Washington D.C. at Christmas. Personal photo.
Part 2: Katharine Graham: Privilege and Power
Note: (Part 2 in a 3-part series on Katharine’s Graham’s memoir, Personal History. Find Part I here. If you plan to read the book, be warned that in this blog post, I start to reveal some spoilers. Also, the page numbers refer to the Vintage Books paperback edition of 1998, not the original hardcover from Knopf.)
Katharine Graham led an extremely privileged life—both the family into which she was born, and the marriage she made with her husband Phil. Together they not only met and were invited to White House dinners with presidents and their wives, but frolicked with them on ranches (Lyndon Johnson), yachts (the Kennedys of course), and got front row seats or backstage passes to the national political conventions of both major parties every four years.
The Grahams exerted the kind of political power that most of us only dream about—both financially (yes they personally supported their favorite candidates, i.e. Kennedy, p. 269) and influence-wise: Phil had a great deal to do with Lyndon Johnson becoming vice president with Kennedy (p. 270). The Kennedy/Nixon contest in 1960 was the closest election since 1916; as I was reading this book through the throes of the fall 2016 election, I was reminded that our nation had been through this type of drama so many times.
Two underlying themes run through this book: family and work. The second half definitely focuses more on Kay Graham’s 
increasing role at the newspaper, which came about through a tragic death.
Kay portrays her husband Phil Graham in her book lovingly—he apparently was brilliant, funny, dashing, and ambitious to the point of sometimes working all night or days on end. Later they would find out he was no doubt bipolar—so classic with his characteristics. He self-medicated with alcohol which was usually kept under control but in his later years, drinking was increasingly a source of great worry for Kay. Through hospitalizations, she was his confidant, caregiver and enabler.
Phil also had an affair which rocked the foundations of Kay’s love and devotion to her husband. At one point he planned to marry Robin Webb, a younger woman who worked as a correspondent for Newsweek from Paris. (The Washington Post Company purchased Newsweek in 1961).
Close friends noted Phil’s increasingly erratic behavior. Kay’s world finally blew apart when Phil went by himself to their country estate, took his hunting rifle, and ended his life. The suicide was as devastating as any. As Kay slowly began to piece her life and family back together, she was thrust into figuring out who and how leadership would evolve (who would be publisher of the Post, or chair of the board for the Washington Post Company? Her children would not be old enough for those positions for years.) She had been a wife and a mother and a socialite. Even though she had worked right out of college as a reporter and walked closely alongside Phil as he ran the day to day operations of the business, she did not go to the office every day or take the worries home.
It was a huge change. She became an employed, working mother, even though financially, she would not have needed to work. But there was a family company to keep running. She was horribly green in the actual management of a huge multi-faceted organization and felt it at every turn. She was also not the first widow to step into such a role, but she often found herself the only woman in a room of managers or board members or in meetings with executives from other companies. Culturally North America was also going through its first waves of the feminist movement; Kay lived the change rather than led in that regard, and was around men who generally considered women too air-headed to be real partners in anything more than a sexual, social, or family relationship. One of her stories on the topic is too telling not to use almost verbatim:
President Kennedy’s charm was powerful. His intense concentration and gently teasing humor, and his habit of vacuum-cleaning your brain to see what you knew and thought, were irresistible. The Kennedy men were also unabashed chauvinists, as were the great majority of men at the time, including Phil. They liked other bright men, and they liked girls, but they didn’t really know how to relate to middle-aged women, in whom they didn’t have a whole lot of interest. … One notable exception to the chauvinist tradition was Adlai Stevenson. Women enjoyed Adlai. In the end, my mother, my daughter, and I all had close friendships with him. … The president [John Kennedy] told Clayton Fritchey [deputy for Adlai as ambassador to the United Nations] he didn’t understand the hold Adlai had over women, commenting on how much Jackie liked and admired him and confessing that he himself didn’t have the ease with women that Adlai had.
Adlai Stevenson, Wikimedia Commons, free media repository
Kennedy went on about Adlai’s being half bald, having a paunch, and not being a very sharp dresser. “What’s he got that I haven’t got?” Kennedy asked Clayton with real curiosity.
Clayton responded saying, “While you both love women, Adlai also likes them, and women know the difference.”
Bingo, Mr. Fritchey. I’ve never heard of you before but I like you too.
Katharine Graham was fortunate to marry the love of her life and she stuck with him through extraordinarily difficult times for one so affluent and acclaimed. Her most complicated tests were still to come.
I’ll finish up this review in Part 3, next week.
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What can we learn from a life like Katharine Graham’s, who lived on such a pendulum? What is your takeaway at this point?
Another Way for week of April 7, 2017
A Monologue: The Rooster’s Crow
Me and my big mouth.
My mom always said I got it from Dad’s side. My dad always said I got it from Mom’s side. It doesn’t matter whose side I got it from, but my mouth could sure get me in trouble. You might know me as the disciple Peter, in the Bible.
But you have to understand, I didn’t really know then what I know now.
Bust of Apostle Peter, from WikiGallery.org, by Sir Anthony Van Dyck
Even when I lucked out when Jesus asked who we thought he really was and I responded, “You are the Christ!,” he praised my answer but I don’t think I really understood what I’d said. I mean I felt that I spoke the truth, but didn’t really grasp it. That’s why I messed up so soon right after, scolding our master for talking about how he was going to be killed and he rebuked me, “Get behind me, Satan.” That was the lowest I ever felt—until the crow of the cock.
