Oskar
Stories
Contents
"Oskar" by Keith Hewitt
"With Reverence and Awe" by John Sumwalt
Note: This installment was originally published in 2010.
* * * * * * * * *
In the course of early life, children have a web of censors woven around their minds, poised to catch inappropriate questions. They are taught to be polite, to not talk back, and to not embarrass other people. This is good, for the most part, because there really is such a thing as too much honesty. But as we grow older, sometimes we find that the web is so tight that good questions -- important questions -- don't get asked. When that happens, it may be up to the young prophet, touched by God, to zero in on the truth.
Oskar
Keith Hewitt
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Oskar had an idea.
Where it came from, who knew? It might have been something his pastor, Reverend Macht, had said during his Easter sermon a few weeks before; it might have been something he overheard in whispered conversation between his parents, about how his father's secretary had just disappeared one day; it might have been the dawning realization that children he knew -- children who had been in school with him for years -- would sometimes just stop coming… and stop being seen in the park or on the street.
Who knew? A twelve-year-old boy doesn't need special inspiration for ideas -- they come naturally, sparked every time the thumbwheel of his life is spun against the flint of his character. The point is, he had an idea.
Oskar did not talk about his idea with anyone -- not unusual, even for a twelve-year-old boy, in a time and place where freedom of thought was not encouraged, and where minding your own business was the common wisdom. He wrote it down on a half-used sheet of paper from his notebook, then thought better of it and took the page out, tore it up, and burned it with a match smuggled from the mantle in his parents' living room.
He resigned to just wait, to bide his time in silence and see what happened…
He did not have to wait long.
It was late Spring -- the sun stayed up a little longer, putting the night raids a little further back in the evening. Most nights the sirens would go off an hour or so after dark, and then the airplanes would fly over -- if the moon was up, he could see them, sometimes, clouds of tiny crucifixes sailing through the night sky; more often than not he just heard them, the collective drone of dozens of bombers, like giant mechanical bees off to attack another hive. He had learned long ago -- back when he was a naïve little ten year old -- there was usually nothing to fear from these bees: only if he heard the thin wail of falling death would he bother to take cover.
It almost never happened. When it did, the bombs usually fell harmlessly in the countryside -- never, as he silently hoped, on the school that sat near the center of town. Several disappointments like that had convinced him that the power of prayer was illusory and led him to question some of the things Reverend Macht had said about the goodness of God. What kind of God would allow a barn full of unfortunate milch cows to be blown to pieces, rather than direct the bombs to an empty school building?
It was late Spring, anyway, and there had been no sirens for three days -- an unprecedented quiet spell. After a sparse supper, and a night of doing homework by dim light in a blacked-out parlor, Oskar was put to bed by his mother. As he had done on the nights before, he went to bed without any question, kissed his mother goodnight as she leaned over to tuck him in, and then lay quietly as she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
He waited until he heard his parents' voices, speaking softly and earnestly, then got up, carefully crept to the chair where he had lay his clothes, and dressed himself as silently as he could -- all but the shoes. The shoes waited until he had recrossed the room and was sitting on his bed once more, trying to will himself to be weightless even as the springs squeaked lightly at the return of his burden.
This night, he noticed that his right shoe had developed another hole in the sole. No matter, he reached out in the dark, found the Bible that sat on the bottom shelf of his nightstand, and picked it up. His fingers felt the worn leather cover, determined by touch which was the front and which was the back cover, opened the back and felt for the last page. He hesitated only a moment, then shrugged -- it was not as though he planned to read it any time soon. Carefully, with exaggerated slowness that he hoped would beget quiet, he ripped out the last page, folded it several times, and slipped it into the inside of his shoe.
There -- the Revelation of Saint John would provide a temporary repair, at least enough to keep out the pebbles. He put the book back, wiped the dust from his fingertips on the comforter, slipped on his shoes, and laced them tightly. Then, ready, he lay back on his bed and waited.
He dozed off and on, more tired than he knew, and did not know what time it was when the sound awoke him. He blinked once in the darkness, blinked twice, turned his head and looked toward the window that hid behind thick blackout curtains. Unmistakably, he had heard it -- but he hesitated, waiting to hear it again before he risked getting out of bed.
