I’ve loved the song above for a long time. And to my mind, it harmonizes with my theme tonight.
This will be my birthday post (my age is for me to know and you not to care about). In honor of this auspicious occasion, I’m going to break my custom of putting commemorative posts up on the day of the event (so it’s too late) and post it the day before (so you’ll have time to get me a present).
Also because I have something to say that may be significant, and I want to share it. It’s been about three weeks now, and that fact suggests to me that the effects I’m seeing may be permanent.
I believe I’m going sane.
Nobody could be more surprised than I am. Let me tell you about it.
First of all, I think I won’t be surprising anyone when I say that I’ve always been a little… weird. Socially. Depressive. Awkwardly shy. Unable to make eye contact. Easily offended. Not one to pick fights, but one to distance myself, taking refuge in solitude. My great plague has been intrusive thoughts – shameful memories that came into my mind and would not be ignored. I knew of no way to handle them except to face them, experience the full shame, and then try to find something to distract me from them.
This was tremendously tiring for me. In social situations, half my energy got wasted in dealing with those intrusive thoughts. This was how I lived.
Then something happened to me, about three weeks ago.
In today’s really important news, my article on the Lutheran Free Church for the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty Magazine is now available free online. You can marvel at its awesomeosity at this link.
In even better news, I HAVE FINISHED MY MARATHON SLOG THROUGH THE VIKINGS: VALHALLA SERIES.
It was particularly frustrating watching a series that covered events I’ve researched and dramatized in my own novels, observing how the producers took historical events and characters, shuffled them like cards, and dealt them out in random order. Particularly annoying was their treatment of King Magnus the Good of Norway, who is treated here as a homicidal psychopath. I mean, they called him “the Good” for a reason.
But what’s important is that I can write my article now, with an eventual eye to payment. All through my life, I’ve harkened back to a poem I read somewhere, which went like this (more or less):
There’s a little check at the end of this verse. I see it just three lines away. And it shall be mine For the good of my purse If luck is my fellow today.
(I’d credit the author, but a web search doesn’t reveal his name, and I can’t find it in the book where I thought I saw it.)
“How long, O Lord?” said the prophet (Isaiah 6:11 is a prominent example of the theme, but several prophets asked the same question with – it seems to me – some justification). I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet (Amos 7:14), but the same question has occurred to me now and then too. Right now I’m wondering how long, O Lord, this “Vikings” series will plague me.
I’m happy to report that I have at last finished all 6 seasons of the History Channel “Vikings” travesty. The longer the thing went on, the more the writers seemed unconstrained by the petty straitjacket of actual facts. Occasionally a historical character shows up, less often a historical event. But they are portrayed in ways the writers must have thought clever (like hand-operated paddlewheel landing craft for an invasion). I have endured all these outrages with the patient endurance of a Christian. And now I find that lo, my travails are not ended. For I’m going to have to go on to watch the sequel, Netflix’s “Vikings: Valhalla” series.
The thing is, the topic I’ve been commissioned to write about is the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity. And it’s not that the original series didn’t deal with the issue – it’s just that they dealt with it in ways that don’t have much to do with my thesis. The Vikings in this series are treated as an ethnic group (which is not what “Viking” originally meant), and they’re all proudly and stubbornly heathen. Christianity has made almost no inroad among them (in this production) by the time of King Alfred the Great’s victory over their armies at Edington. This was not the case in real life. The conflict of faiths is treated here as almost a religious war, which (in my moderately educated opinion) it was not. The Vikings on the series are always talking about their gods as “the true gods.” They didn’t really think that way historically. They were actually more like Hindus, recognizing any god they happened to encounter. They’d be happy to acknowledge the Christian god too, except for His offensive insistence on monotheism.
What I want to write about is the progress of Christianity in Scandinavia itself. I’ve avoided reading much about this new Netflix sequel series, but I understand it involves Jarl Haakon (gender-switched, because of course he/she is), and Harald Hardrada. So they’ve got to touch on my topic.
