My Uncle's Funeral

Some years ago the husband of my father's youngest sister passed away. She was the last living member of my father's side of the family and by marriage her husband was my uncle. I felt obligated to attend the funeral which was being held in a small town in the northern part of Bavaria, Germany.

The funeral took place on a January day with temperatures around the freezing point. There was slushy snow on the ground and a light but steady rain was falling which caused rivulets of slush and icy water to cascade down the village street. After the lengthy service in the unheated church the funeral procession headed to the local cemetery which was about a mile outside of town.

The lengthy service in the unheated church had caused me to be chilled to the bone already. Now the slow march through the slushy water in the street and the rain provided a soaking from below as well as from above. However, it was worth it for the experience.

The funeral procession was led by the priest and the altar boys, each wrapped in clear plastic rain skins remiscent of Saran Wrap, followed by a brass band that played the same funeral dirge over and over again. After that came the casket followed by the bereaved family.

The rain, the slush, the cold, and the whole atmosphere made me feel as if I were watching the whole thing from another level - I felt as if I were watching a movie. What came to mind was the funeral scene at the beginning of the movie Dr. Zhivago - unreal and yet deeply moving.

The procession thus went on for the better part of half an hour. The rain, the slush on the ground, the funeral dirge, and the slow pace of the procession made for a spectacle that I will never forget. The fortitude shown by the participants of this ceremony went beyond the call of duty. At the grave site we endured another interminably-seeming timespan listening to the graveside speeches, until the casket was lowered to it's final resting place.

The immediate family and some friends then retraced our route to one of the restaurants in the village for the obligatory food and drink, but at a much quicker pace. There the first thing I did was go to the men's room to take off my wet shoes and wet socks to dry them under the hand drier.

May my uncle rest in peace, I hope that I am not put into the frozen ground on a dismal day as he was.

How We Made Our Grandson Cry

A few weeks ago one of our daughters with her two sons, Troy age eight and Teddy age six, was visiting us. While watching TV I announced that I was a little hungry. The boys chimed in and proclaimed that they were hungry as well. Luckily another one of our daughters had left us two frozen pizzas in the freezer compartment. She, being health-conscious, had left us pizzas topped with vegetables, rather than with meat products.

Oma baked one of the pizzas and proudly presented the first slice to Troy. Troy took one look at it, shook his head, and turned away. His mother explained that Troy doesn't like vegetables on his pizza. Oma then passed the plate over to Teddy. Teddy took one look at it and burst into tears. He bawled as if he had just been accused of the biggest transgression that a six-year old could commit. He buried his face on his mother's shoulder and continued his heart-rending sobbing. We were aghast at the reaction that the well-meant offering of a slice of pizza produced. Finally Teddy's mother explained that Teddy doesn't like "green stuff" on his pizza.

I must confess that I am not particularly fond of vegetables, including "green stuff," on my pizza; but I think that Teddy has to work on his emotional responses to everyday disappointments.

South Sudan and the Burning of the Castle

Two events caused me to think more than usual the other day.

Early that morning I read that the southern part of Sudan had become a separate nation after years of strife between the northern part and the southern part. South Sudan, the 54th sovereign state in Africa and the world's youngest country also is one of its poorest. According to UN officials it has the world's highest mortality rate for women during child birth.

Late that evening I attended the fireworks display put on several times each summer, mainly for tourists, by the city of Heidelberg, Germany. It is a spectacular display and commemorates the burning of the castle by the French in the late 17th century. At least that is the official label given the fireworks, designed to couple the tourist trade with history. The “uhs” and “ahs” around us in several languages showed that the attraction was fulfilling its mission of attracting tourists.

I have seen the fireworks many times and each time they remind me of war. I hear booming of cannons, I see rockets streaking into the sky after some unseen enemy, and I see explosions sending shrapnel in all directions into the sky. This year for the first time I saw fireworks being fired horizontally from the Old Bridge out over the river. It looked like machine guns firing tracer ammunition which then ended up in fire-spewing fountains on the surface of the water as if some small ships had been set on fire.

At that point I remembered South Sudan. For this tourist attraction, city streets were closed to traffic by police, all public transportation in the viewing area was halted, emergency vehicles and personnel were stationed at strategic locations. I cannot estimate the cost of these ancillary preparations. Then, of course, there is the cost of the fireworks display itself. Again, I cannot estimate it, but I have a feeling that one could build a modest hospital in South Sudan or at least provide medicines or other useful services for what it costs to put up such a fireworks display. I for one would gladly forgo one or two of the annual “burnings of the castle.”

When E-Mail Was Young.

As I was writing the previous blog entry (church newsletters) I was reminded of my first encounter with e-mail. It was in 1996 and I had just gotten a new job after an almost two year break in formal employment. I was given a desk in a large room which was subdivided by partitions into cubicles that contained three to five desks each. It took a few days for the network administrator to set up an e-mail account for me, but being new to e-mail (a lot had changed in the time that I was not working in an office, including the way to communicate) this didn't concern me.

One day during my “e-mail-less” time, my cubicle and, as I found out later, all the other cubicles, mysteriously emptied out and I was the only one diligently bent over my desk, probably trying to learn what my job was all about. I didn't notice that I was all alone and I didn't take notice when the desks in my cubicle were occupied again. It was when one of my cubicle-mates asked me why I didn't go to the farewell party (with coffee and cake ) for a departing coworker, which had taken place in the conference room, that I realized that I had missed something. It turned out that the invitation to the party had been sent by e-mail, which I didn't have yet. That is when I learned something about the new way to communicate: It is all done by e-mail and not by word-of-mouth anymore.

