Boris Berezovsky made billions buying assets of the former Soviet Union.
But he quarreled with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and he had to flee to England. There, he lost his fortune in a lawsuit. The judge issued a ruling that called him an "inherently unreliable witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept". (Financial Times.) He had another lawsuit pending, which his lawyers told him to settle. They told him that he was not a reliable witness. He was broke.
Then recently, he was found dead in his bathroom. "According to police, he was found with a ‘ligature’ around his neck, his death consistent with hanging." (Financial Times.)
His circumstances before his death bear comparison with a man of ancient times who had vast wealth, a family that he loved, and good health. Then his wealth was swept away, his children were obliterated, and his health was ruined. Once a great man, he sat in ashes, in poverty, in loneliness, in sickness, and he scratched with broken potsherds the sores that covered his body. His name was Job.
Berezovsky responded to his ruin with despondency:
The journalist from Russian Forbes magazine who met him hours before his death said Berezovsky seemed "distressed", his hand shaking, and had said his "life had lost meaning". [Financial Times.]
When he received the news that his wealth and his children were torn away, Job said this:
"Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." [NRSV.]
There was a psychological hardiness to Job that eluded Berezovsky.
Job had a firm foundation of strength that he could stand upon when the rock of his wealth crumbled. In a time when many, like Berezovsky, would lose even the will to live, Job even had the strength to defend himself against his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who tried to convince him that he, Job, must have invited catastrophe upon himself by sin. And in making his defense, Job showed the rock of his inner strength.
When Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar tell Job that he must deserve what he got, Job tells them of his works of love, his works of obedience to God. He clothed the naked. He took the side of the widow and the orphan. He helped the poor.
I delivered the poor who cried,
and the orphan who had no helper.
The blessing of the wretched came upon me,
and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;
my justice was like a robe and turban.
I was eyes to the blind,
and feet to the lame.
I was a father to the needy,
and I championed the cause of the stranger.
I broke the fangs of the unrighteous,
and I made them drop prey from their teeth. [Job 29:12-17 (NRSV).]
Job’s virtue was not coincidental to his strength. Jesus spoke about the difference between people who hear what he says and do it, and people who only hear. The difference is the difference between Job and Berezovsky. This is what Jesus said in Luke chapter 6:
"Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house." [NRSV.]
Trouble comes. The world is taken away from every man and every woman. Every bond with life on earth is broken. One day, every man and woman becomes Berezovsky. Or Job.
I do not live like Job. I am not blameless before God. No matter how hard I try to live right, I will in the end depend upon grace.
But I make an effort. If God gives me wisdom I will not ignore him while I have strength and resources. I will live in thankfulness for present blessings and labor to build my house upon a rock of obedience to the word of God. I hope that in my time of trauma like Job I may bless the name of the Lord.
I would love to be able to look back on my life and say that I died a little every day, so that at the end death has no sting. Maybe that’s for me an impossible goal. But it’s a goal.
There was a time when I could not pray. That time is over now. I hope it will be over forever.
But prayer is not always easy.
This is my routine: generally, I pray twice a day – morning and night. I start by reading the Bible. I read the Old Testament in the morning, the New Testament at night. What I read in the Bible often shapes my prayers.
But here’s the problem: at night, I often fall asleep. Sometimes I fall asleep as I read the Bible; sometimes I fall asleep before I start to pray or as I pray.
"Ah", my wise friends will say. "Don’t wait until you’re tired. Turn off Facebook, and pray early in the evening."
Good advice. Thank you, wise friends. But I follow that advice already. It doesn’t matter if I bring myself before God at 7:00 p.m. or 9:30 p.m.. Still, I fall asleep.
There are things I can do. I've learned that if I fast for a day or so, I can have the diligence in study and prayer that I want. At least for a time. When I was young, I used to fast on a weekly basis. But that didn’t make me closer to God. Now, I don’t plan to fast, Pharisee-like, on a regular basis. Now, it’s as-needed. It can sharpen me.
