Excerpt
Academia By May of 1977, I was appointed to the extension faculty at Washington State University and I proceeded to maximize all aspects of life that such appointment offered. I likely glamorized and fantasized to some degree but the insulation of academia allowed me to do that. And for the next twenty-six years, I was well-paid to write, read, travel, teach, facilitate and debate the signs of the times. I progressed through tenure and promotion and was on assignment in Africa when I received my advancement to full rank. I took my doctorate at the University of the Orange Free State along with the pomp and circumstance afforded such successful candidates in the Afrikaner tradition and robed for commencement exercises at National University of Lesotho presided over by King Moshueshue II.
On subsequent assignment in the Middle East, I lectured at the University of Jordan. In the UK, I read papers at Reading University and reveled in walkabouts at Oxford and St Andrews Universities. Back in Washington State, I was successively tenured in two academic departments, read more papers, wrote essays and articles, attended professional meetings, visited sister campuses, traveled the world and at leisure played the professorial role to the hilt including book-lined study, herringbone jacket, horn-rims and all.
Bangladesh Immigration and customs at Zia International Airport proceeded without incident and I was unceremoniously transported in a taxi, sadly in need of routine service, to quarters at Dhakas opulent Sonargaon Hotel, the only opulence I was to experience for several days. The Sonargaon was enclosed by a tall iron fence and outside the fence teemed a vast sea of Bangladeshi people, either ambulatory or being transported along crowded streets by literally thousands of rickshaws. Into this milieu of congested streets, noise, small vehicles and 2000 people per square mile, my counterpart and I embarked on our scheduled tasks. She, from India, may have taken that scene in stride. But from a Washington State perspective, where I can sometimes enjoy sixty miles visibility free of people, buildings or vehicles; Dhaka was a bit much!
Boxcar As the old black cinder-burner crossed the Montana border once again and we headed toward home, I could only reflect what a landmark summer 1955 had been. Americans traveling north always seem to run out of geography when they reach the Canadian border. Little do they realize that a whole new nation just begins there and that an entire, proud civilization stretches toward the beautiful north. I realize it, and I appreciate it more and more in later life as I travel somewhat more comfortably among Canadian cities and places of commerce and culture. But one thing I always remember, I saw it first a long time ago from the door of a boxcar.
Clock Tower There was also the time that Julia walked the campus in the frigid winter cold alone while I was studying for an exam and became very cold and contracted pneumonia. Frightful days of subzero weather ensued and her hospitalization was extended and her life became a near-death experience. Thereafter, walking the campus and hearing the bells of the clock tower, tears would fill her eyes.
Years later Julia and I resided in Moscow during my tenure as a faculty member at Washington State University nearby. From time to time, we would visit the Idaho campus, reflecting on earlier years and recalling haunting moments beside that old clock tower. Then one day, I was informed by the Alumni Office that I was to be inducted into the University of Idaho alumni Hall of Fame. During the three days of festivities that ensued, pomp and circumstance eventually subsided, guests departed and Julia and I visited that majestic clock tower one more time, bidding farewell to an old friend.
Jesus in the Morning I am now an old man. I dont see well, hear well or walk well. I have chronic upper back pain and some of my nights more closely resemble extreme sports than restful repose. My heart jumps around in my chest like a frightened frog, and I am pretty glad to see the sun rise each day since by the grace of God, Ive made it through another night. Thus it has become a morning routine to take a walk from my expatriate digs to a side chapel of the parish church on the town plaza to sort of settle accounts with Jesus.
And at the same time I cannot believe that Jesus said he was who the scriptures say he was. I cant believe he was around before the creation of the world. He was born in Bethlehem, for Gods sake, and kicked around the towns of Galilee and was killed in Jerusalem. I mean Ive been there and seen those places and walked where he walked. And his mother was Mary, his mother, not Gods mother. And of course, he had brothers and sisters. And of course, Mary was not ever virgin!
Shame Washington just doesnt get it. They apparently dont think a democratically elected government in Latin America which espouses some concern for the needs and hopes of its people is legitimate. And they constantly try to destabilize, undermine, discredit or at the very least express doubts about the political color of Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. Concurrently they attempt to influence political campaigns in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador , Nicaragua, and Mexico. Have they forgotten the results of their blatant support for the military regimes of the Plan Condor nations? Have they forgotten where the colonels and generals who tortured and murdered thousands of their own freedom loving citizens were trained? Or do they care?
As an expatriate I have a lot of love for my country. It is a beautiful, proud land of tradition, values and opportunity. I was as shocked and enraged as any other American about the wanton slaughter of 9/11. But did that event give license to the Bush regime to conduct the violence and wanton slaughter of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi citizens who had little or nothing to do with terror in America? Did that event grant license to the Bush regime to sacrifice the lives of nearly 3000 young Americans? Did that event somehow justify the Bush regimes current position on Iran who wants nothing more that what America already has? Is Iran more dangerous to the world than America? And did 9/11 grant license to the Bush regime to conduct the unspeakable torture and even disappearance of combatants real or imagined in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and unidentified prisons in Eastern Europe? Is that the behavior of the land of the free and the home of the brave? Some freedom, some bravery!
Where Do You Stay? I have likely never been more serious in my life than on that day in Peru when I made an adult profession of faith as a Catholic. There were other very serious and deeply faith-filled episodes in life as the years have passed as well. However, to say that I am a religious liberal is perhaps a gross understatement. I am an ecumenist beyond most limits of the definition, I pretty much blow off dogmatic fairy tales, I have little time for prelates in petticoats and I abhor contemporary Pharisees. After a lifetime on five continents, I am keenly aware of the human condition on earth; and its not wonderful. My take is that Jesus committed his ministry and his life to doing something about that, and thats what he expects us to do. And a lot of the rest of what passes for Christianity is pablum and window dressing.
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