But the really bad part was he said I was gonna do it. And if you’ve ever known someone like me, the worst thing you can do is tell me I’m going to react a certain way. He said we would all fall away and old big-mouth-Peter had to say, “Nope, not me.”
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered with a kind, knowing, motherly face, “that tonight before the rooster crows, you’ll disown me three times.”
And we all swore we never would, like a bunch of silly sheep.
Then we had that awful episode in the Garden—I mean, here was our best friend, and leader, who meant everything to us, and we all kept zonking out on him. It was like trying to keep awake in synagogue, and we felt so guilty but just couldn’t help it. (In our defense, he did keep a pretty demanding schedule.)
And then his arrest, and everything happened so fast, and our dream was just falling apart—it was like a nightmare, everything all confused, we didn’t know what was happening.
And then that servant girl by the fire. As soon as I saw her there watching me, I knew she’d start grilling me, and it would be all over town, and I just wanted to get her off my back. I said, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” And then someone said we sounded like we were from his part of the country and another said surely we were Jesus’ disciples.
“Man!” I swore. “I do not know that man!”
And then came the piercing crow of the cock.
Ohhhh….
The previous three years passed before my eyes like I was dying. I was dying inside. I thought of the day my brother and I first met Jesus. And the day he came to my mother-in-law’s house, and healed her! And the night we thought we were all dying on the lake, or the times we’d all end up at someone’s house and have those wonderful all-night talks around a fire.
The stories! What a way with words. And the way he put those Pharisees in their place—and anyone, really; even his family and friends, if the occasion called for it. A master of words. And kindness. His way with children. The mountain top with Elijah and Moses! That day at Caesarea Philippi. Sigh. The best three years of my life.
To deny all that, that was about as low as a friend could go. But then you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You’re better than that. But I’m so glad I didn’t do what Judas did. I was tempted though, you know, to do myself in rather than see the pained look in his eyes after my denial.
I’ll make it up to him. This big old mouth will make it up to him, or die trying. I will make it up to him. Just you see. Easter’s coming!
Biblical references: Matthew 16: verses 16 and 23; 26:34; Luke 22:54-62
***
Do you think of Peter more as the guy with the “keys to heaven” as portrayed in so many paintings of this beloved though perhaps big-mouthed disciple?
Or do you think of his denial?
For a free booklet with six Lenten Conversations, including this monologue by Peter, download by clicking on the link: Lenten Conversations PDF Or send your name, address, and two U.S. postage stamps and I’ll mail you a copy in booklet form. Mail to Another Way Media, Box 363, Singers Glen, Va. 22850.
Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.
Personal History
Three part review of Katharine Graham’s 1998 memoir: Personal History
Part I: A woman I’ve admired: Katharine Graham
Last fall I picked up a copy of Katharine Graham’s Pulitzer Prize winning memoir in a nearby “Little Library” for free.
Somehow if she were alive, I think she would love the international free network of “take one give one” sharing libraries that have sprung up over the last dozen years.
I was anxious to read the book because as a minor journalist and editor, I had long admired Katharine Graham’s seat at the center of so much history in the 60s through 80s. Then in the early 2000s, I got to see the board room of The Washington Post where Katharine Graham had sat many many times. I was thrilled to be in the renowned newspaper’s offices immortalized in both the book and movie, All the President’s Men. My daughter had worked a number of years directly under Graham’s granddaughter, Katharine Weymouth, who was vice president of advertising for the Post at that time. Renowned and astute editor Ben Bradlee used to say hi and chat with Michelle in the elevator, halls or cafeteria the same as he greeted any staff person.
The entrance to the old and historic Washington Post building, with my daughters and mother touring at Christmastime, 2007.
Ever since my own college days living just two hours away from Washington D.C., I have enjoyed superb writing in the Post, especially my favorite part, it’s weekly Sunday magazine, The Washington Post Magazine. There long long articles that take months to develop are allowed to run for the number of pages it takes to tell the stories.
Speaking of long, the book is so long (625 very crammed pages with fairly small type) that when I began it, I promised myself I didn’t have to finish it if it bogged down. And while some parts were more interesting to me personally than others, I was soon caught up in the characters. When I got whiff of her husband Phil’s problems with mental illness and alcoholism, and from other sources saw spoilers alerting me to the fact that their romance and remarkable partnership owning the Post from a young age (Phil was 31) was not going to end well, I was gradually hooked on the story line. In fact, the plot could have been a novel (one of those novels that if her life had been fictionalized, we would have critiqued the writer for not being very realistic). This was a hallmark I noted too in a biography of one of the most well known Mennonites in the 20th century, Orie O. Miller, which I blogged about here. Once again, some things are too good to make up.
So I was not quite prepared for the sweep of history her life and work covers; Katharine was born the same year as my father but in a world so foreign they might as well have been on different planets. Mrs. Graham (and indeed she would have gone by that title for a number of years) was friends with and hung out with presidents and their wives: John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald and Nancy Reagan (some are surprised by that, coming from the liberal Post, but both Grahams, like Katharine’s father before her, endeavored to keep the paper from endorsing specific candidates). She knew and dined with folks like Robert Kennedy, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Adlai Stevenson, Princess Diana, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and many more notables. The book doesn’t say this, but dinner invitations to her home were truly the hottest ticket in the spiffy section of Washington D.C. known as Georgetown.
