The pastor was among those mature community leaders who took on the rather considerable mantle of leading the young boomer generation through adolescence, toward adulthood. Yeoman's work? I'm not sure that says it all.
The post I'm writing today is complicated because I wish to show reverence, yet I'd be dishonest if I didn't suggest the generation gap caused real problems. The "gap" was not one of those memes that get exaggerated in our popular culture. It was real. I have read, and will agree, that it was just as intense as the U.S. Civil War but without the visceral element. Things got at least borderline visceral in some places. The restlessness of the youth bubbled up to troubling levels.
But there was our Lutheran pastor, the gentle Pastor Grindland. BTW "ELCA" stands for Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (yes "in," not "of"). The synod is becoming ever more a "refuge" for Christians who do not wish to be part of the extreme conservative strain of the faith. So I wonder about the late Cliff. He was salt of the earth with his image, but also not particularly attuned to issues that leapt to the forefront for boomers.
Could the youth of today possibly understand? I suspect not, in many respects. That's why, like I said, sharing these thoughts today is rather delicate.
Every community had this dichotomy: the young and restless boomers who saw themselves as really "with it," and the adults who were so resolute with their norms/values. There was a disconnect, as the boomers did not like being constrained by a lot of the tradition. The First Lutheran kids went on a trip where we watched an old black and white movie about Martin Luther. I assure you, nothing in the whole world seemed more irrelevant to us kids than Martin Luther.
Frankly we pooh-poohed some of the community elders. Grindland was at First Lutheran so long, it became easy to start thinking of him as perhaps stale. In more blunt terms, maybe a "fossil." I will remind: boomers could be very smart-alecky when young. Our hubris could be high on the scale.
We asserted ourselves partly because we knew we were right on some fundamental issues. Atop that list was the Vietnam war. We were impatient about civil rights. So often we felt our elders simply didn't wish to rock the boat.
I could not have cared less about our church "missionaries." I guess they were in the Cameroon.
"Woodstock" was a phenomenon at the polar opposite of what Rev. Grindland's element in the populace would countenance or even understand. "Woodstock" is remembered as primarily a multi-culture celebration, no inhibitions about our differences.
Tom Brokaw helped start a meme of how our parents, the "Greatest Generation," deserved nothing but praise and appreciation. How could we harbor any negative feelings about those folks, folks who knew how to take responsibility to get the bills paid? Brokaw had a chapter in his celebrated book called "Shame" which was an admission that the sweet older folks did have a blind spot when it came to race. That would seem like a pretty big shortcoming.
But in our modern age, we are urged to try to accept reconciliation. The "conflict resolution" principle goes hand in hand with that. If you have a conflict with someone, shouting and emotions are not the answer. Don't shout profanities like "Sarge" of "Beetle Bailey," instead we have formal rules and guidelines by which we should soberly abide. It really is a step forward.
The boomers of today, rather humbled and with their hormones less active - don't underestimate the latter, seriously - have been guided to pretty unrestricted love of the Greatest Generation. Love conquers all, or at least makes life more livable.
(Let me insert here that I have had to re-word some paragraphs here out of concern that some of my more candid comments about the attitudes of my generation could cause some to bristle. "You had to be there," which was the title of a self-published book by the late Doug Rasmusson.)
Nixon era and its discord
I remember seeing Pastor Grindland at a Republican caucus. I saw him because I was making rounds as a journalist. If this was his behavior in the 1980s, then I have little doubt he was a Nixon Republican earlier.
Nixon, who pulled strings to get the Vietnam war extended so he could get elected, to prevent Democrats from getting credit for ending it. Nixon, who engineered the Cambodia incursion. Nixon, who thought his ridiculously belated announcement of the winding-down of hostilities would actually protect him from Watergate.
The dragging-on of the Vietnam war put me in a stupor. The adult generation could have seen reality better and applied pressure to get us out. Kids desperately attempted this, dangerously so, and we ended up with scars, though nothing like the pain and death experienced by the servicemen themselves.
We were all in a funk during the Gerald Ford administration. We desperately sought pure goodness with the election of Jimmy Carter.
To my amazement, the Vietnam war actually did come to a close. So did economic inflation which had been such a depressing specter. A brighter future did in fact arrive. I wasn't expecting it.
And so we got revisionist history: our parents, who we loved anyway, were propped up through revisionist history as nothing but saints. I would suggest the truth was far more complicated. Our parents had warts as all people and generations do.
It has been said of the WWII/Depression generation that "they never changed." Their children, quite to the contrary, kept re-defining themselves in ways that commanded attention and yes, some adulation, as if it was being scripted. Remember the term "yuppies?" Our parents never showed any need for that.
"I'm OK, you're OK?" Balderdash.
Pastor Grindland appeared the very same person at the end of his church tenure as when he started. He was moral and proper but also had the stripes of so much of his generation: averse to some inconvenient topics, topics that boomers felt would be enlightening.
Boomers gained influence to where we truly adjusted our U.S. culture.
So, today's First Lutheran Church in Morris is in a synod that has decided to reflect the progressive side of the faith. It's a much more uninhibited set of values than would have been considered palatable in a past time. The door opened for this with our ascendance in the culture: the boomers. Oh, we're not monolithic. But where there is consensus is on the need to at least discuss issues and questions that would not have commanded attention from our parents - many of these issues would have made them squirm.
Boomers would be familiar with this reaction from our parents. My own parents were racially inclusive but didn't choose to discuss this in terms of being a cause. A cause would suggest conflict and the WWII crowd was temperate.
Victorian attitudes about sex were a scourge.
The ELCA which is First Lutheran's synod is wrestling quite intensely with the political issues now. Even Bishop Elizabeth Eaton who I greatly respect thinks there might be too much of a tilt toward moral relativism. My reaction is that I think people can deal with God one-on-one on the matter of sin and our human failings, but the church as an institution should be tolerant and uplifting. So I'm most enthused about staying in the ranks.
I worry about the Apostolics. I wonder if we'll soon be hearing about those churches pulling down a big screen at the front of the sanctuary and just showing video of a Trump rally for the full hour of the Sunday service. "Fake news!"
As for the late Pastor Grindland, would this kind soul still be in the ELCA? I'm not sure the answer would be yes. He was in that special group every community had once, of adult leaders of the boomers. Never to be replaced. Yeoman's work, yes. Wally Behm was our principal. It was hard to imagine any of these people as having been kids. What does that mean?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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| My photo of First Lutheran Church, Morris MN |
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