull of four-legged Red Cross volunteers across the nation.

7


Les Stone/American Red Cross

remains a vital link between American troops and their families back home. The Restoring Family Links program, for example, is designed to facilitate the exchange of hand-written messages between refugees or prisoners of war and their families. In addition, through this program, service personnel can get home on an emergency basis for such things as family funerals. At any given time, the American Red Cross is involved in the aftermath of 20-30 wars and conflicts. [en.wikipedia. org/wiki/American_Red_Cross]

Hector Emanuel/American Red Cross

This page, top left: Superstorm Sandy, January 2013. Meeting with a caseworker is one of the first steps in getting a family’s life back to normal after a disaster. Natalia Demidova and her family were living temporarily in a hotel while waiting for repairs on their damaged home on Staten Island, so that’s where she met with American Red Cross caseworker Mary Wells. This page, bottom left: Superstorm Sandy, March 2013. Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. People were still not back in their homes months after the storm. The American Red Cross continued to be there for people in need. In this photo, hot meals and blankets are distributed to area residents by the American Red Cross in partnership with the Coney Island Gospel Assembly. This page, right: The American Red Cross supplies much of the blood in the U.S., largely through community blood drives; 50 percent of it goes to area hospitals. Page opposite, top: Haiti 2012. The American Red Cross has a long history in Haiti. Claudy Jean Louis (left) and Jean Daniel Henrius (right) review a map of Campeche, a neighborhood targeted by the American Red Cross for a community regeneration project. Page opposite, bottom: November 2012. Washington, DC. Senator John Hoeven signs a holiday card, one of many congressmen and staff members who took part in the Red Cross’ Holiday Mail for Heroes event. Signed cards were sent to U.S. troops and veterans.

8

Lynda Wood

Education The American Red Cross offers numerous training programs in emergency preparedness and safety, including first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), automated external defibrillation (AED),


Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

Part of a Larger Whole There are 650 chapters of the American Red Cross and 36 blood services regions in the U.S. More than a million volunteers and 30,000 employees mobilize annually to help those in need.

water safety, home safety, and disaster preparedness. There are also pet first-aid courses. Twelve million Americans participate in these programs annually, from young people to professional rescuers.

Operating on the heels of first responders, they typically respond to more than 70,000 calamities a year, including house/apartment fires, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous waste spills, transportation accidents, explosions, and other disasters. They exchange more than a million emergency messages for U.S. military personnel and their families. And they assist victims of international disasters and conflicts worldwide.

Dennis Drenner/American Red Cross

Clara Barton’s efforts took root with a vengeance, her legacy a testament to her strength and will. The American Red Cross is a major cornerstone in today’s efforts to help others and save lives. Barton would have been pleased. •

In October, Mesa Verde UMC will celebrate its 30th year of hosting American Red Cross blood drives, drawing donors from the church, the neighborhood, and the community. To date, more than 3,000 pints of blood have been given through these drives at the church.

9


Kiley Hall: Net Dreams

K

iley Hall jokes that she started playing volleyball in the womb. Well, she was a captive audience, anyway. Her mother was a professional volleyball player, playing with the now defunct Los Angeles Starlights when she was pregnant with Kiley. So the game is certainly in her daughter’s genes. Growing up in Southern California, where volleyball was second only to soccer in girls sports, Kiley played team volleyball at Tewinkle Middle School in Costa Mesa and continued to play when she attended Newport Harbor High School. In addition, she joined the Orange County Volleyball Club, a local sports club. By then, the game was a passion. “I began to see myself going to college and thinking about playing professionally,” she says. It was a big dream for a girl living in a country without a single professional women’s volleyball team.

10


11 JAAP2


Kiley went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin, joining the women’s volleyball team her freshman year and playing throughout her college career. “Playing there was the biggest blessing,” she says. “I learned amazing things in the classroom, on the court, and just through life away from home.” With her mother and step-father living just outside of Dallas, she loved college life in the Lone Star State. Kiley graduated in 2009 with a degree in Health Promotion and Fitness and a minor in Communication. Volleyball In a Nutshell The game of volleyball was created in 1895 in Holyoke, Massachusetts, by William G. Morgan, a YMCA physical education director. He called it “mintonette.” It was meant to provide an alternative to the new sport of basketball, which was too much of a contact sport for the Y’s older members. An observer watching the game at its first exhibition match in 1896, played at the International YMCA Training School (now called Springfield College), renamed it volley ball (then two words). Soon after, the game spread around the country via various YMCAs. Olympic volleyball was first played during the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris as a demonstration event. The first international federation, Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) was founded in 1947. The first World Championships were held in 1949 for men and 1952 for women. Volleyball became an official sport of the Olympics in 1964. Beach volleyball followed more than 40 years later, becoming part of the Olympics in 1996.

12

Volleyball has been popular in the U.S. for many years, played often as part of a school’s physical education program or as an intramural sport. But despite its origins in America, volleyball never took firm root as a professional sport in this country. (However, the American Volleyball Coaches Association is the largest organization in the world dedicated solely to coaching volleyball.) In Europe, Brazil, Russia, and China, however, it’s a different story. As a result, Americans who excel in the game go overseas to play. Playing Professional Volleyball With the support of a friend who had been recruited to play for Cossonay Volleyball Club, headquartered in Switzerland, and with the help of her college coach, Jerritt Elliott (who is still the head coach at UT Austin), Kiley connected with an agent representing Bring It Promotions (BIP). After


watching her play in a two-week whirlwind college tour sponsored by BIP, an agent of the organization signed her. Kiley would spend much of the next 2-1/2 years playing across the pond. In Europe, the volleyball season runs roughly from September through May, depending on the number of playoff matches a team plays. Kiley was signed to play for Cossonay, one of two foreigners on the otherwise all Swiss team, and the only American. With divisions somewhat like those found in baseball, Cossonay was considered a second-level league team. The next season, which began in September of 2011, found Kiley playing for Heutink Volleyball

Club in the city of Oldenzall, the Netherlands, a first-level league team. In 2012, they made it through all the playoffs, meaning Kiley was away from friends and family for the full nine months. The team lost in the final match, coming in second for the season. Kiley came home tired and not just a little disappointed. When she returned to the U.S., she decided to stay awhile. Kiley ended her contract with BIP in October of the same year. Nevertheless, Cossonay Volleyball Club, her old club in Switzerland, invited her to play. She caught up with them in January of 2012. That May, the team won the league championship, catapaulting them into the first-level league. On that high, Kiley decided to retire. “My goal was to

Page opposite: Kiley in team uniform, playing for the Netherland’s Heutink Volleyball Club. There, she was the libero, a player who plays under somewhat different rules. For example, substitutions do not count against the team’s overall count. There are certain things a libero cannot do, such as attack if standing in front of the 10-foot line on the court. Left: Kiley played in Paris before she had signed a contract to play with any European team. She says it was “somewhat of a tryout situation.” She had a friend who played on the team whom she went to visit while they were playing in a pre-season tournament. Since the team was missing a few of their players, Kiley was invited to practice and play for the few days she was there. Kiley, who always says she is short for a volleyball player, is the player in the pink t-shirt spiking the ball. Her height did not seem to be much of a detriment to her ability to play.

All photos, unless otherwise noted, are courtesy of Kiley Hall.