A truck rumbled close by, seeming to draw closer; gears ground, then shifted down as a truck -- no, two trucks -- turned off Prinz Wilhelmstrasse and onto Friedenplatz.
Yes!
He sat up, swung his legs off the bed and got up slowly, tried to fool the spring beneath his mattress into not realizing he was no longer there. As lightly as he could, he made his way across his room, slipped behind the heavy black fabric of the curtain, and slid the window open a little further.
The trucks were in sight, now -- just a block away, their headlights shaded and dim through the slitted covers that hid them from the air. Down below, the street was empty, the windows dark -- rows and rows of closed eyes, like sentinels fallen asleep on duty. With exquisite care, he bent down, placed a hand on the sill and raised his leg, slipped it through the window then sat for a moment on the sill, awkwardly bringing his other leg through. Then, sitting on the sill with both legs dangling outside, he slowly pushed off and dropped to the ground a few yards below.
He landed on dewy grass, fell forward on hands and knees, got up quickly and wiped his hands on his pants. All of a sudden he felt cold and wished that he had thought to grab a sweater. No matter, things were happening too fast for regrets, now.
The trucks had continued down the block, rolling past their house, coming to a stop three houses down, on the far side of the street, beneath an unlit street lamp. Oskar took in the sight, began to walk toward them as doors opened and men climbed out of both trucks.
Though he walked lightly, his footsteps were not silent against the cobblestone street. As he drew near, one of the men -- a tall man wearing an officer's cap -- turned toward him. Expressions were invisible in the dark, but silhouetted against the shaded headlights the man's carriage showed surprise as he turned toward Oskar. His right hand brushed -- but did not draw -- his pistol. "Was tun Sie hier?" the shadow person demanded in a low, gruff voice. "What are you doing here?"
In the background, the other men had stopped what they were doing, and turned to face them. Oskar could see that two of them carried rifles, and he began to wonder if this was as good an idea as he had thought it was three days ago. He felt colder, now, but drew himself up straight as he addressed the shadow man. "I heard you coming," he said boldly, his voice cracking only a little. "What are you doing here?"
"I am here on official business," the shadow blustered. "Now get back inside. There is nothing to see here." Dismissively, it started to turn away, raising one hand to gesture toward the house in front of which they had stopped.
"I think there is something to see," Oskar countered, not moving forward, but not moving back, either. "I want to know what you are doing here."
The shadow turned back toward him; the hand toyed once again with the handle of the pistol on his hip. "I am here on official business, and you are interfering," the shadow man snapped, his voice a little louder in the night, but still barely at a normal conversational level. "Back to your parents now, or I will take you there myself, you little brat."
The others had drawn a little closer, now -- either to listen, or to support the shadow man who as doing all the talking. Oskar's eyes swept them all, a collection of dark shapes in the night, but he stood still, licked his lips once, and crackled, "I want to know what you are doing, sir. Are you here to take these people away? They're my neighbors. I should know what has happened to them."
The shadow's hand twitched, and this time it gripped the handle of his pistol; the sound of metal scraping against leather was loud in the night. "Listen, you little brat, I have had enough! No more nonsense, or I'll --" The voice trailed off.
"Are you the one who's been taking people away?" Oskar demanded. "People have been disappearing for a long time, now. Are you taking them?"
"We are here doing important work for the Reich," the officer shape growled. "It is no concern of yours -- where do you live?"
"Back there," Oskar answered, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. "If what you are doing is so important, why do you do it in the dead of night… when no one can see?"
The shadow drew a breath, started to speak, when one of the others -- a dark mass with the rounded head of a helmet -- stepped up next to it and whispered. Oskar couldn't hear most of it, but it ended with, "-- another time, Herr Leutnant."
"We have our orders," it hissed back, louder than the enlisted man who spoke in its ear.
Mumble, mumble, mumble, "-- don't need an audience. They would not like it --" mumble, mumble…
"Fine! You deal with it, Obergefreites." The shadow turned on its heel, jamming the pistol back in its holster as it growled commands to the others. The rest climbed back into their trucks, but the one who had spoken drew closer to Oskar, until it stood towering over him. Oskar looked up at him, gulping hard, and could see a hint of a face in the gloom. It stared down at him sternly, said, "You have caused us great trouble, my little friend. Where do you live?"