Therefore, I must gird up my loins for the ordeal.
And I believe I can do this. A couple weeks ago it would have been harder. I’ve always had an irrational and extreme response to watching programs I considered stupid or offensive. Such experiences raised very painful feelings in me.
But in just the last couple weeks, I seem to have made a breakthrough. I’ve found what appears to be a “brain hack” that helps me regulate my emotions better than in the past. I’m not going to go into detail about it now – I want to see whether the effect lasts, and even if it does it may not be applicable to anyone else.
But, like Alfred the Great, I believe I now am equipped to go forth and face the “Vikings.”
The curse of reading long books is that I’m forced to bore you in these posts with the details of my life, which is more than most a mundane one. I go days without talking to anyone, for instance, and it doesn’t bother me at all. Makes for dull reading, though. I am self-aware enough to grasp that.
And yes, I’m still slogging through the Vikings series on Netflix. I’ve found that it helps to hate-watch it. I expect “hate-watch” is even a term people use out in that wide world I’ve heard about – watching a show or series, concentrating on the pleasure of hating everyone involved. Every time a character dies on the series – sympathetic or unsympathetic – I cheer inwardly – “There’s one I won’t have to watch anymore!” One bad haircut and impractical costume that will not offend my eyes henceforth. A few pages of clunky dialogue I’ll be spared.
I’m closing in on the end of the fourth season. Then Season Five has twenty more episodes, apparently. I pray to Heaven I’ll learn enough that’s relevant to my assignment so that I won’t have to move on to Vikings Valhalla, where (according to what I’ve read), they turned Jarl Haakon of Hladir, whom you may remember from The Year of the Warrior and Death’s Doors, into a Strong Black Woman.
When I ponder these matters, I am convicted that our societal sins must have been very great, to merit our hoisting by such a petard as this.
I had a nice surprise today. I got my first invitation in many years to lecture again on a cruise. Not a bad deal either – Iceland and Greenland (where I’d love to go), and they’d spring for my air fare and cut my cruise fee in half. Still, I can’t justify it fiscally, at this point in my pilgrimage. And the booking company shows no signs of further compromise.
Nevertheless, it was nice to be asked. I’d thought they’d forgotten about me completely.
Today is not only the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is also the birthday of one of our greatest presidents – the only president born on the Fourth – John Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933).
I recently heard a speech by a noted historian – I won’t say who – who took time out of a lecture on an entirely different topic to sneer at Calvin Coolidge. This raised my hackles. Coolidge is one of my favorite presidents. He did exactly what the Constitution requires of a president – as little as possible. He was a model statesman, a modern Cincinnatus (look him up).
He was also famous for being sparing with words, which makes him a model for writers too.
Above, a short and pithy speech from Silent Cal – about freedom and taxation.
And here’s the text of an Independence Day address by Coolidge. I find no fault with it. (Hat tip: Instapundit)
Photo credit HLS 44. Free to use under Unsplash License.
I know you’re aching to know how all my household crises are going. I’m happy to report that I got my new roof yesterday. (They taught me in radio broadcast to pronounce the double-o in roof like “brew,” not “look,” but I always feel a little pretentious doing it. Though I do do it.) It was a bit of a surprise, actually. I had understood the representative who’d last called me to say that they were going to delay it a couple days, but there they were at 7:00 a.m., smack in the middle of my writing time. I’d wanted to warn my neighbors (with whom I share a driveway) about their arrival, but there was no time for that now. And they parked their dumpster trailer for the scraps right in that driveway.
The workers, however, labored rapidly and efficiently, and they cleaned up so well afterward that the yard looks better than before. And my new shingles are what they call “architectural,” which seems to mean they’re thicker. Quite nice looking, really.
