Four States,Three Hymnals and Still We Sang

For 59 years I have belonged to the Lutheran Deaconess Conference, since my consecration in 1960. We gather as a community once every summer.  In between we gather in area conferences. I belong to the Minnesota/Wisconsin Area which clusters around the Twin Cities area.

Last Saturday they gathered as they usually do once a month.  I can't always attend since I live in Iowa--Northern Iowa. That's why I'm included. We're only 30 miles from the Minnesota border and in the Rochester, MN, television viewing area (quite frankly I'd rather see the Des Moines news)  But I digress.

The Area Conference Saturday began with devotions and about 1/2 hour of simply singing favorite hymns. The meeting would go from 10:00 a.m. until 2 in the afternoon. I had joined by conference phone call. Another woman, Brenda, also joined by phone from Eastern North Dakota. Four States! As the group in Minneapolis chose their favorite hymns I soon realized they had with them "Gather" and "With One Voice."  I had the "Evangelical Lutheran Worship" (ELW or the "Cranberry Hymnal")  Three Hymnals!  What could have been an absolute mismatch not just of voices but of books (We had to call out hymn numbers from one book and look them up in the index in another book) and states,--not to mention the difficulty of some of us on the phone--turned out to be what it always is when deaconesses gather: women making beautiful music together, singing of faith and service in Christ.

We are theologians and with that solid base, we are also social worker, parish worker, nurse, teacher, professor, counselor, chaplain and more.  We have a commitment to faith and service to Christ and also to one another--for a lifetime.  That's what it means to belong to a community!

The meeting went on with each sharing some of  our work, our challenges, our joys, our questions, our lives, our prayer concerns.  We talked and we prayed. We also share leadership, a circle of leaders, collaborative, not hierarchical. We care about each other in the midst of our diversity.  We can count on that always.

Diaconal ministry is servanthood ministry, no matter where we serve, whatever our gifts. The words of our final hymn have stayed with me all week:

When the poor ones who have nothing, still are giving;
when the thirsty pass the cup, water to share;
when the wounded offer others strength and healing;
we see God, here by our side, walking our way;

When compassion gives the suffering consolation;
when expecting brings to birth hope that was lost;
when we choose love, not the hatred all around us,
we see God, here by our side, walking our way.

When our spirits, like a chalice, brim with gladness;
when our voices, full and clear, sing out the truth;
when our longings, free from envy, seek the humble,
we see God, here by our side,walking our way.

When the goodness poured from heaven fills our dwellings;
when the nations work to change war into peace;
when the stranger is accepted as our neighbor;
we see God, here by our side, walking our way;
we see God, here by our side, walking our way.

Picture from our entire Lutheran Deaconess Conference meeting Summer 2019

Finally: Ordination for Deacons, Beyond Classism Toward Partnership

By one little word the ELCA in assembly changed the entrance rite for ministers of Word and Service—Deacons—to “ordination.” I celebrate that decision. The vote wasn’t even close. We have come a long way, but it has taken a long time.

Let me go back before the ELCA came into being. I served on the “Design Task Force on Specific Ministry” (1983-4) We presented a model to the proposed new church on the “Public Ministries of the Church” for the “Office Word and Sacrament” and the “Office of Word and Service.” I remember drawing the parallel chart. The two ministries were to be side by side. The proposal was not accepted

After the beginning of the ELCA, January, 1988, the “Task Force on the Study for Ministry” was formed. I also served on that (for five years) and on the subcommittee which designed diaconal ministry. Diaconal ministers would be called to serve inside the structures of the church and called by the church to serve in the world outside the structures of the church. For many years we had faithful diaconal ministers, associates in ministry and members of the ELCA deaconess community.

Meanwhile I also served on the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission which produced the Hanover Report “The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity.” (1996)

I had the privilege of teaching M.A. in Diaconal Ministry students at Wartburg Seminary for many years, seeing them flourish in their service in the world and yet never quite understood or fully accepted in the church on whose behalf they served. (“Why don’t you want to be a pastor?”) We still had a ways to go to fully catch the vision of the being the church for the sake of the world.

As the ELCA studied uniting the three “lay” rosters into one, I prepared a paper, “Diaconal Ministry from the Open Tomb to the Open World.” Jesus was a diaconal minister. Faithful diakonia is theologically grounded in a theology of the cross, facing the great wounds of the world, and a theology of the resurrection: death no longer has dominion.

I celebrated the ELCA’s 2016 decision to adopt a unified roster of “Word and Service” using the term “Deacon.” Deacons are now serving as hospital chaplains, musicians, congregational administrators, in disability ministries, in urban education and food ministries, as lawyer, college president, and so much more.

