Minnesota Sunday |
Issue 12
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Today was a filled with contemplation. I spent some morning time listening to a sermon preached by the pastor who pastored the first church my family attended after we moved back to Minnesota from Hungary in the late 80s where my parents served as missionaries, my home from age five to sixteen. This small country church has been in existence for over 100 years. When I contemplate that fact I again marvel at the passage of time and wonder about life at the beginning of the church’s existence. The church was planted before the First World War. It was attended primarily by Scandinavian immigrants who settled across the state of Minnesota. They were perhaps drawn to Minnesota because of the similar climate and because of the way the sky and land resemble the lands they left behind in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The clouds have a particular feeling to them in this part of the country, the way in which they blanket and sky and tower upward into the heavens, revealing a sky filled with fluffy pools of vapor. In that manner the sky resembles the land below in how it is dotted throughout with over 10000 lakes across the states. The reflection in the lakes water of the sky above gives meaning to the indigenous name for the state: The land of sky-blue waters.
What was it like for those immigrants to arrive to Minnesota, and what propelled their need for a church in this part of the State? All of these thoughts flood through me as I listened to the pastor’s sermon. He spoke from the book of I Corinthians, reading the passage where certain activities are sanctioned by God such as the eating of particular foods that were formerly said to be off-limits. He bridged from the passage to the reality of the political world in America today with the great fracturing of people along political and ideological lines. He said he could imagine it would be difficult for some Republicans to accept the fact that there might be Christians in the Democratic party. He supposed it would be impossible for some Democrats to handle the thought that some Republicans have ideas that are not driven by a desire for power but by a desire to provide a meaningful moral track for the country to follow. This pastor has had an interesting life. He came from a blue-collar background when he was originally hired by the church in the 1980s. Usually a church requires that a pastor have some kind of ministry background before they are hired to care the church’s spiritual needs. This man had no ministry background, but had an extensive life before the pastorship as an electrician. The idea was presented to the elders of the church that perhaps rather than requiring that this man go off to seminary, perhaps the church could use as qualification his existing experience as an electrician, realizing this work gave him meaningful experience relating to people in their homelives as he traveled from job to job. This was the first time I remember hearing about that kind of agreement being reached between a congregation and a prospective pastor. It threw my mind back again to the thoughts regarding Jonathan Edwards, a man similarly capable of thriving in menial labor in the Puritan era and to his way of seeing the world through the lens of God’s creative and beauty. Many theologians believe that Jonathan Edwards was one of the wisest men in American history because of his way of applying his knowledge, not only to scripture, but to the natural world around him. Yesterday I took a walk through the dirt roads surrounding our home. The hills in this part of the state are marvelous in how they reveal green valleys among groves of forests and low-lying wetlands. I took several pictures as I walked, but it was impossible to capture in a photograph to true grandeur of the world around me. I looked into the sky and saw birds circling above. I saw in cornfields temporary pools created from the great rainfall the state has had the past several weeks. There were two swans circling each other in the water of one field. I turned a corner and saw two sandhill cranes, birds that are not usually seen in Minnesota. They didn’t see me at first and walked slowly across the road as I approached. They finally turned and contemplated me silently with their strange eyes before finally turning and retreating into the long grasses off next to the road. A few minutes later they took to the air, filling the sky with their eerie, trilling cries. I spent the last hours of the day on the back porch, surveying the hills in the distance and hearing the lowing of the cows from the neighboring farm. The grasses around the yard are filled with purple flowers that give off a sublime sweetness and are filled with the buzzing of bees. It reminds me of Yeats poem about his “bee-loud” glade. As I sat on the porch I deliberately did not listen to any podcasts or music but instead allowed the sounds of the outside world to fill my senses and to overwhelm my being. It has become my favorite time of day, appreciating the world before evening takes it off into darkness and I retreat into the house for my last moments in the pages of a book before drifting off to sleep. I can learn so much about myself in those quiet moments alone. I can look into my heart and marvel at what is there and what is not there yet. I can sit back and allow myself to be loved for the simple person I am. This kind of unconditional love is not easily acceptable to me and when I read about how God loves me in this manner I cannot grasp it. |
Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addition) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete
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