"There," Oskar answered, turning to look back over his shoulder -- realizing, somehow, that being vague with this one would not serve him well.
"Then what say we get you home." It was not a question.
Oskar gulped again, turned and started to walk back toward his house as the truck doors closed behind them, and the motors coughed rumbled to life. The tall soldier fell in beside him, and they walked silently for ten or twenty paces. Then: "What's your name, boy?"
"Oskar, sir."
"Oskar, what were you doing out here?"
"It was the people, sir. People have disappeared -- friends, neighbors. I heard my parents say that they disappeared in the night, so I decided to see what was happening to them."
There was a pause for three or four paces, then, boots thumping loudly on the cobblestones. Finally, the soldier said, "Curiosity is not a virtue, Oskar. What happens, happens -- it is what must be done."
"But why? Why do these people disappear? Why were the Junks going to disappear, tonight?"
The soldier shrugged. "Because somebody wished it so. We get orders, and we carry them out. The people are brought in, processed, and sent away."
"But what happens to them?"
Another three or four paces, then: "I cannot say, Oskar. I don't really want to know. I do my duty for the Reich, and others do theirs."
"But why?"
"It is a matter of honor -- we do our duty because it is the honorable thing to do."
Silence. They were almost to the house, now, approaching the short sidewalk that led to the front door. Oskar looked up at the soldier, tried to make out his face more clearly. "But I don't understand -- if it is honorable, why do you do it in the middle of the night, when no one can see?"
The soldier stopped. Oskar went one step farther, realized what had happened, stopped and turned. The soldier stared down at him for a moment; then shook his head. "It's complicated, Oskar."
The boy shrugged in the darkness. "I guess I don't see it. If it's the right thing to do, why do you hide it? Why does no one talk about it?"
The soldier frowned, a ghost of an expression in the gloom. "Why do you ask so many questions?"
Oskar shrugged again. "Father says we learn by asking questions."
"I see." The soldier raised his eyes, looked at the darkened face of the house.
"Do I need to take you to the door, Oskar… or do you have another way to get in?"
"Well, I -- I think I can get in. No need to bother my parents with the door."
The ghost of a smile. "I thought so. Then go." Oskar nodded, turned, and started to walk the rest of the way to his house. The soldier watched after him, then called out softly, "And Oskar --"
The boy turned. "Yes, sir?"
"Tomorrow -- some time -- you can tell your father that you can also teach by asking questions."
Oskar hesitated, then nodded in the darkness and turned back to the house.
And the soldier walked back to the trucks, carrying the boy's questions.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT department at a major public safety testing organization.
With Reverence and Awe
John Sumwalt
Psalm 71:1-6
Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe...
Hebrews 12:28
When you enter the front gates of Miller Park in Milwaukee, home of the National League Milwaukee Brewers, you walk by the statue of Henry Aaron. "Hammerin' Hank" was one of my childhood baseball heroes and is now in my pantheon of spiritual heroes.
I never saw Hank play in person. I saw him play on the radio while we were milking cows. There was never time or money enough for a trip to the stadium 150 miles and a world away from the haymows and cornfields of our little farm. Earl Gillespie's play by play was almost as good as being there, especially the night Hank hit the pennant winning homerun in 1957; his greatest moment in baseball, he later said, more important to him than breaking Babe Ruth's homerun record. The Braves were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals two to two in the eleventh inning. The winner of the game would go on to the World Series against the New York Yankees.
Hank hit that walk off homerun on the same day that race riots broke out in Little Rock, Arkansas, over the integration of the public schools. Had they been playing in St Louis instead of Milwaukee, Aaron would not have been allowed to stay in the same hotel as his white teammates who carried him off the field. It was a different world in 1957. A black baseball player was the toast of the town in Milwaukee. President Eisenhower sent Federal troops to Little Rock to escort nine brave black children to what, until that day, had been an all white high school. They were jeered and spat upon as they made their way through the angry crowd up the steps of the school building.