I wonder now what other, maybe important, meetings I missed because I didn't get the word (the e-mail).

P.S.: Whenever a funny e-mail, such as the church newsletter extracts, circulated among the offices, snickering and downright laughter could be heard up and down the large room, that is when we all knew who had gotten the same e-mail.

Church Newsletters

I was rummaging around some old collector's items and found this summarizaton of actual messages taken from church newsletters.  I recall that when I read them the first time, tears rolled down my cheeks from laughter.  Reading them again had the same result.  I don't know where this collection of extracts from church newsletters came from, they were one of the humorous items passed around the office when e-mail first became the way to communicate in and among offices.  Enjoy!

The outreach committee has enlisted 25 visitors to make calls on people who are not afflicted with any church.

The Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

Evening massage - 6 pm.

The Pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday morning.

The audience is asked to remain seated until the end of the recession.

Low self-esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 to 8:30 pm.  Please use the back door.

ANNOINTING OF THE SICK: If you are going to be hospitalized for an operation, contact the pastor. Special prayer also for those who are seriously sick by request.

Usher will eat latecomers.

The third verse of Blessed Assurance will be sung without musical accomplishment.

The sermon this morning: WOMEN IN THE CHURCH.  The closing song: RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD.

The sermon this morning: GOSSIP - THE SPEAKING OF EVIL  The closing song: I LOVE TO TELL THE STORY.

The sermon this morning: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES #3 – EUTHANASIA.  The closing song: TAKE MY LIFE.

The sermon this morning: PREDESTINATION - WHAT ABOUT HELL?  The closing song: I'LL GO WHERE YOU WANT ME TO GO.

Curious Publicity

It is amazing to me what some people publicize about themselves. If you watch the Today Show on NBC, for instance, you can see some curious and sometimes bizarre signs that people who gather outside the studio in New York City hold up. There are the birthday, wedding, and engagement signs, the signs that announce where the person holding the sign is from, the birth announcement signs, the greetings to friends and relatives, etc. The other day a child in the front row held up a sign that said “I broke my collar bone.” Now that is something we all need to know and we should be grateful to a nationally televised program to bring it to us.

That incident reminded me of the time my family and I and some friends were taking a walk through a residential neighborhood in State College, Pennsylvania. The neatly groomed lawns in front of the upper-middle class houses were terminated by a sidewalk that traversed across successive driveways. In one of the driveways a boy of perhaps four or five years of age was riding his tricycle up and down and in circles. As he saw us approach his driveway he wheeled about sharply and headed in our direction, his face aglow with joy and excitement. As he was peddling furiously toward our little group of strollers he shouted with obvious glee: “I've got diarrhea!” We didn't know whether to pity him, congratulate him or just ignore him; we did the latter. I wonder if his parents ever took him to Rockefeller Plaza to watch the making of the Today Show – with a sign.

Technology – Blessing or Curse?

In no way do I consider myself “technology-impaired.” In our household there are several TV sets, two computers, four cell phones, an iPad, an MP3 player, a GPS navigator, and of course, a video recorder, a DVD player, and several CD players. I have written three apps for the iPhone (I didn't do the programming) and I have written numerous computer programs throughout the years. I maintain a blog, a web site, and I connect to the internet multiple times per day. I think I'm pretty well up to date.

So what's the problem? Well, I have the feeling that I am struggling to keep up with the newest developments in technology. I know that one can find restaurants and all kinds of other places using the smartphone, and the other day I heard that at Starbuck's you can pay for your Latte with a smartphone, and now they are working on the ability to pay for all kinds of other products and services with that device. No wonder that this is the trend: on TV the other day, a college student in an interview said that she often leaves home without her wallet, but never without her iPhone!

Isn't all this great? Yes it is. But, I wonder if in the future anybody will have to know or remember anything at all, all they will have to be able to do is to know how to use their smartphone or its successor. Think of it: multiplication tables, historical dates, Presidents' names, the Gettysburg Address, the Constitution, etc., all at your fingertips! Future generations won't even have to know that such a thing as the Gettysburg Address exists, they will be automatically linked to it from some other piece of information. For instance, the other day I was listening to Mark Knoepfler and James Taylor singing “Sailing to Philadelphia,” a song about two Englishmen with the names Mason and Dixon. Of course I had heard of the “Mason-Dixon Line,” but when I “googled” the names Mason and Dixon I learned something about American history which I hadn't known before because I was linked ever further into the depths of the reasons for the two gentlemen's endeavor.

All the knowledge of the world soon will be in the palms of our hands by way of smartphones or whatever even smaller and more intelligent devices technology will bestow upon us. That is the blessing. But, I wonder if there isn't a downside: will we stop carrying things in our heads, such as a tune to hum or the image of some pleasant scene from the past? Will we have to check our smartphone or its equivalent to be able to come up with the proper etiquette or behavior in various situations? Will we read a person's bar code to be able to call them by their name? I hope it won't come to this. For the time being, the new technologies seem to be a blessing, yet I wonder about the future. Formal education in the future may consist solely of learning how to use our electronic devices.