THE GATHERING

Our brief midweek service of prayer and Eucharist remains the heartbeat of our life together, where we remember who we are, where our strength and hope comes from. 7 p.m. each Wednesday in the University Center, 2nd floor. Look for the Gathering banner with chalice and bread symbols. (Marquette Room).

Thank you to Bishop Tom Skrenes, Pastors Ken Lahners, Amanda Kossow and Sherwood Glover who served as special guest speakers during past weeks. Our last Gathering for this semester will be December 7. We’ll resume once again on the first Wednesday of the new semester, January 18. Come join us!

GAUDEAMUS

Sunday evening: A time for sharing good food, for meeting old friends and building new relationships. Due to Thanksgiving break, there will be no Gaudeamus on November 27. Our last end-of-the-semester dinner will take place on December 4 at Jon and Diana’s home (403 E Michigan St). Meet at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 6 p.m. for a ride, or walk up and knock on the front door at the corner of Michigan and Spruce. Welcome!

And a note of gratitude to Ken Culp from NMU’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science who joined us in November with reflections on health, attitude and his 7th Day Adventist tradition! A remarkable evening.

After 38 years serving as an ordained pastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I'm moving into a new season of professional and personal life. My current position with NMU's campus ministry and the church will come to an end on January 29, 2012, following an evening Eucharist at Messiah Lutheran Church in Marquette. Here is a final reflection.

Not long ago I sat with a good friend in his dining room overlooking, through a grove of trees, a distant lakeshore. During his professional life, he proved himself to be an exceptional leader, a good steward of resources, both for the industry he served, but also with his own personal finances.In recent years he and his wife have traveled extensively around the world, into China, Europe and Africa. I was curious about those experiences. He shared with me, over tea and homemade banana bread, fond memories from those adventures.

On the way back home following our conversation, I became deeply appreciative of the journey my own work has led me on over these last 30+ years. After returning from the Peace Corps in Nepal, during the seasons that followed, there were no tour groups or cruise lines but church council meetings around furnaces during cold winter nights, restless hours spent in a sleeping bag on floors during confirmation retreats, prayer groups lit by kerosene lamps in Central American villages, small but faithful remnants of students who gathered each week around make-do altars at various university centers and ministry houses. Alongside me in spirit and with practical expressions of support were council and board members, colleagues and friends, and most important, a loving, teasing and forgiving family who encouraged, scolded, warned and, when I needed it the most, affirmed me.

Over time, I discovered a pastors work is, by its nature, often lonely, threatened with role confusion and subtle forms of vanity. In spite of these challenges I was renewed and strengthened, during a time of personal doubt and fatigue, when a seminary president helpfully reminded me that a priests vocation is, and will continue to be, among the worlds oldest, most noble of professions.

That vision carried me into the rough and tumbled lives of people. Their stories are marked by what I witnessed as extraordinary moments of courage, grace, sometimes bitter tragedy. They are part of who I am. After serving two parishes and three campus ministry settings in the Pacific Northwest, Michigan and Wisconsin, here are a few glimpses from those experiences that shaped the way I've now come to see the world.

- Lifting gill nets by hand on a brisk, clear October day, with a commercial fisherman, a member of our parish, in a 16-foot wooden boat, rocking gently on the clear blue surface of Lake Michigan, hours passing with no words spoken, swallowed up in an Earth's elegant prayer.

- Reading scripture at a Petoskey hospital to a 36-year-old mother moments before she died at the end of long, painful illness, leaving behind five children and a memory of the husband who'd abandoned her.

- Bringing communion to the Mackinaw County Jail alongside a retired ironworker and recovering alcoholic, baptizing a 19-year-old prisoner as he kneeled on the damp concrete floor.

- Stumbling along the edge of a riverbank in a MIchigan forest, officiating at my first wedding, inviting a group of loggers to place half-empty beer cans outside the circle I'd drawn in the river sand to create a sacred space. Celebrating that wedding reception in a dilapidated trailer with donuts and coffee.

- Pushing a grand piano into a cold, dark inner city sanctuary in Milwaukee before dawn one Easter morning so a friend, a piano bar musician, could come from a night of working in a smoke-filled lounge to open a liturgy of baptism. Listening to him sing a rendition of Amazing Grace for one of our neighborhood's low-income apartment dwellers, watching her standing proud by a baptismal font, dressed in white.

