VIENNA, CITY OF MY DREAMS

There's one city I'd like to visit more than any other–Wein, that's Vienna to you Englishers. I have at least a dozen books about the city–picture books, histories, travel guides. I have some money put aside for a trip (but nowhere near enough) and CD's to learn conversational German, although I'm not sure that would help with the unusual dialect spoken in Austria. It's strange that it should be that city I so long to see. None of my family is from there, although most of my mother's family passed through their on their move to Hungary and my grandmother was taken there as a little girl for an operation. Maybe I have a relative or two in Vienna, but not that I know personally. I do know, however, what sparked my interest in the great Imperial and Royal capital of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I was maybe 13 when my grandmother took me and my sister and my motherr and maybe my cousins to Lutz's pastry shop in Chicago. It's a wonderful old-fashioned place with a bakery in front and a café in back, like the typical Viennese Konditorei. We had some sort of pastry, I don't remember what. The thing that struck me (in addition to the wonderful pastries) was the two guys in their Lane Tech High School sweaters seated at a table near us. The had magnificent individual pots of hot chocolate that they drank as they played chess. Can you imagine anything more civilized than that? This was long before places like Starbucks made the scene. High school kids more typically hung around drugstore soda fountains (now vanished from the face of the earth) or hamburger joints (also a disappearing item.) Here were people living the life I would want. The seed was planted.

Years later I started at my first church in Miami, a rather uncivilized place in some respects, though with some fine cultural spots and elegant places to dine. In ,y early years there I still subscribed to the "Saturday Review" a wonderful magazine for literature and arts. One week they had an article of Vienna in the winter. The first full page picture was of a tray of pastries. From that moment on I decided that someday I would have to see the city myself.

Vienna is far more than eating, though the cosmopolitan make-up the city provides a wonderful mix of German, Hungarian, Slavic, and Italian elements. That still exists even though the old empire disappeared after WWI. It's a strange thing that the Austrian Empire which managed to hold together diverse nationalities spawned a racists like Hitler who did everything he could to eradicate diversity. Of course, that reflects the entire 18th and 19th centuries–a rise of nationalism that divided people against each other by ethnicity. The "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia in recent years reflects the same struggle that started WWI. Well, all that aside Vienna remains the great cosmopolitan city.

I notice that almost every street corner has some historic church, palace, building, or museum. The city center is a testimony of one the greatest examples of urban planning–the Ringstrasse. The Emperor Franz Joseph had the old walls protecting the inner city destroyed and a magnificent circle of boulevards replaced them and united the inner and outer city. Again, another irony. As the empire collapsed the capital became grander and grander. It's interesting to speculate how much of both the collapse and the grandeur were due to the Emperor himself.

One part of Vienna that intrigues me is it's musical history. Few cities could boast among their residents, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and of course the great Strauss family. Is there anything more typically Viennese that a Strauss waltz? And since then, nothing. To be sure the great musical tradition is still there in the operas an symphonies, and of course the Boys choir.

There's art, too, and great architecture. Some Gothic, more Baroque, more Biedermeier period, but what really intrigues me is the art of the Secesion, those artists including Gustav Klimt, the domestic arts of the Wiener Werkstatte, and the architecture of Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and Adolf Loos. It's all modern without being ugly. One of the things that strikes me about the bare-bones American modernism incluenced by the German Bauhaus is it's stark ugliness-great glass, steel and concrete boxes. You could take a chunk of that sort of modernism and stick it anywhere. You wouldn't know if you were looking at a bank, a hospital, an apartment building or a jail. You can't tell what's the front and where the door is. Not so the Viennese architectures before WWII. While breaking with tradition, it still has order and beauty and form.

Maybe I would be disappointed if I actually saw Vienna. Maybe the new glass boxes have chocked out much of old Vienna. Maybe MacDonald's has supplanted the coffee houses. Maybe people just laugh at Strauss Waltzes. But then, maybe not. Which would be better, only to dream of Vienna and thus never be fulfilled and yet never disappointed or to actually see it and risk disappointment?

To help your dreams: these pictures. The Secession Building on top, and at the end St. Stephen's Church, The Emperor Franz Joseph, Café Demel and, naturally, Sacher Torte.

Where ever your dreams take you, may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

HARRY POTTER BIBLE CHALLENGE

FLASH--SPECIAL EDITION

This is A Pilgrim's Place Official Unofficial Harry Potter Challenge.

Twice in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J. K. Rowling quotes the Bible. What are the quotes and where can they be found in the Bible?

Hint 1: Both quotes are from the New Testament.

Hint 2: Both quotes appear for the first time in the same chapter of Deathly Hallows.

Go to it, kiddies.