Her parents were also jet setters in a time before jets, and she spends a great deal of the first part of her memoir sharing and exploring how intimidated and put down she was by her mother. Not a “Mommie Dearest” kind of relationship, but neither would her mother ever have qualified for a “Mother of the Year” award. Graham’s mother, Agnes Ernst Meyer, is portrayed as distant, “strikingly beautiful,” and often critical. She was a connoisseur of European life and finery, and had friendships with the artist Rodin, scientists Marie Curie and Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt and many more. But Katharine was blessed to have a much-loved governess. Neither of her parents even attended her graduation from Vassar in 1938. The times were different then, but STILL! Her father’s fortune came from Wall Street.
As I waded further into Katharine’s autobiography, I encountered the first photo section, where I finally better realized what circles Kay (what most people called her) moved in even as a child. The photos show grand mansions her family owned not just in Washington, but their getaway estate in Mt. Kisco, New York (now owned, interestingly, by President Trump).
Even as a college student, Katharine learned what cachet having the name of the U.S. capital “Washington” in its name lent the paper. At one point in California, simply saying she was from a newspaper in Washington (her father’s paper, very small and not so known then) got her inside a plant undergoing labor problems, and served as an introduction to labor unions and relations, an issue that would bedevil her as she was head of The Washington Post many years later. (Just look at who Trump called when his recent proposed health care bill failed to come to a vote in the House. He personally called reporter Robert Costa’s cell phone at the Post, like he called him every day. Robert said he almost didn’t answer it because the number appeared as a blocked number!)
After cutting her teeth as a reporter on labor stories in California, Katharine began to be assigned what she called “sob sister stories,” a new term for me, but the tear-jerking stories of tragedy or mishap—such as a little girl’s Christmas tree burning.
She writes of the 1940s when black citizens and black crime were not considered news—not worthy of coverage. The night city editor had a map of D.C. in his head and if something bad happened in an area where many blacks lived, no one was sent to cover it (p. 148). You might think that is the opposite of what happens today in news coverage yet quite often if a black drug dealer kills a junkie—there’s no chance of that being covered except in a two liner somewhere.
In the Dewey-Truman election of 1948 (p. 197), the Post held to its policy of not endorsing specific candidates, a policy which began with Kay’s father. They did comment and criticize certain positions or statements by both major candidates, but if you recall your history, Truman was predicted to lose that election in the final polls. People were as shocked as in the recent Clinton-Trump election the next morning. I loved this passage because of Phil Graham’s post-election stunt which Kay described thus:
When it became clear that Truman had indeed fooled the pundits and pulled off a political miracle, Phil [Kay’s husband] sent off a tongue-in-cheek telegram to the president, which Phil printed on page one of the morning-after paper:
You are hereby invited to attend a “crow banquet” to which this newspaper proposes to invite newspaper editorial writers, political reporters and editors, including our own, along with pollsters ….The main course will consist of breast of tough old crow. (You will eat turkey.)
Truman responded with a telegram written in a similar vein but turning down the invitation and sweetly reminding Mr. Graham he had no desire to see anyone eating crow and suggesting they all “get together now and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.”
Today, such messages might have been delivered via Twitter, but not with such elegance or good sportsmanship.
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What can we learn from history, even recent history such as this? To disagree with good humor and style?
Stay tuned for Parts 2 & 3.
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Who is a woman you’ve admired and why? (not your mother or grandmother).
Another Way for week of March 31, 2017
Lenten Conversations: Almeda Wright on Helping Teens Live Faith
Editor’s note: Last in a six-week Lenten series of interviews Melodie Davis conducted with influential Christians over several years.
Dr. Almeda Wright, courtesy photo of Yale Divinity School
Almeda Wright is the youngest of the influential Christians we’re hearing from in this series for Lent. So likely you have not heard of her yet but her influence and vision for helping us understand teens and faith in our culture today will spread as she teaches religion at Yale Divinity School .
I did write briefly about Dr. Wright in an earlier column comparing her upbringing to my own, which in some ways was remarkably similar in spite of her African American family. She too was the daughter of a deacon (Baptist) who also checked on his daughter’s religious life while she was in college by asking during Sunday evening phone calls, “How was church?” A huge additional difference between us is she loved math and engineering and went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while I would have totally flunked out there!
Her academic work for her doctorate included extensive study and research on faith and youth. I met and interviewed her at a conference now called Faith Forward. She was reporting on studies she did over three summers with youth leaders who participated in a faith based leadership development camp.
She had asked these youth—admittedly a group inclined to be much more religious than average—how they have experienced God in their personal lives. Over 90 percent said they had personally experienced the presence of God: sometimes in things such as a test in school (her favorite answer) but also in worship, nature, and personal prayer. They recognized God’s blessing in their lives. They were also the kind of kids who were active and involved in service projects and helping others.
But, and this is the kicker for Dr. Wright, these youth rarely if at all connected their personal faith to problems in the larger culture like racism or drugs or poverty. Her hunch was they hadn’t been empowered or encouraged to make those connections and to figure out what Christians should or could be doing to make a difference. She further suspected that too often in our churches, the personal relationship with Jesus is seen as what’s important. Wright believes absolutely that a personal bond and belief is important, but wants people to take their faith further into the world.
Today’s youth (in contrast to earlier times) have parents whose major creed may be translated as “play nice in the sandbox,” Wright half joked. The religious beliefs of the youth are separated from their experiences of an evil like racism, or they absorb that religious faith is just private. She believes churches and parents can help teach teens the link between a personal faith and making positive changes in the world.
