Please go to
www.northernminnesotaministries.com
for updates in 2012
I now live
In the land of hunters.
I’ve left the land
Of corn and beans.
Tell me: What’s a man to do?
Catch the fever of the buck, I tell ya.
Follow the dog
Chase the bird
Of his dreams…
When Marnie and I first met with the Mobile Ministry Board (the oversight board for the UMC of Kabetogama United Methodist and Crane Lake Chapel) the members regaled us with stories from the north woods and quizzed us with this battery of questions:
If you come up north to be our pastor–
…
Do you solemnly swear that you would marry people on a pontoon boat?
Umm, I do.
Will you agree that you will be ok if everybody wears shorts to church in the summer?
I do.
Would you be all-right holding a funeral in the fire station? Yes.
Will you be calm if you come home from church and find a bear in your kitchen? Yeah…What?!
Marnie we are not in Kansas anymore!
Ron is navigating the rocky waters of Kab at 40 mph and Sandy posing calmly like she’s Grace Kelly on a leisurely sea-cruise off Monaco on the Mediterranean.
Dwight takes us through the pinch. “Do you have your passports?” he chuckles. “We’re in Canada right now.”
Kent, the wild walleye guide, flying over the waters of Kab at 57mph into a 30 knot breeze in deep fog, off to the next Walleye hot spot. And yes, we caught our limit of fish there. We take a photo. I’m wearing a stocking cap and parka and camo overalls out on the lake. Now Kent’s got me talking big 40″ Northerns on Kab. Wait a second! What happened to the nice musician pastor guy?!
Ed, who is the father of the church, with the twinkling blue eyes and lumberjack build at 80. “I’ll bring the minnows for the VBS minnow races,” he says.
Char the woods-woman, wielding her Husqvarna chainsaw, chasing bears and throwing boulders around at 80. And Rich, ‘That’s my Char’.
Rod, who still flew his own float-plane around the lakes in his 70’s and shot two deer last year at 83, after he’d suffered a debilitating stroke.
People at Crane Lake can’t come to a church event because they can’t get back home to the cabin up the lake before dark.
The first couple sermons I talked about our puppy Buddy who was innocent and pure as the driven snow to the way things are in the wild world, as we surely were upon moving to the woods. Then the lovely little obedient Labrador buddy started becoming a dog and flexing his independence muscles. In October he came strutting home with his first grouse in his proud and smiling jaws. I took a proud picture and the next day he brought his second grouse and the next day I found him jawing a poor migrating sparrow he had just stalked and killed. Wait a second! My puppy is now a bird-dog!
And then I found myself researching grouse-hunting on the internet. Instead of enjoying nature and photographing the lovely grouse in the tree, I was looking into shotguns and planning my first hunt.
And it is not even deer hunting season yet.
In mid October a big wind came up and knocked over a dead 50 foot Aspen. It crushed our storage shed and knocked the power line down hanging 4 feet over the whole backyard. We called the power company. We’ll get there as soon as we can, they said. Three days later, I’m looking at the live power line still hanging over my laundry hanging outside on the line. (not the power line. 
) Then Sunday night at 10 pm, I hear the dog bark and see men with flashlights bustling around in my back yard. The power company arrives, chain saws the tree off the line (but leaves the 20 foot trunk on the shed) drives the big truck with hoist into the back yard and straightens out the line by midnight.
Now Marnie has taken to wearing blaze orange hunting caps on her daily walks with the dog, who sports a blaze orange ribbon around his neck. Distant gun shots and dogs barking all over the neighborhood become routine Fall events rather than frustrated calls to the local police.