Finally, would “Pastor” and “Deacon” be side-by-side in collaborative ministry? However, the word “ordination” remained difficult. It was the entrance rite, not the essence of service, but it would take more time to move beyond systemic hierarchical and classism biases.

Finally, in 2019, the ELCA made a bold “new” and yet very New Testament decision with global and ecumenical support. Within the one ministry rooted in baptism, some are called to the ministry of “Word and Service” and some to the ministry of “Word and Sacrament,” side by side. Partners in the Gospel.

Cory Booker and I Talked about White Supremacy, Repentance and Authentic Diversity

Senator Cory Booker and I shared common concerns and commitments Friday night. I told him I appreciated his powerful words when speaking at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, this week. He appreciated what I shared with him, that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will commemorate June 17 as a day of repentance for the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9—the nine people who were shot and killed June 17, 2015, during a Bible study. We stand against racism and white supremacy.

Booker knows the ELCA and he, (including the press with him) was eager to hear more. He was grateful that the ELCA in churchwide assembly this week voted to become a Sanctuary church body and took strong stands against racism, white supremacy and gun violence. Booker and I talked about the urgent need in this country to come together and to love one in “authentic diversity.”

Over 20 candidates for the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States spoke before a gathering of 1200 in Clear Lake, Iowa, just outside Mason City, Friday night. Burton and I attended with son Joel, his wife Rachel, and their children Jackson and Jennaya. A number of the candidates attended a reception beforehand hosted by our State Senator Sharon Steckman.

August 6: Hiroshima Day. Today: Catastrophic White Supremacy

August 6, Hiroshima Day, is a day of remembrance of the world’s first atomic bombing in 1945. August 6 is a day of remembrance of baptism in our family, mine, in 1939, and our son Kirk’s in 1969. Death: more than a quarter of a million people perished because of the catastrophic nuclear explosion by the USA near the end of World War II. New Life: being baptized into Christ’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from death.

Kirk was baptized outdoors, in the backyard of the church parsonage where we held weekly Wednesday night summer services. Neighborhood children, and some of their pets, came, too. Kirk’s baptismal banner hung on the clothesline. The singing was a sign of joyful life, a public witness to Jesus Christ, alive in the inner city.

I was baptized in the early stages of WW II. Kirk was baptized in the midst of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Kirk’s baptism was fifty years ago today. How do we remember now? We have stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We barely talk about whether a nation has 400 or 4000. Does it matter? But pulling out of the Iranian Nuclear deal matters. And so do North Korean missile tests and meaningful treaties of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We remember Hiroshima by working every day on diplomacy to avoid war.

What do we do today? We remember by acknowledging the catastrophic gun violence inside our own nation. No one brought a gun to Kirk’s Detroit neighborhood backyard baptism. There are more guns in every U.S. neighborhood today, more guns per person by far than any other nation on earth, more guns than there are people. Are we afraid to go outside? We have had 250 mass shootings this year, more than days on the calendar. The belief system of white supremacy and white nationalism is deadly.

Today we must not forget. This August 6 we choose to remember our baptisms into Jesus Christ so that together we might face the challenges that are before us.

Apollo 11 Went Back to Where They Came From: the Earth

Go Back to Where you Came From. The earth!  July 24, 1969, was the day the Apollo 11 crew returned to “where they came from”: the Earth. One day later, July 25, 1969, our son, Kirk Andrew, was born. Each of our children has a “birth story.” 

News media have covered extensively the anniversary of the moon landing; however the picture the astronauts took which remains a favorite is their view from the moon of the earth.  They saw the amazing beauty and knew, of course, the complicated issues on our planet.

The 50^th anniversary week’s coverage was almost overshadowed by the exclusionary words of the president of one nation on this planet to four of its citizens, saying that they should go back to where they came from.  No matter that they are citizens of the same nation as he.  Where should they go? From the moon, the astronauts could see no national boundaries. On July 24 the world celebrates the men’s return to the whole earth. 

 Our family this July 25^th lovingly celebrates our youngest son’s 50^th birthday. May the citizens of the earth celebrate the family of nations and love one another.  May we not try to rid ourselves of those we disdain, but give ourselves to each other, seeking justice and each other’s welfare, that the beautiful sphere seen from the moon might truly hold the beauty the astronauts beheld.

Chants Can Encourage White Supremacy

"Send her back." "Go back to where you came from." It's not just a matter of toning down the talk. No matter how hard, we need to engage those who are picking up these chants. Otherwise the chants themselves increase the belief in white supremacy. People of color love this country and belong here. Only Native Americans could have--should have--told my white immigrant ancestors to "leave" these shores.

Nancy Pelosi spoke clearly, carefully, courageously yesterday. She is acting wisely to go slow on impeachment, knowing Trump would turn the Senate's clearing him into his win. The time will come. In the meantime, we all need to be wise, very wise, and pay attention to what this administration is doing on all fronts to harm this nation and world. Our words and work do matter.

