Happy Holidays, Not

"A civilian burial party stands by their wagon filled with the frozen bodies of Native American Lakota Sioux, in a ravine south of the camp at Wounded Knee Creek. Mounted U.S. Army officers look on from a hill above."

"December 29, 2007 will mark the 117th anniversary of the slaughter of innocents at Wounded Knee. As is their custom, the Lakota people will gather at the mass grave where the bodies of men, women and children were dumped and they will pray and ask the United States government to apologize for this day of death. They will pray that the Medals of Honor handed out to the murderers be rescinded and they will pray for peace between the Lakota and the rest of America. There will be a ceremony called "Wiping Away the Tears," and this ceremony will conclude a day of mourning, a day when the Lakota reach out to the rest of America for peace and justice."

"In early December of 1990, as the 100th anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee approached, I wrote the cover story for USA Today. I quoted an editorial that appeared in the Aberdeen (SD) Saturday Review on January 3, 1891, just five days after the massacre. The author wrote about those terrible "Redskins," his favorite word for Indians. He wrote, "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one or more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth."

"That editorial calling for the genocide of the Lakota people was written by L. Frank Baum, the man who would later write, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." There have been many others before and since that called for genocide against a race of people. Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot come to mind. But then they never followed up their calls for genocide by writing a charming book for children. It appears to be unthinkable to most Americans that such a wonderful man as L. Frank Baum could be compared to other inhuman beasts that called for the extinction of a race of people."

O Happy Happy Christmas

My Christmas wish was to go downtown to do a little night photography on Christmas Eve. After taking this last shot at 5:30 we drove the ten miles back to church for the 6:00 Candle Light Service. Green lights all the way!

Double click the photo and it will fill your screen, maybe

O Antiphon, O Christmas

Last Evening's service of Lessons and Carols of Advent at Holy Cross Lutheran Church filled my heart, as did being in the presence of friends.

We sat beside the beautiful cantor who sang the seven Antiphons. Her crystal clear voice poured into our ears and into our hearts, as we responded with the seven hymn stanzas of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

The seven titles attributed to Jesus in the antiphons are Wisdom (Sapientia in Latin), Ruler of the House of Israel (Adonai), Root of Jesse (Radix), Key of David (Clavis), Rising Dawn (Oriens), King of the Gentiles (Rex). and Emmanuel. In Latin the initials of the titles make an acrostic which, when read backwards. means: "Tomorrow I will be there" ("Ero cras"). To the medieval mind this was clearly a reference to the approaching Christmas vigil.

The Fifth Antiphon refers to the Rising Dawn: "O Dayspring, splendor of light everlasting: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death."

Winter Solstice

It is good to have the cabinets on the wall instead of in pieces on the table. I tried not to get crabby. He Who Must Be Obeyed worked very hard for at least 10 days on this project. He didn't do much to curb his grumpiness. Grumpy and Crabby are not good bedfellows, or any kind of fellows. But that is a thing of the past and with a little work here and there it is done. Clean and tidy do wonders for us.

I love the first day of winter. Though the Winter Solstice lasts an instant, the term is also used to refer to the full 24-hour period. Sometimes it is called Midwinter.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

The pink link to Midwinter takes you to the midi tune and a bleak picture. This is absolute pure melancholia. I will take the opportunity to wallow in it, for the rest of the day anyway. Then I must, must, must finish my now too late anyway, cards.
If I don't see you here in the next couple of days, have a Wonderful Christmas.

December Wonder

December 21st. The invitation for Christmas Dinner has been extended. A son is able to come. We are grateful for his acceptance.

The last Advent Service was Wednesday. Hands full of Christmas cards and letters come in to our mail box daily. I marvel at the number of friends that send them to us. My people light up my life. The Nation's Center News came today. Weekly newspapers from small towns are almost like reading a letter with dozens of photos of high school sports and rodeos. People visit, get cars repaired, go to various meetings, hunt coyotes, have birthday parties and it all gets reported.

A former school mate writes of Christmas Programs in one of the many Harding County one room schools in the 40's. Another school mate writes with the easy knowledge of Prince Bandar, who was "born near Taif in 1950 to Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, son of the King at that time, and a dark-skinned servant girl that would be classified as a concubine rather than a wife." "Prince Sultan, Minister of Defense during my time in Saudi Arabia, came to my school for graduations and other formal situations."

Our small high school in the 'hinter land,' as one of my Augustana College professors referred to it, graduated students that became people of distinction. People with the core values that made them outstanding in their chosen professions; all from a community and neighbors that cared as much for them as their parents. These people are my people. I am fortunate to have been born and raised there; I am fortunate to be able to go back occasionally and breathe the petrichor and see the people.