13


play professional volleyball, and I had done that. My love for the game was still there,” she says, “but the passion wasn’t.” Life After Volleyball Back home in the U.S., Kiley returned to school and earned a teaching certificate in Early Childhood Education. She now teaches 2- to 5-year-olds at Marley’s Preschool in Sunset Beach. Kiley loves teaching. “Things that drive the other teachers nuts I find hilarious,” she says. “I have to hide my launghter behind my hand. Otherwise, it just encourages the kids to do it again!” Starting in October of 2011, she also took on the paid position of youth director at Mesa Verde United Methodist Church in Costa Mesa. “These were junior high and high school kids,” she laughs. “I was scared to death. But God put it on my heart to face my fear.”

14


Barbara Infranca/BiDesign

Page opposite, top: One of the thrills of playing overseas was having the time and ability to tour about Europe. Highlights included France, Germany, and Italy, as well as Switzerland and the Netherlands. She even skiied the Swiss Alps! Page opposite, bottom: Kiley with her Dutch teammates just prior to her first tournament in the Netherlands. Left: Not surprisingly, after Kiley became the youth director at Mesa Verde United Methodist Church, she instituted an annual “oldsters vs the youngsters” volleyball challenge. Despite the decided advantage of the youngsters (since Kiley coached and played on their team), the oldsters have given them a run for their money every year (not that the oldsters ever win, mind you).

And she did. Despite the five-month leave of absence precipitated by her temporary return to volleyball, Kiley formed solid relationships with the youth of the church. She recently returned with them from their annual mission trip to Northern California, where they worked through the Sierra Service Club. She loved every minute of it. “The trip is a safe bubble where the kids come out and play,” she explains. “It’s there that I’ve seen them most fully open and most fully engaged.”

Kiley left professional volleyball behind to be with friends and family. When asked what she misses most about not playing regularly, Kiley says it’s not only the excitement of the game but of being immersed in another culture. And she misses the opportunity to travel. “There’s nothing like the view of the Swiss Alps behind Lake Geneva. It is so beautiful it looks fake! And Swiss chocolate,” she adds. “I will always love Swiss chocolate. It will always be a weakness of mine.”

Today Kiley enjoys pick-up games of both indoor and beach volleyball. “The rise of beach volleyball in the Olympics is awesome!” she bubbles. Unfortunately, her mother’s team, the Los Angeles Starlights, no longer exists. The Association of Volleyball Professionals, which runs beach volleyball tournaments, went under in 2010 after 27 years. It started up again the summer of 2013.

My goal was to play professional volleyball,” Kiley says, “and I did that. Now it’s time to set new goals and to live a new adventure!” •

As mentioned in the article, Kiley is the much loved youth director at Mesa Verde UMC.

15


Museum of New Mexico Exhibition. Dec. 30, 2012

16


The Saint John’s Bible: A Modern Day Book of Kells

T

he Saint John’s Bible is the first hand-written, hand-illustrated Benedictine bible produced in the last 500 years. A lectern bible 2 feet by 3 feet in size when open, it is bound in seven volumes. Altogether, the bible is some 1,160 pages, weighs nearly 250 pounds, and cost about $4 million to produce, most of which was funded through private donations. Today, Heritage Editions are sold at $5,000 per set. The Saint John’s Bible was commissioned by St. John’s Abbey and University, located in Collegeville, Minnesota, in 1998. Work got under way in 2000, and was completed in 2011. The binding of the final volume was completed in August 2012. Modeled on the Romanesque Winchester Bible and the Book of Kells, it incorporates the scripture found in the New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition Bible.

17


S. Cooley

18


Previous page: Ecclesiastes frontispiece. Ecclesiastes focuses attention on life, death, and God’s relatoinship with humanity. . .The divine, human, and natural realms are juxtaposed with each other as they protray the various ways in which God creates. [http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/mediabank. php?mode=search&action=detail&fileID=1107]

S. Cooley

Left: Genesis frontispiece. The seven panels represent the opening verses of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. It tells of God creating the earth and all things in it in six days and of his resting on the seventh. The illumination “reads” from left to right, beginning with chaos (note the Hebrew phrase tohu wa-bohu, meaning formless and void) and moving through to the creation of man. This is where the artist (Donald Jackson with contributions from Chris Tomlin) first introduces the reader to the concept of the Divine as symbolized by the use of gold (and, later, silver). The raven is the traditional carrier of God’s message to Saint Benedict.

19


From Thought to Paper The Saint John’s Bible is the inspiration of Donald Jackson, MVO, scribe to the House of Lords and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Jackson says the title is not

Right: The Garden of Eden. The top mirrors the earlier creation panels, followed by representations of the cave paintings of ancient man. The background is lush with greenery and flowers, bight animals and sea creatures, with man the center of it all. Note, too, how he is surrounded by the coral snake but framed in gold. Gold is used throughout the St. John’s Bible illuminations to represent God. Page opposite: The Ten Commandments. The theological brief from the Committee on Illumination and Text required the artist, Thomas Ingmire, to combine five different passages from Exodus into a single illumination. Since the committee’s brief also suggested that the giving of the Ten Commandments represented a new creation, they were chosen to create the principal image around which to group the others. Depicted along the top of the composition are the burning bush, the first Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the 12 pillars, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, erected at the foot of Mount Sinai. The lower half of the page contains the Ten Commandments, overlapping and dissolving the colored background. [loc.gov/exhibits/stjohnsbible/ stjohns-exhibit.html]

20

S. Cooley

Those are the details of the Saint John’s Bible, but not the essence of the master work. Each page is a feast for the eyes and an inspiration for the soul on many levels, both artistic and spiritual. It is a series of artworks you want to reach out and touch and yet are half afraid to for fear you’ll somehow damage it. It’s a flash of awe, the inexplicable “rush” of being taken with an image, with a text, revealed at once and digested whole, but then inviting you to pause and find the story within it. And it leaves you richer for having done so.


21

S. Cooley


Library of Congress Online Exhibition

22


Wisdom Woman. The illumination is surrounded by the prayer of Solomon, found in the book of the Wisdom of Solomon. As in other illuminations, Jackson chose to refer to the universal nature of belief systems; in many cultures wisdom is depicted as a woman.

23


S. Cooley

formal, but rather a description of what he does. He is an artist and master calligrapher living in Monmouth, Wales, and puts the letters MVO after his name, meaning he has been knighted by the Queen. Following a calligraphy presentation at the Newberry Library in Chicago, sponsored by St. John’s, Jackson approached Eric Hollas, OSB, a monk at the abbey and, at the time, Director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, located on the St. John’s campus, with the idea of an illuminated bible. The project was officially commissioned in 1998.

