Time rolls on

Generations: the compote belonged to my Great-Grandma Sieving, the music cabinet to Grandma Gotsch, and the mirror to my parents. The placemat was woven by me in 2024; the smart thermostat was installed in 2023. 

I started this post on the morning of January 1, 2025T. Think of it as The Day After 2024. Rolling up a digit at the far side of the date didn't make the day feel much different; time didn't move faster or more slowly in the previous evening's climb toward midnight. Nor did it move any faster on the downhill slide into the early hours of the new year. 

Time, it is reported, was different before people had clocks and watches and computers and phones to synchronize and measure it. Before the railroads had to run on time. "There was evening and there was morning, the first day," says the creation story in Genesis 1, with no numbers pinning down the exact time of sunrise and sunset. The new day began, as the Jewish sabbath still does, in the evening, at the end of a day's work. Long hours of daylight in summer were for planting and harvesting; long, cold winter nights were a test of endurance, or a time to seek comfort in one another. 

Measured or not, time rolls on in cycles of day and night, tides, seasons, patterns of growth and decay. The year 2025 CE looked like a faraway number when I was a child in school in the 1960s, but the intervening decades are like nothing in the context of geologic time or the existence of the universe. (The number 2025 is, however, kind of cool when you factor it -- it's the product of squares: 5 x 5 x 9 x 9.)

One of the books I read in 2024 was "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals," by Oliver Burkeman. A podcast or newspaper article prompted me to search for the book in the online catalog of my local library. It was a worthwhile read. It leaned into philosophy, reflections on what time is and how we perceive it. Burkeman, someone who writes about productivity, found that this understanding of time and its limits helped him let go of the need to corral and optimize it. There's a healthy dose of Stoicism in the book, Stoicism being a different thing as a philosophical practice of virtue and acceptance than it is in lowercase where the word suggests enduring pain or hardship with gritted teeth and no outward complaining. 

The 4,000 weeks in Burkeman's title are the span of an average lifetime. Do the math and it works out to approximately 77 years. Life has limits imposed by time and mortality. I liked the part where Burkeman quoted the Buddhist scholar Geshe Shawapa: "Do not rule over imaginary kingdoms of endlessly proliferating possibilities." I'll keep this in mind in the future when weeding out my collection of books, yarn, and quilting fabric, my personal accumulations of possibilities. 

Burkeman is a popular podcast guest with a website and a new book. One podcast description says that "Four Thousand Weeks" subverts the self-help genre. It's also an antidote to New Year's resolutions. So is this Calvin and Hobbes panel that my sister posted on her Facebook page. 

See those footsteps in the snow? They're a measure of time passing by. 

The year that just ended held many time-inflected marks in our national life: a once-in-every-four-years presidential election; a U. S. president realizing (albeit slowly) he was too old to hold the office for another four years; another U. S. president, Jimmy Carter, dying after reaching 100 years of age, an allotment of far more than 4,000 weeks which he used to accomplish a prodigious amount of good things.

In my life and my family's life, 2024 included the death of my mother, Marilyn Gotsch, at age 92, the last of her generation on her side of the family and my father's. At her funeral we filled a table with memories of her life which included a partially used ration book from World War II, wedding photos from the early 1950s, and pictures of her with that awful perm she had somewhere in the 1970s or 1980s. In writing her obituary I broke her long life down into chapters — childhood, marriage and children, working, widowhood, grandchildren, old age. Each had its time and tasks.

Her passing has left me, the dutiful eldest daughter, conscious that I am now the oldest person at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. But I'm not sitting in a rocking chair letting people come to me for  hugs or nuggets of wisdom. Nope. I'm still cooking, clearing, putting away leftovers, and helping with the dishes. But also, at age 70, feeling the effects of time. 

I don't mean achy hips or gimpy knees -- my joints, thankfully, are doing okay. But I do find myself wondering at all that a lifetime -- 3,663 weeks to date -- contains. I see some of this just by looking around my home. Photos taken 60 years ago and scanned into my computer in 2020 appear as a screen saver on my living room TV any time I hit pause and go to the bathroom. Other memories from the past emanate from lamps, dishes, furniture, framed pictures that were once part of my parents' household and have emigrated to mine. They come with stories: the prints that hang above my sofa were purchased by my father on the day I was born. The red glass bowl currently holding red and green Hershey Kisses was my mother's. There's a teapot from one great-grandmother and a crystal compote from another; Aunt Clara told me once that her mother served fruit from this not-very-generous vessel. I knit and sew in the same rooms my kids once littered with Legos and Matchbox cars. The Christmas tree stands in the bay window where Christmas trees have stood for all of the 38 years I've celebrated Christmas in this house. I'm pretty Christmas trees stood there long before I came into the picture; the house was built in 1940. 