My air conditioner, on the other hand, remains a dead soldier. I get a call from the HVAC company every few days, telling me they’re still waiting for the replacement compressor being sent by the home warranty company. That compressor is apparently a rare and precious item, and must be transported over the smoothest roads at a speed of no more than 30 mph.
I did get another thing accomplished, though, on Monday. I went to the Minnesota equivalent of the DMV, sat for an hour or so, and got my driver’s license renewed. Which brings us to the curious incident of the license photo.
By some strange providence, I do not share the common human complaint of taking bad document photos. It’s an irony that a man as unattractive as I am almost always takes a good picture. My old license photo was rather charming (if I do say so myself). I looked a little like Gabby Hayes in mid-chuckle.
But for some odd reason I found myself thinking about how to make the new photo better. I decided I wanted to look forceful. Stare directly into the lens. Be forthright. An alpha male. A Chad.
When I saw the final photo, though, I was a little shocked. The photo at the top of this post suggests its expression (just add 40 years, 50 pounds, and a gray beard).
I had no intention of looking angry. Just determined. But angry is what I got.
And it occurs to me to ask, “Does this contribute to my lifelong problem with making eye contact?”
I’ve long known that direct eye contact makes me uncomfortable. This is common in people on the autistic scale, even low on the scale (as I appear to be).
But if this is how I look when I do make eye contact, maybe I scare other people too. Maybe when I run away, they’re running as well.
First I’ll tell you what’ s going on in my thrill-packed life. Then I’ll tell you about one of my cosmic revelations. Those are always good for a chuckle.
There’s a shrink-wrapped pile of roofing material sitting in the driveway behind my house. I had hail damage last year and my insurance company authorized a full replacement. But one complication after another has delayed the actual job. First it was supposed to happen today. Then tomorrow. Now it’s all in flux – it may or may not happen tomorrow, like Schroedinger’s Shingles. What makes it annoying is that the contractors are going to be parking a dumpster in front of my garage when finally they get to work, which means I have to park on the street tonight on the possibility that work will start tomorrow.
Even more annoying, my air conditioning is out, and has been for about three weeks now. I have a sort of insurance for that, too – a home warranty. The HVAC tech who autopsied my unit said the compressor had burned out, and it couldn’t be replaced. A new AC unit would have to come in. And that shouldn’t take long.
The warranty company, however, has ideas of its own. They opted to replace the compressor. They have a source for replacements which (apparently) they get at a discount. But that source is not a fast source. So we’re still waiting for the part to be delivered.
Thankfully, we’ve had relatively cool weather recently.
Which is supposed to end tomorrow.
Ah, well. I grew up without air conditioning. And hey, it keeps my electric bills down.
A pack of blessings lie on my head, as the Friar said to Romeo (not long before Romeo killed himself).
And what is my revelation?
It wasn’t a full-fledged revelation, of course. Just one of those moments when two ideas inhabiting separate pigeonholes in my brain suddenly link, and I have an ah ha! moment.
It started out with Jordan Peterson. I’ve grown quite taken with Jordan Peterson videos. He’s not right about everything, but he can see correctly what the problems are. He exhorts me to do things I don’t want to do, which is generally a mark of truth.
Anyway, Peterson was talking about Cain in Genesis 4. Peterson’s interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel is that it represents the Easy Way and the Hard Way in life. Cain sacrificed vegetables, which were (as Peterson sees it) an easy sacrifice. Abel sacrificed animals, which means blood and pain. God was pleased with Abel because he took the Hard Way. The right thing in life almost always means blood and pain.
The spark, the circuit that closed, for me was a comparison to the parable of the talents, of which I think I’ve written here before. There are two versions of the parable. In Matthew 25, the master gives talents (sums of money) to three servants – five to one, two to another, and one to the last. In Luke 19, he calls ten servants and gives them ten talents each. In each case, the servants are told to do business with (invest) the money for him while he’s away. In each case, only one servant fails – the one who, instead of investing the money, hides it safely. He returns the full amount to his master, and his master is furious. He didn’t want security. He expected a profit.