If others benefit from routine fasting, I praise their habit. But the sharpness that I get from irregular fasting is the only reason that I do it. I don’t like to fast. I am a reluctant fast-er.
But last time I fasted, it worked only for about a day. Then I was back to sleep in the evening when I wanted to spend time with God.
This is like Peter and other disciples when Jesus wanted them to pray with him in the garden of Gesthemane. They couldn’t stay awake, and neither can I. I only mention that to show that there is a Biblical precedent for sleeping when it’s time to pray; I don’t compare myself to any apostle, except in their spiritual frailty.
Often, study and prayer still happen. If I fall asleep at 7:00 p.m., I generally wake around midnight. Since I have to do something, I generally take up my study and prayer where I was when I gave up earlier in the evening, shut of the light, and rolled over on my side. Then, time well spent, I go back to sleep.
A finger on a switch makes light
To brush our teeth, to pour our water.
But this dim spark in the wider world
Quickens few eyes, and
Does not shoulder off the cold.
A forebear lit a fire
To flicker on his face
And other faces near the fire.
It was warmth and light.
He fed it fuel to make it live.
The sun comes up.
It floods the wood with life and light.
It kindles the earth.
It is the cadence of our journeys
In every generation.
So God’s knowledge is to ours.
A genius searches into the infinite;
The end of his search is to know almost a sliver.
But God’s word alone opened the cosmos,
And all things of knowing.
So God’s love is to ours.
His heart warms to what he has made,
To men and women across the earth and years.
He sent his son to the risk of the world,
To death and to hell, to save.
So God’s wisdom is to ours.
His wisdom burst the stars across creation.
It made time, it made space,
It made nature in its hardiness, harmony, and bloom.
It makes way through harsh valleys to the high place.
So God’s mercy is to ours.
The sun glows on those who sin,
On those who simmer in gall,
On those who kill,
On those who call out "Crucify!"
God’s knowledge, love, wisdom, and mercy
Are over our minds as the sun is above
Temples, towers, rockets, and jets.
Satellites of searching sweep past the mind of God,
And send back signals, but God is greater than we know.
I’m about to say something that will make some people angry.
Sometimes cops beat people for bad reasons or no reason. Then they arrest their victim. That’s because a victim convicted of a crime-against-a-peace-officer is unlikely to sue the officer for, say, crushing the victim’s eye socket, or giving the victim blood clots in his legs. The officer will have to lie to get the conviction. It happens.
If this makes some folks angry, fine. Let’s sit down with that anger and peer into it. They're angry for a reason that I think they don’t know. Their anger is like the anger of three men in the book of Job.
1. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were good men. They were righteous. They were Job’s three friends in, well, the book of Job.
Job also was a righteous man. But God let Satan kill Job’s children, steal Job’s riches, and ruin Job’s health. Job was left in pain and sorrow. Denuded of wealth, health, and children, Job sat in ashes. He scraped his sores with potsherds.
And that’s where Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar come in. They sit with Job. They sit with him in silence for seven days. It takes a very good friend to sit with someone for seven days. Few of us are lucky enough to have one friend like that; Job had three. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were standup guys.
But in the book of Job this kind comfort of quiet companionship collapsed like an overloaded pack animal.
The collapse happened after Job defended himself. He told his three friends that he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He told them that his affliction was unjust.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar tried to beat down any talk of Job’s righteousness. They took turns defending God. They took turns telling Job that Job must have deserved the demolition of his happy life.
And every time they told him that, Job defended himself. And every time he defended himself, he stirred the fury of his friends. For 28 chapters, Job defends himself, and his friends accuse him; Job accuses God, and his friends defend God.
Bildad forgets to be kind:
How long will you say these things,
And the words of your mouth be a great wind? [Job 8:2 (NRSV).]
Zophar is harsh:
Should your babble put others to silence,
And when you mock, shall no one shame you? [Job 11:3 (NRSV).]
Eliphaz accuses Job of breaking the foundation of religion:
But you are doing away with the fear of God,
and hindering meditation before God. [Job 15:4 (NRSV).]