In the Saint John’s Bible, the scripture is more important than the illuminations. But Jackson and the Committee on Illumination and Text recognized the power of the visual arts to inspire and chose to give special treatment to certain texts. Above: God’s promise to David. “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.” 2 Samuel 7:12 Page opposite: From the book of Sirach, a part of the Christian Bible not found in Protestant versions. Together, the books that make up this section are known as the Apocrypha. “Listen, my faithful children; open up your petals, like roses planted near running waters; send up the sweet odor of incense, break forth in blossoms like the lily. Send up the sweet odor of your hymn of praise; bless the Lord for all He has done.” Sirach 39:13-14

While Jackson developed the calligraphied alphabet (known now as Jacksonian script) at his scriptorium in Wales, a group of artists, medievalists, theologians, biblical scholars, and art historians— together called the Committee on Illumination and Text—met regularly in Minnesota to determine the version of the bible to be used and what books were to be included in each volume. They developed a “vision” statement; they wanted the Saint John’s Bible to 1) ignite the imagination, 2) glorify God’s Word, 3) Revive the tradition of scriptural reading, 4) discover and explore the means by which ancient manuscripts were produced, 5) foster the arts, and 6) give voice to the underprivileged. The committee selected the passages from the Bible to be illustrated and provided commentaries on the theology and history behind them. Jackson sent sketches, complete with his own notes, working with the committee to come to agreement on

24


25

Museum of New Mexico Exhibition. Dec. 30, 2012


S. Cooley

Below and right: Psalms frontispiece [below] and the opening page of the second book of Psalms. The book of Psalms is divided into five books. The panels appear at the beginning of each book in a progressive order. Thus, the first book shows the first panel, the second book shows the first two, and so on. Only in the Psalms are all of the illuminations abstract. Note the digital voiceprint Scribbles editors have circled in the illustration to the right. Digital voiceprints can be found on every page of the Psalms. These electronic images of sound are of the monks at Saint John’s Abbey singing Gregorian chants, a Native American sacred song, a Jewish men’s chorus singing psalms, Buddhist tantric harmonics, an Islamic call to prayer (adhan), Taoist temple music, Hindu bhajan, and an Indian Sufi chant.

Museum of New Mexico Exhibition. Dec. 30, 2012

Page opposite: Ruth the Moabite. The book of Ruth is the story of a young Moabite woman who marries Boaz, an Israelite, and converts to Judaism. According to the authors of “Seeing the Word,” a study guide developed in tandem with the Saint John’s Bible, Ruth and Naomi represent love, fellowship, and faithfulness.

26


Chris Tomlin, a specialist in botanical and nature illustration, and another member of Jackson’s team, went to Minnesota to develop depictions of fauna and flora found in Stearns County and the buildings on the St. John’s campus. This was in keeping with older manuscripts, which incorporate a few local references, in essence stamping the location of the bible or prayer book in a pictoral manner. There are six such illuminations in the Saint John’s Bible. In addition, rubber stamps were created to decorate the margins of select pages and, sometimes, to mask the ink that showed through from the other side of the page. Lastly, certain sections of text received what was called “Special Treatments.” These were often words that were written in larger lettering and sometimes decorated in colored inks and/or gold.

S. Cooley

the meaning and aesthetics of each illumination. He generated mock-ups of each spread [a spread is made up of two facing pages, an even-numbered page on the left and the page that follows on the right] via computer, using a font of similar size and weight to his own to determine line length and leading [leading refers to the space between lines and comes from the use of lead trays in which type was “slugged” in traditional printing processes], as well as determining where a word should be broken at the end of a line, if need be. Prose were fully justified, while poems had ragged margins. Six calligraphers worked under Jackson’s direction, first learning to emulate his script and then creating the text on the page, leaving space for the illuminations.

Tools, Materials, and Inspiration Jackson’s goal, he said in a presentation at the Getty Center in Los Angeles in September of 2012, was “to make the Word of God live on the page.” Everyone agrees that he succeeded. It all starts with the paper. The pages of the Saint John’s Bible are made of calfskin vellum. The skins were soaked in lime and dried, following which they were scraped or “scrutched” and sanded smooth. Vellum was chosen because it is durable and correctable. The ink can be scraped off and

27


S. Cooley

28


S. Cooley S. Cooley

The book of Judges covers the time in Biblical history before the anointment of Saul, the first king of Israel. Prior to that, the Israelites were governed by a series of judges. The stories in Judges follow a pattern of faithfulness followed by a period of unfaithfulness; as a result, God delivers them into the hands of their enemies. Eventually, they repent, and the cycle begins again. All the images on these two pages are from the book of Judges. Note the style consistency throughout. Page opposite: Detail of an illumination that has this verse at the bottom: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” instead of turning to God to seek His will. Above: The Death of Sisera. Part of Deborah’s song in the book of Judges, it tells of the death of Sisera (an enemy of the Israelites) at the hands of Jael (who invited him to lie down and rest and then drove a stake through his head), thus delivering Israel out from under King Jaban of Hazor. Left: A small illumination tucked into the scripture.

29


Museum of New Mexico Exhibition. Dec. 30, 2012

30


new words inked placed in the same spot. The Heritage Editions employ a specially made paper produced at a Connecticut paper mill. To mirror the translucence of the vellum, text and artwork that shows through on the original is recreated, “ghosted” onto the pages through the printing process. The script is exquisite. It was created using handcut quills. Only the largest feathers were used— goose quills for most of the text, but swan quills for the heavier letterforms. For right-handed scribes, the first three flight feathers from a mature bird’s left wing provided the best quill pens, as their curve fits naturally into the hand. Quills were cured and cut and their feathers removed. Most of the script was written in what is called lamp black ink, using 19th-century Chinese ink sticks. The sticks were ground in ink stones and mixed with distilled water. Every spread was done by the same calligrapher to help ensure consistency. Calligraphers worked between seven and 13 hours on each page.

The book of Job is the story of a faithful man who loses everything but, in the end, remains faithful. The illumination “reads” from left to right, from Job’s days as a man of wealth to one who suffers misfortune after misfortune, until all is lost—his animals, his home, his family. The words in the margin of illumination (page opposite) read, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” Note the slender bars of gold and silver, representing that, while God tested Job, he never forsake him.

The text is beautiful and all important, but it is the plethora of illuminations that takes your breath away. The use of rich and vivid colors, stylized designs, repeated patterns, and, often, a cacophony of intertwining images brings the words to life. The 160 illuminations “vary from Renaissance to modern in style and depict both traditional and modern themes, from religious symbols and wildlife to the World Trade Center and DNA.” [Sam Benesby, “Modern Devotion,” Colorado Springs Independent, Oct. 13, 2011]

31


Saint John’s Bible Contents of Each Volume Volume 1: Pentateuch Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Volume 2: Historical Books Joshua Judges Ruth 1 Samuel 2 Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings 1Chronicles 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Tobit Judith Esther 1 Maccabees 2 Maccabees Volume 3: Psalms Psalms 1-41 Psalms 42-150

Volume 4: Wisdom Books Job Proverbs Ecclesiastes The Song of Solomon The Wisdom of Solomon Sirach Volume 5: Prophets Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations-Baruch Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel-Amos Obadiah-Haggai Zechariah-Malachi Volume 6: Gospels and Acts Matthew Mark Luke John Acts of the Apostles

Volume 7: Letters & Revelations Romans 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 Thessalonians 2 Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Titus Philemon Hebrews James 1 Peter 2 Peter 1 John 2 John 3 John Jude Revelation

Page opposite: The Suffering Servant/Man of Sorrows. Taken from the book of Isaiah, the illumination depicts the foreshadowing of the crucifiction of Christ, a “Messiah who will restore peace and justice to Israel, yet he will be despised by the wicked and bear their sins quietly.” (Isaiah 54: 1-8) 32


33

Museum of New Mexico Exhibition. Dec. 30, 2012


34 Library of Congress Online Exhibition


Museum of New Mexico Exhibition. Dec. 30, 2012

Donald Jackson, MVO Donald Jackson was the inspiration and the drive behind the handwritten, hand-painted Saint John’s Bible. The artistic director of the project, Jackson was born in 1938 in Lancashire, England; he is a one of the world’s foremost calligraphers and scribe to the Crown Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Jackson has always been drawn to the art of writing and copied illuminated manuscripts in a local museum as a teen. His first paying job, he says, was painting the words “Saloon Bar” on the glass doors of a pub, where he was paid in beer. But over

the years, his talent has been recognized, and today he owns and works in a building he refers to as a scriptorium, a long, welllit, single story structure located across the lane from his home. It was there the Saint John’s Bible came to life.