The point in both stories – looking at it this way – is that God expects his servants to stretch their horizons. Do bigger things. Move outside their comfort zones. Break new ground, at least personally.
This isn’t about salvation, of course. Salvation is by grace. This is about our earthly lives – what God expects us to do with the talents He bestowed. We’re not here just to wait passively for Heaven. We’ve been given gifts – for the sake of our families, for our neighbors, and (especially) for the church.
And always God expects the bloody sacrifice, the dying to the self. Taking up the cross.
It all makes me feel tremendously guilty. But even I can recognize the truth of it.
I’m late posting tonight, because I got in late, and anyway it felt like a Saturday to me. I was doing a Saturday thing, in my subjective world.
I think I’ve mentioned that I’m now editing the magazine of the Valdres Samband, one of many US organizations composed of descendants of immigrants from various regions of Norway (I’m not a Valdres descendant myself, which will tell you how desperate they were for an editor). Today, in that capacity, I attended their annual Stevne, which means their annual get-together, in Minneapolis. I also delivered my world-renowned lecture on Viking Legacy, and sold some books.
The video above does not represent what we were actually doing today. There was no dancing, though I’m sure it would have been welcome. But we did have a fiddler entertaining us during dinner on a Hardanger Fiddle, the instrument being played in the video, which (appropriately) was actually posted by the Valdres Samband several years back.
If the tones of the Hardanger Fiddle sound vaguely familiar, that may be because (at least according to what I was told) one was used for the theme music of the Riders of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings movies.
The Hardanger Fiddle is a uniquely Norwegian instrument. Below the usual four strings, it is strung with four or five more. These lower strings are not played directly, but resonate harmonically with the main notes, producing a weird, haunting droning sound sometimes compared to the bagpipes.
My Haugean pietist ancestors, by the way, would have been shocked by this, and might have smashed the fiddle if they could get their hands on it. They believed that dancing was bad in itself, but that Hardanger Fiddle music was positively demonic. Master fiddlers were regarded as a kind of wizard.
My great-grandfather Lars Swelland and his wife Martha, in happier times.
I didn’t post anything in remembrance of the 80th anniversary of D-Day yesterday, for which I apologize. It’s not that I wasn’t thinking of the observance. I flew the flag at my house. It’s just that I didn’t know what to say about it – and still don’t. The scope of the sacrifice overwhelms me. It’s not enough to say that we need to be worthy of it all – the fact is, we’re not worthy, and as a civilization we’ve stopped trying to be. If those boys (most were just boys), European and American, could have seen what their children and grandchildren would do with the world they saved for us, they’d have turned back in disgust.
Instead, purely for the sake of my sanity, I’ll turn to smaller-scale matters. I’ve often written here of the occupation of Norway. It ended in 1945 – there’s a year yet to go before they celebrate the 80th anniversary of their liberation. Which they’ll do on May 8, 2025.
My own family has little to report (that I know of) in the whole story of the war. My dad served in the Japan occupation forces, and saw no action. One uncle on my mother’s side was a Marine in the Pacific — I know nothing about his service. One of Dad’s cousins was killed in the war (more about that later), but I never heard much about him. I believe one of my cousins on Karmøy Island was a War Sailor, a merchantman under military command. If you saw the miniseries War Sailor (which I helped translate), you know about that perilous service.
And then there was my great-grandfather Lars Swelland, of whom I’ve written here before – but that was in the days of the old blog host, and the post seems to have disappeared when we migrated. I’ll just recap his story briefly; perhaps I’ll flesh it out at another time.
