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Minneapolis is a cool city to live in. In more than one sense is it cool. More accurately, in winter it is cold! But in the other three seasons of the year it is comfortable and pleasant. The city is blessed with numerous sparkling lakes within the city limits, plus a generous sprinkling of parks and playgrounds. And churches — particularly Lutheran churches. The heavy accent of Scandinavians in Minneapolis — or at least those of Scandinavian descent — brought forth, early on in the city's history, a plethora of Lutheran congregations, some for the Norwegians, some for Swedes, and even some for Danes. Those of German extraction had their own style of Lutheran congregations as well. Most of those folks came from "the old country" where the Lutheran brand of Christianity prevailed. Hence the large number of Lutheran churches of every brand and stripe.

But Minneapolis has its seedy side also. It has its share of poor neighborhoods and trashy vacant lots — although many of the residents of the city cringe a bit when reminded of that. They would rather think of their city as a clean and upright place. (They would prefer to think of their rival city across the river — St. Paul — as being the seedy place, but then that argument has gone on for years without any noticeable conclusion.)

Henry Daniel had the misfortune on a Saturday afternoon to get acquainted with the seedy side of Minneapolis. Henry was a Black man from a small town in Virginia where he taught in a small Black college. In Minneapolis for an educators' conference, he had been out for a stroll on Saturday afternoon and got a bit disoriented in some of those confusing streets in what is called southeast Minneapolis. (It's not really as southeast as it sounds — only native Minneapolitans can unravel the confusion.)

As Henry paused beside a weed-filled vacant lot and tried to get his bearings, a car full of white teenage toughs noticed him and stopped to tell him rather bluntly that he was in the "wrong" neighborhood. "I'm attending an educators' conference at the university," he began. "And I guess I got a bit lost in my walk." "Yeah, right," one of the toughs responded. "And I'm the governor's bodyguard." To which his buddies chuckled. Their intent was originally just to give the Black man a hard time, but since they each had a few beers in them, the bad time got ugly. And before the toughs sped off in their car, they left Henry unconscious in the vacant lot minus his billfold.

Arvin and Doris Johnson often took a shortcut through this particularly seedy neighborhood on their way to their lake cottage. They were late this weekend getting to their cottage because Arvin had been at his church all morning helping to take care of the large manicured lawn and shrubs. Although he did the volunteer work somewhat willingly, he was a bit irritated this time because he was losing some valuable fishing time at the lake. A mild argument was in progress.

"It was only a sermon, for cryin' out loud," Arvin complained. Once again they were discussing the congregation's participation in the world hunger program, and Doris was hoping to convince her husband that they needed to get serious about aiding in that effort.

"With grandson Jerry newly-confirmed, I'd like to have us set some kind of example," Doris pleaded softly.

Arvin was a life-long Lutheran, as were his parents. Somewhat defensively he said, "Well, I was confirmed too; I learned all that stuff — in Swedish, I might add — and I could still recite some of it in my sleep."

"Reciting it in your sleep doesn't do a whole lot of good, does it?" Doris knew instantly she shouldn't have said that, but she couldn't resist.

Arvin acted as though he hadn't heard. "And you know another thing that ticks me off. All those Viet Nam people or whatever that our churches help to get over here. First thing you know those Asians are going to take over America."

"Well, that's what Jesus tells us we're supposed to do — bring the strangers and aliens in," Doris said quietly.

"Oh, get off the Bible for a change," Arvin said, with some exasperation in his voice. It was difficult to argue these things with his wife because she always had some Bible quotations or other to toss at him. He wasn't sure it was a fair way to argue. "Look at our schools," he continued lamely, "The top of the class is nearly always an Asian — Vietnamese or whatever. And the university here is overrun by all kinds of Asians. Our tax money is going to educate these foreigners!" He was on a roll now.

As they approached the seedy neighborhood shortcut, Doris noticed the Black man Henry lying in the weeds. "Arvin, stop! There's a man lying there and he looks like he might be hurt!"

"I'm not going to stop in this neighborhood and probably end up getting hit over the head," Arvin protested. But he was uncomfortable in his protest. "Anyway, he's probably some wino just sleeping off a drunk."

They had slowed down for a stop sign and Doris got a closer look at Henry. "He doesn't look like a wino, Arvin. He's rather well dressed. I think he's been mugged. At least we should stop and call the police."

"Well, I don't see any place to call from, and besides, someone has probably already called the police. Let's keep moving."

They drove in silence until they reached their lake home nearly an hour later. Fishing wasn't all that enjoyable for Arvin, and Doris couldn't get out of her mind the man lying in the weeds.

