Northern Lights, Fairbanks, Alaska
Photo by Dirk Lummerzheim.

With this story, I conclude my winter remembrances. Over this winter, I passed considerable time in the Writing House up behind our home in Central Oregon. I have found myself recalling places and people that have brought me home to myself. The story I tell you here is one of my most cherished homecoming tales. Although it occurred more than a few years ago, I remember the celebration as if it happened last evening:

The house at 1350 Viewpointe Drive in Fairbanks, Alaska, was ordinary in one sense. It was sort of a tract home, but it was the first home we owned together.  However, it was far from ordinary in another sense. It was high on a hill just north of Fairbanks and looked out on the Alaska Range, including the mountain that the Alaska Native peoples call “the Great One, Denali,” known by others as Mt. McKinley. Situated above the ice fog in winter, we looked out on clear skies during the few daylight hours.  In the summer, we were able to do all of the gardening we desired in a series of terraces that cascaded down to the street.  The extra hours of summer light in the land of the Midnight Sun also gave our garden a big boost.

In addition to our home’s situation, our lives there were blessed from the start. At the time, I was the principal of the downtown pubic school, Denali Elementary.  I already knew from experience that the students, teachers, parents, and neighbors associated with that school were quite special; however, on moving day I learned how spectacularly special they were.

All during our late October move-in day, the teachers and parents from our school ferried furniture and clothing from the house we’d been caring for to our new, real home. And then, after the last truckload of goods arrived at our front door, the parents and teachers gathered in the kitchen, offering a special potluck meal for all of us.

But the best was yet to come. One of our Alaska Native teachers, Kathleen, told us to get our caps and jackets and come outside.  As we gathered in the dark on the front lawn on that early winter night, she told us:  “Look up! The spirits are showering a blessing on this house.  The auroras are blessing this home and us all. And right in the midst of a full moon!”

Sure enough, we were totally spellbound. The northern lights were even more magnificent that usual. The greens and pinks, the glowing whites were more dazzling than I’d ever seen and all of us watched with genuine awe. But what was most unusual was the direction that the auroras were traveling. Usually, we saw them in intermittent waves, high up in the sky or even toward the horizon.

This time, on this night, we watched an aurora shower. The northern lights were raining down on us. And it seemed to us all that the northern lights “rain” was falling directly on our house. Kathleen called out to all of us: “The spirits are blessing David and Karen’s home!” She went on to whisper: “If we’re real quiet, we’ll be able to hear the auroras.”

Well, I’m sure that our Alaska Native parents and teachers were the only ones to actually hear the northern lights. I’ve always felt that their way of knowing is more well developed than is mine. Finally, we were told: “The spirits wish you peace.”

And so it was, that modest house at 1350 Viewpointe Drive became a peaceful place. It was a magnificent and happy place for Karen and me. We believe that was so because the northern lights blessed our home that night.

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How about you?  When you think back on your favorite home, where was it? And, what made it so special for you? What particular special occasion do you remember?

As this winter of remembering draws to a close, there are just a couple of last stories that beg to be told. This one, while teary at the time, now brings me a broad smile:

During my son’s high school years, he and I lived in Juneau, Alaska. Bruce was a good boy. However, he was a teenager. He struggled sometimes, simply because those were his growing up years. We lived in a small cabin on North Douglas Island, across the bridge and way to the north of downtown. Bruce needed our truck to get to high school. What teenager doesn’t need a vehicle? In this case, however, it was true. The school bus didn’t come anywhere near where we lived. And so, Bruce took our truck every morning. And I walked what felt like a mile each morning to where I could get a connection to the city bus. I took that bus to the University of Alaska Southeast, where I worked as a college professor.  And I took the bus back home each night. It was a very long ride, taking about an hour by the time I made the necessary transfers.

When I arrived home each night, the immediate concern was supper. I’d never enjoyed cooking all that much; however, since I was Bruce’s only parent in those days, I was the chef extraordinaire of the house. What else was a dad to do?

I tried my best. I scoured women’s magazines at the supermarket and actually bought a cookbook or two. In my opinion, I was preparing pretty decent meals. But to hear my son talk, that was certainly not the case. I think Bruce hated my cooking! After hauling water and cranking up the cook stove – yes, our place had no running water and the stove was an antique – I would do all in my power to set nutritious meals before my son. However, it seemed to me I could never please him. Bruce’s reactions to the food placed before him were alternately: “Not this again,” or Dad, I’m not eating this.”  I know he didn’t like my meals!

So I was at my wits’ end regarding what I called feeding the boy. The next day, as I rode the bus back home, I felt in a rather hopeless and teary condition. To make matters worse, it was raining – not such an unusual condition in Juneau. I was sitting in a seat just across and slightly back of the bus driver, Frank, who leaned over toward me and asked: “Tough day at the office, David?” And I called back: “No, too many rough days at the stove.” And then, of course, I told Frank the whole sad situation.