Over the next two weeks, as the troops kept the peace in Arkansas, Henry Aaron hit three homeruns and a triple for a total of seven runs to lead the Milwaukee Braves in beating the Yankees in a hard fought seven game series. The cows got less attention than the radio during those tense days.
Not a lot had changed in America seventeen years later as Hank came closer and closer to hitting that 715th homerun as a member of the now Atlanta Braves. Hate mail, some with death threats, started pouring into Atlanta because a black man was about to break Babe Ruth's record. Aaron was jeered and spat upon in some stadiums. One reporter asked him how he could remain so calm in the midst of these threats on his life. Hank said, "When I was in the ball park, I felt there was nothing that could bother me. I felt safe. I felt like I was surrounded by angels and I had God's hand on my shoulder. I didn't feel like anything could bother me."
After breaking the record on April 8, 1974, Hank and his wife, Billye, had a little party for a small group of family and friends. In his 1991 autobiography, I Had A Hammer, he described his feelings of deep thankfulness and an encounter with the holy.
Billye and I were alone for a little while before everybody arrived, and while she was in the bedroom getting ready, I went off downstairs to be by myself for a few minutes. When I was alone and the door was shut, I got down on my knees and closed my eyes and thanked God for pulling me through. At that moment, I knew what the past 25 years of my life had been all about. I had done something that nobody else in the world had ever done, and with it came feelings that nobody else has ever had -- not exactly anyway. I didn't feel a wild sense of joy. I didn't feel like celebrating. But I probably felt closer to God at that moment than at any other in my life. I felt a deep sense of gratitude and a wonderful surge of liberation all at the same time. I also felt a stream of tears running down my face.
Though I never saw Hank Aaron play I did see him in person once, across several rows of seats at County Stadium on April 6, 1999. He was in town to throw out the first pitch the next day as the Milwaukee Brewers played their first home game in the National League. There was no way to get closer and I didn't think to wave. I just stood and stared, awestruck to be so close to a baseball legend and so thankful for the life of this good man.
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
**************
StoryShare, August 22, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Oskar" by Keith Hewitt
"With Reverence and Awe" by John Sumwalt
Note: This installment was originally published in 2010.
* * * * * * * * *
In the course of early life, children have a web of censors woven around their minds, poised to catch inappropriate questions. They are taught to be polite, to not talk back, and to not embarrass other people. This is good, for the most part, because there really is such a thing as too much honesty. But as we grow older, sometimes we find that the web is so tight that good questions -- important questions -- don't get asked. When that happens, it may be up to the young prophet, touched by God, to zero in on the truth.
Oskar
Keith Hewitt
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Oskar had an idea.
Where it came from, who knew? It might have been something his pastor, Reverend Macht, had said during his Easter sermon a few weeks before; it might have been something he overheard in whispered conversation between his parents, about how his father's secretary had just disappeared one day; it might have been the dawning realization that children he knew -- children who had been in school with him for years -- would sometimes just stop coming… and stop being seen in the park or on the street.
Who knew? A twelve-year-old boy doesn't need special inspiration for ideas -- they come naturally, sparked every time the thumbwheel of his life is spun against the flint of his character. The point is, he had an idea.
Oskar did not talk about his idea with anyone -- not unusual, even for a twelve-year-old boy, in a time and place where freedom of thought was not encouraged, and where minding your own business was the common wisdom. He wrote it down on a half-used sheet of paper from his notebook, then thought better of it and took the page out, tore it up, and burned it with a match smuggled from the mantle in his parents' living room.
He resigned to just wait, to bide his time in silence and see what happened…
He did not have to wait long.
It was late Spring -- the sun stayed up a little longer, putting the night raids a little further back in the evening. Most nights the sirens would go off an hour or so after dark, and then the airplanes would fly over -- if the moon was up, he could see them, sometimes, clouds of tiny crucifixes sailing through the night sky; more often than not he just heard them, the collective drone of dozens of bombers, like giant mechanical bees off to attack another hive. He had learned long ago -- back when he was a naïve little ten year old -- there was usually nothing to fear from these bees: only if he heard the thin wail of falling death would he bother to take cover.