School Bussing: History Presents a Racial School Integration Challenge Today

School Bussing! The Kamala Harris and Joe Biden interchange caught people’s attention. The issue itself, however, is not just old history but a contemporary challenge. Will all children have equal, excellent education together in their community public schools?

Sixty-five years ago the U.S. Supreme Court declared the doctrine of “separate but equal” unconstitutional (Brown vs. the Board of Education) and invalidated racial segregation in public schools, paving the way for integration in nearly every aspect of American life.  That was 1954.

For years, however, thousands of neighborhood schools remained segregated due to demographics; children who lived in predominantly black neighborhoods still did not go to the same schools as white children, and vice versa.

In the 1968-69 school year in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina, 14,000 of the 24,000 black students had attended schools that were at least 99 percent black. The NAACP challenged the school board and won the case in 1969: the school district must use bussing to achieve racial diversity in its schools. On April 20, 1971, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of bussing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.

There were plans that called for the bussing of black students to suburban schools as well as the bussing of white suburban students to city schools throughout the country. Many of us who lived through that era remember school bussing of black children to white schools.  However, in most places white parents were enraged at the thought of bussing their children to predominately black schools.  Our family was living in a predominately black and Hispanic neighborhood at the 1970’s. Our children were the only white children in the school and so it remained.

This was also the time when four million whites moved from cities to suburbs.  Between 1960 and 1977 this white flight contributed to nearly all-white suburbs and predominantly black inner cities. White fear of people of color! Anti-bussing activism drew on the “dangers” of racial integration. Opposition to bussing was about preserving racial divisions.

School bussing was a predominant racial issue in the 1970’s.  In 1974 a second Supreme Court decision declared that integration plans could not extend beyond district boundaries and its ruling continues to shape American schools to this day. Although our society in many respects has become more integrated, in many other ways we returned to separate and unequal.

We know that today schools are more segregated by race, class and economic status than they were 65 years ago.  In intervening years people have chosen alternatives to public schools, citing all sorts of reasons. Meanwhile public school resources and teachers’ pay suffer. Some people raise the false alternate question, “Which is more important, “achieving diversity or raising academic standards?” Both of course. (That question assumes we lower standards by having white people join people of color in living and learning together.)

The issues of fear, discrimination by race and class, and the economic gap, remain.  And so does the challenge: for all children to have equal excellent education together in public, community schools. This is our nation’s need.

Note: The National Education Association (NEA) hosted its annual assembly in Houston July 5 with the “Strong Public Schools Presidential Forum” with Democratic presidential candidates as the centerpiece of its meeting.

I Remember D-Day: Words for Us all to Remember

So many words to remember from the 75th anniversary of D-Day (and some to forget). Angela Merkel, invited to participate, said that this military operation eventually also brought the German people liberation from the Nazis. It led to the reconciliation of Europe and 70 years of peace.

Queen Elizabeth, before whom others bow, rose to say thank you to a man who risked his life on the Normandy beaches. I remember her as a teenager actively participating in the war effort.

Utah Senator Mitt Romney stressed the word "Allies" saying that alliances are crucial. We must support the United Nations and NATO, and work together now as we did then. Even more so.

I was in kindergarten when D-Day was announced. I remember the "war plant" in Des Moines and the "brown outs" at night. And I remember being surprised when after WW II ended in 1945, radio broadcasts were about things other than war. I pray for and work toward a world of reconciliation, thank-yous, alliances, and peace.

30th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square: I Was There Two Years Later

Today is the 30^th anniversary of  the Tiananmen Square protests. The events of June 4, 1989, continue to haunt the Chinese. Each year as the day approaches, security is stepped up across Beijing and the rest of country and journalists are barred from the vicinity of the square.

I walked through Tiananmen Square freely in 1991, warmly welcomed yet watched.  Part of a globalization of theological education trip some Wartburg seminary professors were one of first groups to visit the square, two years after the massacre. At that time we walked freely.  We could tell our stories.  Today, Tiananmen Square is one of most heavily monitored locations in the world. Security cameras cover every inch of the square, and identification must be provided just to visit.

Much has changed in China since our visit; I remember the swish of bicycles through Beijing, people’s primary mode of transportation. However the growing suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests is not progress.

There has never been a definitive death toll from Tiananmen Square. Disputed estimates range from a few hundred to over 10,000.

The Chinese government, in fact, continues to maintain that no one was actually killed in the square itself, despite the event being best known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre throughout the rest of the world.