Looking back also measures the sorrows of a lifetime. Failings and failures, disappointments and losses from every era. Grief persists. And it's not unwelcome. 

Still, at the beginning of a new year, one tries to look at the bright side, though counter-balancing sadness with joy is not easy these days. Time's ever-rolling stream carried a lot of detritus from 2024 into 2025: war, political polarization, lies, disinformation, uncertainty. Some kinds of changes are filled with hope, others not so much. 

The Stoics would say that hard times are to be expected in life and accepting this is the key to contentment. It's a way to keep on living, and not a bad one as January days lengthen and the work of 2025 begins. 

Waiting, in the cold, cold ground

I was going to begin this post with the quote from Martin Luther about planting an apple tree today, even if he knew the world was going to end tomorrow. I went on an internet search for the exact quote and found, as one does with these sorts of things, that there's no evidence Luther ever said or wrote this. It can't be found in his writings. Instead, according to the first page or two of Google hits, the first evidence of the saying comes from 1944 and the German Confessing Church, an expression of hope in the face of the Nazi regime. 

I thought of this saying yesterday while digging holes for tulip bulbs, 40 of them, plus some more holes for a scattering of hyacinths and snowdrops. The bulbs arrived at my house by mail two or three weeks ago. I ordered them last spring after receiving a series of emails with photos of brightly colored spring flowers and all manner of tulip colors and variations. They're no fools these marketing folk. You drive around town and see stands of tulips in people's front yards and dream of sprucing up your own landscape. Beyond the PayPal payment, there's no cost to ordering freely from what you see. Bulbs are properly planted in the fall. They're not shipped until the ground is growing cold, and then, if you want the flowers in the spring, you have to spend some time outside grubbing in the dirt. Or be embarrassed for your failure to get them in the ground. 

The box of tulips, hyacinths and snowdrop (very early tiny white flowers) sat in my kitchen for a week or more, along with another box of Dutch iris also ordered on impulse last spring. They were supposed to be kept in a cool place until planting, so I moved them to the table by the back door, a temperature drop of five degrees or so. I planted the dozen irises and half the hyacinths and snowdrops in the backyard ten days ago, tucked in and amongst the herbs and perennials by the patio and the fence. This is dirt that gets worked in the spring, so it's not terribly hard to dig holes four to six inches deep. I mostly remember what went where, some of them near patches of daffodils planted last year, or longer ago than that. 

But the tulips were destined for the street side of my house, in the open spaces around the forsythia bushes, in an area thoroughly overgrown with tall weeds. I paid landscapers to clear it out for me, an acknowledgment that it was a) a big job and b) something that despite a summer of good intentions I was never going to do myself. Yesterday, after a look at my phone said that the weather was about to get much chillier, I got the shovel and the trowel and the bulb planter out of the garage and went at it. The dirt was wet and there were roots everywhere, but I got it done. There's no immediate reward, other than no longer having that task hanging over my head. Nothing left to do but look for the shoots next April. 

I think that I am wired for hope, for optimism. This isn't necessarily a good thing -- it would be more realistic to be, well, more realistic. People will be hurt by the upcoming changes in Washington, people who don't have the resources that I do. And, I believe, abstract but important concepts such as truth and compassion have already taken a big hit. 

But where are the bulbs buried? The ones that will blossom pink and yellow in the spring? 

While digging holes yesterday, I occasionally encountered bulbs planted in previous years. It looks like I go back to the same spots, the same bare, cold places from one fall to the next. I took care to get those guys back in the ground, proven winners that they are. And now, before I eat breakfast, I'm going to check the Christmas cactus for new buds. 

November 2024

It's been quiet for the past couple months here at the Perverse Lutheran. There have been so many words out there that I've felt it's gratuitous to add any more. I've begun one or two posts that have been left behind as three-paragraph drafts. More often, thoughts or images have crossed my mind, literally, from right to left and then floated away. 

So here we are, well into November, a month that usually holds plenty of fuel for Perverse Lutheran blogging. All Saints Day, Election Day, Veterans' Day, then on to Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the First Sunday in Advent. Past, present and future -- they're all here in November. 

The saints remembered in worship at my church on the first Sunday of the November 2024 included my 92-year-old mother, Marilyn Gotsch, who died on September 23. This past week I've been part of the so-called Democratic "elite" depressed and bewildered by the outcome of the election. Outside, the weather become autumn's crisp and cold, but inside, we're back on Central Standard Time. It's 4:45-ish as I write this and it's quite dark. Saturday's trip to big box stores for pots and potting soil confirmed showed shelves filling up with Christmas merchandise; the advancing army of velvety Santas that confronted me yesterday as I walked in the door at Home Goods (a "home decor" store) was enough to set off a panic attack.