What gave Wright her tremendous sense of the importance of faith in all of life? It was her family, and we’re not just talking her nuclear family, but the whole extended family where her cousins, aunts, and uncles were all part of her church. “So on Sunday we were going to church and on Wednesday Bible study, and on Saturday there was youth group or choir or an usher meeting,” she described. “I remember singing and leading worship as early as five.”
She went to a Catholic school for awhile and there religion was taught across the curriculum, including making crosses out of straws or macaroni, things like that, and was immersed in many religious traditions and rituals.
Yet her path to teaching in the field of religion was not clear cut. She was studying engineering at MIT because she’d always been good at math, but took a semester off from her major to study art, history, and religions broadly (Christianity and Islam) in Spain. When she got back to MIT, she finished her degree in engineering, but wasn’t sure what to do after.
Because of her strong beliefs, she considered ministry, but two things were holding her back. “I’m a Baptist and I’m black and I’m from the south and that means that there were not women in ministry in my tradition. It wasn’t even something that I could foresee as an option.” Of course in Massachusetts she did see women in ministry, and “all of these things came together” to give Wright a new idea of how to serve God with her life. She did end up being ordained for teaching and pastoral ministry.
Most of us don’t have firm ideas while younger of how to put together personal faith with a path of serving God in our communities and world, but over time it becomes clearer. But it won’t if kids are not exposed to these ideas from an early age.
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it” the old Proverb goes (22:6, NIV). While that does not always happen, we can use the traditions of Lent and Easter and other religious holidays to “teach your children young” as the old Crosby , Stills and Nash lyrics go. Another line from that song echoes Wright’s message, “You … must have a code that you can live by.”
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For a free booklet, “Talking to Your Kids about God and Faith,” send two U.S. postage stamps and write to Another Way Media, Box 363, Singers Glen, Va. 22850.
Hear a presentation by Dr. Wright given at the Children and Youth New Kind of Christianity (now called Faith Forward) conference. Dr. Wright also has a forthcoming book due out Summer, 2017, The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans, Oxford University Press.
Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.
Vera Mae Perkins and John Perkins, being videotaped for the Journey Toward Forgiveness TV documentary, 2000. Photo by Jerry L. Holsopple. Videographer, Jim. L. Bowman.
Another Way for week of March 24, 2017
Lenten Conversations: John Perkins on Forgiveness
Editor’s note: Fifth in a six-week Lenten series of interviews Melodie Davis conducted with influential Christians over several years.
He had one of the most terrifying opening lines ever for a story: “One of the sheriffs took a … pistol and cocked it to the side of my head and pulled the trigger. … in my mind I was a dead person.”
Speaking was John Perkins, a well known champion of social justice and reconciliation—who dealt in a personal way with racial brutality in Mississippi in the 1960s.
I did several phone interviews with John Perkins preparing a producer for a 2001 documentary which aired on ABC-TV, Journey toward Forgiveness. But I felt like I knew John, too, after hearing him speak at an American Bible Society meeting and then sharing a taxi ride with him to the airport.
John grew up in the south where his brother, Clyde, was killed by a town marshall after a disturbance in a movie theater line. Clyde had fought in World War II and had a difficult time readjusting to life in Mississippi where, as a black, he was expected to conform and stay quiet. John was devastated and angry after his brother was killed. His parents, who had been sharecroppers in the 30s, wisely encouraged him to move to California; eventually he served with the military in Korea, became a Christian, and then married Vera Mae back home in Mendenhall, Mississippi, and became a pastor.
John believed strongly in encouraging people to help themselves and in such a role, helped to organize an economic boycott. He was briefly jailed in Mendenhall, and then some students were arrested for organizing a similar boycott in a nearby city. John drove to the jailhouse to help the students make bond and the sheriff “couldn’t believe that I would come back to make bond,” John recalled. “I didn’t have any understanding of the hostility that these people had.”
The guards started beating John and the two others who were trying to post bond. “They started beating us … the sheriff began to curse us and say, ‘This is that smart _____. This is a new ball game [here]. This is not Mendenhall. You are in my county now.’”
The sheriff had cocked the gun at John’s head and at one point a fork was shoved up his nose. He was kicked repeatedly in the groin. In the eyes of his tormentors, John saw hatred.
“That hatred frightened me. You get just a little glimpse of it and say, ‘I don’t want that dark place in my own life.’ I made a bargain with God that night, I was so fearful. I was thinking I was gonna be killed. And I said, ‘God, if you’ll let me out of this jail, I really want to preach a Gospel that is stronger than my race, stronger than my economic interest. I wanna preach a Gospel that can reconcile black and whites together in the body of Christ.’”
What I admire so very much is that out of this experience, John started a foundation which still works at reconciliation between races, justice, and development for all.
John explained further, “Reconciliation to me is not so much for the white people I encountered. It is really for myself. I saw that hate in the eyes of the people that tortured me and I could feel myself needing to hate them back.” He went on, “I felt a weight on me. I began to recognize that and really hear the Scripture that says, ‘Unless you can forgive those who trespass against you, how do you expect your heavenly Father to forgive you?’”
John emphasized that forgiveness was his way to shed hatred from his own life. “Forgiveness frees me,” he said. “Not only have I been loved by God, but I’ve been loved by God’s people.” John used his nightmare to help others latch onto the freeing experience of forgiveness.