To my surprise, Frank pulled the bus over to the side of the road; we were near the end of the line, and I was the only passenger. He got out a little notebook and wrote out a recipe for “potato, vegetable, and ground beef casserole.” I was amazed. And, I was absolutely delighted.  I can taste it even now.  Frank had “saved my bacon” at least for that night.  Bruce liked it – or at least, he didn’t reject it outright – and, true to my ways, once I like something, I go back to it again and again, so “potato, vegetable, and ground beef casserole” was on the rotation at least once a week.

But the story doesn’t end there. When Frank got home that night, he called our faculty secretary at the university.  (Remember, this was a small, tight-knit town.) According to what Molly, our secretary, told me later on, Frank requested that: “All the women in the department make a collection of simple and easy recipes – in order to save David’s life.” And, sure enough, in about a week I received this spiral notebook from the 12 women I worked with. The title on the front was: Lifesaving Recipes For David.

Well, indeed, those recipes did save my life. Bruce came to love the various concoctions that my friends told me how to prepare. And, as the year went on, our father-son relationship got better and better – along with the quality of our meals. There were no more tears shed on the Juneau-Douglas bus. There was rain outside, but no tears inside.

I suppose there’s a moral to this story: Sometimes when you can go no further on your own, you need a little help from your friends. My bus driver, Frank, gave me more than just a ride on that dreary Juneau evening; he gave me a bus ride home.

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So, how about you? When you were at that truly desperate end of your rope, who saved your day? Who surprised you with the words – or a gesture – that made the big difference?

The theme of this recent set of posts has been remembering. Perhaps that’s because winter has been a quiet time for me, a time that invites recollection, and an easy sharing. As I write, it is March 5, 2013, the 30-year anniversary of the day when received a totally unexpected and most precious gift. Although this event is long past, the gift continues to have a deep and vivid feel to it. It’s as though this gift was given to me on this very day:

Jill, my night nurse, cupped my remaining quasi-functional left ear tenderly with her warm hands and whispered loud enough for me to hear her quite surprising advice: “David, from now on, you’re going to have to listen with your heart.”

This angel, Jill, shared those words with me in my hospital room 30 years ago this very night. I hear the words again every night, as I move myself to sleep.

Jill’s bold and surprising gift came to me as I was recovering from what I’ve come to call “just one of my life accidents.” Earlier in that day, I lay stretched out in an operating room for 17 hours with my head in kind of a weird-looking, large green metallic vice. The Willie Nelson music that I’d requested had played in the background while the team of seven removed a brain tumor the size of a large tangerine.

As a result of what the medical team called “a stunningly successful procedure,” I initially lost my ability to talk and to walk. Because of the persistent and ever encouraging efforts of a fabulous cast of “singing angels” at the Northwestern University Speech and Hearing Clinic – yes, they actually sang to me – I first regained my ability to speak and then, to walk. The hearing was “a lost cause,” they explained in a matter-of-fact manner: “Totally dead right ear, thirty percent and declining in the left ear. Severed nerve during surgery caused the situation. But, don’t cry about it, David, you’re actually a walking wonder.”

So, here I am – the walking wonder –30 years later. Of course, I went through a myriad of stages: puzzlement, devastation, anger, adjustment, to name just a few. And, I still have my struggles. I get lost in a noise-filled room. Often, I want to flee. Sometimes, I do just walk away. I have, on occasion, run pell-mell from the scene.

And yet, believe it or not, a number of precious gifts have come my way as a result of this life accident. Among them – and this might come as quite the shock to hearing people – is the feeling I sometimes have that it’s just not quite quiet enough! Often, I find myself wanting to eradicate the remaining chatter and perceived nonsense that I hear going on all around me. So, sometimes (mostly undetected) I put an earplug in my remaining source of sound. The resulting quiet is heaven-sent!

Perhaps because I’ve had so many (what I’ve believed have been) angels walk into my life offering me encouraging signs, I’ve become even more of an encourager. So, in addition to silence being experienced as a gift, learning how to better encourage others has also been a gift received.

However, Jill’s gift – “from now on, you’ll listen with your heart” – is the most stunning gift of all. Every night, I thank Jill and I silently send forth this prayer: “Lord, with each passing day, help me to better… listen with my heart.”

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Thank you for being with me in this especially tender time of remembering. Perhaps my story will remind you of an unexpected and precious gift that you’ve received.

In this recent series of posts, I’ve shared my most vivid remembrances. For me, this is a winter of remembering. So far, I have shared an embarrassment turned blessing from my pre-adolescence and a disaster turned major learning from my early adulthood. Now I turn to a life episode that was ready made for total chaos, but defying all odds became a touching story about service and trust.

It was the stormiest period in Evanston’s school desegregation history. This small city took pride its schools and colleges. As a part of the school district’s desegregation plan, all of the school attendance areas were redrawn so that the enrollment of African American children at each school was more evenly distributed to range from 17% to 25%. Almost everyone along the tree-lined streets of this close-in Chicago suburb was affected by the late 1960’s school busing that was necessary to achieve these targets. Whether you were a student reassigned from a formerly all-black school or a white parent whose child was learning “relationship skills” in a newly integrated school or simply a long-term resident of this community, you were at the very least aware that these were stormy and turbulent times for the Evanston Public Schools.

