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In Norwegian we say, "God jul!"

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I hope your Christmas was good. Mine was unusual, at least for me. I spent it with the young Norwegian relative I wrote of before, along with his mother, who came to America to be with him for the holiday. I took them to dinner on Friday evening. On Saturday afternoon we joined the family of one of my dad’s cousins, not too far from here, at one of their children’s homes. They have a very large family, so it was a rather different celebration than my less-fecund branch of the Walkers enjoys. But it was very nice, and everyone said they were glad we came. My lefse and pumpkin pie were received with appreciation.

On Sunday we went down to Kenyon, the old family seat, and we showed them the cemetery (where most of the Walkers in Kenyon are now to be found), our church (both the present one and the old stone one in the country), and the farm where my great-grandfather settled in 1915, after moving from Iowa. We also took them to the local nursing home, where they met Aunt Ordella, that great-grandfather’s sole surviving child. She’s 101.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but meeting Aunt Ordella seemed to be the high point of the visit for the Norwegians. If I understand their comments correctly, they don’t see Ordella as only our oldest relation, but their own oldest relation too. They came to Minnesota in part to touch the lives of their grandparents and great-grandparents.

My branch of the Walkers will meet this weekend. Last weekend was impossible due to scheduling, and this way we can save money by buying presents in after-Christmas sales. At least that’s my strategy.

Poetry

A Thousand Christmas Trees

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Merry Christmas. Robert Frost’s pleasant holiday poem “Christmas Trees” is a good addition to your reader’s holiday.

The city had withdrawn into itself

And left at last the country to the country;

When between whirls of snow not come to lie

And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove

A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,

Yet did in country fashion in that there

He sat and waited till he drew us out

A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.

He proved to be the city come again

To look for something it had left behind

And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;

My woods—the young fir balsams like a place

Where houses all are churches and have spires.

Read the rest here

Balsam Harvest 09 16

Fiction, Publishing

Snippet Four, Troll Valley

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“Meadow Elves,” by Nils Blommer (1850)

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Miss Margit’s face, faceted in my tears. That face, longish and stern, with the gold blaze in the black hair above her right eye, could be gentle when she chose, and her gray eyes would soften with a sweetness that had nothing of sentimentality in it.

“What’s the matter, Kjære?”

I told her, between sobs.

She sat, elegantly careless of her black dress, in the straw beside me. She took my left elbow and fingers in her hands. I shuddered as I always did when someone examined my deformity. There is no nakedness like it.

My arm was permanently bent. More than anything else it resembled a plucked chicken’s wing. The useless fingers curled back toward the elbow, and the flesh hung loose and flaccid on the forearm. I never willingly rolled up my sleeves where anyone could see, which hid the worst of it, but I was an obvious cripple. I had learned early to expect the quick-glance-and-look-away that people use for politeness, or pity.

“You think you are to blame that your papa is unhappy?” Miss Margit asked, stroking the arm, making me shudder.

“If it weren’t for me—ʺ

“If it weren’t for you your family and Mr. Lafferty would find another way to persuade him. Your papa hasn’t the strength to withstand them. If he must be overborne, it’s just as well he do it for love. It’s a kindness you do him, Christian.”

“It doesn’t feel like a kindness.” Continue reading Snippet Four, Troll Valley →

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Drawing Close to the Others

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“Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers.” Trevin Wax quotes a Christmas meditation from the life of a man willing to live close to lepers.

Also via Mr. Wax, Alan Jacobs’ essay, “Christianity and the Future of the Book.” If Christians are people of the book, how would we change if “the book” as we know it disappears? “This interweaving of technology and theology is extremely complex, and the arrows of causation run in both directions.* Christians adopted the codex before other groups — Jewish and pagan alike — for serious theological reasons…”

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The best of Norwegian Christmas tradition

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The devastatingly handsome figure you see above is a piece of lefse. I’m also in the picture, in the maroon sweatshirt. Last night I joined my friend in St. Paul, making lefse at his house for the second year in a row. I know how excited you already are about this, but this year it’s better because we have pictures!