After hearing John’s story, it restored my hope and faith that people could get along across the many boundaries that divide us. He went beyond reconciliation to preach that unless people are empowered to pursue economic development, they will continue to struggle in many realms. John never received a college degree, but I could see he had the wisdom of a Solomon.
I still grieve and stress over the racial injustice we find in our world, and work to reach across boundaries for better understanding and more harmony. In this Lenten season as we move closer to the special time of remembering Christ’s death on the cross, we can reflect on how Jesus also turned to those who tortured him and forgave them. It’s a way to find new freedom and love.
Find out more about the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation at https://jvmpf.org/
These Lenten Conversations are available as a free small booklet by clicking here: (Lenten Conversations PDF). Or for a printed version send your name, address, and two U.S. postage stamps and I’ll mail you a copy. Send to anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com or Another Way Media, Box 363 , Singers Glen, Va. 22850.
Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.
Another Way for week of March 17, 2017
Lenten Conversations: Ken Medema on Really Listening
Editor’s note: Fourth in a six-week Lenten series of interviews Melodie Davis conducted with influential Christians over several years.
I first heard Ken Medema’s incredible music and stories at a Mennonite Church convention but I’m not sure where or when. I say incredible because I don’t know of another excellent musician who can listen to someone telling a story and then make up meaningful lyrics and simple tunes while singing in front of a crowd and have them turn out so very well. Plus there’s the blind thing but he’s never let that stop him.
Now in his 70’s, Ken performs piano and voice concerts across the U.S. and Canada, and has recorded many albums. One of my close friends used to be a booking agent for a comedy duo at similar venues and through her connections and assistance, I was able to record an interview with Ken. He broke into a number of on-the-spot made up songs even during our interview, which I loved! My oldest daughter also sang in a teen choir at a youth convention and got to share a story with Ken while he listened, and then created a song from her story. Classic Ken Medema.
But I was especially charmed when he explained how that act of listening so intently until he caught the “nub” of a story is also a helpful and practical skill in relationships: with a spouse, children, friends, and even enemies. I dare say it was also a gift that Jesus possessed in spades—something to remind ourselves as we journey through Lent
For example, Ken and his wife Jane have greatly differing personalities. Ken is basically an introvert who, while he enjoys people immensely, after leaving a concert or crowd, needs to retreat into his own skin. He said Jane, on the other hand, is such a talkative people-person that she doesn’t know “what she thinks until she says it.” Jane needs people around with a lot of interaction, because that’s how she thrives. “And I can’t thrive unless I have lots of time alone,” Ken described.
So if Jane, for example (or either spouse in a marriage) is dishing out “a catalog of the ‘you don’ts,’ such as ‘You don’t send me flowers, you don’t seem to have interest in some of the things I talk about, you don’t seem to like the books I read,’ –how do I respond?” asks Ken.
Suddenly in that conversation, Ken said he hears an undertone of “I feel kind of second rate.” He said to look for a key like that in any discussion or disagreement. “I feel second rate” or “less than” or “not appreciated.”
Ken went on: “Rather than responding to her with ‘Oh yes I love your cooking, I love the books you read’—I can respond with ‘I feel kind of overwhelmed, because you are so full of energy and ideas and my mind is so slow sometimes, I feel overwhelmed.’” Those kinds of words—overwhelmed, second rate, can be keys to turning a brewing fight into a conversation “and then we can work together at figuring out what’s going on rather than just making accusations,” Ken noted.
Ken shared how he listens to people and their stories the same way. “I hear a nub, I hear a little phrase, I hear the central focus of what the person is trying to say.” And that gives him a key phrase out of which to make a song!
In 2010, Ken and his wife were invited to move in with the family of one of their children. In this setting of living with loved ones but needing to work out some of the kinks of three generations in a household, he enumerated the advantages. “Kids are hard to raise,” Ken stated. “But when you’ve got four adults who basically agree on how to raise a kid, when one adult gets tired, another can take over” which is a huge help. In this setting he and Jane would say to the adult children, “You guys get out of here, go see a movie. We’ll take care of the kids.” Ken remarked, “The relief is palpable. It’s amazing how that works.”
He added, “When differences crawl all over us, we both can find our satisfaction being together among the kids and grandkids, and it brings us together in better ways.”
Ken and his wife have enjoyed many years together even though there were rough times. Their central focus has been serving God and the church. I can think of no better scripture for this little Lenten meditation than John 13:34 where Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Or as Ken sung at this point in our conversation:
“We’re such different people, but we’ve so much to share.
Sometimes I’m frightened, and sometimes it’s more than I can bear.
And yet I belong to you, and you belong to me,
And we both belong to Jesus, so let’s learn how to be a family.”
***
Have you met or heard Ken Medema? Stories or impressions?
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Ken Medema’s music and concert schedule can be found at kenmedema.com. For a free booklet I’ve written called “Secrets of Long Marriage,” write to anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com or Another Way Media, Box 363, Singers Glen, Va. 22850.
Parts of this interview appeared earlier on the Shaping Families radio program and website. You can hear the interview here and hear Ken’s snatches of songs!
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Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.
Gluten Free Cupcakes: The secret story of what happened to my first batch
These are cupcakes with a long story. Skip the tale and go straight to the recipe below if you want.
But the germ, (ahem, I use that word for a reason) of this story started in January when everyone was getting sick left and right. At work, at home, at church, among friends, among family.