“The idea for a bible has never been very far from me,” Jackson says. “My religion has been…calligraphy. It’s the nearest thing I’ve come to touching the universal. . .I have gotten the nearest to God doing calligraphy.” [saintjohnsbible.org/process/dream. htm] Jackson is an elected fellow and past chairman of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators, and in 1997, was named Master of the 600-year-old Guild of Scriveners of the city of London. He is the author of The Story of Writing. Jackson and his wife Mabel live and work in the Hendre, a converted town hall and outbuildings in Monmouth, Wales.

S. Cooley

Medieval bibles were often decorated in the margins with plants and animals. It was considered an appropriate way for the scribes to leave a mark of who they were by indicating where they lived. Jackson used that tradition in the Saint John’s Bible. Page opposite: In Christian art, the three stages of a butterfly’s life— caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly—correspond to life, death, and the resurrection of Christ. Left: All of the flora and fauna depicted in the margins of the Saint John’s Bible are native to the area around Saint John’s Abbey and University.

35


S. Cooley Above: The Parable of the Sower and the Seed. The parable of the sower can be found in the Gospel of Mark. In the illumination, the sower is Christ, shown here in modern Western work attire. The four hillocks at the bottom of the image represent the four kinds of soils on which the Lord’s words fell (hard packed earth, rocky soil, thorny ground, and good soil). Page opposite: The Gospel of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ, reaching back to Abraham. The mandala-like image near the base “is common to several religions and implies the universality of the search for a supreme being.” [loc.gov/exhibits/stjohnsbible/stjohns-exhibit.html] The illumination is designed to look like a family tree in the shape of a menorah.

36


37

Library of Congress Online Exhibition


S. Cooley

38


Page opposite: The Gospel of Luke frontispiece. This illumination tells the story of the birth of Jesus, surrounded by shepherds and animals. A shaft of light, executed in gold leaf, eminates from the Baby Jesus’ crib. “The upper text is the angel’s song. The central text refers to the child’s role as the ‘light to those who sit in darkness,’ and the lower text anchors the entire illumination in a metaphor of Divine light.” [loc. gov/exhibits/stjohnsbible/stjohns-exhibit.html] Left: Two sketches made in preparation for the Gospel of Luke frontispiece. All photos on this page courtesy of Library of Congress Online Exhibition

Above: Close-ups of sketches and the final image that makes up the crucifiction illumination in the Gospel of Luke.

39


40


S. Cooley The story of the Loaves and Fishes. Also found in the Gospel of Mark, the story tells of Jesus changing five loaves of bread and two fish into enough food to feed a multitude of 5000 people, with 12 baskets of food left over. Tradition says the event happened at Tabgha, located on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. In the illumination, the images of the fish derive from a mosiac in Tabgha. The round loaves of bread, marked with a cross, represent the Eucharist.

41


S. Cooley

42


present, and the future of our personal and public life and experience. These texts have a life of their own, and their life is a mirror of the human spirit and experience.” The original Saint John’s Bible resides at St. John’s in Minnesota. Local Heritage Editions can be found both at Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine Universities. • S. Cooley

Vermillion, lapis lazuli, and other pigments were mixed with egg yolk and water to create the deep, rich riot of color. Gold leaf, gold powder, ad gold dust, and silver were used to represent the presence of God. Computer-generated stencils and stamps were developed and used throughout the seven volumes, providing added cohesiveness through the use of recurring elements. Some illuminations took eight months to do, from the time the committee chose a piece of scripture to be illustrated to completion of the illumination. Multiply that by 160, and you get a sense of the dedication and effort that it took to bring the text to life. “An Orchestral Conversation” “[The Saint John’s Bible] is the equivalent for a calligrapher to being asked to do the Sistine Chapel,” Jackson once said. “Now that I have inscribed the final Amen, I realize that over the long years of this task, a boyhood dream, I have gradually absorbed an enduring conviction of the pin-sharp relevance of these ancient biblical texts to the past,

Page opposite: The Beatitudes are found in the Gospel of Matthew. The letters of the word “blessed” are scattered randomly in a multicolored pattern throughout the illumination. This page: Although the text of each page was laid out by computer and printed out for use by the calligraphers, there were a few times when a line was inadvertently dropped. Jackson decided to employ a technique used by ancient scribes. The missing text was written at the bottom of the page and marked where it should have gone via a “sign of return.” In the more than 1160 pages of scripture hand-written by Jackson and his team, only nine corrections were made, each one illustrated with a bit of whimsey.

43


44


Iceland Is Green; Greenland Is Icy: What’s That All About? By Chuck and Dee Dee Nichols

A

common saying is that Iceland is green, and Greenland is icy. We certainly found that to be true when we visited the two Nordic islands last July. The trip, offered by Overseas Adventure Travel, included a three-day pre-trip to the Westman Islands, an 11-day main trip to Iceland, and a four-day post-trip to Greenland. There were 16 people in the group, along with our excellent guide, Oddur Eiriksson. Iceland Iceland is a young island that started to form about 20 million years ago from a series of volcanic eruptions. It was basically uninhabited until 874 AD, when the Norse settled there. They were pagans and worshipped the Norse gods, but in the 10th century most converted to Christianity. In the 13th century, Iceland came under the power of Norway, and in the 14th century it came under the rule of Denmark; most people became Lutherans. In 1918, Iceland became a fully sovereign state, although its citizens were still represented in some areas

45


Page 44: The harbor area of the Westman Islands with the fishing fleet in port. Left: Neighborhood in Heimaey, Iceland, that was devastated by a volcanic eruption in 1973. Below: Sod house, typical of the first homes built in Iceland. There are no trees in Iceland or Greenland suitable for building. The inside of the house had a dirt floor; multiple families usually occupied the house. Page opposite: Basalt columns along the coast of Iceland. They were formed when lava flowed into the ocean, where it was instantly cooled.

