In September, I visited a Seattle friend who resides on a 33 ft. double-ender cutter rig sailboat. He’s chosen to live there 13 years, his boat moored at Shilshole Marina. Art doesn’t own an automobile, moves about the city on a bicycle and uses public transportation. He makes a modest living as an architect, designing eco-friendly buildings and providing services for nonprofit organizations. He’s a writer and composer. He’s also a prophet.
Let me tell you more. Art and I first met twenty years ago. He was a student at the University of Washington. I taught a continuing education class at the university: “The Broken Circle: Contemporary Issues for American Indian Tribes.” In following years, he ended up working for the Swinomish Indian community, designing a cedar ceremonial smokehouse, the first of its kind in Puget Sound. Appropriating his skills of perception and sensibility about structure and function, he once described a Jesuit priest, a mutual colleague of ours, with this memorable phrase. “Father Pat,” he said, responding to my question about our colleague’s liturgical style, “doesn’t seem to take up any space. He makes space. For others.”
After dinner at a Thai restaurant on Old Ballard Ave, I spent the night aboard his small sailboat, sleeping in the cabin’s guest quarters, inches away from the 46′ mast that rose up from the keel, through the deck and into the dark overcast skies. But not before we had a discussion about possessions, justice, politics, and spirituality. Art is working on a book, “Shack Living – Re-entering the Web Of Life.” It‘s a series of reflections on architecture, simplicity, and soul. He showed me the accompanying sketches. I read his handwritten notes of his experience, years earlier with his wife, living in a two-room cabin on the South Fork of the Skykomish River. It was there his daughter was born.
I’ve thought about our conversation that night: invitation to living more simply, more in harmony and balance with the world around us. Regarding possessions, here’s a couple of thoughts: If you have stuff, it may be time to start giving it away; thoughtfully, but steadily. If you have few material possessions, don’t get trapped feeling envious of others. Be thankful. In spite of what Walmart is telling us, the old American Dream is dead. The world is changing. Keeping it simple will save your soul. I glimpsed, that night, what’s coming: A way of living lightly on our planet, less driven, more mindful, less acquisitive, more responsible.
The next morning after a cup of coffee, before leaving to continue on my way, I asked Art the name of his boat. “Firey,” he replied. “It comes from a saying by the Bengali poet Tagore.” Pausing, my bicycle-riding architect friend continued, “Tagore wrote a Firey counts not months, but moments…
And has time enough.”
-Jon
Journal Notes
John and Pauline Kiltinen recently passed along an unusual gift to the Cedar Tree Institute: A supply of goat manure from the Keweenaw Peninsula, purchased at a Pine Mountain Music Festival auction. It will be distributed to several of our interfaith Earthkeepers faith-based community garden sites this coming spring. The manure was produced by goats, we were informed, fed on meadow grasses. We were also told the goats were regular listeners to classical selections on NMU’s Public Radio.
The Cedar Tree Institute Director published an article in the December 2013 issue of the Marquette Monthly on the legacy of Jesuit priest Fr. Jacques Marquette. Thanks to Regis Walling and Dan Rydholm for their assistance in unwrapping an often forgotten part of our Upper Peninsula history. The Director published an article titled “Arctic Drums and Dreams” in Indian Country Today (6/13) and contributed a manuscript for a collection of essays on Carl Jung and Teilhard de Chardin to be published in 2015 by Fred Gustafson. Fred is a Jungian analyst in Wisconsin and former ELCA church mission developer in Marquette County during the 1970s.
CTI’s ongoing work with the local hospice community continues with two Janus Project seminars planned for 2014. Thanks to physicians Mike Grossman and Larry Skendzel, Marquette Country’s two hospice medical directors. They are committed to shaping creative, innovative training experiences for staff and hospice volunteers integrating evidence-based mind/body practices,
Welcome to Ken Kelly, retired social worker, former NMU faculty member, and current CTI Advisory Council member who has returned to Marquette. Ken will be working as a volunteer with the Institute along with his responsibilities as a grandfather and elementary school crossing guard.