We had planned to go celebrate my third grandson’s birthday at his house (two hours away), and I volunteered to make some gluten free homemade cupcakes from scratch, especially for his older brother but for the rest of us too. I had found what sounded like a fine recipe and I still had all those weird rice and tapioca and other flours that I purchased at Christmas, which I told about here. I spent a Saturday morning making the cupcakes for the celebration planned for the following weekend. And then I froze them as I always do cakes before frosting them. They frost easier and it makes the cake moister, too, I believe.
And then. That evening, I got as sick as a dog. Sicker if that’s possible. I had not, you know, made that many trips to hug the porcelain throne since I don’t know when. I was down for two days. It wasn’t influenza, I still think it was just a stomach bug that laid me out. A couple days later, I came down with a cold that I had been fighting since Christmas. So did my grandsons. two hours away. And their mom and dad didn’t feel so great either. The party was postponed until the following weekend and we hoped all of us would be better. Luckily it was the little guy’s first birthday so he didn’t complain about waiting seven days.
What to do with the cupcakes? My daughter called me to politely but firmly caution me she didn’t think we should use the cupcakes. Everyone had been so sick. She didn’t want to risk more illness. I understood. I would have felt just terrible if any of them had gotten sick again and had to miss more work and daycare. I would have hated to be in her shoes to make the call. I told her I would just buy a gluten free cake mix and make some new cupcakes from a mix for the party.
She ordered a small birthday cake from a bakery decorated as a cute little bright blue drum for the musical theme. The one-year-old enjoyed it very much and so did the rest of us, with the gluten-free boy making do with his cake mix cupcakes.
Back home, I couldn’t bring myself to throw those precious original cupcakes away. I hated to see the expensive flours and other ingredients go to waste. I had tasted one the day I made them and I knew they had an extra earthiness and wholesome flavor I loved.
Could I take them to the office and share them there—everyone’s fallback for helping clean up aging desserts or recipe failures? I immediately chastised myself for even pondering the thought. If my daughter felt there was a chance the cupcakes would make their family sick, how could I imagine foisting the cupcakes on my unsuspecting office mates! Of course not. But it was a thought, in order to not waste them.
So I left them sit in the freezer. Weeks passed. We were getting ready to go visit my other two grandsons five hours away (and of course their parents—always!) and I didn’t want my husband or I to get sick before we went. So we didn’t sample any more of those cupcakes in my freezer.
We had a grand trip to visit the other family, and neither one of us got sick. Small miracle. The two little boys already had colds and runny noses, but we didn’t pick up anything, and they held their own without fevers or ear infections. A big deal after all the illnesses, including (right before Christmas) a hospitalization and a trip in the rescue squad for those two young’in’s (separate illnesses).
Back from our trip, my mind kept returning to those cupcakes. Dare I eat them? Should I toss them? I decided to stealthily eat the cupcakes and see if I got sick—either with a cold or stomach flu. I had one after dinner one night (gave my husband an alternative brownie for his dessert). I ate several more that week with no signs of illness returning. Had I frozen any residual germs out of the cupcakes?
I’ll never know but I finally told my husband what was up with the stealth cupcakes. We ate the rest of them and neither of us got sick. Or anything. And. They. Were. Delicious. At least in my book.
Again, they had a full-bodied texture that was quite satisfying—not just fluffy cake. They tasted similar to the gluten free cake we had purchased from a local food truck baker who said she had worked very hard to perfect a gluten free cake recipe she liked. I decorated these cupcakes to share with you here, even though they never made it to any party.
End of story. Now my daughter knows my secret too. And here’s the recipe. Try it if you have a gluten-free family member. Or to delight your gluten free kid—keep a stash in your freezer when there’s a birthday party whenever he or she need to bring their own cupcakes.
Eat them if you dare!
Yellow Gluten Free Cupcakes
1 ½ cups white rice flour
¾ cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder (most is gluten free)
1 teaspoon xanthangum
4 eggs
1 ¼ cup sugar
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons gluten free vanilla
Mix flours and other dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix eggs, sugar and mayo until fluffy. Add to the flour mixture. Add milk and vanilla. Pour into 12-15 muffin tins lined with cupcake papers. Bake at 350 for 22 – 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in middle of a cupcake comes out clean.
Freeze (if desired) then frost and decorate. (I used canned white frosting and sprinkles.)
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What would you have done? Stories?
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Have you ever shared aging or less-than-perfect treats
or dessert with the “break room” crowd? Results?
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Mennonite Girls Can Cook Cookbooks and blog have a bunch of great gluten free recipes. Purchase here.
Another Way for week of March 10, 2017
Lenten Conversations: Martin Marty on Family Time
Editor’s note: Third in a six-week Lenten series of interviews Melodie Davis conducted with influential Christians.
One of the persons I felt most privileged to interview several years ago was Dr. Martin Marty, longtime editor, prolific author, and columnist at Christian Century magazine. That he would agree to an interview with a pretty much unknown writer/producer says something about his humble spirit. Among many laurels, The University of Chicago Divinity School named their institute for advanced research in the study of religion “The Martin Marty Center.”
As a Lutheran, Marty was named of course for Martin Luther, the great reformer. 2017 marks 500 years since Martin Luther wrote and nailed his “95 Theses” (on why the church needed reforming) to the door of the Wittenberg church in Germany. What an inspirational model for the young Martin Marty.
For years I enjoyed his weekly “M.E.M.O” column in the Christian Century. If Marty’s good health and remarkable mind continue, he will soon be 90 and still publishing (now contributes to the Sightings column). I will admit that his writing is sometimes too thick and academic for my inadequate brain.