FAME

My secret desire is to be a little famous. Not famous like Al Capone (he was infamous), nor famous like a certain hotel heiress (who is famous for being famous and being tossed in the clink), not even famous like a movie star or sports hero. Just famous enough, say, to have an autographed picture of me hanging near my booth at a popular restaurant. It's not likely to happen. About a year ago I took a young person from my church out to lunch. Sure enough some absolute strangers came up to the table and asked her if she had been in a theater production they saw a few weeks before. Me? I could have been leftover chopped liver. 'Taint fair McGee, as my grandfather would have said.

Speaking of my grandfather, he had a certain claim to fame. He was by profession a tailor, most particularly a schneider, a cutter. The cutter was the person who use a knife to cut a pattern from dozens of pieces of fabric piled on a table and produce the makings for dozens of items at once time. This was more than wielding a knife. The cutter had to know how to lay out the pattern to use the material efficiently and how to adjust the pattern if he were making, say, a size 40 coat instead of 36. The outfit he worked for, Marcus Ruben, made uniforms. There was one uniform, however, that my grandfather made entirely by himself, the chief's outfit worn by Little Oscar.

I don't know if Little Oscar was known outside the Chicago area, but he was the "mascot" for the Oscar Mayer company. He would ride around in a truck shaped like a hotdog (the wiener mobile) and make personal appearances where he handed out Weenie Whistles. Little Oscar (portrayed by George Molchan) was a "vertically challenged" person, what we called short people in those politically incorrect days. Being a small person, he couldn't just go in an buy a chief's uniform and hat off the rack. My grandfather made them for him. I know this to be true because one day my grandmother spotted the wiener mobile and Little Oscar passing out whistles so she said to him, "My husband used to make you uniforms." There was a momentary pause, then little Oscar said, "Johnny!" It was the only time I ever hear anyone call my grandfather that.

His son, my father, also had a certain claim to fame. Dad was a machinist. In his early years he worked for the F. B. Reddington Company. They made packaging machines. They designed and built the elaborate devices that put products in boxes or bottles or cans and labeled them. I can remember one of the machines that Dad helped build. One was the Cracker Jack packer. It opened up flat boxes so they could hold the product, poured Cracker Jack into them, sealed it, and then covered it with it's foil wrapper. Now this machine must have also put the prize in, but I have no memory of that function. You see we frequently got unwrapped boxes of Cracker Jack at hope (test boxes), but I don't recall that they ever had a prize in them.

That's my family's accomplishments. What about me? Well, what little claim to fame I can make are all associated with my college years. First, the college itself, the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University. CMC is one of the oldest schools of music in the United States, older even than Juliard. It was founded by Florenz Ziegfield, Sr., the father of the Flo Ziegfield of the Follies fame. Our most famous student? Jack Benny, of course. (Why do people snicker when I mention that. He was a good violinist.) Claim to fame number two. I studied voice my first year with none other than than Jimmy Stewart's high school music teacher. OK, so Stewart wasn't noted as a singer, but who can forget him singing with Donna Reed, "Buffalo Gals Won't you Come Out Tonight." My musical career at this prestigious institution included singing in the premier of Ulysses Kay's work "Stephen Crane Set " and in the multimedia stage production "Third Planet from the Son." (Google them.) Third claim to fame, my 1971 dinner with one of the contestants in that year's Miss America pageant. Yes, indeed. Anita Pankratz, Miss Illinois, was also a student at CMC. Of course, I had known her for years. I did indeed have dinner with her. I just leave out the information that there were maybe eight or ten people at the same table and she came as someone else's date. People don't have to know ALL the facts.

Well, that's about it. Andy Warhol once said "In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes." This is the future and I figure I've had about 3.5 seconds of fame. No make that and even fife seconds. There have been over 800 hits on my blog in the past year and that's worth something.

Whether or not your journey brings you fame, may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

RESPONSIBILITY

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that I am responsible for my life. No one else is responsible for me. No one owes me anything. Sure I can ask for advice and sometimes for help with something, but I am responsible for my actions or inactions. No one else is to blame unless they actively do something to harm me. For example, I am not responsible for the two burglars who broke into my apartment one night. I am responsible for the foolhardy gesture of chasing them off with a broom (what was I thinking of?) and calling the police. I am responsible for putting a light with a motion detector on the porch and for adding wood strips across the screen windows to make it harder to break in again.

Taking responsibility is hard, sometimes painful, It was easier to let my parents take care of things when I was little. But life is hard. If you're going to live your own life, you have to take responsibility for it.

Boy, I've used the words responsibility or responsible eight (now nine) times. If you haven't guessed, lack of responsibility on the part of others is one of by pet peeves. I'll bet a good quarter of my counseling and pastoral work is done is done with people who refuse to accept responsibility for themselves.

Here's the classic example of what I am talking about; this simple declaration. "You make me angry." It's said frequently, perhaps by all of us, but what does it actually say? It says, "You have the power to determine my emotional state." It concedes our dependance on someone else. They have power that we cannot overcome. They can make us angry. From this often follows another notion. What I do when I am angry is not my fault since another person has caused me to be angry. That is to say, when another person makes me angry, they have overcome my will and caused me to behave in ways for which I have no responsibility.