The Christmas program story takes me to the Grand River Lutheran Church Christmas programs in the basement before the church was finished. I loved the darkened room, the shiny little red chairs we sat in waiting our turn to sing or recite our 'piece.' I loved my Sunday School teachers, but can't remember the pastors. Mothers dyed gauze material a light blue for the angels gowns and boys pushed and pinched in their bathrobes and jousted with their sheep hooks.

I use another breath taking photograph by the Finnish photographer, who is also a fine artist, I see, as I explore his various web sites. No, I can't read Finnish, so I miss out on descriptions and there are 181,000 hits, some for films, some for Master's Thesis in Public Law, too many to list.

An Example of Finland's Nighttime Magic

The copyright marks are worthy protection of Pekka Parviainen's beautiful photography.

Amazing Night Photography

Several years ago I emailed Pekka Parviainen for permission to use one of his aurora photos on my Christmas letter. I lost track of his Web Site over the years and was guided to it again from a blogger. Night photography is fun and fascinating...cold this time of year though.

I miss the dark skies and occasional aurora in Harding County.

Dick Hutchinson from Circle, Alaska is another longtime photographer of the aurora.

Advent Angst

A woman loves more cabinets, but not on her table for five days. I wouldn't dare complain, after all I just got the last clear coat of finish on them yesterday. He Who Must Be Obeyed is wiring an outlet, painting around the place they will be hung; and eventually we will have a new range hood, microwave, and cabinets. Nearly every improvement is prefaced by the worst mess imaginable.

Miraculously, we agreed on the paint color for the ceiling. We abandoned the starkly blueish white for a softer peachish white. Our kitchen could be nominated for one of those worst nightmare kitchens we look at with disbelief on television. The items we are trying to match, not quite the right word, are some 50 year old knotty pine, walnut stained birch cabinets, red kitchen chairs and some 30 year old blue wallpaper that HWMBO loves. Or loves too much to endure the ghastly removal? You can see all of it in the pathetic photo.

I call the house early ugly, it started life in the '40's as a barn and then some desperate soul added on to it and moved in. It is now our "purchased under duress" legacy from the early '70's. I think more desperate people than us, have called it home. It isn't my dream home. But it is functional; that is what a deceased electrical engineer brother in law called it on a visit 20 years ago. It is still functional, although I might have disputed that statement when the john plugged up and ran over a couple of days ago. Another reason not to ever, ever carpet a bathroom. The entire functional house smelled of Clorox for two days...the carpet is white again.

Advent Blessing

Wednesday evening as we sang our way through the Holden Village Advent Evensong, it was a little alarming to see the third Advent candle lit already. Christmas is close. I love the thoughtfulness and anticipation of Advent.

Many Catholics may be surprised to learn that the Advent wreath actually came from Lutherans living in East Germany. It is a simple wreath made of evergreen and adorned with four candles equidistant from each other. They usually correspond to the liturgical colors of the four Sundays of Advent, dark purple or dark blue.

Holy Cross is using the Holden Evening Prayer service by Marty Haugen. Listening to our faith-filled pastor sing the Service of Light was breath taking and singing the 141st Psalm in two parts nearly brought me to tears. It is a beautiful service.

I love it when He Who Must Be Obeyed joins in the singing. Worshiping together is a wonderful way to observe the coming Christmas in a manner that sidesteps the cacophony of the insane commercialism that overtakes some of us. Maybe all of us at one time or another. Tomorrow night he has volunteered to set out the luminaries that for a block guide the visitors to the Living Nativity in the church lawn. A search light will alert that part of the city that the Christ Child lies in the stable; with the camels and donkeys as cold as the choirs of small angels.

The People's Chief

This proud fellow is an artist's (my dad's) rendition of the feelings of many a Chief when the white's took their land, shot the buffalo, and placed The People on poor quality reservation land. It was painted in the 1960's.

Red Viking

Another image of a Red Viking. This one was painted by my dad, Axel Sacrison, when this Viking was about 26 years old.

Viking Tribal Chief

Bryce the Red,
Champion Viking.


Don't let the
sleepy demeanor
fool you.

This guy puts on his tribal headgear to celebrate family every other year.

He took his younger brothers deer hunting the fall he turned 20. He taught them to make a living pouring concrete. He built his bride a house when he was 21, and a second one when he was 24. He saw to it that the town of Belle Fourche ran smoothly when he was 26. He wrestled in glass on the Standing Rock. He was a wild vikinger till he got blood on his own shirt.

Besides, he drinks string bean juice right from the can. How tough is that!