Better to be quiet and stay home. I've counteracted anxiety by weaving at my loom. I'm still a relative beginner, executing a treadling sequence 30 picks long takes concentration. If I mess up, I have to be very deliberate about finding and correcting the mistake; I am not wired for this. I've had to fuss over this project. I discovered crossed threads and threading mishaps only after weaving six inches of fabric. I cut it off, re-tied, and began again. Today, as I sat down to weave my way to the end of the warp, I noticed what I thought was a major mistake four inches back. So I backtracked.

Un-weaving unfortunately reminds me of a poem from when I first learned to read called "Eletelephony." I was today years old when I learned that it was written by Laura Elizabeth Richards, the daughter of Julia Ward Howe who wrote words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." 

Once there was an elephant,

Who tried to use the telephant—

No! No! I mean an elephone

Who tried to use the telephone—

(Dear me! I am not certain quite

That even now I’ve got it right.)

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk

Entangled in the telephunk;

The more he tried to get it free,

The louder buzzed the telephee—

(I fear I’d better drop the song

Of elephop and telephong!)

When I unweave, the more I try to set the threads free, the more the weft and warp get wound around each other in ever more elaborate ways. The shuttle catches on threads that are up when they should be down, and the more I manipulate the threads, the more unruly they become. 

And isn't that a lot like life? 

Craft as metaphor for the trials and triumphs of life. It's a cliche, but maybe it's also what powers projects on to completion, and sometimes even perfection. 

Today's hour of unweaving ended in a Sisyphean discovery. When I finally got back to the place where I thought I'd made an error, a closer look showed that I had not made a mistake after all. All the backpedaling was unnecessary. But it was time to step away from the loom. 

This past week has become a time to be quiet. There will be time soon to stir things up, to protest, to untangle and fix and change. In the past weeks, I've sometimes paused for a moment and thought, my mother died. That happened. Wow.  

The choir anthem yesterday morning had a rhyming text based on Psalm 139 in a setting by Alice B. Parker. 

Lord, thou hast searched me, and dost know

where'er I rest, where'er I go;

Thou knowest all that I have planned,

and all my ways are in thy hands.

The last stanza is more hidden and more vivid: 

If deepest darkness cover me,

the darkness hideth not from thee;

to thee both night and day are bright,

the darkness shineth as the light. 

It will be Advent soon. I'll have finished the project on my loom -- placemats for Christmas. I'll be rested and ready to stand up as a real, created and creating person among all the commercial Santas.

 

Dove with Lamp

Spirit of truth and love, 

life-giving, holy dove, 

speed forth your flight;

move on the water's face 

bearing the lamp of grace, 

and in earth's darkest place 

let there be light!

This is the third stanza of the hymn "God, Whose Almighty Word," written in 1813 by John Marriott, an English minister. According to the author's page at Hymnary.org, it was first published in The Friendly Visitor under the title "Missionary Hymn." Reading the words from a 19th century British perspective, "earth's darkest place" might be -- well, probably not anywhere in England or Europe. But while a 21st century Christian might notice the imperialist layer to the text, its metaphors and images -- spirit moving on the water from Genesis 1, light brought to darkness from John 1 -- give it depth and meaning beyond a prayer for missionaries sent to "civilize" distant lands. It's good hymn writing. The rhymes are tidy, the syntax straightforward, the meter simple but interesting. 

What caught me up when we sang this in church last Sunday was the imagery. A mixed-metaphor alarm went off in my mind: first a dove, then a lamp, and then an image of a bird flying above the waters carrying a lantern in its beak. It seemed improbable. Wouldn't the lamp be far too heavy for the bird to manage, for it even to get off the ground, much less soar over waters far from land?

The congregation and organist moved on to stanza four as I continued to think about stanza three and that lantern over the dark waters. And what came to mind was rescuers hurrying down to the shore in the dark of night to aid mariners run aground in a storm.  

Where did that come from? Twice in the last few weeks I was up on Washington Island, in Lake Michigan, off the tip of Door County, where the passage between the mainland and the Island is known as Death's Door. It's an old name, originating with Native Americans and early French  navigators who dubbed it Port des Morts. The currents are tricky, as are the winds, a danger to which many a shipwreck below the surface can testify. (Read more here and here.) Nowadays sturdy car ferries travel back and forth from the mainland to the Island, so that "Crossing Death's Door" has become more t-shirt slogan than a reality.