All photos for this story courtesy of Chuck Nichols

by Denmark. Iceland became an independent republic in 1944. It became a member of NATO in the same year. Iceland is a modern and prosperous country. It is one of the most technologically advanced and digitally connected nations in the world. Every town has a swimming pool which is heated by abundant geothermal energy. Icelandic folklore includes elves and trolls. Elves are said to be beautiful and can be seen only when they wish to be seen. Trolls are said to be large, ugly, and mean and cannot be outside during daylight hours. If they are caught in the sunlight, they will turn to stone; evidence of which are the basalt sea stacks. However, at Christmas the trolls leave small gifts in the shoes of children who have been good all year. Naughty children receive potatoes. 46

After we arrived by air in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, we boarded a ferry to the Westman Islands, which are located off Iceland’s southwestern coast. The island of Heimaey was devastated in 1973 by a volcanic eruption that continued for five months. Amazingly, the entire fishing fleet was in


the harbor due to bad weather, and everyone on the island was rescued. The town has been rebuilt, and today it is one of Iceland’s major fishing ports. We walked on lava fields where many houses are still buried. One day we took a boat trip around the island to take in the beautiful scenery. We especially enjoyed watching the puffins on the cliffs and the various sea birds.

we were joined by travelers who had not gone on the pre-trip. The next day we left Reykjavik to go to Stykkisholmur. This area of the country is known for its thermal hot springs. These thermal areas emit 50 gallons of boiling water per second and have the highest flow of any hot springs in Europe. It has been used for heating since 1925, making Iceland a pioneer in sustainable energy.

After returning by air to Reykjavik, we toured the area around our accommodations, the Hilton Reykjavik, and then had a welcome dinner where

We also viewed many waterfalls, mountain cliffs, fjords, and valleys. We learned part of Iceland’s Norse history and learned some of their sagas, once

47


Iceland is a geologically young island, with numerous volcanoes still erupting periodically. That, and the North Atlantic Current, keep the island relatively warm, with temperatures in most places well above places of similar latitude. The geology is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the large number of geothermal springs provides residents with unlimited amounts of hot water, making utility costs quite low. On the other, with volcanoes still active, eruptions can be disruptive if not dangerous. GrĂ­msvĂśtn volcano, for example, erupted in May of 2011, hurling ash and lava more than 12 miles into the atmosphere, creating a large cloud that interfered with flights over a wide area of northern Europe. The photo at right is of one of the many beautiful waterfalls in Iceland, the result of glacial melt caused primarily by heat from the volcanoes.

48


49


Right: We enjoyed watching the proliferation of puffins on the Westman Islands, especially when they jumped from the cliffs. They didn’t look like daredevils, but they were! Page opposite: A small village church still in use today. In it was a pump organ that is still in use.

oral histories, now written down, at the Settlement Center. We also climbed a “holy mountain,” a sacred hill about 250 feet high. The tradition is that you can earn a wish if you climb silently to the top without looking back. We both climbed the hill without looking back, although the temptation was strong. Dee Dee accidently spoke out just before reaching the top! The next day we visited an abandoned fishing village that had interesting geologic features such as arches, caves, cliffs, and blowholes. On a visit to a shark farm we tasted a national delicacy—fermented shark meat! In the evening we had a boat cruise around the bay. The crew of the boat put a 50

dredge out and pulled up a net of whatever they scooped up from the bottom. We tasted raw scallops straight out of the ocean. The following morning we visited a horse farm to learn about the Icelandic horses which were first brought to the country by Viking settlers. They are small animals that have adapted very well to the climate. The most interesting thing about these horses is that they have five gaits instead of the four of other horses. The highlight of Day 6 of our journey was a whalewatching trip. The humpback whales cooperated and provided quite a show for us. One whale even


went completely under the boat. We also did some fishing for cod; each of us caught a fish. The crew later cooked it for us to taste. We visited a local fishing village which, we were told, was an important part of the herring industry. Day 7 included a visit to Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall. Later, we explored the effects of this geothermic area when we viewed a caldera, crater fields, and lava formations. We explored the city of Akureyri and visited the harbor and the botanical gardens there. The next morning we flew back to Reykjavik, discovering more of Iceland’s marvels as we visited a

national park, geyser hot springs, and the Gullfoss waterfall. On day 9 we donned boots and crampons to walk on a glacier—quite an experience! Later we went in off-road vehicles for a tour that included black sand beaches. That same day we stopped at yet another beautiful waterfall. More adventures were in store for the following day—a visit to a flower farm that relies on geothermal energy, an exciting river-rafting trip, and a visit to a geothermal power plant. Our visit to the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s best known hot spring, was one of the highlights of the trip. The water felt wonderful. We applied mineral-rich mud to our faces, which has made us look much younger! Later, we

51


52


Typical homes in Tassilaq, Greenland. They were all pre-fabricated and relatively simple. Note the ice in the fjord, even in the middle of summer. Unlike Iceland, the temperature in Greenland is frosty year round. Legend has it that Erik the Red, father of Leif Ericson, ended up on the inhospitable island after having been exiled from Norway. He later returned to his home country and enticed fellow citizens to migrate to the island, naming it Greenland in order to induce people to go.

53


On this page: Icebergs off the coast of Greenland. In 2007 the existence of a new island was announced. Named “Uunartoq Qeqertaq” (Warming Island), this island began to appear in 2002, a result of glacial melt. By 2007, the glacier was completely gone. It is estimated that if Greenland’s ice should melt completely, sea level would rise by 23 feet worldwide. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#Postglacial_glacier_advances]

returned to Reykjavik for a visit to the National Museum and more time to explore the city on our own. Greenland Greenland has a history of life under extreme Arctic conditions. An ice cap covers about 80 percent of the island, restricting human activity largely to the coasts. The Vikings came to Greenland in the 10th century but could not survive there. The people who live there now are descendants of the Inuit who migrated there around 1200 AD. Greenland is part of Denmark, although it has had home rule since 1979. 54


town, Tasiilaq. We visited a little museum, viewed local artworks and artifacts, and explored the town. The second day in Tasiilaq included a boat tour with breathtaking views of glaciers and icebergs. We watched the local fishermen as they hunted seals. We also took a beautiful hike through a valley that had many wildflowers. While we were there, a week-long soccer tournament was in progress. We watched the activities from our hotel room. The various teams came by boat, and the spectators sat on rocks beside the field. The field itself was dirt but was in good condition, and the level of soccer play was high.

Chuck and Dee Dee Nichols

The culture of Greenland includes much of the Inuit tradition. Many people still go ice fishing, and there are annual dogsled races in which everyone with a team participates. It is a harsh environment; the main employment is via the ocean—hunting for seal. The eastern coast that we visited had very little topsoil, so agriculture was impossible. People travel from village to village by boat or by air. The towns are supplied by five ships that come in during the summer. The waters surrounding Greenland are filled with iceburgs, even in the summer. The following morning we flew to the small village of Kulusuk, where we walked around the village and had a Jeep tour of the area. The following morning we went by helicopter to another small

We flew by helicopter back to Kulusuk the next day and then flew by plane back to Reykjavik. The next morning we said good-by to Iceland and Greenland, leaving with a much better understanding of and appreciation for these islands just along the Arctic Circle. •

Chuck and Dee Dee Nichols are active members of Mesa Verde UMC.