In brief, Great-grandfather Lars lost his heart for America after his wife died and the Great Depression hit. Having missed one mortgage payment on his farm, and getting a single dunning letter from the company holding the note, he packed up, boarded a train, and traveled to New York, where he got on a ship back to Norway, ignoring all telegraphic pleas from his family and the mortgage company, who tried to tell him it wasn’t as bad as he thought. (The family lost the farm.) In Norway he did not return to his home farm, but settled in another town – Tysness, near Bergen, to live the rest of his life in poverty. He died during the war, out of communication with his children. I have a letter his landlady sent to my grandmother once the war was over, and I’ve translated it thus:
Tvedt, 6 February, 1946
Dear Sofie!
[I] can easily understand that you will wonder who is sending you this letter. It was here at my home that your father Lars Svelland lived. I have thought so often about sending you a letter, but somehow it never happened. As you have probably heard from your sister Millie, your father is dead. He died 14 August, at 1:00 midday, 1942. He asked me to greet you all, but we were caught up in all the worst of wartime, and were unable to send letters.
Your father died of a stroke, bleeding on the brain. He lay [in bed] 3 weeks, and was very sick, but he was so thankful; never a complaining word. It was his right side that was completely paralyzed, and he had so much trouble speaking. But after he had lain there 2 weeks, it happened that he got his voice again, and I was so happy, believing he had come back again, but God had other ideas.
And I thank God that he got his voice again. Then he was able to thank Jesus, and then he prayed the Our Father, the Lord’s prayer, and that is the holiest prayer we can pray. He had several times when he felt poorly, when he was plagued by the spirit of doubt, but at the end he was quite all right.
But in 1940 he [had] had a hemorrhage; it came on so suddenly. He spit up a great mass of blood. He recovered somewhat after that turn, so that he was up [and about], but never got his strength [back]. But remarkably, his weakness got better after he’d had the hemorrhage, so that he could eat more ordinary food.
The day he had his fatal attack he had been out fishing a little, and he ate so well at supper with fresh fish.
But Sofie, you would never believe how glad I am that God ordained it so that he was able to come home again and die at home, so that I could care for him. It would have been so terrible to think of if he had fallen into the sea. Now God was so kind that he came home again, and [I] was able to hear him thank Jesus, so that if you are not able to see your father again in this life, you will meet him at home with Jesus.
And he lived as a Christian and died in faith in the completed work that Jesus has done for all who receive Him in faith.
Your father sang so often the song, “I Know a Rest So Fair and Long in David’s city afar; there I will rest from the press of time, and shine myself like a star.” Yes, now he has [gone?; hard to translate] out, and he is shining like a star.
Sofie, I have found a letter which you sent your father, dated 1934, and that letter was so beautifully written that I wept happy tears, and among other things, you ask whether he has forgotten you [all]. But he thought much about all of you, so you were not forgotten by him, and especially when the war broke out with America, you were even more in his thoughts. As long as there was a radio in the parish, he walked a long way to hear how it was going. But then the Germans came and everyone had to turn their radios in. Yes, that was a hard time, when the war was going on, a hard time for Norway, but like a miracle it is over. But now it has come about that we have gotten more food, so the people are so thankful. The Germans took everything from us, so that if the war had been any longer, there would have been genuine famine, and not a little of it. You can judge whether we were in want. People around the countryside are directed to use [oil] lamps. This past winter we got 1 liter of oil per month. There was nothing for lighting; now we get 25 liters, and before the war people could get as much oil as they wanted. Yes, it was cruel to be without any light [over] the long winter nights.
But in 3 years there will be electric light here, and also for cooking. But it has been a difficult time. That can be forgotten, but what the many prisoners have had to endure, that is completely horrible; [they] were tortured to death and the poor mothers who grieve the loss of their boys. It is only God who can comfort the many who sit longing for their loved ones. I see from Millie’s letter that your sister has lost her boy; may God give comfort and help her in her sorrow. Your father always believed that the young sons of his children would have to go out, and spoke and thought so [much] about them; now he was not able to live to see the peace for which he longed so much. It would have been so precious if he had lived, but the Lord’s ways are not ours.
[I] hope you are able to understand my letter, even if it is not so well written.