Bildad is insulted by Job’s wrong-headed arguments:
Why are we counted as cattle?
Why are we stupid in your sight? [Job 18:3 (NRSV).]
Zophar admits that Job agitates him. (Job 20:2.)
Eliphaz even catalogues Job’s specific sins, which he somehow knows about:
Is not your wickedness great?
There is no end to your iniquities.
For you have exacted pledges from you family for no reason,
and stripped the naked of their clothing.
You have given no water for the weary to drink,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry. [Job 22:5-7 (NRSV).]
But Job was righteous. The reader knows, but Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar don’t know, that Job’s righteousness was the reason that Job became the target of a bet between God and Satan. God bet that Job would stay faithful even after bone-crushing calamity; Satan bet that he wouldn’t.
2. The anger of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
In chapter one, Satan accuses Job. In chapters three through twenty-eight, his three friend speak for Satan. Why?
If you cut the surface of anger, you find fear underneath. When an opposing lawyer yells at me, I often know then that my position is stronger than I knew before.
Job’s three friends are afraid.
They’re afraid because they’re righteous, and they count on their righteousness to protect them. They expect to prosper because they are good, and God rewards the good.
And Job is a threat to their happy hope of blessings that flow from their personal blamelessness. If Job is righteous and God flung him into the fire, then for all they know God could do the same thing to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. And to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, that idea is a demon howling in the wind at night.
The book of Job defies the idea that we can always make ourselves safe by doing right. That idea heartens us, and it’s perpetuated in our time by stories like the Three Little Pigs. Even if they didn’t know that story, Job’s friends embraced its theme. Their own goodness, their own personal righteousness, was their own house-built-of-bricks. They thought that, try as he might, the big bad wolf couldn’t huff and puff and blow it down.
But Job and his plight stand for the idea that bricks are weaker than Job’s friends thought, or that the Big Bad Wolf has breath like an angry god. So they stridently try to argue Job into accepting his own fault. But they really are trying to convince themselves.
3. Our own houses made out of bricks.
We moderns are like Job’s friends. We also expect that we can build a house of bricks that nothing can shake.
We think that if we eat right and exercise, we won’t get sick. But sometimes we get sick.
We think that if we work hard, we’ll succeed. But sometimes we work hard and fail.
We think that if we spend time and take trouble with our children, our children will grow up and be, well, righteous like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. But sometimes they don’t.
4. Beaten.
And we believe that if we don’t do anything wrong, we’ll never have trouble with the police.
But for about two decades, I’ve been a civil-rights lawyer. I’ve seen that that isn’t always so.
And one generation of injured clients after another has learned that blamelessness (or relative blamelessness) isn’t always a barrier against police abuse. Sometimes they are vindicated in court. Sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they win money from a jury. Sometimes they don’t.
5. What it takes to win.
One reason that victims don’t always win is that a civil-rights lawyer has to do more than prove his case. He has to persuade jurors to give up a safety-blanket – the belief that they can protect themselves against police abuse by being good.
Before they can return a judgement in favor of a civil-rights plaintiff, jurors have to do what Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar couldn’t do. They have to throw away the comfortable idea that they are safe in their house of bricks with bricks made from their own blamelessness.
The same is true in a criminal trial where a victim is accused of a crime-against-a-peace-officer. It’s not just a matter of showing that the officer is lying. The jurors have to set aside a natural fear. Police officers have vast power; we trust them. It’s scary to think that they might abuse their power and violate that trust.
Every time that a civil-rights jury gives judgment to a plaintiff, every time that a criminal jury frees a victim of police abuse, the jury faces the fact that their blamelessness won’t always protect them. They face the fact that what happened to the victim could happen to them. It’s an unsettling thought.
6. Be Job.
The book of Job is about of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar’s fear. But it’s also about Job’s courage.
Job’s friends came to him when he was weak. Job had been rich, well, and surrounded by his children. Now Job was poor, sick, and lonely. Job easily coul have let his friends overwhelm him. Crushed as he was, he might have gone along with the ideas that his good friends so violently argued.