Rich Wickstrom, a member of the security staff at Baraga’s Maximum Security Correctional Facility is in communication with the Cedar Tree Institute and the U.S. Forest Service to design a program for inmates involving the protection and recovery of the Monarch butterfly. The Upper Peninsula is part of the Monarch’s migration path. Dependent on funding, the project is scheduled for 2014-15.
Earthkeepers II
An Interfaith Environmental Initiative
Ten faith traditions, involving 250 congregations across Northern Michigan and Wisconsin, are working together with CTI and 20 volunteers to bring a new commitment to environmental issues, deepening the connections between spirituality and ecology, modeling good stewardship practices. Thanks to partnerships with the US Forest Service and the US Environmental Protection Agency our volunteers accomplished the following achievements in 2013:
- 25 energy audits for faith-based public buildings
- 7 community gardens identified, 23 sites confirmed
- 9 presentations and workshops on spirituality and environment at Presbyterian churches in Gould City and Manistique, Lutheran (ELCA) churches in Marquette and Munising, the NGLS/ ELCA Lay School of Theology in Ishpeming, and the Mackinaw Presbytery
- 200 Northern white cedar trees planted by youth
- 14 weekly meetings with NMU’s EK Student Team
- 3 strategic retreats facilitated with 24 volunteers
- 500 Earthkeeper interfaith prayer booklets distributed
- 12 stories and 2 editorials about Earthkeeper projects published in The Detroit Free Press, The Mining Journal, NMU’s Northwind and The Marquette Monthly
- 3 Public Service Announcement radio spots
- 3,547 page visits to www.earthkeeperup.org
Special thanks to Kyra Ziomkowski-Goodrich, EK Volunteer Coordinator, and our 2013 NMU Student team Tom Merkel, Katelin Bingner, and Adam Magnuson. Also to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s Natural Resources Department for a partnership in this initiative, and to Greg Peterson and Obadiah Metivier for their assistance with media outreach.
In Memorium
ARVID “GUS” SPONBERG 1944-2013
On November 9th, in the Chapel at Valparaiso University, a community gathered to pray, sing, laugh, and join together in a tribute to a beloved English professor, friend, husband, brother and father. A student of the theater, Arvid Sponberg, preferred to be called “Gus” by family and friends was a man of the stage. He was known, on occasion, to hit golf balls out unto snow-covered fairways.
Gus’ wife Bonnie sent us a copy of a letter her husband had written to a student in 2007. Upon hearing of Gus’ death this summer, the original letter was returned with a handwritten note of appreciation from this graduate of Valparaiso’s English Department. The student had begun a PhD program in 2007 in another state. She found herself in an academic setting where she discovered it was fashionable to mock religious references and reflections.
Here’s an excerpt from Gus’s letter to her: A remarkable witness to the power of conscience and the integrity of personal experience.
“And so, what if some dog-eared theory-monger bucking for tenure or promotion or a Guggenheim comes after my faith as if it were just another abstract, intellectual construct? He or she doesn’t know MY story — most won’t take the trouble even to ask — so can’t know the depth of my roots nor the strength that I draw from them. Doesn’t know that my faith is the ground on which I stand. And from which I choose what issues I will address, and with what methods I will address them. I claim for my faith the same authority to light my way in literature, and in life, as does anyone else.”
*During the last fifteen years of his tenure at Valparaiso, Gus was a Research Fellow with the Cedar Tree Institute providing articles and offering counsel. This past August, he served as MC for our summer Institute celebration at Presque Isle Park Pavilion here in Marquette.
PETER ANDERSEN 1945- 2013
A memorial service was held on October 25th to honor the life of colleague and Lutheran pastor Pete Andersen, a seminary classmate of the CTI Director. Thirty-nine clergy were present. The sanctuary of Marquette’s Messiah Lutheran Church was packed with congregational members, friends and family. Peter was a gifted pastor, a fine musician, and an environmentalist who loved birds. He was a thoughtful, theological thinker, carrying with him a keen sense of pastoral presence and an unswerving loyalty to the mission of the church. At the close of a two week visit to the UP this summer by a choir from the Lutheran Church in Tanzania, Peter worked with the Cedar Tree Institute presenting, to our overseas guests, 24 bottles of homebrewed maple syrup for passage back to the African continent. Peter was a founding member of Earthkeepers II. To Peter’s wife Marilyn and son Phillip our prayers. Peter, brother, yours was a life well-lived.
