By John Rieping | Published 18 Jan. 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
A week and a half ago the mysteries of my genetic programming were tentatively explained to me. For a $99 fee, a California-based genomics company analyzed my DNA. It estimated my heritage is 67.2 percent European, 18.5 percent Native American, and 1.7 percent African (the remainder is unclear). Delighted, I forgetfully shared only the first two aspects of that result with a co-worker Wednesday. "Well, that was kind of obvious," he replied. "We already knew what you were." He had a point. Those who know me well are aware my father immigrated from Germany, and my mother's parents came from Mexico. You don't need a degree in Mexican history to know the nation's population is heavily "mestizo" (a Spanish term for someone of mixed Spanish and Native American descent). Yet, to me, my ancestral ties to Germany, Mexico, Spain and, unexpectedly, Africa felt a bit more solid now, like tilled adobe clay of a local farmer's field under my feet. My genes hold more than markers to my family's past, however. Apparently I also am sensitive to alcohol because of a shortfall of proteins to break it down in my bloodstream. So it may be more harmful for me than for others. Fortunately I've never been much of a consumer of the beverage, despite living in wine grape territory. I'll spare you details on my earwax type, muscle performance, and more. Needless to say, I've been amazed at this glimpse of how much about me had been influenced already at the first moment of my conception. I am reminded of a song lyric of Scripture: “For it was you (God) who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… "My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my 'embryo' (in Hebrew, “golmi” or “golem”). In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” (Tehillim/Psalm 139:13, 15-16). Naturally my parents played a pivotal role in my formation. Some may recall my tale a year ago about their courtship (see http://goo.gl/2ZGACN). Fifty years ago today, Saturday, Jan. 18, they wed in my mother's childhood church, St. Alphonsus of Liguori, on historic palm tree-lined Kearney Boulevard in Fresno. This (Saturday) afternoon at 1 o'clock, Joseph and Theresa Rieping, their five children, 16 grandchildren, and two great grandchildren will thank God with a Mass at St. Joachim Catholic Church. Anyone reading this who wishes to attend will surely be welcome. In one of the Scripture passages my father chose for the Mass, the apostle Paul writes, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31b) It is a statement of the obvious that we believers seem to forget in times of uncertainty, pain, or menace. After all, if we believe God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, and loves us, then what do we have to fear? We should always overflow with confidence. Needless to say, we don't. Most of us falter in it at times, and for some of us insecurity or anxiety is normal. This is partly because we know firsthand how situations can twist against us, despite even our best efforts. We remember or we imagine, and our heart quakes. Yet Paul went on to write: "Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ -- can hardships or distress, or persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence?" (Romans 8:35) Trusting in God doesn’t mean we’ll never suffer trials, as my parents well know. In marriage, your beloved won’t just be with you amid trouble -- your spouse may sometimes be the source. As my mother once told my father: I will always love you, but right now I just don’t like you. And there are some marriages, unlike that of my parents, in which it seems evil has the upper hand, or has triumphed. Who of us have not encountered this? Even so, Paul rightly wrote, "No; we come through all these things victorious, by the power of him who loved us." (Romans 8:37) How can he say this? Because this is true victory: that "nothing already in existence and nothing still to come ... will be able to come between us and the love of God" (Cf. Romans 8:38-39). If God is truly as we believe, there is no greater achievement than to have such a lover.