But he didn’t. That took courage. That took wisdom.
The book of Job was written so that we can have Job’s wisdom and courage without suffering Job’s catastrophes.
7. A plea.
This is my plea: if you sit on a jury, know what Job knew. Know that fault does not always sit on the injured and afflicted. See the evidence with an open mind.
Many of my friends have a seething hatred of Barack Obama. And they have a seething hatred of his supporters. "Takers" they call us.
I believe that the devil delights in this hatred.
1. My own problem with hatred.
But let me track my own history of hatred before I talk much about others.
When I did not believe, I was a hater.
I judged. When I disapproved of someone, I seethed at them. I expressed my hatred to my circle of friends.
I try to remember the attractiveness of condemnation. I suppose that in scorning others, I felt, by comparison, virtuous. Making judgments on lesser mortals, I was a god in my own mind.
I look back with more years and maturity, and I know that I fooled myself. I was not virtuous because I judged others. In fact, I might have been, on balance, less virtuous than the ones I judged.
2. The problem of judging.
It was not a beautiful quality that I had. I remember realizing this when a younger friend of mine in college adopted my habit of harsh judgment. I realized that of all my qualities, I regretted that he had adopted that one.
I have not after many years completely freed myself of this habit. I still need to pray to God to help me not look down on others.
We are commanded not to judge – judge not, lest ye be judged. With an instruction so clear, it is a wonder that Christians don’t flee from condemning others.
Maybe I don’t understand. But it does seem that it’s important to judge ourselves against our understanding of what we ought to be. And it’s natural apply this knowledge of the difference between "is" and "ought" to others. The ability to tell the difference between "is" and "ought" is a quality that makes us better persons.
Maybe the difference between what we may and what we may not do is the step of lifting ourselves in our own minds above the person whom we judge. Or maybe it’s the step that judging goads us to take. That step is to forget that the person we judge is made in the image of God, and that, God having made them in his image, he also loves them. I could never love and judge a person at the same time.
I hope I don’t look down on those whom I now criticize. If I criticize, I need to recognize myself in my own criticism.
3. Freedom from fact.
It seems to me that this hatred of Barack Obama has a fact-free quality, like bread baked without flour.
The claim that Obama overreaches with executive orders fits well with the president-gone-wild meme; it is largely fact free. For example, people persist in claiming, in defiance of reported facts, that Obama is banning assault weapons by executive order.
My friend believes that Obama is a communist. I don’t know what his proof for this folderol is. I suspect that he’s looked at some minutiae in Obama’s background and, ignoring everything else, lets that tiny fact grow in his mind, like Jack’s magic beans, into a full-fledged stalk leading him up to the heights of Obama-hating.
The birther controversy is famously fact-free. It’s evident that to true believers, no evidence will ever convince them that Obama was born in Hawaii. Their flight from proof becomes ever more fantastical but no less cherished.
I’ve even seen Obama called a "dictator". Now, there are people who resemble dictators who lead nominally-democratic countries. Hugo Chavez so controlled mass media in his country and attacked so relentlessly the economic base of his enemies that elections really were a farce.
But that’s not America. We have a vigorous and squabbling media that feels free both to support and condemn Obama. Nobody who wants to hear hatred of the president ever has to wait longer than the end of a commercial break. So the defects of elections in, say, Venezuela or Russia simply do not exist here. The accusation that democratically-elected Obama is a dictator – the Obama who is subject to Congress and the Supreme Court – this accusation is just bizarre.
4. Fear.
I try to understand. I try to relate the attitudes of Obama-haters to my feeling about the last Bush in the presidency.
I did condemn him during the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. The evidence seemed to show that Bush’s Attorney General fired U.S. Attorneys who did not make criminal prosecutions political hammers. But the idea of using the criminal justice system to imprison political opponents is, to me, genuinely frightening. It was a direct threat to democracy.
So maybe, with Obama-haters, a little evidence bonds with a lot of fear – fear that somehow Obama is going to destroy the country. A perfectly rational friend of mine, a teacher, really does believe that Obama wants to turn America into a third-world country.
