Tradition

I grew up in the ranch country of western South Dakota, near the center of Meade County (the fourth largest county in the nation, mind you). My nearest neighbors lived about a mile away. The nearest grocery store was sixty miles away in the little town of Sturgis (yes, the Sturgis of motorcycle fame). We had no movie theaters, no swimming pools (other than a stock dam, which was usually filled with stinky black mud and leaches) and basically none of the other amenities to which “town kids” were accustomed ( I have always resented the fact that we didn't have an ice cream man, with a funny little truck and a happy little song). Rather, to entertain ourselves, especially in the summer, groups of people would get together, roast a pig in the ground, and play guitars and sing. This would go for hours until the kids had all fallen asleep and the adults' fingers were too sore to play any longer. It was a ritual of community living for the ranch folks. It was a time to hear the latest gossip, to remember the old stories, and mostly, to have a good time. I miss those days.

I had an experience not entirely unlike those pig roasts of my youth on Friday night. One of the newly ordained deacons is originally from Vietnam. He had invited a huge crowd of guests for his ordination. They all came, and when I walked through the party, they had already been eating for an hour or so. I was invited to join them, and gladly accepted the offer. After eating my fill of shrimp, crab, and Vietnamese noodles, I was getting ready to leave. About that time, the rest of the group was just getting ready to start the singing. It was karaoke – not exactly the old sad country western guitar classics of my youth -- but it was real people singing the songs they knew and loved. It was an awful lot like home (except that they all spoke Vietnamese, so I couldn’t follow the conversation most of the time.)

Eating with the Vietnamese on Friday night helped to remind me why I am here. I remain in the seminary so that I can ultimately go back to the people who raised me. In the ranch country, children are community property. People look out for one another. I was, and to some extent, I remain, what the neighbors out home refer to as “one of our kids.” It was they who raised me in such a way that I was able to answer the call to enter the seminary. It is they who encourage me to stay the course when I go home. I am tremendously grateful to them for that. I am indeed one of their kids; I long for the day when they can be my people.