Summer 2003

Volume XVIII, Number 1

In This Issue

• A Friendship Observed reviewed by Richard Swanson

  Call it what you will—gala concert, retirement party, world premiere—in the end it was a celebration of an extraordinary half-century-long friendship between Bruce Carlson, Art Mampel, and Tom Tredway.

• Cross Country by Pleasure Craft by Dave Swanson

  This trip was something that I dreamed of several decades ago, having lived most of my life within sight of one river or another. I had invested in navigational charts for the Mississippi River, pored over them, and concluded that a trip down the Mississippi is more suitable for a power boat than for a sailboat—the focal point of our boating interest at that time.

• Karl Olsson Refresher

  The pun in the title is not mine, but I shall take the liberty of using it. I have just risen from a minor illness: a cold complicated by a slight temperature (taken frequently), weakness, and a lack of solidity in reality contact. I am sure I would have thought nothing of it and probably have ridden out the storm without bed rest and aspirin if I hadn’t heard since last summer of the Asian Flu.

• Heretics by Elder M. Lindahl

  The word “Heretic” is pejorative. A heretic, one who dissents from established practices or doctrines, from an accepted system of ideas, is usually unpopular with the majority. He sometimes suffers condemnation, persecution, excommunication, imprisonment or even death. And those who agree with non-conformist views, for example with those of Pelagius, Peter Abelard, Martin Luther, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Johannes Kepler, Charles G. Finney, P. P. Waldenstršm, et al, may at times find themselves open to criticism, even at risk.

• Digging Deeper by Ryan Eikenbary-Barber

  We often get caught up in familiar things and deeper meanings escape us. We can’t see the forest for the trees. The truth is not a secret. Everyone can know the truth if they desire it, but sometimes we miss the big picture because of the close-up right in front of us.

• Relation and Being: Martin Buber’s I and Thou by David Hawkinson

  Like a seed that blossoms after a long gestation, some persons take an entire life to grow an idea or theme into fruition. After this fashion, we marvel at the mind that matures toward its fullness in later years, drawing together the threads of thought or creativity until it is a finely woven whole. It also happens that some find the center of their work early in the creative process, leaving the rest of life’s energy to draw out and clarify the implications of the original insight. Martin Buber is the latter.

• Books World on Fire by Michael Brownstein reviewed by Fred Cervin

  This could be the Common Sense or Uncle Tom’s Cabin for today’s situation. Has a bit of the flavor of Tom Paine put through the fires of William Blake.

• “From Books to Business: the Value of a Liberal Education” An article by Peter Fellowes reviewed by Elder M. Lindahl

  Peter was a colleague in the Humanities Division at North Park. He taught English, creative writing, and literature, became the Divisional Chair, and in 1986, Academic Dean. Three years later, he surprised us with the news that he was leaving the academic world to take over the manufacturing business his grandfather started in 1917.

• CALLED BUT NOT CHOSEN by Ed Mampel

Regular Features

• News and Notes

  Matthew Lindahl CCIW Golf Runner-up; Richard Heuer Dies; Katie Schoenrock and Eric Husband Exchange Vows, Depart on Vespa

• Practical, Therapeutic, Theological Thought Disturbed by Penrod

  I am disturbed because most of the momentum in public life is headed in the wrong direction. Things are headed the wrong way because the dominant political and economic power values private wealth over public wealth.

• Sightings in Christian Music by Glen Wiberg

  In this issue of “Sightings,” I think it appropriate to pay tribute to the gospel singer, Winifred Larson, who was well-known in many of our churches and whose passing was memorialized at First Evangelical Free Church of Minneapolis on May 16th.

• Misssouri Memories by Arthur W. Anderson

  One overcast Missouri Monday, while Bernice and I were visiting our daughter, Ingrid, and her husband, Mike, in Lee’s Summit, located on the big shoulders of Kansas City, we took a drive in the country. We scouted out three old towns—Pleasant Hill, Harrisonville, and Peculiar. Rural towns have the magic of a story in them!

• On the Aisle Chekhov, Woody, and Their Three Sisters by Max Carlson

  As I sat in the top row of the theater watching Chekhov’s masterpiece unfold, the thought passed through my mind that his writing style, technique, and unsurpassed talent is much like some of filmmaker Woody Allen’s work.

• Out and About by Phil Johnson

  Mountain View Wedding; The Mending of Creation—Krister Stendahl at North Park Seminary, February 25, 2003; North Park Basketball Reunion, March 1, 2003.

• Post: Readers Respond