And maybe this fear has an avalanche quality. It picks up strength as it gathers momentum. New "facts", new accusations, get added to the deadly wall of roiling dread. The speed of this avalanche of dire fear does not allow each new fact to be carefully vetted, and every time a new fact is added to the avalanche, the avalanche picks up speed. This makes it increasingly doubtful that the next cluster of facts will be examined with any care. It becomes something like unstoppable.
5. Panic.
And if there was a time when rationality could be applied to the evidence, the growing power of the newly re-elected president makes his detractors panic and leads them to pull fire alarms rather that weigh their worry. They might not see smoke coming from under classroom doors, but they believe that it’s there, and the dread of the country disappearing in a sudden fireball puts them in full freak-out mode.
But, truthfully, "[W]e don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" has logical appeal. It got us into Iraq. If the fear is great, the evidence is judged more leniently.
6. Stain.
And if they were right, then of course our circumstances would be grave.
But if they’re wrong, then this seething hatred is a stain on their souls.
Among Christians, their hatred leads them to hate a Christian brother. 1 John 2:9: "Whoever says, ‘I am in the light,’ while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness." (NRSV.)
Even were Obama not a Christian, his haters who are Christian would have no excuse for the kinds of things said about him. James 3:8-10: "[B]ut no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so." (NRSV.)
7. Challenge to Obama-haters.
So a lot rides on Obama’s nature and our judgment on it.
Either the country is headed into hell, or hatred of the president is a stain on the souls of those who condemn him.
This calls for sober judgment. I invite my friends who are eager to hate our president to enter into conversation. I invite you to explore more than the sources of opinion that confirm what you already believe.
8. Challenge to liberals.
But here’s a challenge to my liberal friends: if we want our conservative friends to examine their beliefs, we must have the courage to examine ours. If we want conversation, it must be a real back-and-forth. We have to go into the woods with them to find together the way out.
Having said that, I also know that I won't necessarily do it. I have a friend who, I now believe, argues for the sake of provoking and angering. It's not my calling to put up with that.
9. Out of our hands.
And, just like I depend on God for my own sanctification, such as it is, in the end God will do his business with our freinds who cling to strange ideas about our president. Who knows what God plans; but in the end he is capable of doing more than we with our mortal arguments and internet fact-checks can.
When I lived in China, I saw a man at night sitting cross-legged in the middle of a city street, in front of a pile of burning play-money. He head was bowed, his eyes were downcast. It was explained to me that Chinese people sometimes do this when they miss loved-ones who have died. They burn play-money in the hope that it will bring to the dead a measure of luxury in the world to which they have passed.
Maybe God blesses those actions like prayers, done with love and longing.
Because the Bible shows that ministry to the dead is possible. In 1 Corinthians 15:29, Paul talks about receiving baptism on behalf of the dead. In 1 Peter 3:18-20, Peter talks about Jesus preaching to the dead, to those who "in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah." (NRSV.)
1. An overlooked ministry?
I wonder if ministry to the dead is an overlooked ministry. There might be a couple of reasons for this.
It might be because of a sense of helplessness after death: the dead are gone, beyond help. And, in fact, the story of poor Lazarus and the rich man adds to that sense of helplessness. The rich man enjoyed luxury while he lived. But after his death, in Hades, he pleads with Abraham to let blessed Lazarus to dip his fingers in water and put a few drops on the rich man’s tongue to help his suffering. Abraham says that it cannot be done, because they are separated by a chasm that cannot be crossed. (Luke 16:19-30.) Like many parts of the Bible, I don’t know how to reconcile the story of Lazarus and the rich man with 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter.
But more and more, I don’t try. 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter give me hope that when I pray for my parents twice a day, those prayers have an effect. And I hope that I have fruitful prayers for my grandparents, and for my Danish aunt, and for my Wisconsin aunt’s departed husband, and for others who have passed from life.