Dr. Martin Marty with his trademark bow tie, and frames of family on the walls.
Yet I will forever treasure his humor, his spirit (he always seems to be smiling as if keeping a
secret joke), and his willingness to welcome me into his Chicago condo and office looking out on a glorious view of Lake Michigan. I was recording an interview for the Mennonite church’s radio program on family issues, a denominational group which Marty respects highly. Marty of course is amply familiar with Mennonites from his wide academic study of religion, but he also came to know the small denomination through Richard Kauffman, book review editor at the Century for many years.
Dr. Marty’s rather abundant personal library in his office. Photos by Melodie Davis
Marty also wrote the foreword for my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner: Recipes and Reflections for Family Mealtime. Publishers today have a bit of age bias as they look for up and coming younger names as foreword writers for books. But there’s nothing wrong, I hope, with folks pushing 90 and still publishing.
I started by asking Marty where he grew up: “I have a very strong sense of place and heritage, and though I’m very far from it, every day I somehow draw on my Nebraska roots,” he replied with feeling.
The Martys lived in a small town, but the children spent summers on the farms of relatives. It was the 1930s Dust Bowl era, and Marty says his parents had to have felt the agony of the Depression. “But we children were kind of protected from that.” His father went to summer school every year, so for six weeks he and his siblings were “farmed out” to relatives (grandfather and an aunt and uncle) on literal Nebraska farms. “They were almost a parallel family to us,” said Marty. They lived 65 miles away and costly to buy gas to go that far. “So summer was just unbroken pleasure on the farm. It was a warm, rich community environment, everybody knew everybody, and took care of each other,” Marty noted.
Marty and Elsa (his first wife, who died of cancer), also had the goal and joy of camping in almost every state with five kids plus two who joined the family as foster children. “We got to all states except Hawaii and Alaska, (and forgot Delaware!),” he recalled. Marty reflected: “If you take a three-or-so-week camping trip with each other, you really get to know each other. Each had his own assignment on tent set-ups and camping gear and so on.” Marty is happy to observe his children following the camping tradition with their own families.
At one point the Martys had seven boys aged 9-14 around the table every night. “My sainted wife managed that more than I did, although the kids always remember how every day when I came home, we’d toss the football. We lived near parks and had a swimming pool; of course a lot of friends came over.”
Even though Marty traveled a lot because of his professional life, he worked very hard to spend time with the family together, and on an individual basis. The children took turns traveling with him on business when it could be arranged. They also didn’t watch television during the week. “They’d watch hockey on Saturday some, but we watched very little during the week. We had a reading circle every night around the table.”
As Lutherans I’m sure they observed a “holy Lent” and read frequently from the Bible. They enjoyed rich discussions involving theology, the world and how Christians should put faith into action. I’m also sure they argued as well (because we all do)—even Mary and Martha in the oft-told story of Jesus visiting their home for a meal when Martha was all a flutter with meal prep. Mary, however, relished sitting at the feet of Jesus to hear his teachings and stories.
This past Sunday was “Children’s Sunday” at my daughter’s church, and we enjoyed a short children’s musical of the Mary and Martha story, ending with this reminder which is good for all of us as we find time to meditate this Lent: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away.” (Luke 10:41-42).
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These Lenten Conversations will be available as a free small booklet by clicking here (Lenten Conversations PDF). Or, send your name, address, and two U.S. postage stamps and I’ll mail a copy. Send to anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com or Another Way Media, Box 363 , Singers Glen, Va. 22850.
Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.
Easy cut-up oranges for fresh fruit salad
This is the simplest of recipes; I wouldn’t even call it a recipe. It is mainly a tip for cutting up oranges to put into fruit salad that you may already practice. But I can imagine that beginning cooks might have not discovered this easy method, illustrated below. Basically it involves taking an orange, slicing it horizontally into 3 or four circular slices, then eliminating the middle fleshy part where all the segment skins join together. That leaves you with nice juicy sections that can mix with other fruits for flavoring. 
We purchased a bushel of Florida oranges this past December from a great nephew who’s a high school band student, and I’m having trouble using them up, mainly because we didn’t quite have the Christmas we planned and I didn’t give away as many as I thought I would to my daughters, etc. So I’ve been making a lot of fruit salad (it goes particularly well to top off a “pancakes for dinner” meal like we had on Shrove Tuesday). Or anytime you have a heavier meal but want to grace it with something sweet, this fills the bill.
But at get togethers with certain friends, I have been asked to “bring your fruit salad” so I guess you could call it a recipe if people like it that much. In the 50s and 60s, our Mennonite mothers would make red Jello fruit salad using canned fruit cocktail for another easy dessert. I know some families who had a Jello salad for almost every dinner–and certainly for any company dinner! It was a thing. My kids were never fans of any Jello salad or even plain canned fruit cocktail but they did enjoy fresh fruit salad. Funny how habits and customs change over time and in families. The Bible is certainly full of references to fruit and comparing the benefits of following Christ to simple and glorious fruit.
Basic fruit salad
1 cup cut up oranges
1 cup purple or green grapes, left whole or cut in half
1 container canned mandarin oranges, with juice
1 banana
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Add any other of your favorite fruits you have on hand: fresh pineapple, apples, tangerines, blueberries or raspberries. In summer, I add cantaloupe, watermelon, or honeydew melons. Add banana right before serving if possible, and squirt with some lemon juice to keep some fruits from turning brown.
