January 1963. A letter from my mother. Two things she says.
"It's a gorgeous day. Hope it is there too and that you feel up to a lot of alert learning all week long! What fun to be learning, learning, learning. You should really h ave a sparkle these days!"
My mother didn't finish college. She went to a community college, I believe, for a short time before coming out west to work at Lockheed and meet my dad in 1942. I think she majored in "homemaking." I could be wrong. But that's what I remember.
"Why don't you buy a copy of that "Letters to New Churches. We're starting a series of Bible Study in our Circle and need it for that. It's only $1.25 I think."
Googling that book, I find nothing except what I thought it referred to: the Pauline letters.
For those of you not raised in the bosom of a church, Pauline here is not a girl's name. It is an adjective referring to the Apostle Paul, and the letters he wrote are books of the bible: Corinthians (letter to the church at Coriinth in Greece), Ephesians (letter to the church of Ephesus in what is now Turkey), etc.
I'm not certain if she wants me to buy it for her or for me. $1.25? We can only dream. But I can feel her longing for education in these pages. The only source she found to feed that longing was the Bible study classes at her church. There was a university in our town, and she could have taken some courses there. But I believe she would have preferred to study theology, if she studies anything. I think she read Karl Barth and Paul Tillich - or selected essays from them. I'm not certain if her Circle dipped into Reinhold Niebuhr. But I think she envied me, studying at a Lutheran college, and I'm certain sometimes she despaired that I would not take full advantage of this wonderful chance, and when I let the scholarship drop, she was appalled.
This particular daughter - this daughter who is so aglow with the thrill of learning, learning, learning - is a daughter I would liked to have been - even back then, I would like to have been that daughter. But the truth is that I found freedom too distracting, the boys, the social life, the letters from the fiancee' in the army, hanging out in the dorm, sneaking out at night to double date with my friend Char (even though I hated the guy they hooked me up with) - but it was all LIFE. I sometimes truly wanted it to be LEARNING. But instead I was falling too much in love with LIFE.
"It's a gorgeous day. Hope it is there too and that you feel up to a lot of alert learning all week long! What fun to be learning, learning, learning. You should really h ave a sparkle these days!"
My mother didn't finish college. She went to a community college, I believe, for a short time before coming out west to work at Lockheed and meet my dad in 1942. I think she majored in "homemaking." I could be wrong. But that's what I remember.
"Why don't you buy a copy of that "Letters to New Churches. We're starting a series of Bible Study in our Circle and need it for that. It's only $1.25 I think."
Googling that book, I find nothing except what I thought it referred to: the Pauline letters.
For those of you not raised in the bosom of a church, Pauline here is not a girl's name. It is an adjective referring to the Apostle Paul, and the letters he wrote are books of the bible: Corinthians (letter to the church at Coriinth in Greece), Ephesians (letter to the church of Ephesus in what is now Turkey), etc.
I'm not certain if she wants me to buy it for her or for me. $1.25? We can only dream. But I can feel her longing for education in these pages. The only source she found to feed that longing was the Bible study classes at her church. There was a university in our town, and she could have taken some courses there. But I believe she would have preferred to study theology, if she studies anything. I think she read Karl Barth and Paul Tillich - or selected essays from them. I'm not certain if her Circle dipped into Reinhold Niebuhr. But I think she envied me, studying at a Lutheran college, and I'm certain sometimes she despaired that I would not take full advantage of this wonderful chance, and when I let the scholarship drop, she was appalled.
This particular daughter - this daughter who is so aglow with the thrill of learning, learning, learning - is a daughter I would liked to have been - even back then, I would like to have been that daughter. But the truth is that I found freedom too distracting, the boys, the social life, the letters from the fiancee' in the army, hanging out in the dorm, sneaking out at night to double date with my friend Char (even though I hated the guy they hooked me up with) - but it was all LIFE. I sometimes truly wanted it to be LEARNING. But instead I was falling too much in love with LIFE.
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