55


Journey for the Cure: One Woman’s Quest To Fight Cancer

O

ctober is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer is the leading cause of death among women in the U.S. and the second leading cause for women worldwide. One woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes, and one woman will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes in the U.S.; that translates into an expected 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 64,640 cases of in situ breast cancer (in situ meaning the cancer has not spread). Nearly 40,000 American women will not survive. [komen.org] Men can get breast cancer, too, although the incidence rate is much lower. Among American men, an estimated 2,240 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed; 410 men will not survive it. While fewer men get the disease, those diagnosed tend to be in the latter stages because they are less likely to report symptoms. [komen.org]

56


Leanne

57 Courtesy of Kathy Rappaport, Flash Frozen Photography, Inc.


CANCER IS SO LIMITED. . . IT CANNOT CRIPPLE LOVE IT CANNOT SHATTER HOPE IT CANNOT CORRODE FAITH IT CANNOT DESTROY PEACE IT CANNOT KILL FRIENDSHIP IT CANNOT SUPPRESS MEMORIES IT CANNOT SILENCE COURAGE IT CANNOT INVADE THE SOUL IT CANNOT STEAL ETERNAL LIFE IT CANNOT CONQUER THE SPIRIT

Author Unknown

The incidence of breast cancer in the U.S. increased greatly in the 1990s, the result, experts believe, of increased screening for the disease. It declined in the new millennium, seemingly related to the drop in use of post-menopausal hormone use. While the incidence rate of breast cancer has remained stable since 2005 [komen.org], the mortality rate has declined. As screening has increased, more cases of breast cancer have been found at earlier stages. Cancer treatment has also improved as the kinds of breast cancers have been identified and new, more targeted drugs have been identified. Nevertheless, cancer treatment is never a walk in the park. Surviving breast cancer takes courage and determination, perseverance and hope. It is these qualities Kathy Rappaport aimed to capture in her book, Journey for the Cure. Kathy is a professional photographer and owner of Flash Frozen Photography in Woodland Hills, California. “Photographs of people should tell a story about them and show some of their soul and being,” she wrote on her website. Last year Kathy took those words to heart, photographing 20 women who were either fighting breast cancer or were breast cancer survivors, packaging the results into a small coffee table book and donating the proceeds to the Los Angeles affiliate of the non-profit organization, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®. The photos are glamor shots; each woman is photographed at her best. To get ready for the photo shoot, each one chose a designer dinner or cocktail dress. Each one had her hair styled and her makeup applied professionally. Each woman had her

58


Coleen

59

Courtesy of Kathy Rappaport, Flash Frozen Photography, Inc.


Courtesy of Kathy Rappaport, Flash Frozen Photography, Inc.

al/16RUW4x] Kathy is well aware of cancer and its effect on a woman’s body and her psyche. Her mother survived cervical cancer in the 1970s only to succumb to lung cancer years later. In 2011, invitations to be part of the photo project were sent to local area women dealing with or having survived breast cancer. The criteria included being involved in the Komen organization in some way, either as a speaker, a participant in Komen events, or a corporate sponsor. The women were asked to provide $250 towards the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure if they could. Some were sponsored by their companies, their bosses, their friends, their loved ones. “What started out to be a calendar became a book,” Kathy said. With a calendar Kathy was limited to 12 participants; she ended up with 20.

Kathy Rappaport, owner and photographer, Flash Frozen Photography. In her video and on her LinkedIn page, she says she loves “f ” words. “Photography should be Fun! . . Flirty, Fabulous, Fuzzy, Fantastic—FUN—all about you and your family or your business or event! . . I love making people feel great in front of the camera.”

own session. The results are stunning. “For that one day, I felt gorgeous and sexy again,” Kimberly said. (Last names were not provided in the book.) And that was Kathy’s goal. In an interview with a reporter from the Los Angeles affiliate of CBS that gives a glimpse into the photo shoot, Kathy says, “Women are beautiful in all kinds of states.” She said she wanted to show the outside beauty reflected through the women’s inner beauty in order to give hope to others fighting breast cancer. [cbsloc. 60

It took the photographer a month to get everything set up and a full six days to do the shoot. There was clothing, hair, makeup, scheduling, and sets to coordinate. Volunteers to organize. The selection process itself. “Some women were nervous going in; some were relaxed. . .I wanted to capture their personalities. To do that, I needed body language that was open and warm.” Kathy allotted up to three hours for each session. In general, four women were photographed each day. They fed off of each other. “The camaraderie among the women was phenomenal,” Kathy said. “Some had not even known each other before that day.” Each one had a story. Each day was unique. One of the participants was Julie, a woman who is still battling metastatic breast cancer. A singer by profession, she spent much of the day humming


Jacqueline

61

Courtesy of Kathy Rappaport, Flash Frozen Photography, Inc.


and singing to the music playing in the background in the studio. Her voice “sent chills down everyone’s spine. . .Every day was a celebration,” Kathy said. Fashion designer David Meister provided the gowns. Erin Kleptar of Claudio Marino Salon did the hair. Karen Snyder of Cosmetically Organized and Grace Frakes of Millennium Hair Studio handled the makeup with help from Laura Ballesteros. Laura and Sharon Schlesinger helped with the coordination and the styling.

The slender volume is like the diverse group of women depicted in it, full of warmth, elegance, hope, and encouragement. Each woman provided text to go with her photo. Some of the words were poems, some anecdotes, one was even an epithet; all of them chronicled battles fought with strength, bravery, grace, and dignity. Kathy has been involved in cancer awareness outreach for several years. For the past three, she has served as Survivor Festivities co-chairperson for the Komen Race for the Cure and has manned

X. Sean Gao Photography

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure series began in Dallas, Texas, in 1986. There were 800 runners. Today, the series is made up of 5K runs and fitness walks, all of which are designed to raise money for and awareness of breast cancer, celebrate suvivorship, and honor those who have died of breast cancer. The series is now a global phenomenon. By the end of 2013, there will have been 150 races run in eight countries, including such unlikely places as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Uzbekistan. Over the last 28 years, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure organization has raised $1.5 billion dollars for cancer research.

62


Steve Debenport Imagery

Breast cancer is random—literally. It is the result of a series of mutations or errors in cell development that occur randomly in the body and get out of control. And it is adaptive; it can outsmart the best targeted treatments. It affects women—and some men—of all ages and races. “It does not matter what you look like, what your lifestyle is, how young you are, what church you attend, what job you have, etc.; breast cancer does not discriminate,” says Leanne Nakanishi, a breast cancer survivor.

tables for Komen-sponsored breast health community events. She is also the team captain for the Woodland Hills chapter of Rotary Club International, which sponsors the American Cancer Foundation’s Relay for Life. She bore all of the costs related to the photo shoot and the printing of the book herself. Her goal was to raise $25,000, and she is well on her way. Kathy has loved photography since her first class at the age of 14. After a trip to Alaska in 2000, where she did not get the pictures she was hoping for, she invested in a new camera and began to study under National Geographic and The Los Angeles Times photographer Sarah Meeghan Lee. Today, much of her focus is on children; in 2012, among

other honors, she was named one of the top five children’s photographers in Los Angeles by CBS. Of Journey for the Cure, she says, “I got much more out of it than I ever anticipated!” She would like to do something similar in the future. “I’m just waiting for inspiration.” Journey for the Cure may be purchased from this site: bit.ly/1bVdSTF. The cost is $65. •

The woman depicted on the front page of this story and who provided the quote in the photo caption above is Leanne Nakanishi. Leanne is President of the California-Pacific Conference (made up of churches in Southern California, parts of Central California, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, and the Pacific Region) of United Methodist Women, Inc. United Methodist Women is the largest denominational faith organization in America for women. With approximately 800,000 members, the organization’s mission is to foster spiritual growth, develop leaders, and advocate for justice.

63


Unless otherwise noted

64


Behind Barbed Wire: Life In an Internment Camp In the U.S.