It almost never happened. When it did, the bombs usually fell harmlessly in the countryside -- never, as he silently hoped, on the school that sat near the center of town. Several disappointments like that had convinced him that the power of prayer was illusory and led him to question some of the things Reverend Macht had said about the goodness of God. What kind of God would allow a barn full of unfortunate milch cows to be blown to pieces, rather than direct the bombs to an empty school building?
It was late Spring, anyway, and there had been no sirens for three days -- an unprecedented quiet spell. After a sparse supper, and a night of doing homework by dim light in a blacked-out parlor, Oskar was put to bed by his mother. As he had done on the nights before, he went to bed without any question, kissed his mother goodnight as she leaned over to tuck him in, and then lay quietly as she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
He waited until he heard his parents' voices, speaking softly and earnestly, then got up, carefully crept to the chair where he had lay his clothes, and dressed himself as silently as he could -- all but the shoes. The shoes waited until he had recrossed the room and was sitting on his bed once more, trying to will himself to be weightless even as the springs squeaked lightly at the return of his burden.
This night, he noticed that his right shoe had developed another hole in the sole. No matter, he reached out in the dark, found the Bible that sat on the bottom shelf of his nightstand, and picked it up. His fingers felt the worn leather cover, determined by touch which was the front and which was the back cover, opened the back and felt for the last page. He hesitated only a moment, then shrugged -- it was not as though he planned to read it any time soon. Carefully, with exaggerated slowness that he hoped would beget quiet, he ripped out the last page, folded it several times, and slipped it into the inside of his shoe.
There -- the Revelation of Saint John would provide a temporary repair, at least enough to keep out the pebbles. He put the book back, wiped the dust from his fingertips on the comforter, slipped on his shoes, and laced them tightly. Then, ready, he lay back on his bed and waited.
He dozed off and on, more tired than he knew, and did not know what time it was when the sound awoke him. He blinked once in the darkness, blinked twice, turned his head and looked toward the window that hid behind thick blackout curtains. Unmistakably, he had heard it -- but he hesitated, waiting to hear it again before he risked getting out of bed.
A truck rumbled close by, seeming to draw closer; gears ground, then shifted down as a truck -- no, two trucks -- turned off Prinz Wilhelmstrasse and onto Friedenplatz.
Yes!
He sat up, swung his legs off the bed and got up slowly, tried to fool the spring beneath his mattress into not realizing he was no longer there. As lightly as he could, he made his way across his room, slipped behind the heavy black fabric of the curtain, and slid the window open a little further.
The trucks were in sight, now -- just a block away, their headlights shaded and dim through the slitted covers that hid them from the air. Down below, the street was empty, the windows dark -- rows and rows of closed eyes, like sentinels fallen asleep on duty. With exquisite care, he bent down, placed a hand on the sill and raised his leg, slipped it through the window then sat for a moment on the sill, awkwardly bringing his other leg through. Then, sitting on the sill with both legs dangling outside, he slowly pushed off and dropped to the ground a few yards below.
He landed on dewy grass, fell forward on hands and knees, got up quickly and wiped his hands on his pants. All of a sudden he felt cold and wished that he had thought to grab a sweater. No matter, things were happening too fast for regrets, now.
The trucks had continued down the block, rolling past their house, coming to a stop three houses down, on the far side of the street, beneath an unlit street lamp. Oskar took in the sight, began to walk toward them as doors opened and men climbed out of both trucks.
Though he walked lightly, his footsteps were not silent against the cobblestone street. As he drew near, one of the men -- a tall man wearing an officer's cap -- turned toward him. Expressions were invisible in the dark, but silhouetted against the shaded headlights the man's carriage showed surprise as he turned toward Oskar. His right hand brushed -- but did not draw -- his pistol. "Was tun Sie hier?" the shadow person demanded in a low, gruff voice. "What are you doing here?"
In the background, the other men had stopped what they were doing, and turned to face them. Oskar could see that two of them carried rifles, and he began to wonder if this was as good an idea as he had thought it was three days ago. He felt colder, now, but drew himself up straight as he addressed the shadow man. "I heard you coming," he said boldly, his voice cracking only a little. "What are you doing here?"