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By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Previously published November 24, 2012, in The Madera Tribune
On our national day of thanksgiving, I reluctantly watched a cartoon on the journey of the English émigrés, the pilgrims, who sought religious freedom by settling in North America. While I love cartoons, I am unfamiliar with the newer Peanuts animated television specials and they clash with my nostalgia for the older ones. Repeatedly the character Linus, who has always been the idealist, responded to the worries of friend Charlie Brown by urging him to “have faith.” After the second or third time, I wondered: have faith in what? It reminded me of a feel-good song from the 1998 cartoon “Prince of Egypt,” which told the story of Moses (Moshe) and the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. After the movie’s climax, pop stars Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston triumphantly sang, “There can be miracles when you believe.” The other lyrics of the song implied it was belief in one’s self, not God, that mattered. Even in cartoons about religious people, God seems to be the twin of the fictional villain Lord Voldemort of the Harry Potter children’s novel series. It seems God too is “He Who Must Not Be Named.” For those who don’t know U.S. history, Thanksgiving Day was established by our government as a national holiday to give thanks to You Know Who for the blessings and gifts received throughout the year. Next Sunday marks a time with an even deeper history however. Within a week begins the traditional Christian season of “Advent,” which is from the Latin for “coming” (adventus). The following weeks are a time to remember the long wait of humanity for a promised savior as well as a time to prepare our own hearts to welcome God anew. Let us Christians do so with thankful hearts. From Oak to Acorn A local fast food clerk once asked my dad where he was from. My dad replied, “Germany.” She persisted, “No, what country do you come from?” My dad repeated, “Germany.” “Oh,” she said disappointedly, “I thought you were from someplace in Europe.” My family dates back at least to the 12th century at Vorhelm in western Germany when a forebear sold himself to the local bishop to avoid being drafted for war duty. After the war ended he bought his freedom. In 1812, the Rieping homestead had to quarter French troops because it was on the supply route during Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia. About 1929 my grandfather Heinrich asked for his inheritance early and moved his young family of four to Klein Karlshoeh in Silesia, now western Poland. There my family suffered again from war when Adolf Hitler followed in France’s footsteps by invading Russia. Drafted into service, my uncle Hugo and his horse stepped on a mine during the attack on Stalingrad in Nov. 1942. He’d turned 19 only days before. My father Josef, the eighth of 11 children, had a mischievous streak like myself. At age 6, he found a naturally hollowed tree in the woods near his home. Discovering the inside resembled a chimney, he lit a fire within. Nazi soldiers spied the smoke and, suspecting the worst, soon arrived. Josef fled and evaded the soldiers in the woods for hours before escaping home late that night. When Josef returned home, he expected to be punished for extreme lateness. But after hearing the truth my strict grandfather proudly praised him and made sure he ate before going to bed. At the time my dad was confused at this unusual leniency. He later realized my grandparents feared to openly criticize the Nazi government, which encouraged children to report their parents to school authorities and punished dissenters harshly. Around 1945, Russian soldiers came asking for my grandfather Heinrich. My grandmother Helene used the excuse that she was washing dishes to send my 8-year-old father to lead the soldiers to her husband, who was in the fields raking hay. My dad obeyed, and the soldiers took Heinrich away to a prison camp. As a large landowner, my grandfather was guilty of being influential in a tiny community. That summer, at the urging of a Catholic priest, Helene fled west with her eight children; the youngest was only 3. Josef turned 9 during the trek. After bribing a border guard not to shoot for five minutes, the family made it across a kilometer-wide “no man’s land.” The story of my family would continue, and would lead across an ocean and a continent to California. How do you compress an oak tree into an acorn? God does it every autumn, and in the same way the sum of a family’s history is written in you and I. All of us are a product of the past, and that is why history is important. By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Previously published October 6, 2012, in The Madera Tribune Few people today remember the magnitude of the so-called “mercy killing” by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, which created about 15,000 concentration, labor, and death camps in Europe from 1933-1945. Their target was human “life unworthy of life.” Camp occupants included Jews, gypsies, the handicapped, political prisoners, trade union supporters, the mentally ill, criminals, pacifists, the homeless, prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, street vendors, homosexuals, Polish and Soviet civilians, and Christian clergy, seminarians, monks, and nuns. Approximately 17 million people, including as many as 5.7 million Jews, were murdered in those camps and in organized anti-Semitic massacres, such