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- Sitting alone by the bedside of a reclusive, lonely 85-year-old parishioner dying in a dreary, underfunded county hospital, offering a final benediction of mercy as he confessed, in a hoarse whisper, the long-kept secret of a murder he'd committed 60 years earlier in Detroit.

- Singing around a beach fire, dressed with rain gear and stocking cap, eating a joyous meal with our campus ministry community on the foggy Oregon coast, prepared from seaweed and mussels by a graduate student majoring in marine biology who had just returned from Alaska.

- Praying with a Paiute elder as a light snow fell upon a small gathering of friends and tribal members, listening to him chant a prayer in a language I'd never heard before, bearing the mother of Romona Soto Rank. Twenty-five years later, standing alongside that daughters husband and children on a rocky, barren hillside in the heart of the Klamath Indian Reservation, watching the sunset over the Western horizon, lifting up prayers this time for her own memorial service, helping lower a pine casket into that same holy ground.

- Riding in the back seat of a rickety van into Glacier National Park with university students from Missoula, listening to a young woman from New York City, eyes beaming, tell us she saw her first Bald Eagle that afternoon as we'd watched, from a canyon's rim, the last of wild salmon make their way up from the Pacific Ocean a 1,000 miles down stream on their final journey home.

- Standing in the midst of 300 Native Americans and religious leaders at Seattle's Discovery Park engulfed by sounds of drums, presenting on behalf of six denominational leaders and Bishops, a formal apology to 46 tribal leaders in the Pacific Northwest for our Chirtian churches' historical compllicity in the desecration of traditional American Indian religious practices.

- Receiving from guests, during various occasions at our student mid-week worship altar, gifts of salmon from the Columbia River and a bottle of Pinot Noir hand-carried back from France to be used as communion wine. Sharing fresh, homemade maple syrup from a nearby maple grove to 300 parishioners during a Sunday morning worship service.

- Pulling one of our students, a seasonal firefighter, out by sled who'd suffered a seizure one January evening outside a cabin near Lake Superior, an EMT by my side and NMU student Kate Drefke, who years later would serve as a volunteer with a church housing project in London, guiding our way out of a dark forest through the falling snow under the light of a kerosene lantern.

- Listening with a group of students to Jesuit priest Dean Brackley in San Salvador, staring at faded traces of the blood-stained floor where his colleagues had been assassinated years earlier. Remembering how the Salvadoran Roman Catholic Church had aligned itself, at great cost, with the poor in that country under leadership of Archbishop Oscar Romero

- Helping students and faith-based community volunteers dispose 320 tons of electronic waste collected in church parking lots during Earth Day. Blessing the first of 12,000 trees planted by students and interfaith volunteers from 10 faith traditions on a single April weekend.

- Avakening one recent night this November with a dream reminding me the best efforts of priests, pastors and bishops will inevitably be fractured, unfinished, broken. Recognizing from the great tradition of Scripture that this is always how the Higher Light finds a way to shine through.

2,124 sermons, 193 funerals, 182 weddings, 114 baptisms, 4 dogs, 1 daughter, 1 son, 1 wife.

There you have it.

- Solo Deo Gloria -

Our ministry’s fiscal year ends on January 31, 2012. Our target goal is formidable: $23,500. We believe, with God’s grace and an outpouring of gifts, we will make it happen, once again, so that we can face, with confidence, a year of transition. Thank you all for your wonderful support, especially the women from our Synod’s WELCA organization who recently gifted us in a special way ($700) to help purchase a much needed computer.

And a note to lift up a few far-away folks who, as touches of magic, have been among the most faithful financial supporters of this little outpost over the last fifteen years:

Bob Kraus, (former graduate student in Oregon) recently retired from the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico; Kurt Reichardt, former ELCA Campus Ministry Regional Director now living in Hyde Park, Chicago;

John Rosenberg, pastor in Olympia, Washington (former campus pastor at Portland State University); Sherwood Glover, Lutheran campus Pastor at NMU (1973-78).

God’s blessings to you all!

Our Annual Advent Ministry Pecan Campaign is underway with ten boxes of fresh pecans available from North Carolina. This is our once-a-year festival of giving and receiving fundraising event. We invite you to use these healthy snacks for baking or as gifts. Proceeds support our mission expenses. Contact LCM Ministry Associate Marcia to make arrangements for a pick-up or delivery. Bags will be available at our Covenant Parish, Messiah Lutheran Church office during the holidays.