"I am here on official business," the shadow blustered. "Now get back inside. There is nothing to see here." Dismissively, it started to turn away, raising one hand to gesture toward the house in front of which they had stopped.
"I think there is something to see," Oskar countered, not moving forward, but not moving back, either. "I want to know what you are doing here."
The shadow turned back toward him; the hand toyed once again with the handle of the pistol on his hip. "I am here on official business, and you are interfering," the shadow man snapped, his voice a little louder in the night, but still barely at a normal conversational level. "Back to your parents now, or I will take you there myself, you little brat."
The others had drawn a little closer, now -- either to listen, or to support the shadow man who as doing all the talking. Oskar's eyes swept them all, a collection of dark shapes in the night, but he stood still, licked his lips once, and crackled, "I want to know what you are doing, sir. Are you here to take these people away? They're my neighbors. I should know what has happened to them."
The shadow's hand twitched, and this time it gripped the handle of his pistol; the sound of metal scraping against leather was loud in the night. "Listen, you little brat, I have had enough! No more nonsense, or I'll --" The voice trailed off.
"Are you the one who's been taking people away?" Oskar demanded. "People have been disappearing for a long time, now. Are you taking them?"
"We are here doing important work for the Reich," the officer shape growled. "It is no concern of yours -- where do you live?"
"Back there," Oskar answered, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. "If what you are doing is so important, why do you do it in the dead of night… when no one can see?"
The shadow drew a breath, started to speak, when one of the others -- a dark mass with the rounded head of a helmet -- stepped up next to it and whispered. Oskar couldn't hear most of it, but it ended with, "-- another time, Herr Leutnant."
"We have our orders," it hissed back, louder than the enlisted man who spoke in its ear.
Mumble, mumble, mumble, "-- don't need an audience. They would not like it --" mumble, mumble…
"Fine! You deal with it, Obergefreites." The shadow turned on its heel, jamming the pistol back in its holster as it growled commands to the others. The rest climbed back into their trucks, but the one who had spoken drew closer to Oskar, until it stood towering over him. Oskar looked up at him, gulping hard, and could see a hint of a face in the gloom. It stared down at him sternly, said, "You have caused us great trouble, my little friend. Where do you live?"
"There," Oskar answered, turning to look back over his shoulder -- realizing, somehow, that being vague with this one would not serve him well.
"Then what say we get you home." It was not a question.
Oskar gulped again, turned and started to walk back toward his house as the truck doors closed behind them, and the motors coughed rumbled to life. The tall soldier fell in beside him, and they walked silently for ten or twenty paces. Then: "What's your name, boy?"
"Oskar, sir."
"Oskar, what were you doing out here?"
"It was the people, sir. People have disappeared -- friends, neighbors. I heard my parents say that they disappeared in the night, so I decided to see what was happening to them."
There was a pause for three or four paces, then, boots thumping loudly on the cobblestones. Finally, the soldier said, "Curiosity is not a virtue, Oskar. What happens, happens -- it is what must be done."
"But why? Why do these people disappear? Why were the Junks going to disappear, tonight?"
The soldier shrugged. "Because somebody wished it so. We get orders, and we carry them out. The people are brought in, processed, and sent away."
"But what happens to them?"
Another three or four paces, then: "I cannot say, Oskar. I don't really want to know. I do my duty for the Reich, and others do theirs."
"But why?"
"It is a matter of honor -- we do our duty because it is the honorable thing to do."
Silence. They were almost to the house, now, approaching the short sidewalk that led to the front door. Oskar looked up at the soldier, tried to make out his face more clearly. "But I don't understand -- if it is honorable, why do you do it in the middle of the night, when no one can see?"
The soldier stopped. Oskar went one step farther, realized what had happened, stopped and turned. The soldier stared down at him for a moment; then shook his head. "It's complicated, Oskar."
The boy shrugged in the darkness. "I guess I don't see it. If it's the right thing to do, why do you hide it? Why does no one talk about it?"
The soldier frowned, a ghost of an expression in the gloom. "Why do you ask so many questions?"