My neighbor comes over and says I better keep an eye on my pup as he saw a coyote bigger than him and by the way, ‘Did I see the pack of huge Timbers (i.e. wolves) running through his back yard? Or did you hear about the 600 pound black bear that ran by him as he went to get the mail one day last Fall?…
“Uhh…No…”
As I write this I hear a big booming shotgun blast off in the woods and I think: What kind of gun is that? I Google ‘12 gauge shotguns’…
This is a land where being close to nature means something a whole lot different than taking a walk around Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, sister. I may have fancied myself a bit of an outdoors-man before our move here. I mean: I own a cabin, a boat with 30 horse, a canoe, two chainsaws, a rack full of rods and reels. But now, I’m researching shotguns and eyeing ‘sleds’ (snowmobiles) for sale on the side of the road and I just bought myself a GMC Yukon. What? Who is this guy? In my mind I am a Jeep Wrangler guy or on my jaunty days a Mini-Cooper guy.
There is a saying ‘When in Rome…’
But Marnie asks: “What next? A camouflage suit and tie”
“Why?” I ask too quickly. “Do they sell those at Cabela’s?”
Yes. This is where the wild things are. Like a true nature’s child, I was born, born to be wild…
It has been awhile since I posted here. My wife Marnie and I have moved to the Voyageur National Park in the far north woods of Minnesota. I have taken an appointment with the United Methodist Church to serve two small churches at Lake Kabetogama and Crane Lake. It is a beautiful, wild thing. I will be posting more after I get my canoe legs.
My daughter, Erin Kate, has posted a beautiful note about her daughter (and my granddaughter) on her Facebook site recently. Here it is:
“…the almost-seven lillian james has been surprising me with intuitive and quirky insights as of late. i have been making a point of asking her questions, as she seems to be in the habit of answering honestly and immediately in full sentences. while putting her to bed tonight, i asked her “lillian, what’s in your heart?” she was a little unsure of what i was getting at (not surprising) and asked me to “go first.” this is a question i think about or ask every day and i was prepared to rattle off family members, places that i’ve lived, and things i’ve cared deeply about that i carry in my heart. she responded “i have everyone in my heart.” i pushed her a bit and asked if she had all the people in the world. she said that she did, that she had not only all the people of the world, but all things like “sharks and boxes.” it was at this point that i found it hard to keep a straight face, but kept my composure as she continued, “only sweet things, mom. not naughty things.”
she drifted off to sleep while i held her and contemplated her comical response delivered with such sincerity. i know she loves sharks. she has no fear of them and watches shark shows whenever she gets the chance. her favorite tee-shirt is the one we bought in south africa with a picture of a toothy great white. the boxes she was keeping in her heart were puzzling to me, though. until i realized that this child has helped me take apart, stamp, put back together, stack, empty out, and restack 900 tiny jewelry boxes in the past 6 months. she has become my helpful shadow. aware of my emotions, my opinions, and my values.
i hesitate to put deeper meaning to her answer, but i do hope that the sharks in her heart are symbolic of the travel and adventure she has experienced and grown to love. and that maybe, just maybe, the boxes are the adventure she experiences in her own backyard. the adventure of creating art and relationship. working side by side with me, the woman who carried her for 40 weeks and 2 days and prayed for her for years before we met.
i’ve struggled for years to put words to the depth of my emotion/devotion for my mother, her orphaned mother, the sister who died too young, and the sisters i never had. for the daughter i have and hopefully the daughters yet to come. i keep creating, trying to honor these women, wearing old photos of marian and marnie around my neck. fearing my daughter won’t love me the way i adore my mother: in that painful, aching, overwhelming, beautiful, and life-defining way.
in part, my modern locket was born out of this writer’s block. curating tiny meaningful collections to be worn close to my heart seems to work better than my words in this season of silenced song. and the process of helping other women create collections to express what their words fail to say. it eases my mind.
so, tonight, i might just have to make the first shark and boxes necklace known to man. to commemorate this moment in time with almost-seven lillian and her sweet sweet heart that carries the world.”
-erin kate duininck
After reading this, I remembered a song I wrote the year Erin Kate was born. I sang it in a few churches, but the one I remember the best is the arrangement I sang with the Woodbury United Methodist choir under the direction of Erin’s grandfather Stan Parrish, in the early 1980’s. I’ve updated the second verse to include Lily (the love for one girl) and I am reminded again of the self-understanding I have gained over the last few years…that the song in our family continues back in time and forward into the hope of the future.