as the Night of Broken Glass attacks by paramilitary units throughout Nazi Germany in November 1938. Concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel said, “Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims… They were doomed not because of something they had done or proclaimed or acquired but because of who they were.” The Nazi attempt to systematically exterminate Judaism is often called the Holocaust (Greek for a totally burnt offering to God) or the Shoah (Hebrew for catastrophe). That atrocity is seared on the pages of history and the hearts of many. Two out of three European Jews died in those days. As did about 6 million (22 percent) of Poland’s general population and about 10 million people of nearby Ukraine. Both nations suffered under Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but nearly all of the Polish victims were non-combatants. In various parts of Poland, 31 to 80 percent of Catholic clergy were deported to Nazi concentration camps in 1939 alone. Nuns and monks were also; 60 convents and monasteries would be closed in the Silesia area. In the Cieszyn region, all Protestant clergy were sent to death camps. That year, Cardinal Augustine Hlond, Catholic archbishop of Gniezno-Poznan in Poland, wrote: “The cathedral has been turned into a garage at Pelplin; the bishop’s palace into a restaurant; the chapel into a ballroom. Hundreds of churches have been closed. The whole patrimony of the Church has been confiscated, and the most eminent Catholics executed.” In such harsh circumstances, Hlond secretly fled his flock without warning. He was the only Catholic bishop in Poland who abandoned his post during the Nazi persecution, and he met with an initially chilly reception at the Vatican when he later surfaced in Rome. Strengthened in resolve, he turned back towards Poland and was arrested. Offered freedom if he’d urge cooperation with the Nazis, he refused. Yet Christian convents, monasteries, and houses of ministry and worship were not only grabbed in Poland, Austria, and other parts of Nazi-occupied Europe. Germany also would see it. Its clergy too would go to the camps. On July 13, 1941, the outraged bishop of Münster, Germany, let out the first of several of his most famous roars. That Sunday he preached of the deportation of priests and cloistered nuns, the seizure of their houses, and other acts of the secret police, the Gestapo. “None of us is safe,” Count Clemens von Galen said, “not even whether he be in conscience the most honest citizen, safe from not being one day taken from his own house, stripped of his freedom, imprisoned in the concentration camps of the State’s secret police.” He concluded with a demand for justice, and a witness reported, “The men and the women rose to their feet, voices lifted in agreement and also in terror and indignation, something that is generally unimaginable here amongst us, in church. I saw people burst into tears.” (Positio, op.cit. Vol. 1 Summarium, p. 418) His words spread everywhere. The following Sunday the church would be packed, and not just with locals. Some came from far off. Again he spoke plainly against the Gestapo, who had continued their work that past week. He then urged: “Harden yourselves, do not yield; stand firm like the anvil beneath the strokes of the hammer. It may be that obedience to God and conscience will cost us our lives, our freedom, and our homes. But let us die rather than sin. May God's grace, without which we are powerless, give us and preserve in us this unshakable firmness.” He ended by asking for prayers for relatives, “all those who suffer unjustly,” and many others. When he finished, the congregation spontaneously shouted back in response: “And for our bishop!” Wisely said. For the Gestapo persisted in confiscating local monasteries and convents, and exiling nuns and priests in the weeks to come. By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Previously published August 3, 2012, in The Madera Tribune
The talented musician, Ludwig, wanted little to do with the Catholic Church or its priests, which isn’t completely surprising. The archbishop of Cologne ruled his birthplace, Bonn, within the Holy Roman Empire of the 18th century. Only two centuries before, a religious and political conflict — the Cologne War — devastated the Electorate of Cologne. The war began because an archbishop, never known for priestly character, resolved to marry an attractive nun without renouncing his princely position. The pair had a love affair for two years before Archbishop Gebhard von Waldburg announced his conversion “to the light” on Dec. 19, 1582. His switch from Catholicism to the teachings of John Calvin, a French pastor and theologian, upset the delicate balance of power between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. The archbishop of Cologne was one of the seven imperial governors who elected future emperors. Previous converts had resigned from office to avoid bloodshed, but Gebhard did not. So it was that, with the future of the empire at stake, Protestants and Catholics fought for five years with the support of co-believers and mercenaries from elsewhere. Villages disappeared, and the formerly richest region of the empire would be ruined economically. By the 18th century, life had become normal again. But such recent history hardly inspired trust. Moreover, Ludwig had a passion for more than beautiful music in the major city of Vienna. Prostitutes and young female students would also occupy the elegantly dressed musician’s time. If he was in a church, it was for the