The storm’s intensity was most strongly directed at the school district superintendent, Gregory Coffin. Rightly or wrongly, the clash of these tempestuous times seemed to sound the loudest as citizens focused on the leadership style of the superintendent. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, many community members and parents didn’t bring up, and seemed to avoid, the underlying issues of race or the purposes of education. Instead they declared the superintendent to be “cut-throat, abrasive, and a non-listener.” Others would find him to be their champion of change. “He is able to see what needs doing,” his advocates would say, “and he does what needs doing.”

Many persons would have said that the school desegregation issue in Evanston came down to the contentious struggle regarding whether the superintendent should go or stay. The drama of this struggle took place on the stage of the city’s Unitarian Church, a building that could hold more people than the school district’s office – almost nightly, for months. At eight o’clock on many evenings, the school board would convene there in public session. Of course, there would always be other items on the agenda. But the raison d’etre for the regular gatherings was always the tenure of Greg Coffin. And almost always, the meeting’s adjournment occurred well after midnight. The street question the next day was often: “Did you attend the shouting match last night?”

Greg Coffin was so completely engulfed in this “struggle of his lifetime” (his words) that he had little time to orchestrate and oversee the day-to-day workings of the Evanston Public Schools. Such orchestration and oversight were left to Joe Hill, the associate superintendent; Frank Christensen, the personnel director; Ken Orton, the director of business affairs; and me. At that time, I was the director of curriculum and instruction. Basically, the four of us ran that 11,000 student school district for the better part of a year. Truthfully, we didn’t have a single leader.

Perhaps, this group of four became “the superintendent.”

The four of us started every day with what we called a “state of our world” meeting at 7am. We were exhausted, of course, often from the turmoil of the night before. But after a couple of minutes of “Can you believe what Sarah said?” or “Peter was so outrageous with his remarks,” we would settle down and set up the agenda for the day. We determined which schools each one of us would visit on that day; we rated the “teacher concerns” from one to five, identifying which concerns were most critical; we divided up the correspondence that needed response; and we made a list of who would call whom.  We sought to provide a central office presence and to assure that the day was dedicated to the young people in our charge. And then we would leave the superintendent’s office with this pledge: Taking the lead from Joe and Frank, each of us would move through the day with a servant’s heart.  We would be at the people’s beck and call. We would do what needed doing for the young people, for the teachers, and for the community. We would never say a disparaging word about anyone else in our foursome.

As I remember that year (1969, I believe), it was one of the few times in my work-life when I most experienced genuine trust. We four trusted one-another completely. There were no lies. There was no deception. There were no exaggerations. There were no partial truths. Nothing was hush-hush. There were no “arrangements.” What felt like madness swirled around us, but we experienced a kind of pure calmness. Among the four of us, there was no panic, there was no tension, and there was no despair. It was a time of telling the truth, and surprisingly, it was a time of laughter. As I recall those days, a smile comes to my face; I remember that year as one when I had the most fun on a leadership team. We joked with one another, we reveled in one another’s victories, and we somehow found our failures and mistakes to be cause for (what we’d call) a “crazy calamity occasion.” We had so many good laughs!

How is it possible that amid the chaos of what we called “the Coffin cacophony” we had a positive, peaceful, and productive experience? And why, in the midst of that chaos, would trust and laughter find such a comfortable home?

Well, for one thing, we had no choice but to make good things happen for those in our care. In our situation, there was little room for wondering, worry, or wistful waiting. And, the political battle that swirled around us was not of our doing, was beyond our control, and was at times beyond our understanding.

And then there was the matter of the makeup of our leadership team. Ken Orton was a true-blue kind of guy. Of course, he knew the numbers. I called him Careful Ken. He was good! And he was more than good. Ken was keenly and genuinely interested in everyone. Whether a school board member, or a teacher, or a member of the community, Ken Orton took that person seriously – did whatever was necessary to answer that person’s questions completely and thoroughly. Ken loved the work he did, but I believe he loved the people more.

Joe Hill was the soul of our community. Joe grew up in Evanston and was at the heart of the black community in a town that was, at the time, primarily a black and white city. He had an infectious sense of humor, a precious manner with all of the children, and had the respect and admiration of every Evanston citizen.

Frank Christensen was a mythical man. His human relations practices were of legendary proportions. For example, when a kindergarten child was preparing to step off to school for the first time, Frank would visit that child’s home a few days before that first day, spending substantial time with that child and with the family. Teachers received similar gifts of Frank’s attention. To this day, Frank Christensen is my ideal educator.

Of course, I did my part. I was “the new kid” within the team. But I gave it my all.

We served to honor the people. And, perhaps in the process, we found the perfect setting for trust – in the eye of the storm.  We shared common values, we reflected respect for each other, we made information transparent among us, and we were in it together.  Somewhat surprisingly, I learned that it’s possible to develop and live with trust in a time of crisis, a time when I – and perhaps others – might have thought that trust would not flourish.

As you think about your work or personal life, have you ever experienced a time when trust developed within difficulty? Have you ever been part of a team at your work place that was truly life-giving or you experienced as a gift?