[I] enclose a little picture which is a passport photo we all had to have when the war came.
I just received a postcard. It was mailed to me from Spring Grove, Minnesota (in the southeastern corner of the state) on May 17 last, and it arrived here in Robbinsdale today. That’s nearly three weeks to travel 161 miles. I could wax indignant about the way the mail service has deteriorated, harkening back to the gilded days of my youth when such a missive would have arrived the following day, or at most in two days.
But at this point, I just sympathize with the postal service. It must be feeling pretty much like I was feeling after this weekend.
Don’t get me wrong. It was a good weekend. Met a number of nice people, and sold a reasonable amount of my books.
But it was hard on me. This was one of those watershed moments in a man’s life (if it’s a man; sometimes it’s a woman but I know nothing about that. I only assume their experience is similar) when he’s forced to face the fact that he’s gotten bloody old. I drove home Sunday afternoon, left all my Viking junk in my car, and collapsed on the sofa. I spent Monday recovering; I accomplished nothing except for posting a book review. I had “run out of sand,” to employ a metaphor from my green years.
Having rested up now and thought it over, I realize the situation may not be as bad as I thought. This weekend was unusual in that it involved two consecutive Viking events on two consecutive days. That meant two setups and two teardowns, plus packing and unpacking my car. That’s a lot of barges toted and bales lifted. Thank God for the young people in our group – we’ve had a gratifying influx of promising youngsters recently, and they are generous in helping me lift and carry and strap things down. I couldn’t manage without them.
But I think I probably need to cut back a little. I’m considering selling my Viking tent. I can get by with a sun shade/awning, as I used to, which is a lot lighter. I said goodbye to steel combat a few years ago, and now I think I may need to say goodbye to the care and feeding of my tent. I stand before the crowd like Lou Gehrig in “Pride of the Yankees,” and say I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Lugging my Viking chest in and out of my house (it involves steps) is the single hardest part of managing my reenactment impedimenta, though. I think I’m going to experiment with just leaving the blasted thing in my car all summer. Heat may be an issue in the sunshine, but the only thing I can think of inside the chest that’s likely to melt is a little lump of beeswax in my leather sewing kit. And that’s in a plastic container, so I think it’ll be all right.
I’ll be thinking more about efficiency and downsizing. That’s part of the aging process generally. I must resign myself, I think, to being prized for my wisdom rather than my strong back.
Come to think of it, I was never much prized for my strong back. If I was considered wiser than I was strong, that was mostly because I wasn’t very strong.
What, you ask, were these two exhausting events? Saturday was the annual Nordic Music Fest in Burnsville, Minnesota. It’s held at Buck Hill, a commercial ski hill that’s been around forever, right next to the highway. In the non-snow months, they host other events, of which this was one. The day started rainy (not predicted by the weather man), then turned sunny and humid. The featured music was an ABBA cover band, and our young Vikings did a couple combat shows. I had several interesting conversations with people who came by my sales table, and I sold a fair number of books. It was comparable to last year.
Sunday was Danish Day at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis, something our group participates in every year. The weather was nice, though it was starting to spit rain by the time we tore the camp down. Attendance was better than it’s been in a while – I had to wait in line a long time to buy my food. (I got aebelskivers – a spherical Danish pancake served with strawberry jam and powdered sugar, a Danish hot dog, and layer cake.) My book sales were small, but they always are at Danish Day – I sold three books, which is actually good for that event. I don’t know why the Danes seem to be less interested in books than Norwegians – possibly it has to do with the fact that my books are Norway-oriented.
One of our new members has a pair of Norwegian Elk Hounds, named Odin and Freya, which he brought. They are astonishingly mellow and easygoing – I joked with the owner that the dog treats he fed them must be CBD gummies. (This breed is not usually known for its placidity. They’re strong dogs, and generally they like to romp.)
It was a good weekend.
But it seemed to me it was no country for old men. Or so I felt Sunday evening.