A

ugust 10, 2013, marked the 25th anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act, a federal law that granted restitution to Japanese-Americans who had been interned in the U.S. during World War II. “It was not so much the money as the recognition that the Japanese American community had been wronged,” American-born Taye Inadomi, an internee, said in a recent presentation to Mesa Verde United Methodist Church. She pointed out that the legislature is one of the great things about this country—its ability to admit to its mistakes and the willingness to redress them. Taye began the program with a brief history of the internment program, noting that nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals living in America—men, women, and children—were placed in 10 camps in five states, beginning in 1942, and lasting for the duration of the war.

d, all photographs in this story are in the U.S. public domain.

65


It was the largest forced mass evacuation, exclusion, and detention program in the history of the U.S. Most of those affected lived along the West Coast—Washington, Oregon, California, and southern Arizona. Although 66 percent of those interned were American by birth, anyone with as much as 1/16 Japanese blood was considered a potential threat to the U.S. and was moved inland (including children in orphanages). They were incarcerated without charges being made against them, without due process, without any semblance of working within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution, and with little protest from the community at large. While the catalyst for internment was the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the advances of the Japanese across the Pacific, deep seated racism had plagued the Japanese American community, particularly in California, since before the turn of the century. In 1913, the Alien Land Law denied those of Japanese heritage the right to own land in the state. On a federal level, the 1922 Supreme Court decision of Takao Ozawa v United States made Japanese nationals ineligible for U.S. citizenship. The Round-Up On February 19, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066. It allowed local military commanders to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones” from which anyone could be excluded. First, second, and third generation Japanese (some 80,000 of which were U.S. citizens) were herded into ill-equipped, overcrowded assembly centers where they lived for weeks or months until they were

66

assigned to one of 10 equally dismal camps—barren, isolated facilities “built specifically to contain us,” Taye said. While many might argue that the U.S. was just protecting itself from possible saboteurs, Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals living in Hawaii were not similarly interned. Neither were most Americans of European heritage, specifically German Americans and Italian Americans. Most historians today agree that the issue had more to do with racial bias than national security. Manzanar Internment Camp Taye’s family lived in West Los Angeles; they were sent directly to Manzanar in the Owens Valley some 230 miles northeast of L.A., which, at the time, was an assembly center. It was designated a permanent camp in June 1942. They could take


Previous page: The Masuda family posted this sign over their store in Oakland, CA, December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Six months later, Mr. Masuda, a graduate of the University of California, and his family were given one week to sell their homes and businesses and pack up just what they could carry with them. They were relocated to the Tanforan race tracks in San Bruno, where they were “temporarily housed” in horse stalls from May until September 1942, when they were then transferred to the Topaz Relocation Camp in Utah until the end of the war. Page opposite: The front page of the San Francisco Examiner, February 27, 1942. Left: Members of the Mochida family, taken as they awaited the evacuation bus. Identification tags were used to keep family members together. Mr. Mochida had operated a nursery and five greenhouses on a two-acre site in Eden Township, part of Hayward, CA. He had raised snapdragons and peas.

only what they could carry. They were not allowed to take pets, cameras, radios, or knives. The Noda family (Noda being Taye’s maiden name) put most of their belongings in storage. The developed portion of the camp covered 540 acres and eventually came to include farms for hogs, cattle, and chickens, as well as orchards. The main residential area was about one square mile in size. The perimeter was marked by eight watch towers manned by military police carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. It was surrounded by fivestrand barbed wire. There were sentry posts at the main entrance. And every night there was a bed check, with soldiers counting heads.

Living quarters consisted of 36 barrack-like buildings, known as blocks, each of which was 20 feet by 100 feet in size. Typically, four families were assigned to each block, each allotted a single 20foot by 25-foot space. There was no plumbing, no electricity, no furniture other than cots (without mattresses, let alone pillows), no partitions, and one potbellied stove in each building. Each structure was made of wood, raised on cinder blocks, and covered with tar paper. There were no window coverings. The night of their arrival, there was a dust storm. The next morning Taye’s baby brother’s eyes were stuck shut, the result of the dirt and his tears.

67


68


The worst part of the camp was the latrine block, Taye said. Twelve toilets sat back-to-back in a row, not a single partition between them. “The Japanese are a private people,” she noted. “It was so dehumanizing, so demeaning.” There was one rough, concrete, sarcophagus-like bathtub. “Mother,” Taye said, “never used it. She washed us in a bucket.” Taye said it was the weather that made living in Manzanar so brutal. In the summer the heat often passed the 100-degree mark. In winter, the tem-

perature plummeted below freezing. And then there were the dust storms. The blocks were poorly constructed; you could see through the floorboards to the ground below. And, of course, there was no insulation. There was no way to keep out the cold, the heat, or the dust. The camp distributed old WWI pea coats to everyone, but they were much too large for most children. Taye said many of the women cut them down and hand stitched capes for their youngsters.

Both pages: Relocation was particularly hard on the children, who did not understand what was happening. Taye said she had received a new doll buggy at Christmas and had packed it in her bag. She had been heartbroken when her mother had made her remove it and leave it behind. Even more devastating—families could not take their pets.

69


70


Left: Topaz Relocation camp 15 miles west of Delta, Utah. It was nearly 31 square miles in size, four times the size Manzanar; internees lived on about one square acre. Topaz was originally known as the Central Utah Relocation Center, but the name was abandoned when it was realized that the acronym was naturally pronounced “Curse.” The camp was then briefly named for the closest settlement, until nearby Mormon residents demanded that their town name not be associated with a “prison for the innocent.” The final name, Topaz, came from a mountain that overlooked the camp. Topaz was opened September 11, 1942, and eventually became the fifth largest city in Utah, with over 9,000 internees and staff. It was closed October 31, 1945. Above: Minidoka [Idaho] Relocation Camp internees, taking down the American flag at the end of the day. The camp, a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp, was managed by the Farm Security Administration, as were many of the internment centers.

71


personnel made $19/month. Many took jobs that were unrelated to their prior line of work. Taye’s father, a gardener before incarceration, was a foreman at the hog ranch.

Above: A Farm Security Administration mobile camp in Nyssa, Oregon, often used to house migrant workers. It served as one of the temporary housing “solutions” for evacuees. Page opposite: Manzanar during a dust storm. The camp covered 540 acres and was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and eight watchtowers. It had 67 blocks, including 36 residential blocks, two staff housing blocks, an administrative block, two warehouse blocks, a garage block, and a military police compound. Each of the 36 evacuee residential blocks had 14 barracks, a mess hall, a recreation hall, two communal bathhouses, a laundry room, an ironing room, and a heating oil storage tank. The hospital became the largest in the county, and later on there was a Bank of America branch and a Sears Roebuck catalogue store. Most of the buildings were flimsily constructed of wood frame, board, and tarpaper. The camp included an orphanage known as Children’s Village. Manzanar opened in March 1942 and closed November 1946.

