Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Albert Schindler's avatar

I share your father's experience (only not as severe) during the second world war in Germany under the Nazis—only my story was in reverse. My my parents were German and came from Germany (Poland, actually) to settle in Saskatchewan, Canada before the war took hold in Europe. Believe me, not my grandparents, my parents nor any of us children had anything to do with supporting Hitler or his Nazi party! We were only too grateful to have escaped a political European boiling pot, and wanted nothing to do with their politics!!

Unfortunately, politics (allied) didn't want to leave us alone. Once the war started, we were branded Bloody Germans and Nazi sympathizers and treated very badly. I was a sensitive child in my early teens during the war years and very aware of my negative social surroundings (I was born in Canada and am a Canadian citizen). During these early school years the few of us "Germans" who attended Hubbard Grade School, were often targeted and told who was going to get beat up by "the allies" after school. At one point I went to our teacher and complained about how I was being treated. Her reply to me? "That's what you get for being bloody Germans!" When the harassment became too severe, my mother finally went to our local RCMP detachment and complained. Their response? "If you don't like it we have places for people like you (Nazis)" meaning concentration camps. Since the small group of us Germans immigrants who clustered around Hubbard, one solace was our Church: in this case, the Lutheran Church. Since most of us still spoke only German, our church services were in German. The "allies" didn't like this so they made us close down our church—just in case any of our German seremons had secret codes in them that could be passed on to Nazi spies and, of course, our English neighbours couldn't speak German so shutting down our Church was their solution to the problem.

I could relate more negative experiences about my life during those war years, but I think you can see that life was not easy for us handful of Germans that lived in Hubbard. However, before I go I should relate one *positive* condition to our plight. Both a Jewish family (their youngest son became one of my closest friends) and an English couple — who owned one of the grocery stores in town and employed my father as a clerk: otherwise, my father would not have been able to work in town—became our closest ally in defening our rights!

You've heard of Oscar Schindler, the main character in the movie "Schindler's List"? A bit of irony here. We're not related to Oscar Schindler, but I'm pretty damn proud of my surname!

Just like life has been a bit of a perplexity for both you and your father, so has it also been for me. Life didn't seem to make much sense. What had I done—or my family done, to deserve some of the negative treatment life threw at me? Was there no righteous God, no Creator who governed this creation? Was all life just a matter of chance? I struggled with this issue until about the time I reached my 82nd year here on earth (I'm 92 years old now). Then, in July of 2013 I had a spectacular Near-death (wrongfully and incorrectly so labeled) experience that quite litereally blew open the gates of Heaven for me. I now understood—not everything by a long shot, but at least much more of life began to make sense. It would take at least one novel-length of writing to even come close to what suddenly was "downloaded" into my consciousness, but at my age, my arthritic fingers won't grant me the privilege to do that much typing, but be assured, there is a very loving Creator (man, woman, being—whatever) who is very conscious of every moment of thought and action that takes place in *Its* creation!!

In German, we have a saying: "Je härter die Rute, desto teurer das Kind." The harder the rod, the dearer the child. If life handed you a bag of lemons, be assured, that's because a very loving God has an eye on you!

PS: Please excuse any typing errors. Arthritic fingers and a computer keyboard don't fully harmonize :-)

Expand full comment
Barb St. Clair's avatar

I am so sorry that you suffer like this. I am also 80 and have been in shock for at least 30 years over the blind, uncaring people in modern America also. It is just materialistic, "how do I look sexier" how much FUN can we have by acting outrageous, loud, and obnoxious. How can I feel in another reality with drugs, or getting lost in constant media? Bigger, faster cars.

The total neglect of LIFE on this planet and Nature, the health of rivers, the ocean has hurt me so deeply that I was thrown into flight or fright when I turned 50 have have had chronic pain ever since. I hate modern suburban life - it is lonely, uncaring and daily getting more and more violent. In '65 I worked in an international hostel in London and got to know people from all over the world - I realized how completely superficial most Americans are. Some years later I lived a year in DC in international housing and the Turkish Moslem women I became very close to was the only person I had ever met that was truly loving - and she loved God. When I got back to Colorado I thought I had better educate myself about Christianity and joined a prominent church in town. What a disappointment. In so many ways. I don't know, Tom, Eckhart does show us how to BE, but in 20 years, I have never found anyone who would READ one of his books! Where will people ever learn wisdom if they don't read books - the finest thoughts of the finest people who have ever lived. Yes, it is pure pain to see life now - I never dreamed the world would go so far backwards instead of maturing. So, I deal with the pain, don't talk to anyone at all about it, and love my trees, birds, squirrels and bunnies, the sky and genius beauty of sacred geometry in life.

Expand full comment
7 more comments...

No posts