To some, ministry to the dead makes no sense because of the modern preaching about almost universal salvation, at least among Christians. The idea is that when someone dies, of course they are welcomed into heaven. It’s not that the dead are beyond help; it’s that they don’t need help.
2. A ministry of grace.
But I don’t subscribe to this recent trend in thinking about God. In my wiser moments, I have no sense of any guarantee of my spot in the New Jerusalem. I have a hope, not a irrevocable entry-visa into heaven. Likewise, I don’t take salvation for granted for those who have died.
I think that judgment will come; I hope in God’s grace for myself, which I will need if I am to live forever in the presence of God. Also, I knew my parents; I know something of their faults and of their need for grace. My parents and I are not unlike others.
I also have a dim understanding of the vastness of God’s grace. It may be that when I pray, I bring this grace to bear upon those whom I pray for. So when I pray for the dead, I participate in God’s mercy. It might be that my prayers for the dead are prayers to carry out God’s will. That’s a good thing.
If prayer itself, which we are directed to persist in, has any effect, I cannot see why this kind of prayer would not be pleasing to God. I cannot see why God would not want me to dedicate some daily time to help to bring about the salvation of those who no longer have the power to add to the story of their lives: my family, my friends, strangers, and enemies.
3. The rightness of this ministry.
With respect to my parents and my grandparents and my ancestors generally, it seems right for me to pray for them. I live and have a hope of eternal joy because of them. They gave me life, they and God. If my grandparents took care of my parents when my parents were helpless and could not care for themselves, and if my parents took care of me when I was helpless and could not care for myself, it’s right for me to minister to them now that they are beyond, it seems, helping themselves. It’s a way that I can return love for love, care for care, duty for duty.
Certainly, we serve God in our occupations and in our actions toward family and friends. And many have other ministries: ministries to the homeless; ministries of evangelism; infinite ministries to serve an infinite God.
But certainly ministry to the dead counts with God. And it gives us a sense of being able to help those who otherwise are beyond our love, those with whom we might in some way have had broken relationships, those whom we might have wounded in their time of life.
4. Prayers for the dead at Riverside National Cemetery.
I’ve felt moved to pray for the dead at the Riverside National Cemetery. I remember them, or I try to, like my parents, twice a day. It is not a long prayer.
Sometimes I’ve gone to the cemetery to pray.
It’s a new ministry. I find that my prayers evolve, so I don’t know the shape that my prayers will take in the future. Now, I pray for all of the dead at Riverside National Cemetery collectively. At one time I asked God to focus my prayers on those who had no-one else to pray for them; but I don’t do that any more.
I have wondered whether I should each week find a grave and pray particularly for that person. Or whether I should find one grave, and make it my ministry to pray for him or her long term. Like I say, my prayer ministry for the dead is evolving.
5. Feelings in common, common fates.
I wish comfort and peace on the Chinese who burn play-money for their departed loved-ones. We share in our common humanity a longing for the welfare of those we miss.
I hope in my salvation and in the salvation of those that I pray for. In this ministry, our salvations have become, or continue to be, bound together.
1. Daughter of a high Danish official.
Mom was the daughter of the Auditor General of Denmark. While he worked to keep Denmark from imploding, she worked for the Danish underground, resisting the German occupation of her homeland. She was a courier, transporting secret messages.
2. Almost captured.
As a courier, she almost ended her life in a Nazi concentration camp. One rule of the occupation was that any Dane had to give up his or her seat on a train to any German soldier. One day, on a train, a German soldier demanded her seat. With more pluck than good sense, she refused. Outnumbered, he went for other soldiers to help him to arrest her.
She and her underground partner ran through the train in the opposite direction. They cried out as they ran that the Germans were after them. The crowd in the train opened up to let them through quickly, then closed behind them, becoming a human blockade to the Germans giving chase. She got off the train without getting arrested. And here I am to tell the tale.
3. The hardness of times.
Times were hard under occupation. Mom described getting an apple and eating it all, even the seeds.