Oskar shrugged again. "Father says we learn by asking questions."
"I see." The soldier raised his eyes, looked at the darkened face of the house.
"Do I need to take you to the door, Oskar… or do you have another way to get in?"
"Well, I -- I think I can get in. No need to bother my parents with the door."
The ghost of a smile. "I thought so. Then go." Oskar nodded, turned, and started to walk the rest of the way to his house. The soldier watched after him, then called out softly, "And Oskar --"
The boy turned. "Yes, sir?"
"Tomorrow -- some time -- you can tell your father that you can also teach by asking questions."
Oskar hesitated, then nodded in the darkness and turned back to the house.
And the soldier walked back to the trucks, carrying the boy's questions.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT department at a major public safety testing organization.
With Reverence and Awe
John Sumwalt
Psalm 71:1-6
Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe...
Hebrews 12:28
When you enter the front gates of Miller Park in Milwaukee, home of the National League Milwaukee Brewers, you walk by the statue of Henry Aaron. "Hammerin' Hank" was one of my childhood baseball heroes and is now in my pantheon of spiritual heroes.
I never saw Hank play in person. I saw him play on the radio while we were milking cows. There was never time or money enough for a trip to the stadium 150 miles and a world away from the haymows and cornfields of our little farm. Earl Gillespie's play by play was almost as good as being there, especially the night Hank hit the pennant winning homerun in 1957; his greatest moment in baseball, he later said, more important to him than breaking Babe Ruth's homerun record. The Braves were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals two to two in the eleventh inning. The winner of the game would go on to the World Series against the New York Yankees.
Hank hit that walk off homerun on the same day that race riots broke out in Little Rock, Arkansas, over the integration of the public schools. Had they been playing in St Louis instead of Milwaukee, Aaron would not have been allowed to stay in the same hotel as his white teammates who carried him off the field. It was a different world in 1957. A black baseball player was the toast of the town in Milwaukee. President Eisenhower sent Federal troops to Little Rock to escort nine brave black children to what, until that day, had been an all white high school. They were jeered and spat upon as they made their way through the angry crowd up the steps of the school building.
Over the next two weeks, as the troops kept the peace in Arkansas, Henry Aaron hit three homeruns and a triple for a total of seven runs to lead the Milwaukee Braves in beating the Yankees in a hard fought seven game series. The cows got less attention than the radio during those tense days.
Not a lot had changed in America seventeen years later as Hank came closer and closer to hitting that 715th homerun as a member of the now Atlanta Braves. Hate mail, some with death threats, started pouring into Atlanta because a black man was about to break Babe Ruth's record. Aaron was jeered and spat upon in some stadiums. One reporter asked him how he could remain so calm in the midst of these threats on his life. Hank said, "When I was in the ball park, I felt there was nothing that could bother me. I felt safe. I felt like I was surrounded by angels and I had God's hand on my shoulder. I didn't feel like anything could bother me."
After breaking the record on April 8, 1974, Hank and his wife, Billye, had a little party for a small group of family and friends. In his 1991 autobiography, I Had A Hammer, he described his feelings of deep thankfulness and an encounter with the holy.
Billye and I were alone for a little while before everybody arrived, and while she was in the bedroom getting ready, I went off downstairs to be by myself for a few minutes. When I was alone and the door was shut, I got down on my knees and closed my eyes and thanked God for pulling me through. At that moment, I knew what the past 25 years of my life had been all about. I had done something that nobody else in the world had ever done, and with it came feelings that nobody else has ever had -- not exactly anyway. I didn't feel a wild sense of joy. I didn't feel like celebrating. But I probably felt closer to God at that moment than at any other in my life. I felt a deep sense of gratitude and a wonderful surge of liberation all at the same time. I also felt a stream of tears running down my face.
Though I never saw Hank Aaron play I did see him in person once, across several rows of seats at County Stadium on April 6, 1999. He was in town to throw out the first pitch the next day as the Milwaukee Brewers played their first home game in the National League. There was no way to get closer and I didn't think to wave. I just stood and stared, awestruck to be so close to a baseball legend and so thankful for the life of this good man.
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
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StoryShare, August 22, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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