Again, our thanks!

Earlier this semester, Pastor Sherwood Glover and his wife Jeanne spent three days with us as special guests as part of our Pastor-in-Residence Program. Sherwood served as campus pastor at NMU from 1973-78. Special thanks to John and Pauline Kiltinen who along with Jim and Judy Quirk helped host Sherwood and Jeanne during their time with us. Here are his reflections on his time with us. Sherwood currently lives in Arizona where he continues to serve the church, following his retirement as a parish pastor, a mission consultant and teacher.

“Our September visit to Marquette was a memorable and wondrous experience! It was our first time back to the Upper Peninsula in more than 25 years; we found the changes in the Marquette community and on the NMU campus to be quite astounding and the shifts in the campus ministry to be most interesting. Jeanne and I remain very thankful for all the efforts that were made to make our stay so very enjoyable. We were able to renew old friendships while meeting current students and campus ministry board members. In all this, the Lothlorien House theme became reality as time actually did pass differently for us.

There were aspects of the ministry that were remarkably familiar and others that were new and refreshing. It was wonderful to see student leaders taking responsibility for various aspects of the ministry, to engage in conversation with them and to enjoy the early-morning horizon from the top of Sugarloaf. We took note of the many mission trips experienced by members of the campus ministry community over the years, knowing that these were so often life-changing experiences. We celebrate the tremendous number of rostered leaders in the ELCA that have come out of this ministry. And it was good to experience the many gifts that Jon and Marcia bring to this work.

Among the things that have not changed is the vital role of Lutheran Campus Ministry at NMU. In my years there (August 1973-January 1978), I recognized that much of my work was missionary work, standing at the meeting places of cultural and generational differences while reaching out to those who needed to explore Christian faith in a meaningful framework and welcoming environ-ment. None of that has changed very much. It is at this intersection of ideas, traditions, and world views that campus ministry comes bearing gifts of Sacraments, God’s Good News, hospitality and spiritual formation.

Campus ministry, however, is not just for the students and others who experience its gifts. It remains a significant stage for the wider Church, helping the whole Church learn from and adapt to the new environment in which we live today.

Blessings to Jon on his retirement; may the ministry continue and grow!

Peace!

—Sherwood

With Jon Magnuson’s retirement at the end of January, I’ve been asked to be the Interim Campus Pastor during the transition period before a new Campus Pastor can be called. Transitions are never without difficulty. One of the things you learn is that ministries are much larger than one person. Pastoral leaders have a great impact and certainly Jon has had a tremendous, positive impact on Lutheran Campus Ministry at Northern for the past 16 years. It’s been a great pleasure for me to work closely with him as Chair of the Campus Ministry Board for the past six years.

With his departure, things will change. I will continue to serve in my call to Bethany, Ishpeming, but with the Ministry Associate Marcia Parkkonen in place, along with student leadership and a supportive board, the ministry will go on. A transition committee will also be formed to explore what Lutheran Campus Ministry at Northern will look like down the road. In the meantime, I am committed to the ministry being a place where students and the wider community can engage their journey of Christian faith in a variety of ways, with the mid-week Gathering for Holy Communion always being at the center.

This is also a time when your support is especially crucial. Many of you know that the way Campus Ministry is funded has changed over the past few years. What that means is ministries like this are fragile and much more dependent on the contributions of churches and individuals. We are always looking to broaden the base of support. To honor Jon’s

ministry and to pave the way for a solid foundation when the time comes to call a new Campus Pastor, I invite you to prayerfully consider how you can help keep LCM at NMU a vital part of our synod and the wider church.

Blessings to all!

—Pastor Warren Geier

On Sunday evening, January 29, 2012, there will be a celebration of Lutheran (ELCA) Campus Ministry at NMU and a farewell for Jon who has served this mission site from 1995-2012. You are invited to join us for a simple potluck meal at Messiah Lutheran Church. Dinner will be followed by a brief program in the sanctuary and an evening service of prayer and Eucharist (6-7 p.m.)

Jon retires from his current role on the NGL Synod’s active clergy roster on January 31, 2012. He will continue to serve as the Director of The Cedar Tree Institute, a small nonprofit organization in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that initiates projects and provides services in the areas of mental health, religion and the environment.