To cut oranges into pieces for salad:
Slice peeled orange horizontally into about four rounds of the orange. Then cut off sections of orange to get rid of the round seedy center.
Cut good orange pieces away from center where the segment partitions meet. Throw these fleshy centers away or eat them if you wish, but don’t put into salad, especially if small children are eating the fruit salad.
What you have left are the good parts. Chop into smaller bites.
Lightly mix grapes, orange pieces, and mandarin oranges in bowl.
Slice banana and add just before serving; use about 1 teaspoon of lemon juice (fresh or bottled) to keep bananas or apples from turning brown.
That’s a simple and healthy dessert! For us, it often hits the spot.
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So, did you grow up having Jello salad frequently? Good memories or not so much?
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Do you have a better method of cutting up oranges?
Esther Shank’s Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and Kitchen Secrets is full of great tips like these that she prepared especially for her own daughters, which has gone on to be a continuing great-selling book. Order here.
Mike Berenstain signs a copy of one of his books in 2011. (Melodie Davis photo)
Lenten Conversations: Mike Berenstain of “Bear” Book Fame
Another Way Column for week of March 3, 2017
Editor’s note: Second in a six-week Lenten series of interviews Melodie Davis conducted with influential Christians over several years.
I was surprised when I learned that Mike Berenstain was to be commencement speaker at my alma mater, Eastern Mennonite University in 2011. But his son was graduating so I was pleased when Mike took time out of a very busy weekend for an interview for our little radio program, Shaping Families. I had to think how the stories and artwork he and his parents created were quite significant in shaping my own little family!
Berenstain Bear books were an almost nightly ritual at our house for a number of years. I still have 19 of the lovable books which teach so many good values, awaiting the years when my own grandsons will enjoy them. Both of the older Berenstains, Stan and Jan, who wrote and illustrated the books, are now deceased (Mike’s father in 2005 and mother in 2012). Mike counts it a privilege to have worked with them after the books spun off into TV shows and other products. He said his parents could barely keep up with the demands on their time in the late 80s. They never pushed Mike into the “family business” but he chose to study illustration in art school, and briefly worked in design for Random House. There he learned the ropes of publishing children’s books.
I loved that the Berenstains chose bears for their family of characters not because of the similarity to their last name, but for the simple reason that “bears were easy to draw.” As a kid, Mike was amused when fans would assume the Berenstain bears somehow represented Stan and Jan’s own family. People would say to Mike, “Well, are you Brother Bear?” Mike told me, “I always said, well, no, I have an older brother. So I must be Sister Bear.” Mike said his own kids took bear comparisons mostly in stride, enjoying the attention their grandparents received as the famous illustrator/authors.
I was interested in how Mike came to launch a separate line of Berenstain Bear books which are more directly religious. His father was culturally of Jewish background and his mother raised Episcopalian. Mike explained that “they taught us ethics from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but they dealt with their mixed marriage by really not teaching us religion.” But as an adult, Mike became a Christian and later in publishing, he wanted to express his own faith and launched “Living Lights” through Zondervan publishers.
Mike recalled the Berenstains had received an immense amount of feedback from people over the years saying that they would like books with a more overt faith message. “A huge proportion of our audience—our most dedicated, faithful audience —were people of very traditional backgrounds,” Mike pointed out.
The Davis family collection of Berenstain Bear books.
There are about 12 original classic Berenstain Bear books that have been perennial best sellers. “But of the more recent ones published since then, the Living Lights faith books are the most popular,” Mike commented.
It was encouraging to hear that even though he wasn’t taught specific Christian faith stories as a child, his work has now been helpful for parents in raising their children to love God and follow Christ’s basic teachings. Lent and Easter traditions and activities can be special times with your children to bring attention to Christian faith and stories from the Bible.
This author added, “It’s very important that [in teaching good values] you try to give kids books that will give them a story which is attractive, entertaining, and interesting. It’s much less effective to give a kid a lecture.” Of course!
Mike is my age (born the same month in 1951) and if he is able to continue coming up with great story lines and ideas as long as his parents did (well into their 80s), he won’t be retiring anytime soon. His mother always quipped when she was asked if she was going to retire, “I think I’ll retire and take up painting!”
When I interviewed Mike, his mother was still living. He gave her great credit as she continued to paint. He said his mother would always be a “much a better illustrator because she had so much more experience.”
Mike’s faith story brings me to several verses for your Lenten reflection from the poetry of Isaiah 46:4 and 9-10. The verses concern the time when the children of Israel were in captivity in Babylon. “I will still be carrying you when you are old. Your hair will turn gray, and I will still carry you. I made you, and I will carry you to safety. … I am God, and there is no other; … there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.” We can take comfort that no matter what comes in the world, in our families, or with our aging bodies, God is there.
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These Lenten Conversations are available as free small PDF booklet by clicking here: Lenten Conversations PDF. Or, send your name, address, and two U.S. postage stamps and I’ll mail a copy. Send to anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com or Another Way Media, Box 363, Singers Glen, Va. 22850.
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What is or was you or your child’s favorite Berenstain Bear book? Or… maybe not a fan?? Feel free to comment either way!
My husband and I recently spent almost a week (hence this late posting of Another Way column) at the home of two of our grandsons, helping with childcare during an especially busy time for their parents. We look forward to the time when the grandsons can come for part or all of a week for Grandkid Kamp at our house!
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I’d love to hear your experiences with grandchildren or as a grandchild at your own grandma/grandpa’s house!
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