music. There were exceptions, such as when his mother — the only family member he had a loving bond with — died at 41 in July 1787 of tuberculosis and poor nutrition. His father surrendered more deeply to alcoholism, and Ludwig had to petition to become head of the household — at the age of 19. His parents had seven children, but only three boys had survived. Ludwig took seriously his responsibility for his two younger brothers. Once when he discovered one cohabiting with an employee, he demanded they marry or he would report them to the authorities. They did so. A decade later, his own life would change further after he was diagnosed with syphilis, a common sexually-transmitted disease. Though the connection wasn’t known at the time, syphilitic meningovasculitis likely damaged a nerve in his head, and slowly caused deafness. Fear of what people would think caused him to isolate himself from others to protect his secret. The society he loved was taken from him. In 1815, his brother Kaspar died. He left behind a wife and son, Karl. On his deathbed, he had asked Ludwig — who never married — to be co-guardian of the 9-year-old boy. That relationship would be difficult and full of heartache and disappointments. Yet, through his deafness and trials, Ludwig’s relationship with God did grow. “What is to be done?” he wrote to a friend shortly before his death. “What is to become of me if this lasts much longer? Mine has indeed been a hard doom; but I resign myself to the decrees of fate, and only constantly pray to God… The Almighty will give me strength to endure my lot, however severe and terrible, with resignation to His will.” During a thunderstorm, Ludwig von Beethoven would die of a cold surrounded by close friends on March 26, 1827. More than 10,000 attended his funeral in the church of the Holy Trinity. The deaf pianist is considered one of the greats of classical music. Only God can judge anyone’s soul, but I think Ludwig gained wisdom through suffering. For artists, in particular, he urged: “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets. For it and knowledge can raise men to the divine.” What does he mean? The medieval Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas argued that God is the supreme Beauty, and all that exists reflects that beauty to some degree. Furthermore God is not only the ultimate cause of all beauty; God continues to “pulchrify” (beautify) creation, and God’s creatures participate in divine beauty when they accept and cooperate with God’s light. Such divine beauty not only pleases the senses but also enlightens the mind. “The eyes and ears of our soul,” Aquinas wrote, “enable our vision to see the transcendent beauty present ontologically in all being.” Ludwig apparently agreed. Like many throughout history, he discovered that beauty and truth, at their best, can both grant us glimpses of God, and they are worth suffering for. By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Previously published 3/23/12 in The Madera Tribune
Comedian and actor W.C. Fields (1880-1946) presented his first performances, juggling, in churches and theaters at the age of 15. Three years later he left his parents’ Christian home in Pennsylvania and soon became a headliner on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Many years later, a friend found him — now a known atheist — reading a Bible in a hospital. When the surprised visitor asked why, Fields replied, “I’m checking for loopholes.” Weeks later he died of an alcohol-related stomach hemorrhage. Whether flippant or sincere, his attitude is hardly limited to those at the end of life. A joke tells of a Catholic school cafeteria with a crate of milk cartons and a sign that read: “Take only one. God is watching.” At the end of the lunch line sat chocolate cookies. On a napkin someone had scrawled: “Take all you want. God is watching the milk.” There seems to be a nearly universal desire in humans to justify what they do, whether before God or others. Why is this? Many religions, Christian and non-Christian alike, believe that humans possess a “conscience” — an understanding of right and wrong. The Latin roots of the word itself literally mean “with knowledge.” Though heartfelt, the conscience judges the morality of an action using one’s reason and understanding, and that can sometimes be its downfall. Who among us hasn’t been biased, mistaken, or misinformed? A well-formed and truthful conscience is vital. Many religions would again agree that it is for this purpose (among others) that divinity speaks to humanity — to remind us of the truth about good and evil. Even so, educating and correcting one’s conscience is a lifelong task. Neglect or abuse of it brings blindness. Two movies opening in U.S. theaters today may help refresh the sensitivity of our consciences. These are “October Baby” and the literary adaptation “The Hunger Games.” Though I have only screened the first one, I have read the young adult novelettes behind the second, and encourage moviegoers to see both if possible. In far different ways, these films look at the effects of socially-approved violence on children and society. The light drama “October Baby” does so gently and uplifts, though it does so with a heroine that some might find taboo: a grown survivor of an attempted abortion. In contrast, the lightly science fiction trilogy that begins with “The Hunger Games” directly challenges the myths of U.S. entertainment and culture by showing the scars that killing inflicts on those who do it, even when it is arguably justified. Elsewhere in media, many