The Chinese government's generation-long censorship of the subject appears to have had its intended effect despite the event being known throughout the rest of the world. In planning her book, "The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited," journalist Louisa Lim asked 100 students at four Beijing university campuses if they recognized the iconic photo of a man staring down a tank taken in the square on June 5, 1989. Only 15 students could identify the picture. Some asked, “What country is that in?”

I invite you to mark this 30^th anniversary with me because there is no remembrance of those who died in Tiananmen Square those days, no statue of the anonymous young man who bravely stood up to tanks, not even a small plaque to note the day. This is a reminder that each country needs to remember own oppression, its wrong-doings, its atrocities, and to teach rather than suppress them. In so doing we will learn how to be a free, really great nation. 

I Love a Parade

I love a parade. Watching a parade. Being inside a parade. This morning the 81st annual North Iowa Band Festival Parade units—116 of them—lined up on the streets all around our blocks.

 I remember this parade from my teenage years here in Mason City, Iowa. Yes, this is Music Man’s River City, 76 trombones and all.

Son and Daughter-in-law Joel and Rachel and their children Jennaya and Jackson were IN the parade announcing the high school summer musical.

We were first on our condo deck watching the line-up, and then, of course, on State Street AT the parade.

I love the Mason City Band Festival, 4 days of civic celebration, everyone outside together. This morning, no cars on our blocks, just people walking. And bands and floats, even a few horses, and varieties of people all in a line. No carrier boats lined up for a war with no reason, no guns piled up for sale.

It was safe to be outside together. We did not fear being outside. We did not fear or hate each other. We celebrated one another.  I loved this parade.

Abortion: What Our Church Said 28 Years Ago

“Women and men share equally in the responsibility and accountability for procreation, although it is women who are most intimately affected by decisions about abortion.” The ELCA 28 years ago adopted by more than a 2/3 majority vote in 1991 a Social Statement on “Abortion.” Amazing for its time. Although conversation on issues has changed through the years, I share some quotes from that church-wide teaching I find positive for this time.

“We are moved particularly by the anguish of women who face unwanted pregnancies alone.” “Poverty, lack of supportive relationships. . . oppressive social realities, sexism, and racism can intensify her sense of powerlessness.”

“Our ministry of hospitality to all people ought to include women who have had abortions, women who are considering abortions, children, families, and those who bear and raise children under all kinds of circumstances. This should be reflected throughout congregational life and church policy. Services and shelter should be provided, especially to enable young mothers and fathers to continue their education and care for their children. Members should also be encouraged to become foster and/or adoptive parents. By our policies and practices as a church we need to indicate that we are truly supportive of children through the long years after, and not only before, they are born.”

“Greater social responsibility for the care, welfare, and education of children and families is needed through such measures as access to quality, affordable health care, child care, and housing.”

“We affirm that the goodness of sexual intercourse goes beyond its procreative purpose. Whenever sexual intercourse occurs apart from the intent to conceive, the use of contraceptives is the responsibility of the man and of the woman.”

“An abortion is morally responsible in those cases in which continuation of a pregnancy presents a clear threat to the physical life of the woman. A woman should not be morally obligated to carry the resulting pregnancy to term if the pregnancy occurs when both parties do not participate willingly in sexual intercourse. This is especially true in cases of rape and incest. This can also be the case in some situations in which women are so dominated and oppressed that they have no choice regarding sexual intercourse and little access to contraceptives. Some conceptions occur under dehumanizing conditions that are contrary to God’s purposes.”

“Christians as citizens and this church as an institution should join with others to advocate for and support just laws and to work to change those, which are unjust. In our attempts to influence the shaping of public policy, we should not disregard the rights of others, but work faithfully through the public processes by which justice is sought for all.”

 "The concern for both the life of the woman and the developing life in her womb expresses a common commitment to life. This requires that we move beyond the usual ‘prolife’ versus ‘pro-choice’ language in discussing abortion.  If we are to take our differences seriously, we must learn how to talk about them in ways that do justice to our diversity.”

“Church members must not only be aware of the moral complexity of the situation, but be able and willing to listen and walk with women and men through the process of decision-making, healing, and renewal. . . ”

I Don't Lose Power When You Are Empowered

“When you are fully empowered, I do not lose power but

am empowered as well.”

North Iowa Area Community College announces the following class by Dr. Norma Cook Everist: “Power and Partnership: Personal and Social Power in the Workplace” Tuesday, May 28

Join us for an interactive seminar to build productive relationships.

We will explore together the power cycle which is real,

strong and so commonplace that we may not even notice it.

Once we do, there is opportunity for change as we develop

skills for what we can actually say, and do in difficult situations.

Participants will be invited to enter the conversation from wherever

they are as we open ourselves to ongoing growth, working

toward more just, equitable partnerships in the workplace.

You can find out more information about this course by contacting

Jamie Malek at 641-422-4076 or

Jamie.Malek@niacc.edu.