This is what lefse looks like when it’s finished. My friend says it’s the best batch of lefse he’s ever made in his life (and he’s made a lot). On the basis of my own on-site research, I can’t dispute that.

Below, after the fold, a Christmas song from Sissel Kyrkjebø: Continue reading The best of Norwegian Christmas tradition →

Religion

Flight out of Egypt, recommended

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Sorry to post about bad news so close to Christmas. Tomorrow I promise a Sissel video.

Via my Facebook friend Josh Griffing, this report from a sympathetic Jew at Big Peace, on the plight of Christians in Egypt:

Gordon College is a Christian school between Salem and Rockport. A few weeks ago I spoke there at a commemoration of Kristallnacht, Germany’s night of broken glass, the first mass assault on Europe’s Jews and the harbinger of the Shoah. I told the Christian audience how good it was to feel Christian support for Jews in these times, and that even some of the most stubborn of my people were now appreciating Evangelical support for Israel. I also said that we felt this blessed support came from a spirit of Christian altruism. But given the news from the Middle East, concern for others is surely not the only reason Christians need to support Israel.

I asked how many in the audience of 250 knew of Anne Frank. Almost every hand shot up. Then I asked how many had heard of Ayman Labib. I got a mass blank stare. Ayman was a 17-year-old Egyptian Christian who just weeks ago was beaten to death by his Muslim classmates as teachers watched because he refused their demand to remove his cross necklace.

I asked how many knew about the Maspero massacre, which had left at least 24 Copts dead and 270 injured. And whether they knew that since January, there had been more than 70 attacks on Christian churches or institutions in Egypt.

While tonight you commemorate a Jewish pogrom, I told them, Christianity has just suffered its own “Kristallnacht” … and I have yet to see much of a Christian response.

If I were a utilitarian, I’d recommend that the Christians of the Middle East start demanding their own “homeland.” Unfortunately, the approved method of promoting such a policy, in our time, is suicide bombing, which is forbidden to Christians.

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, it’s true. But it would be pretty cold-blooded to look on complacently while our brethren are slaughtered, insulated by a conviction that “it can’t happen here.”

It’s also happening in Africa. Europe is next. Eventually, America will be in the cross-hairs, if nothing is done.

Fiction, Reviews

Deadly Stillwater, by Roger Stelljes

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It’s generally a pleasure for me to read novels set on my home turf. Not only do I enjoy being able to visualize known locations as I follow the story, but for some reason I have a childish conviction that places are somehow validated, made more interesting, because they’ve been laminated between the covers of a book.

There was lots of that for me in Deadly Stillwater, by Roger Stelljes. The action ranges around eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, but most of it happens in the Twin Cities, and the climax is set near Stillwater, just to the east.

The hero is Mac McRyan, a St. Paul police detective. As one of the police chief’s “boys,” a decorated group of smart and effective cops, he’s called in from a vacation day (this all takes place over the Fourth of July holiday) when Shannon Hisle, daughter of one of the city’s most prominent—and wealthy—attorneys, is kidnapped. There’s added urgency because Shannon is a Type 1 diabetic. The police are already going all out when the criminals up the ante—they kidnap the police chief’s daughter as well. These are smart and organized villains who plan with military precision. It will take hard work, some luck, and a lot of ruthlessness to save the girls and bring a very motivated gang to justice. Continue reading Deadly Stillwater, by Roger Stelljes →

Authors

On the Death of Christopher Hitchens

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I always enjoyed what heard from Christopher Hitchens. As difficult to hear as some of his opinions were, he seemed to be an interesting, pleasant man at a distance, very smart and a great stone for sharpening one’s mental sword. Cal Thomas reflects on his death in this column, pointing to the truth that has endured centuries of caustic argument.

Hitchens’ brother, Peter, has written about him too, calling him courageous. “I offer it because the word ‘courage’ is often misused today. People sometimes tell me that I have been ‘courageous’ to say something moderately controversial in a public place. Not a bit of it. This is not courage. Courage is deliberately taking a known risk, sometimes physical, sometimes to your livelihood, because you think it is too important not to.”