Post: Readers Respond

I am renewing my subscription for another year. I do enjoy reading your publication but miss your sports predictions. The Vikings for the Central Division? Maggy — Marilyn Magnuson, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Many thanks to you and to Mel Soderstrom for the copy of and subscription to Pietisten. The copy you sent was of special interest as a result of printing Zenos’ [Hawkinson] “Charge to the Graduates.” Well done, of course, as usual.

I have never thought of myself as a Pietist — until I looked up the term in my Encyclopedia of Philosophy to find remarkable parallels between the Pietism of the Teutonic world and Quakerism of the English world . . . among other things, both rising in the Seventeenth Century.

Again, thank you very much. Robert Byrd, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

You and your staff do a great job with this publication. I subscribe to about a dozen periodicals, magazines, and other publications; however, I really look forward to receiving Pietisten. Maybe that’s because it is only published once every three months. Ha ha. Bob Florin, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Here’s an order for my friend, an old Salem BB player. The extra is for me, or put it in the computer fund. Really liked “Good Friday 1983” and also Sporrong — “God Bless the Grass.” Curtiss Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Thank you very much for kindly sending me issues of Pietisten. Even though I have been away from the North Park circle for five years, it is still exciting to read about the people and places I know.

As the Soderstroms might have told you, I am currently working as a free-lance simultaneous interpreter. I really like my job, travel a lot and meet interesting people. Thanks to a scholarship I got, I decided to start graduate school in the USA next fall.

I send you my warmest Turkish greetings and wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Ahu Latifoglu, Istanbul, Turkey.

Thanks so much for your note and the Pietisten issues. What excellent reading. They arrived when I was home from school, voiceless to guide my twenty-two six-year-olds. So I immersed myself into hot tea and good reading. Being so far from home, it’s wonderful to read the words of beloved teachers, familiar names, and a gifted brother. Don’t stop publishing!

Both Chris and I are enjoying Pietisten. The only unhappy one in the house is our giant Schnauzer, Olaf (alias King of Puppies and Norway). When we both get reading, Olaf doesn’t get our attention. It’s tough being Norsk royalty!

Houston is friendly, but a Scandinavian wasteland. So I welcome words of my roots, but also other interesting articles like the Bach writings. I like the “Pietisten Premises” very much. Kari (Sandstrom) French, Houston, Texas.

Thank you for your good work on this stimulating paper! Sandy’s [Johnson] article and the previous one by Sue Hawkinson prove that the distaff side of the editorial team are very qualified writers — may their tribe increase! Adele Cole, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

You’ve had another great year (though I felt “cheated” the one issue Elder Lindahl was missing). Please renew. Owen Youngman, Deerfield, Illinois.

I’ve enclosed a check to renew the subscription originally given me by the Harry Opels. I really enjoy the publication.

There is no Covenant church out here in Reno (I’m still a member of Bethlehem in Minneapolis). I do miss the “flavor” of the heritage that is ours. I attend a fine Presbyterian church, but it doesn’t have much “Swedishness” about it. The Pietisten supplies that lack. It is a pleasure to me to read material from the pens of friends whom I know.

By the way, not all of us are outboard motor enthusiasts. It would be well to recognize that many of us prefer sail, paddle, or oar.

I especially appreciate the series of articles by Don Franklin. When the series is complete, I hope to copy them and give them to members of the Northern Nevada Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Thanks for allowing us to copy them.

Cheers for Timothy Sporrong’s sermon for Reformation Sunday! Willis A. Olson, Reno, Nevada.

We are delighted to recognize the sailors, paddlers, and rowers who love moving through the water in boats without motors. The editors are among their number. “Lady Hawk,” for example, captained by David Hawkinson, plies the waters of Lake Superior, driven by the descendents of the winds about which Helga Skogsbergh wrote in From These Shores, winds that blew upon their lakeside cabin in Northern Wisconsin.

We want to recognize, as well, the wonderful lift that advertising by the Museum of the American Outboard and Covenant Chris Craft has given Pietisten. Revenue from these ads provides more than ten percent of Pietisten’s annual income. At least as important is the contribution these ads have made to the flavor of Pietisten.

Bruce Carlson, the proprietor of the Museum, points out that the Museum also includes many nonmotorized craft, as can be seen from the ad on page 20 of this issue. If there is an objection to motors on some ideological ground, it should be kept in mind that, once a motor is in a museum, it is outside of combat with the environment.

We invite tributes, whether through articles, stories, or advertisements, to the gift of water to human life now and through the ages. — Ed.

I loved Sandy’s “letter story” about the sermon in Klara Kyrka. A remote ancestor, one Berfius, was a pastor in Klara Church in the 17th/18th century. Karl Olsson, Columbia, Maryland.

We look forward to each issue. Enclosed is our check for the next year. As lifetime Covenanters and descendents of those early “pietists,” we welcome this magazine. Now we, too, like Jane Jacobson (a good friend), enjoy our “senior years” at a Covenant Village, but in Northbrook, and love being with friends of long acquaintance. We feel privileged!

Best of luck in this literary endeavor! Lloyd and Virginia Strandine, Northbrook, Illinois.

Thanks for your faithfulness in publishing Pietisten. Don Franklin’s piece on Bach in Lubeck brought back memories of our discovering that church, and witness to J. S. and Buxetehude there.

We represent the Covenant in Vancouver, British Columbia, giving half-time to house-church development. If it worked a hundred plus years ago in our first generation, perhaps it will now. Jerry and Verna Johnson, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Thanks for your continued labor of love to bring a prophetic, reflective perspective on our Covenant heritage, delivered with a sense of both our roots and our wings. How else can we with feet of clay not take ourselves too seriously? Your humor and insights are appreciated. With thanks. Sandy and Julia Marks, Westboro, Massachusetts.

The UN has taken a media beating over US deaths in Somalia, as if the deaths and capture of other UN soldiers didn’t matter. The Secretary-General was right from the beginning: you must disarm the factions completely or face the consequences. The US went in thinking of humanitarian assistance only, as if the political, social, and military context didn’t matter. And supreme irony: the big guns running the UN operation in Somalia, beginning with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Admiral Jonathan Howe, and moving on down through his collection of special advisers, intelligence unit, etc., are all Americans, imposed by Washington! To hear Washington, therefore, say that it was not aware of Butros-Ghali’s policy in Somalia brings a loud hoot!

Haiti presents us with another problem. The UN is there, holding its breath, given Clinton’s incompetence and incoherence. And lo! We are now informed that many of the more sinister types, in both the military and police, were (and remain?) CIA operatives; and better yet, these worthies have been the godfathers of the cocaine trade that transits Port-au-Prince’s airport while simultaneously participating in a US-run drug control operation!!! All this would be merely third-rate comedy if so many lives were not involved. And to think that Washington trained Duvalier père’s military and police. It frightens, all this. And I tend to believe that many of my Haitian friends are right to maintain that Clinton does not want the return of Aristide, because the latter would not be “controllable,” unlike the military who never bite the hand that feeds; on the contrary, they are lavish in their kisses. Robert Thompson, New York and Geneva.