But back in the day, there were shipwrecks. While on the Island we had the opportunity to tour a tall ship, the Schooner Madeline, a replica of a vessel that carried cargo through the Great Lakes in the 19th century, the sort of ship that might have run aground in Washington Harbor or anywhere along the coast of Door County. I've read stories of cargo washed ashore, of sailors in lifeboats, sailors brought to land, and rescue attempts, people with lanterns appearing in the dark coming down to the shore. People helping desperate people, bringing light and hope.

Back to that image in the hymn. (By now on Sunday, a lector was reading the Old Testament lesson.) That dove is not flying over distant waters or vast oceans on the other side of the world, I thought. And the dark and dangerous waters are not those of the sea or a Great Lake. The dark, dangerous waters are around us, among us, between us, in the turmoil of election season. Waves of fear and condescension, divisiveness, even cruelty, buoy us up and pull us down. 

We need light and vision to see past this. But oh, that lantern of grace wavers? It's a heavy load for the Spirit of truth and love. It needs a place to land — a big ship, or in the hands and hearts of those who come to help.  

Grant grace, O Lord. Let it land and shine steady in us, your people.

Bow of Louisiana, ashore. Sank in Washington Harbor (north end of Washington Island, Wisconsin,  in 1913. 

More photos and information at https://wisconsinshipwrecks.org/Vessel/Details/384?region=Featured

A walk

A walk in nature, they say, will lower your anxiety and reset your ability to pay attention. Also, it's exercise. Two days into a five-day stay on Washington Island, after rather a lot of eating and drinking yesterday, I needed to get off my butt. 

One problem I have with going for a walk is listening to what plays in my head. A song, an ear worm, a story I tell myself or pretend I'm telling someone else. The stories are, perhaps, helpful, processing and reprocessing the past, repackaging what happened and why, rehearsing, revisiting the details in the storage lockers of the brain. Those well-worn tales are farther and farther in the past. And on a beautiful morning like today, it's best to let them go. All those details, all those explanations can summon emotions, a dark mood that could be hard to shake. And today is a day that inspires -- literally, with breath and breeze -- the sense of the world creating itself anew.

The ear worm that it stuck in my head lately is a little syncopated Carl Schalk melody for the scripture verse "The Lord is my light and my salvation," something published long ago in a collection of brief settings of offertories, or something. It's may be the stickiest tune I know (darn it, Carl), and when it's on repeat in my head to the rhythm of my walking feet, the text loses all meaning. 

The  Lord is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Psalm 27:1

I thought about this as I walked this morning. Does this image work for me? Does it point to God at work in my life? Defending me, pulling me out of trouble, setting me on a high rock, a place where you'd build a castle or a fortress?

No, not really. 

But the ever-moving breath of God, creating and recreating and redeeming the earth and its people from day to day, year to year, era to era? Refreshing my spirit with a forty-minute walk in nature. That works. 

I'm listening to the wind and banishing the ear worm. Works for me.

Fireworks

Photo by Eliza Grahnke

It is a beautiful summer morning where I am today -- in my backyard. And so softly quiet, so gently alive after last night's fireworks gone crazy. 

I love fireworks -- the pretty kind, in the sky, not the random booms in the street. My daughter and I went to watch last night at the park and the sound of the firing, the shooting upward, the exploding into colors and sparkles echoed the thrill of fireworks past: at the ball park, at the lake front, at the local high school stadium, one year from the Hilton and Towers in Washington, DC. When I was a preteen my family and I watched the annual Independence Day fireworks sitting on the curb at the end of our block, looking over the well of the Eisenhower Expressway and up into the sky above us and the village park on the other side. 

The noisy stuff last night was stuff on the ground. At the park it was the crowd. So many kids chasing around, yelling and screaming, in the near-dark. Adults closing in on the edges of the crowd. My daughter in her lawn chair next to me entertaining herself with YouTube on her phone while complaining about the wait. And after we arrived back home and parked the car in the garage, we stepped out into the almost continuous explosions, near and far, the roar of Fourth of July in the city. 

The upside of all this is the quiet this morning. Bees in the thyme and lavender, cardinals in the elm tree, even the soft hum of the AC unit kicking in by the corner of the house. We are peacefully on the other side. There will be firecracker noise again by late afternoon today. This year's celebration of our nation's birth reaches into the weekend -- four full days of yee-ha! summer! 

Four days, maybe, of a slightly tamped-down news cycle. Oh, wait, not -- a presidential interview to be televised tonight. Lots more to worry about. Does Biden stay in or step out? Which way do our fears run? 

Last night I went to bed early, pulled the covers over my head and read a story from a distant land and time. Today, in the quiet, I sent some prayers heavenward for the country we celebrated so noisily last night. 