Great love from Heaven (©flyertunes 1980)
If you could shake (If you could shake)
Great love from heaven (Great love from heaven)
And catch it as (And catch it as)
It did fall (As It did fall)
Still you would not have (Still you would not have)
The love for one man (The love for one man)
That Jesus had (That Jesus had)
For us all.
If you could shake (If you could shake)
Great love from heaven (Great love from heaven)
And catch it as (And catch it as)
It did fall (As It did fall)
Still you would not have (No you would not have)
The love for one girl (The love for one girl)
That Jesus has (Yes, Jesus loves us)
Loves us all.
Now that I am off to play pasteur de voyageurs, here is a song I wrote nearly 20 years ago.
In this world of schedules and shoulds
How I yearn for the water and the woods.
In this world you must deliver the goods
How I yearn for the water and the woods
How often I drift there
How I often dream
My heart is only singing:
Bring me peace.
In this world of vigilante neighborhoods
How I yearn for the water and the woods.
Confession:
Bobby, my anam chara
My wife and I had flown to England and driven a car to the far north country near Scotland, to Holy Island on the North Sea. We were visitors at the mother-house of the Northumbria Community and now we were on a weekend retreat led by Andy and Anna Raine of the Community who were teaching us about the early Celtic Christian idea of the anamchara or soul friend. A soul friend’s role is to listen with one ear tuned to his friend’s heart and the other tuned to God in prayer.
There were 20 retreatants from all over the UK and my wife and I–lone Yanks. Most of the pilgrims were in their 40’s, except for a retired postman in his late 80’s; a very thin man, sporting a blue stubbled beard, and wearing a tweed suit with his latest breakfast on his tie. He appeared to be suffering from dementia, he had difficulty walking, and seemed very tired. His name was Bobby and he had taken a bus 500 kilometers by himself from way down south in London town to attend the soul friend retreat. He slept through much of the morning’s teaching. To close the session, we each drew lots for our weekend soul friend.
I drew Bobby’s name.
Just before lunch, we went off in pairs to various rooms in the big mother house to share our spiritual lives with our soul friends. Bobby and I were assigned to my room which was upstairs and on the other side of the 10,000 square foot 14th century manse. I held Bobby up as we shuffled along and up the old stairs. It took us 5 minutes to get to my room.
We sat down in stuffed chairs and I shared my story with Bobby. I told him how excited I was to be in England, that God had me on a wild goose chase and that I was being called into pastoral ministry. Bobby closed his eyes and I wondered if he was falling asleep. I rambled on dutifully for fifteen minutes, telling him about my busy life in the states. I was thinking: What a waste of time, this old man has no clue what I’m talking about. I told him I had three children. I was a musician. I lived in Minnesota which had 10,000 lakes and was full of Scandinavians. Had he ever been to the US? Now here I was in England trying to sort out a mid-life crisis and call. I filled up the time with lots of detailed information about the current struggles in my life. Bobby’s eyes opened, then closed. His head slumped to his chin.
A bit of drool formed on his lip.
I looked nervously at the clock. Whew! Our time was up.
“Well, that’s it, Bobby.” I said. “I guess we should probably go back to the group. Would you like to say anything?” I restlessly wiggled in my chair. I didn’t expect him to say anything.
Bobby’s eyes were closed. He was very tired. A minute passed. He sighed, cleared his throat. I prepared to get up and lead us back down to the group. Then Bobby opened his eyes to a squint and smacked his lips.
His rheumy eyes looked through me.
Then he spoke, in a pronounced London eastender’s accent: “St. Augustine…St. Augustine said…St. Augustine said:
“Our hearts …are restless…(lip smack) until they find their rest in Thee, O God.”
And we sat with that together for a couple minutes in silence, and then I helped Bobby up out of his chair, and slowly braced each other down the stairs and joined our friends for lunch.
