Pastor Lauren Hauger set to leave Federated

The community will be saying goodbye to the Federated Church pastor. Pastors can of course be very mobile in their careers. They must be flexible people. My church of First Lutheran had four straight short-term pastors. In a sense it's not a big deal to me. I don't need a pastor to be some sort of fearless leader or source of wisdom.
Pastors at the so-called evangelical churches across the U.S. have guided their flocks to vote overwhelmingly for Republicans and for Donald Trump. I wish churches would focus on what their real priorities should be. I should back away from the more harsh commentary I'd like to share about the right wing churches, the ones nodding their heads when Franklin Graham speaks.
Federated Church in Morris is not in that category. Nor are First Lutheran or Faith Lutheran (ELCA). Federated is affiliated with the Methodists who are still fighting on the proper attitude to have toward gay people. The ELCA is past that.
The Federated Church pastor has been Lauren Hauger. Her last name was Snell when she came here. She is married to a man who was willing to take the Williams family as patients when we had problems with the other dental practice in town. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Jeffrey Hauger. Had we not been able to make this move, I might have been forced to leave my job at the Morris paper and we might have had to go out of town for our dentistry.
The problem with the other practice in town grew out of long-simmering issues in our public school system. Anyone close to the system through the '80s knew there were concerning issues. I would describe those issues as having to do with a fundamental prevailing culture. It's the type of culture which I would theorize can grow out of a monopoly system. Our public schools had that trait at that time, far more than appears to be the case today.
The situation seems pretty placid and well-managed today. Any conflicts seem to be kept internal, or that's the impression I have, albeit from a far more distanced position than I had in the '80s. So I'm thankful for the current calm, the way it should be.
It took until the end of the '80s for members of the public to start rising up. Rise up they did. The situation became highly uncomfortable. I have no qualms about my own behavior because all I ever tried to do at the Morris newspaper was report the truth. The alternative would have been to gloss over, ignore warts and present some sort of cleansed party line to protect the monopoly.
If warts were so obvious, why was any conflict even called for? It was called for because of a core of school insiders and (just as important) a network of personal friends, all of whom greased their agenda through cocktail party behavior, and these people became like snarling, rabid dogs. They pushed for boycotts of certain businesses. Some of the school critics I'm sure had held back for fear of this type of thing happening.
Finally a whole lot of people felt the underlying culture of the school, or should I say school staff under the imprimatur of a detached administration, had to be addressed in some concrete ways. It was a textbook example of how a small community controversy can flare up and cause discomfort among a whole lot of people, with scars in the aftermath.
The most visible issue was extracurricular. It was like the visible part of an iceberg. There was a lot underneath.
It would not have been unreasonable to address extracurricular all by itself. It was so disappointing to see the defenders of the status quo. The problem is that many of us just don't like seeing the boat rocked. It has been said that nothing scares government employees more than change. Well, get used to change because our digital world is forcing this all over the place, whether we like it or not. Our public school people have less of a monopolistic sense than they used to have. But, they might not have seen the half of it yet.
The tools of our new age are increasingly making us wonder if kids need to be rounded up to be sent to a big bricks and mortar place each day. It's a place that can almost seem like a prison when you think of all the rules and guidelines. Again, I don't think it's as bad as it used to be. But, drive through any small community in Minnesota, take a look at the big school building on the outskirts like in Kerkhoven, and tell me that it doesn't strike you as prison-like.
We hear a lot about home schooling and even "unschooling." The latter intrigues me especially. Let Huck Finn go out fishing. I was forced to read so much weird literature in high school. Why was this required? Why not just read a good story? Well, my teachers would say the mere "good stories" gloss over or ignore all the social injustice in America! So we're supposed to be fed oddball literature that has a political agenda. Not that I wouldn't agree with certain political points that might be made. Fair enough. But I don't appreciate being manipulated and then being browbeaten if I express any skepticism.
 
Issues not completely gone
We are living today with some of the consequences of the compromises that were made to tamp down our community unrest from back around 1988. I would argue that Mark Torgerson was a compromise choice to be head boys basketball coach. I guess I know this based on conversations I had with insiders at the time.
There are people in Morris today who think that Torgerson has underachieved with the program through his very long tenure. It is odd but there has always been a social prohibition on expressing this view in an outward way. That's probably because Torgy is an outstanding person and teacher. Is he teaching now?
I'll state here that our MACA boys basketball team should have made the state tournament in this past season and the season before. "Oh, you can never know these things." Oh of course you can't. But isn't it harmless to speculate on sports issues? Isn't it a great American pastime to speculate on whether a certain coach should stay or go? Did Tubby Smith really have to be fired at the U of M? We don't have to use the word "fired." These institutions just choose to move people around sometimes. It's pretty innocuous in the scheme of things. And heavens, if you're real sensitive about being removed from a position, don't go into coaching! Find something else to do.
Forces for the status quo lined up behind Darcy Winkelman as head girls basketball coach. She's the most wonderful person you'd ever want to meet. But things weren't working out in the girls basketball program. Why was this such an earthshaking issue? Well, I think I know why and it gets back to the behavior and thinking of people in monopolistic public institutions, their entitled feeling.
I can remember at least three married couples on the Morris faculty, and I think that fed into the ossified nature some. Married couples develop a synergy with their sense of power, and I think this is one reason why schools have policies against hiring spouses of teachers. Maybe married couples on teaching staffs have a harder time maintaining their sense of idealism. Perhaps they develop defensiveness faster. They take things personally faster.
Paul Court, an outstanding young teacher/coach here once, was upset that his wife couldn't even get an interview for a school position. My inclination would be to trust the Courts completely. But the board had a firm policy by that time, a policy that was probably well grounded and based on experience.
 
Grateful for dental services
Fortunately there is a dental office where I can go today, a dentist office pleased to receive checks signed by "Williams." The most important part of going to the dentist is writing out the check - at least that's how they view it. The other dental practice in town now has different people from the one where we had an issue. I'm sure the new people there are wonderful. I wouldn't even mind going back there but I'm indebted to the Hauger place.
It was emotionally difficult for my family to deal with the issue of where to go for dentistry because it's something we all need.
Good luck to Pastor Lauren Hauger in Park Rapids where I guess she'll begin in the fall. She and her husband are classy people.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com