Talk about a blast from the past, here’s a doozie. We have a desk that graced the home of my dad’s parents on 29^th Street in Minneapolis for as long as I can remember. Recently, while moving it, the corner of a piece of paper appeared. Susan pulled it free from its hiding place. It is a letter dated the 14^th of March, 1958.

It is also in Swedish. Thanks to OSLC member Daniel Zinsmeister, we now have the translated letter. It begins, "Dear Aunt and Uncle. I have sad news to tell you. Mother has died." In all, the epistle explains the mundane trek from a gallstone attack to a lung infection with the result of being "carried off quiet and still."

I’ve never been exceptionally interested in genealogy and family tree exploration. I’m pretty sure the letter which is from Karrie Olsson refers to my grandfather’s sister. The name of the deceased never appears.

The typed letter doesn’t go on about much of anything else. Only one page long, I’m sure Karrie dashed it off quickly even though my grandfather didn’t hear about his sister’s death until weeks later. I suppose most of those who emmigrated to the US from the Old Country got their news well after the actual events took place. Letters traveled by boat.

Still, this letter which just seems to have dropped out of nowhere has raised an interest level in my Swedish roots. Apparently they lie deep in the soil of Munkfors in the county of Varmland. A 1978 YouTube video shows a land filled with rivers, pine trees, and bridges. It looks a lot like the U.P.

In our world of instant communication, it bends the mind a little to think about sending letters that relayed news so old that it could never be acted upon. Those days of communicating across an ocean by mail have disappeared. Air travel today may have beckoned my grandfather to return home for the funeral.

The overriding sense for me is identity. Who were they? What were they like these relatives who remained in Sweden after my granddad stowed away on a boat and came to America? I will never know, but I will always wonder.

Pastor B.

Much of the decline, it seems, comes from the continued ripple of priest sexual abuse issues in the Roman Catholic Church. Abuses in other denominations also have cropped up, although not so wide spread.

I think a couple of reflections are called for here. First, as our cultural morality continues to spiral downward, moral leadership inevitably follows. In fact, clergy people may not be moral leaders at all these days. I’m not sure where folks, especially youth, find their moral directions. Rather than moral leaders, I think very young people see clergy as stodgy relics of an irrelevant time.

I also think that the ability in this country to just start your own church and call yourself a pastor tends to degrade the clergy pool. A recent article in Christian Century anticipated that over the next few years we will see the decline of educational degrees needed to qualify as a pastor in denominational churches (that’s already true for some non-denominational churches). The litmus test for clergy qualification will generally be tied to results (attendance and money) and not theology.

In the same way, there is no morality qualification if I start my own church. An ordination certificate purchased online can look just as nice on an office wall as one earned with the approval of a candidacy committee, bishop and church body.

I anticipate the number will continue to fall, although clergy will hopefully not reach the nadir of lawyers and bankers. The highest rated profession in the Gallup poll is nursing. Police officers also rate high.

Won’t it be interesting to see how it comes out next year?

Pastor B.