Despite the weather, the residents spent most of their time out of doors because of the cramped quarters. People created small Japanese gardens in front of their blocks and cultivated vegetable gardens where they could. Baseball was popular among all ages. Kids played jacks, marbles, jump rope, crack-the-whip, and tag. The adults in the camps looked for opportunities to work, although the pay scale was disgraceful. While a Caucasian with a family of four made an average of $225/month, within the camp, unskilled laborers made $12/month, skilled laborers made $16/month, and professionals and management 72

Another Experience Mary Nishimine, whom Taye invited to speak for a few minutes, talked of playing bridge and huddleing around Ouiji boards. There were clubs and other outlets. There was, for example, the Manzanar Free Press (the camp newspaper which, of course, was censored). Books were precious. For Christmas one year, Mary received a book from a Quaker group in Michigan called Once Upon a Time. Her voice broke when she talked about it. She held it up when she spoke, a tattered but beloved treasure she keeps to this day. Mary (whose maiden name is Mitsuyoshi) and her family of 10 grew up in the San Joaquin Valley. In the summer of 1942, they were sent temporarily to

Relocation Centers Camp Manzanar, California Tule Lake, California Poston, Arizona Gila River, Arizona Granada, Colorado Heart Mountain, Wyoming Minidoka, Idaho Topaz, Utah Rohwer, Arkansas Jerome, Arkansas

Population 10,046 18,789 17,814 13,348 7,318 10,767 9,397 8,130 8,475 8,497

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment


the Fresno Fairgrounds. That fall they were moved to Jerome, Arkansas, by train, an MP posted in every car. Mary said her experiences were similar to Taye’s. She spoke about lying under her cot in the summer, trying to escape the heat and humidity. In June of 1944, they were sent to the Gila River Camp in Arizona. Resettlement Both women spoke of the difficulty of resettlement after the war. Families were given $25, a book of food rations, and a train or bus ticket home. Few had homes or businesses to return to. Both the Nodas and the Mitsuyoshis had placed their furniture,

linens, and other possessions in storage facilities; they returned to find them looted. The Mitsuyoshis salvaged only a sewing machine and a stove, items they had left with friends. Everything was gone except the anger and rancor of their fellow Americans. Mary told of having to work in the vineyards in the summers in order to help support the family. Taye’s family had to be split up. She moved six times and attended four schools in the ensuing two years. Somehow, though, both families eventually rebuilt their lives.

73


Courtesy of Mary Nishimine

In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act, which constituted an official apology from the U.S. government. President Ronald Reagan signed the legislation which read, in part, that government actions had been based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment] In 1990, George H. W. Bush signed into law a bill that provided for financial restitution. Some 80,000 Japanese Americans received a sum of $20,000 per person. • 74

Ansel Adams

Restitution In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to review the Japanese internment during WWII. The report, titled Personal Justice Denied, found “little evidence of Japanese disloyalty…and recommended the government pay reparations to survivors.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Japanese_American_internment]

Top: Mary’s 4th grade class at Gila Bend, Arizona. Taye has no photos of herself during her years of internment. Above: Thanks to the crowded conditions, internees spent much of their time out of doors. This Ansel Adams photo depicts a baseball game at Manzanar. Adams donated this, and other photos of internment camps, to the Library of Congress.


Living the Past by Sheryl Cooley

I had not particularly wanted to go to Saturday’s talk. I was tired and had errands to run, and I had to work that afternoon. Japanese internment camps were not news to me. I’d learned about them in school. I’d read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet not too long ago and had finished Farewell to Manzanar just a couple of months back. I went because I admired Taye and knew she’d spent so much time preparing for the presentation. I went, really, because, as the church’s webmaster, I had wanted a few photos for the site. And, in truth, much of what Taye and Mary told us I had already known. But by the time they were done with the telling, I was nearly in tears. Maybe it was the image of a 6-year-old Taye clutching her Shirley Temple doll as her family left their home for good. Maybe it was the image of little boys scraping their knuckles on the unfinished concrete floor of the laundry block while playing jacks. (Rough on the hands, Taye had noted.) Maybe it was learning that the frequent dust storms couldn’t always be out run; it was better just to lie down in a firebreak and let them pass over you. Maybe it was realizing these people had lived the same lives as my folks before the war, in proper homes, going to proper schools, and stopping for an ice cream or soda on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe it was seeing a rope stretched around a 500 sf section of the fellowship hall—an area that took up less than a fourth of the main room—and being told that that was the space Taye’s family of five had lived in for 3-1/2 years. Or maybe was Mary’s story of outrage and heartbreak when, upon resettlement, a schoolmate taunted her about the “Jap soldier” she’d seen in the street. The young man was Mary’s brother, a U.S. military serviceman. Whatever it was, Taye and Mary’s calm, measured speeches made real the injustice visited on some 120,000 people whose lives were forever changed by a combination of racial prejudice and wartime fear. Their stories brought the dry dust of history to life for me as nothing else had. It made me see it, feel it, touch it, and smell it, and it sent shivers down my spine. It made me realize how important it is not to let this story fade if we are to remain a great nation. It made me glad I had gone.

Taye Inadomi and her husband Min both spent time in internment camps as children; Min’s family was interned at Tule Lake. Also an American citizen by birth, Min later served in the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps from 1953-1961. The Inadomis are active members of Mesa Verde UMC.

75


Labor Day: Restitution for a Strike

O

n September 5, 1882, more than 10,000 workers marched from New York’s City Hall, through Union Square, and uptown to 42nd St. Organized by the Central Labor Union (CLU), an umbrella organization made up of represenatives from a number of local unions, it was the first Labor Day parade in U.S. history. It is unclear who first proposed the Labor Day holiday. Some say it was Matthew Maguire, secretary of the CLU. Others claim it was Peter J. McGuire (note the similarity of names), a member of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), after having seen the annual labor festival held in Toronto. In 1894, strikers called for a boycott of all trains carrying a Pullman car, which effectively stopped train traffic west of Detroit. President Grover Cleveland sent in U.S. military men and federal marshalls to break the impasse, known as the Pullman Strike. Thirty strikers were killed. Cleveland signed into law Labor Day as a federal holiday six days after the strike ended, a publicity stunt to blunt the perception of big government trampling on the rights of the little guy. Today, the holiday tends to be associated with the beginning of the schoolyear, the start of football season, the end of the drag racing season, and, for women, the last day of the fashion season they can wear white shoes. •

76


Library of Congress USPD

Labor Day parade, Main Street, Buffalo, NY, ca. 1900.

77


Mesa Verde United Methodist Church Mesa Verde United Methodist Church (Mesa Verde UMC) is a part of the worldwide UMC. Built in Costa Mesa, CA, on land originally called Goat Hill, it is now part of Costa Mesa proper and has been part of the community for more than 50 years. There’s an old joke about a group of elementary students who are asked to bring symbols of their religion to school for show-and-tell. The first child stands up and says, “I’m Jewish, and this is a Torah.” A second child stands up and says, “I’m Catholic, and this is a crucifix.” The third youngster stands up and says, “I’m Methodist, and this is a casserole!” Potlucks are a great symbol for Methodists. Everyone brings something to the table. You won’t like everything, but you will find something new that is wonderful. The conversation is good. The plates are always full, and desserts are free. Methodists like to get things done. We love the Bible and love to worship together. But spirituality isn’t just what we do for ourselves but what we do for others. Our founder, John Wesley, had a saying that has become our motto: Do as much good as you can With all the people you can In all the ways you can In all the places you can At all the times that you can. Faith means making a tangible difference in the world. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by. Everyone is welcome!

Mesa Verde United Methodist Church 1701 W. Baker St. Costa Mesa, CA 92626 www.mesaverdeumc.org


Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.