On Three Points, and a Poem
by Gerald Christianson
On an anniversary such as this, surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues in ministry (among whom I’m pleased to say are many former students) one may be allowed to use an old-fashioned outline for a response to your gracious comments and your generous gifts. I propose “three points and a poem.” All relate to persons, although only today did a twist of fate underline the first: the person of God the loving Father as the hound of heaven. As a Minnesota-born Norwegian from the old Augustana (Swedish) Synod it’s no wonder that free-floating anxiety increased as this day approached, or that I attended chapel today intentionally to find solace. All went well until we stood to sing a sturdy Reformation hymn. The third stanza ended with this couplet: “Pride and sin lurk within, all your hopes to shatter; heed not when they flatter.” Be assured that, alongside your gracious expressions of affection, I will probably suffer from a strong dose of Scandinavian spiritual indigestion for weeks to come.
The second persons (plural) include my scholarly heroes and my faculty colleagues to whose good-natured teasing about the obscurity of these figures I finally have a forum in which to reply. The hurricane that was Martin Luther has tended to throw everyone leeward into forgotten obscurity, but should we not know what were the winds and water temperatures before the storm broke? In all candor I’m not always sure I understand Nicholas of Cusa, and when I do, I’m not sure I agree. Yet even Cusanus (as in “The Cusanus Society” which meets here ever two years) has more name recognition than the other two figures that have captured my attention—Giuliano Cesarini and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (aren’t we glad that we didn’t name societies after them?). But all three were engaged in something profound that this past generation has tried to clarify, if not actually discover: the principle, derived from the conciliar movement, that representative government is rooted in the people—for which reason there’s a singular appropriateness to holding our conferences in Gettysburg where this principle was annunciated with unparalleled clarity. Additionally, I have discovered in teaching Integrative Seminar III that since all three figures eventually went over to the papal side they are excellent examples of the delicate balance between what the professional study of leadership calls transformational and transactional models. Most of all, this past generation has discovered in the principles of medieval conciliarism the roots of modern constitutionalism, including our own. And they have rediscovered that, while the papal church rejected conciliarism in favor of hierarchy, Reformation churches adopted its principles and practices all up and down the line, from parish councils to regional synods to national conventions.
Third, and finally, the persons of my family have taught me the inevitability, not to mention the pleasures, of community, and have taken us off this hill to where we live with our extended community and its tangled search for justice, mercy, and peace. Above and beyond the wonderful tribute to Carol, let me add her greatest achievements, her children: Gregory who gave me a love of Shakespeare and who I suspect does understand Nicholas of Cusa; Rachel, our Scandinavian Jalapeño who came to us on a 727, the biggest stork you’ve ever seen; and their partners, Mathieu and Angela. If there is anything truly important beyond these that is close to my heart, I take special satisfaction from two involvements: the organ and worship space at Gettysburg Seminary, and the organ and worship space at St. James Church.
I close with Tennyson whose Ulysses, long past the journey known as the Odyssey, has reached a still-restless maturity:
Come my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. . .
Though much is taken, much abides . . .
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
It is not the finding, but the searching, not the arriving, but the adventuring, that have made every day of these four decades a glory and a joy.