video gamers have been infuriated by a disappointing end to a blockbuster science fiction triad. On Wednesday, Bioware promised to heed the backlash. Its recent game, Mass Effect 3, may have sold 890,000 copies ($60 each) in the U.S. within its first 24 hours of availability earlier this month, but the final minutes of the 90-120 hour trilogy left a sour taste. It offered three similar sad endings with the main visual variation being the color of the explosions. The irony is that, before the one-size-fits-all end, the series maintained an illusion of freedom and consequences. An act of kindness or brutality, diligence or laziness, by a player could shape future encounters far down the story’s path. In games and reality, we want our choices to have meaning. Our conscience insists some do, at least outside of a fantasy. In 1933, the Nazi government outlawed all non-religious youth groups unconnected with the Hitler Youth paramilitary organization. Within three years the remaining church youth groups were also purged. Among the secular casualties was Jungenschaft, a high-spirited teenage boys club in Germany. With equal gusto and appreciation, members explored woods, ice-cold rivers at dawn, wild bird migrations, fine arts concerts, museums, cathedrals, plays, and movies. They were wiped out by the Nazis, who arrested and imprisoned its young members for weeks or months and destroyed their diaries, magazines, and songbooks. Yet lyrics of the group’s favorite song survived, and the message holds true today. “Close eye and ear a while / against the tumult of the time; / you’ll not still it or find peace / until your heart is pure. “As you watch and wait / to catch the eternal in the everyday, / you freely choose to take your role / in history’s great play. “The hour will come when you are called. / Be then prepared, be ready; / if the fire dies down, leap in; / again it blazes, steady.” By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Previously published 9/11/97 in The Madera Tribune
The Friends of Madera County Library have been wondering what you’re doing here. Some friends they are, eh? In case you haven’t heard, the Friends plan on self-publishing a book titled, “Why We’re Here,” on the origins of Madera County residents. They’re asking locals to submit a story of 250 words or less on where they came from, either personally or as a family. A local fast food clerk once asked my dad where he was from. My dad replied, “Germany.” She persisted, “No, what country do you come from?” My dad repeated himself, “Germany.” “Oh,” she said with obvious disappointment, “I thought you were from someplace in Europe.” In elementary school I would have dreaded having to write a 250-word essay, but now I cringe for the opposite reason. This column, for example, usually runs more than 750 words. How do you compress an oak tree back into an acorn? My family dates back to at least the 12th century at Vorhelm in western Germany. At that time, records reveal that one of my forebears sold himself to the local bishop to avoid being drafted for war duty. After the war ended he bought his freedom. In A.D. 1812, the Rieping homestead had to quarter French troops since it happened to be on the supply route during Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia. About 1929 my grandfather Heinrich asked for his inheritance early and moved his young family of four to Klein Karlshoeh in Silesia, now western Poland. Despite this my family suffered again from war when Adolf Hitler followed in France’s footsteps by invading Russia. My uncle Hugo had been drafted into service, and his horse stepped on a mine during the attack on Stalingrad in Nov. 1942. My uncle had turned 19 only days before he died. My father Josef, the eighth of 11 children, had a mischievous streak, like myself. At age 6, he found a naturally hollowed tree in the woods near his home. Discovering that the inside looked like a chimney, he decided to light a fire in it. Nazi soldiers spied the smoke and suspecting an enemy plot soon arrived on the scene. Josef fled and evaded the soldiers in the woods for hours before finally escaping home late that night. When Josef returned home, he expected to be punished for his extreme lateness. But after hearing the truth my grandfather praised him proudly, and made sure he ate before going to bed. At the time my dad was confused at this leniency. He later realized my grandparents feared to openly criticize the Nazi government, or they would have. Nonetheless, in 1945 Russian soldiers came to the door of the farmhouse asking for Heinrich Rieping. My grandmother Helene used the excuse that she was washing dishes to send my father, then age 8, to lead the soldiers to her husband, who was in the fields raking hay. My dad obeyed, and the soldiers took Heinrich away to a prison camp. That July a Roman Catholic priest warned Helene that authorities intended to put her family into a prison camp as well. At his urging, she fled west with her eight children — the youngest was only 3. Josef turned 9 during the long trek. After bribing a border guard not to shoot for five minutes, the family safely made it across the kilometer-wide border, known as “no man’s land.” The story of my family would continue, and Josef’s would lead across the ocean to the U.S.A. How do you compress an oak tree into an acorn? God does it every autumn, and in the same way the sum of a family’s history is written in you and I. All of us are a product of the past, and that is why history is important. |
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