4. A royal ball.
The war ended. Dad, the Army Air Corps hero, was part of a flying tour of Europe, an American goodwill team celebrating the Allied victory. Mom met Dad at a ball hosted by the King of Denmark.
It was a long-distance relationship. Dad would send her letters and gifts. Mom would write back. One day, a friend of hers mentioned how crazy boys were about her. Just at that time, an emissary that Dad had sent with a gift to her recognized her and approached. "What is your name?" he asked. She ignored him, determined to show her friend how little she cared that, after all, the boys were crazy about her. The man followed her as she walked away from him, still ignoring him. Then he touched her to get her attention. She elbowed him hard in the ribs. Finally, he pleaded, "Please, are you Dorit Valbjorn?" That got her attention. The episode probably got Dad’s attention, too.
They were married in Wisconsin. Dad’s father, a Lutheran minister, performed the ceremony.
5. Not designed for domestic science.
Mom, as I said, was the daughter of the Auditor General of Denmark. Her mother did not make her learned in cooking or housekeeping. Rather than cook, Mom and Dad ate at the base Officer’s Club. And that was how they exhausted Dad’s savings from World War II.
Then she learned to cook. She learned pretty well.
6. The doctor learns a lesson.
When it was time for Peter and me to be born, the hospital staff asked her if she would accept an African American doctor to deliver her baby. (This was before ultrasounds; until Peter came out and they heard a second baby’s heartbeat, they had no idea that she was pregnant with twins).. Apparently, the race of the doctor was an issue in those times. But not for Mom. She had no problem with an African American doctor delivering her baby.
Peter came out, a boy. The doctor, sensing that Mom might have wanted at least one daughter, told her "The next one will be a girl." When I came out, I urinated on his hand. Mom said, "That’s what you get for calling him a girl!"
7. Denmark.
When Erik was about three and Peter and I were around one-or-two, Dad was transferred to Greenland, and his family could not be with him. Mom spent the year alone with us.
Which after-the-fact seemed silly to her. In 1963, when Dad was transferred to Korea and we could not follow him, she packed us off to Denmark. We spent a year there. We children learned the Danish language, met our Danish relatives, went to a Danish school, ate Danish food, and found Danish friends.
8. Career.
In Oklahoma, where we landed around 1965-1966, Mom enjoyed life as an officer’s wife. She was a very good golfer.
But by the time the family arrived in San Bernardino, she decided that she needed to complete her education and get a job.
She wanted to be a lawyer, but she thought that being a teacher would be more practical. She worked hard. She studied into the early morning hours and got, I think, almost all As at UCR. Sometimes she studied so hard that she was not as available to me as I might have wanted as an young teenager. Not that it harmed me at all. She graduated with high grades and won entry into the honorable fraternity Phi Beta Kappa.
Mom got a job working for Dale Chilson at Grand Terrace Junior High, teaching English. She was an enthusiastic teacher, a hard worker. She would cut out – whatever – construction-paper leaves or whatnot, and she would post them on her classroom wall, each bearing a student’s name.
Later, she followed Dale Chilson to Colton Junior High.
She was overjoyed to teach, and she was overjoyed with her students. And she was overjoyed with her colleagues. She told cheerful stories to her family about work.
She learned to diagnose learning disabilities, especially dyslexia. Once dyslexia was diagnosed, it was often possible to advance a student many grade levels in a short time. This made many of these dyslexic students very glad. Suddenly they were doing what they thought they never could do, and they were doing it well. Mom was very pleased when she could improve a student’s life like that.
He last year of teaching was the hardest. Probably her brain cancer was interfering with her ability to teach, even before the symptoms became so obvious that she sought medical attention.
9. Communion.
When she was in the hospital, a minister gave her communion. The tiny amount of wine elated her. She thought that it was because of the alcohol; I think that it was something else. She asked for more alcohol, but apart from the sacrament, it only gave her pain in her wounded, post-surgery brain.
10. Death at home.
It became clear that the surgery would not save her. We brought her home to die in familiar surroundings. She could not speak, but her eyes showed her excitement to be home again.