The Rev. Nikolai Knutsen was eager to get to the seminary. One of America's leading theologians was concluding a series of lectures there, and Pastor Knutsen hadn't been able to hear the first two, so he didn't want to miss this one. He was driving across town to the seminary in St. Paul with his newly-arrived intern, Bonnie Hanson. Knutsen was nearing 40 years in the ministry, and he still wasn't sure he liked the idea of women in the ministry, but that's who the seminary out east assigned to him. He felt a bit self-conscious about it. That wasn't the way it was done in his Danish Lutheran background.

"Where'd you get the name Nikolai?" Bonnie asked in her west Texas twang.

"That's the name of a famous Danish hymnwriter of old," he said proudly, not quite shed of a Danish accent inherited from his Denmark-born parents. "My mother was organist and choir director for a Danish Lutheran congregation in Iowa for many years, and old Nikolai Grundvig was one of her favorites. Unfortunately my voice doesn't do justice to his hymns."

The conversation switched to theology. Bonnie was eager to display her acquaintance with theology, and Nikolai, of course, wanted to demonstrate that he had lost nothing of his theological heritage, absorbed 40 years before in a small Danish Lutheran seminary. As they discussed bits of liberation theology and process theology — both of which were kind of old hat to Bonnie, although seemingly new stuff to Nikolai — they passed the vacant lot where the Johnsons had passed less than two minutes before.

Henry was still down, but not entirely out. His moans had attracted little attention from passersby, most of whom were in cars. Bonnie spotted him first. "Pastor, there's a man lying there!" Whether Nikolai didn't see Henry or didn't want to see, he kept on driving. "Pastor, let's stop and see what's wrong ..."

"Well, I'm not sure there's anything we can do ... I do want to get to the seminary to hear Dr. Marty, and with this traffic...." He was a bit embarrassed and again self-conscious. What could he do? Nothing, he told himself. Besides, someone else will come along soon.

"I'll bet Dr. Marty would prefer that we stop and help this man rather than listen to him, that is, to Dr. Marty," Bonnie ventured.

"Well, I'll tell you what. You seminarians are often a bit idealistic about what should be done and what can be done. We can't save everybody, you know," Nikolai didn't reallybelieve what he was saying, but he kept on driving, mainly because he didn't know what else to do. The lecture at the seminary gave him a feeble excuse, so he pursued it. "It's getting late, and I hate to walk into these things late ..."

They arrived in time for the beginning of the lecture, but neither of them concentrated much on what was being said. And it was a quiet ride back to the church a few hours later — by a different route.

Tran Nguyen and his wife were among those who had recently been brought to America, specifically to Minneapolis, under the sponsorship of Lutheran congregations. As relatively new arrivals, their English was still fractured and limited. Both of them worked full-time jobs — one of them on a day shift, the other a night shift. Plus Tran held down a part-time job. All of which left them little time with each other or with their three small children.

As in the case of so many new arrivals to America, the Nguyens were working toward self sufficiency. They were determined not to be a burden on society, on the country that was good enough to let them in. Their goal of self-sufficiency required ingenuity in scheduling their days and nights, swapping baby-sitting chores with other Vietnamese in their cramped apartment complex. And at this beginning of their life, their supply of money was always short.

Tran was on his way to his part-time job, a job washing dishes in a rather dumpy diner in a seedy section of the city. As his battered, second-hand station wagon stopped for a stop sign, he noticed the Black man in the vacant lot struggling to get up. Tran sat stunned, wondering what to do, as people in the cars behind him impatiently honked their horns for him to move on. He did, but something told him to circle the block and check on the struggling man.

In his broken English Tran tried to ask Henry what had happened. Henry mumbled the word "mugged," but the word hadn't yet found a place in Tran's limited English vocabulary. Somewhat urgently he told Henry, "My car ... my car!" Through Tran's grunting English, Henry was able to understandthat Tran wanted to take him somewhere. And together they got Henry situated in the front seat of the car.

Tran had taken one of his children to a minor emergency center in the neighborhood a few weeks earlier, and that's where he headed now with Henry and his blood-soaked head. At the center Tran counted out 50 precious dollars — practically all he had to his name — and gave it to the person in charge.

"Wait! Who is this man?" the nurse shouted after the departing Tran.

"I not know," Tran said, pausing in the doorway. "Must go work." And he was gone.

"Who was your friend?" the nurse asked Henry as she dressed his wounds.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Henry replied. "All I know is I got a bit confused while taking a walk, and next thing I knew a bunch of guys jumped me, and when I was partly conscious, there was this Asian fellow trying to get me up."

"It's not a good place to take a walk when you don't know your way around," the nurse offered.

"Well, apparently it was a good place to get some help," Henry smiled through a splitting headache.