In Appreciation
“The Cedar Tree Institute exists,” our volunteer bookkeeper Anne Rydholm once remarked with a smile, “in time, but not in space.” CTI has no full-time employees, owns no property, and works collaboratively with federal agencies, Indian tribes, environmental groups, and faith communities. As a nonprofit organization, one third of our work is pro-bono. Deepest thanks to the 133 individuals from 20 states who helped us carry on in 2013. We face formidable challenges in 2014. If you’re able to help us, we need you more than ever. Thank you!
The Zaagkii Project
Wings and Seeds
In 2008, The Cedar Tree Institute, Marquette County’s Juvenile Court, The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), and the U.S. Forest Service joined together to begin a consolidated effort to restore and protect native plants and pollinators here in Northern Michigan’s threatened ecosystem. As part of this initiative, in October of 2013, the seventh Kinomaage Native Plants Workshop took place at the Ojibway Community College in Baraga. Thanks to Tom Biron, member of the Sault Ste Marie Band of Chippewa Indians, Scott Herron, ethnobotanist, and to Jan Schultz, Chief Botanist for the Eastern Region of the USFS, who provide support and direction for this ongoing effort.
This project continues supporting tribal maple syrup operations and exploring possibilities of building small family-based tribal economies around harvesting wild ginseng, blueberries and cranberries. Tribal staff from KBIC’s Natural Resources Department also serve as partners for our unfolding interfaith Earthkeepers community garden initiative.
Coming Up in 2014
Iron and Silk: A Mind/Body Retreat
Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp, Crystal Falls
January 3-4, 2014, Friday 6 P.M. – Saturday 4 P.M.
Tai Chi Chuan Instruction
Classes are available each Wednesday evening from 5:30 P.M- 6:30 P.M. at Grace United Methodist Church, along with a Saturday morning workshop, once a month.
Tai Chi is a mind/body practice based on gentle movements that reduce blood pressure, increase balance, and regulate the immune system.
Public Presentation
“Religion and the Public Square: Politics, Faith, and the First Amendment,” Jon Magnuson
Peter White Public Library Community Room
January 28, 7 P.M. (Sponsored by the Peter White Community Forum Series)
Public Presentation
“Earth-Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key,” Larry Rasmussen, PhD, Professor Emeritus
Union Theological Seminary, Northern Michigan University Center
March 10, 7 P.M. (Sponsored by the Interfaith Earthkeepers II Environmental Initiative)
Benefit Concert
“Songs for the Earth” with Michael and Pam Shirtz
Messiah Lutheran Church
April (TBA) (Proceeds to underwrite the Earthkeepers II Community Garden Initiative)
Spirit of Place
A 5-day Kayak Retreat on “Spirit and Landscape” along the shores of Lake Superior, August 4-8, Lee Goodwin, co-facilitator and Sue Belanger, kayak instructor and guide. With a focus on the writings of Flannery O’Conner.
Music For All Kids (MFAK)
CTI is moving forward to support a program providing music lessons (by local instructors) for youths who, with economic pressures, would otherwise not be able to afford them. Shane Murray is working with Marquette’s Alternative High School, initiating this project in January of 2014. They would be delighted to receive donations for instruments and administrative costs.
For more information contact:
906-235-5163
www.music4allkids.us
CTI BOARD
- Jon Magnuson, M.Div., M.S.W., CTI Executive Director
- Steve Mattson, Senior Vice President, Wells Fargo Private Client Services
- Jim Elder, Attorney, Elder Agency
ADVISORY COUNCIL
- Larry Skendzel, Medical Director, Lake Superior Hospice
- Gareth Zellmer, Consultant, Trainer
- Ken Kelley, Professor Emeritus, NMU
- Rick Pietila, Project Technician, Beijing
- Jan Schultz, Botanist, USAFS, Eastern Region
RESEARCH FELLOWS
- Michael Grossman, Family Physician
- John Rosenberg, Olympia, Washington
Thank you for reading the Winter 2014 Ecotone Newsletter, the official Newsletter of the Cedar Tree Institute.