We Are Family -- Leipzig 2024

I've been chasing down loose ends lately -- loose ends of family history -- hours of Googling inspired by an upcoming trip to Germany and the opportunity to see the church and parsonage my great-great-great grandfather left behind in Ziegelheim, Saxony, when he emigrated to America in 1852. 

Why he left is a long story. There is a family chronicle, put down on paper by one of the next generation. I'm not sure when I first encountered this story -- it was shared with me by my dad. But it began to come alive for me when I was a college freshman in an honors history seminar called "Reform and Revolution," where I learned about the revolutionary movements that swept through Germany in 1848-50.

The class was basically what was known as "Western Civilization," a traditional part of a liberal arts education, though by the early 1970s it was on its way out of the requirements for a degree. Yes, it was entirely Euro-centric, and yes, a well-educated person should also know about Asia, Africa, and pre-Columbian American civilizations. But still, my thorough grounding in European and English history served me well in the years of undergrad and graduate education that followed. I had historical context for the trends and artists and masterworks I encountered in music history classes and especially, in theatre history. I could see that many students around me did not have the same sense of all this stuff that I did.

And now? It's been a long time since I've had to answer essay questions on finals. But all that I learned then (and since, because I keep reading) gives me context, a place where my imagination can roam as I think about what was it like at other times in history. What was it like for Georg Moritz Gotsch to watch the emigration of German Lutherans from Saxony to America, even as he stayed put and continued to serve his rural parish? What was it like to send his 25-year-old son, Georg Theodore, to America, to prepare for ministry at a seminary in Indiana? What was it like when conflicts across Europe came home to his parish? And to yield to inevitability and prepare for his own trip across the ocean? And then adapt to a new life in rural Indiana and eventually in Civil War-era Memphis? And -- dear God! -- what was it like for the women?

Knowing a little leads to more questions. Right in this moment, all those questions sent me off to the Internet to look up who exactly came with Georg Moritz to America. I know I've seen a copy of the ship's manifest with that includes the names of his second wife and children of assorted ages. Couldn't find it right away, but I will see it again someday. Other questions: the day before yesterday I was looking up websites for churches served by Georg Moritz and Georg Theodore (who is my great-great grandfather). 

But what does this all mean? Why does it matter to me? It's incredibly cool to know this stuff, and I am lucky that I do. I can't claim credit for having done the work; my reference for much of what I know is an inch-thick book titled "The Gotsch Family History" which was put together by a distant cousin 20 years ago. The Internet makes it possible to chase down more details without ever leaving my favorite chair. 

But do my roots really tell me who I am? The threads of an embattled 19th century German Lutheran, habits of theological thinking, right doctrine explain values I grew up with -- spoken and unspoken, in my family and my family's church communities. It's left to my imagination to fill in details -- daily life of these new residents of America, what their ministry to other German-American folks meant to them, the work, the burdens, the joys. What did they miss from their old life, how did they bury that grief in the new place, how did they find exhilaration and meaning in a new life? There are letters from G. M. Gotsch that I've read somewhere online (Concordia Historical Institute? I need to do a better job of saving stuff!) about his church in Memphis. No letters from the women of the family. 

The greater part of my upcoming trip is focused on Leipzig, the music of J. S. Bach, and a "We Are Family" themed Bachfest. I've been known to create some stories around what I know of Bach and his family (see, for example, BWV 197: The Movie), and I hope to store up more inspiration for more writing like that. I'll be thinking of my dad on this trip, who died before ever getting to visit Germany and play organs across Europe, something he was hoping to do once he was no longer putting daughters through college. 

When I first saw this photo (below) of Georg Theodore Gotsch, the guy who left Germany as a young man, I thought he looked a lot like my dad. Not very tall, and the same serious gaze that appears on my father's face in posed pictures. I have a photo of my father as a young man at his sister's wedding. I  scanned it into my computer, and one day, the face ID in my Mac's Photos application asked if that face was my son Kris. Wow. Kris did sometimes remind me of my dad. Not very tall, but jaunty, energetic, showing up. 

I have my place in all these generations. Perverse, over-animated, smart. And about to both experience and imagine more about where I and my family belong in history. 

Georg Theodore Gotsch and wife Catherine Kiefer

Herbert Maurice Gotsch, Jr., Hertha Gotsch Holstein, Esther Sieving Gotsch, Herbert Maurice Gotsch, Sr. 

Herb Gotsch at the organ

Me with sons Kurt (left) and Kris Grahnke

Herbert Gotsch Sr., cropped photo from a group portrait of the Chicago Bach Choir, c. 1930. "We Are Family."