Little children frequently act on the basis of emotion. It takes a gradual process of maturation and learning for the child to overrule the emotions and have the will determined by the intellect. When a person declares that another person has made them do something by producing a particular emotional state in them, they have retreated into childish behavior. Boy, do I ever see a lot of that in life.

This elemental retreat from responsibility takes many different, complex forms. The one that I often deal with in counseling lies in people who refuse to take responsibility for their own happiness in life. They are generally miserable (and spread that misery to others whenever possible), but are never responsible for their emotional condition. Someone or something else is always to blame. I'll invent an example. Me: "Why are you so unhappy?" Them: "There's nothing to do in this place. I hate it here." Me: "What do you want to do?" Them: "Anything. Go into town. Shop in the stores. See a movie. Visit friends. Anything." Me: "So why don't you do any of those things?" Them: "I don't have a way to get anywhere. I don't have a car, and I don't drive." Me: "Could you ride a bicycle?" Them: "Are you crazy. I can't be riding around on a bike at my age." Me: "All right. How about taking a bus? " Them: "I don't know where the bus goes." Me: "You could get a map and find out." Them: "I can't understand those maps. Besides I don't know where the bus stop is." Me: "Could you ask a neighbor?" Them: "Those stuck up people. I don't want anything to do with them." On and on it goes, the person rejecting any suggestion that they do something to change their circumstance. They are not responsible for their own happiness.

Another type of irresponsibility I have to cope with lies in people refusing to be responsible for their own physical needs or those of their family. I am not talking about the mentally or physically impaired who deserve help from the community of the basis of common humanity. No, I am talking about people who will not work (I can't find a job) or if they do work, will not make any accommodations in their lives to live within their means. I have had people come crying to me that they have no food in their house to feed their family. The church has provided several weeks worth of food, but the family immediately throws a party and consumes everything in one weekend. I have had people begging for help with their electric bill only to find that they run the air-conditioning 24 hours a day AND have cable TV with premium stations and a $65 bill for pay-per-view movies. I have had people beg for milk for the kids only to find the parents both smoked, and there were beer cans all around the house. No problem purchasing those items.

Maybe I have become an old meany on this, but I am tired of trying to help people who will make no effort to help themselves, believing that someone else should be providing for them. But . . . there's always a but . . . but what about when there are kids involved? It's not the kids' fault that they have idiot parents that would rather smoke and drink than feed them. So you try to help, but always in the back of my mind was the occasion years ago when I got a call on a Sunday night from someone who needed money to buy baby formula. I rushed out to provide some financial help, and left just as the pizza delivery truck pulled up to their house.

I have two reasons for making self-responsibility a criterion for helping people. The first is that I have limited resources to draw on. Every person I help means another doesn't get helped. Second, as a Salvation Army official told me, if you give people the wrong kind of help (direct cash support) you enable them to stay in the same condition.

I don't want to give the impression that lack of self responsibility only exists among people without two nickels to rub together. Not at all. A certain heiress just got out of jail the week I'm writing this. She had been driving on a suspended license. Why was she doing that? Because she didn't know her license was suspended. Why not? She doesn't open her mail. She has "people" to do that for her. Sheesh!

I am not perfect, not anywhere near perfect. When I do something wrong, I have to fix it if possible. If it affects another person, it is my duty to make amends. That's all part of being responsible for yourself.

OK, the GROUCH is finished for this week.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

HOW'S TRIX?

Sometimes people getting on in years try something brand-new. A couple I knew in their 70s tried parasailing. This morning I did something I had never done in all my 58 years. I had a bowl of Trix for breakfast. In that lies a long story.

When I was growing up there were a limited number of cold cereals available: corn flakes, rice krispies, shredded wheat, Wheaties, Cheerios, puffed wheat and rice. Eventually there was Special K and Alphabits–my favorite. Our mother was not one to buy every new product to hit the shelves. No sugar frosted cereal of any kind entered our house, and there were only a few choices available at home at any one time.

I have continued this narrow approach to cereal. I alternate between Brand Buds and Fiber One. Actually I'd prefer raisin bran, but I'm supposed to be on a low carb diet, so these are the only ones permitted. A couple of months ago I stayed at a hotel that provided a free breakfast. They had a series of dispensers with various kinds of cereal. I avoided this area like the plague knowing I'd have a terrible time deciding between what I should have and trying some new adventure like Fruit Loops. I mentioned this fact in a sermon as an illustration of a difficulty in making choices even when there wasn't much consequence to the choice. Several weeks after this was my birthday. To my great delight one of the members of my church and her daughter gave me a variety pack of eight different General Mills cereals.

Of course this presented a dilemma: which should I eat first and how often should I eat one. Yes, I think about things like that. There has to be a plan for everything. You can't leave things to chance. After much deliberation, I decided to try one cereal each Friday–my day off. So far I have worked through four flavors–Honey Grahams, Lucky Charms, Frosted Cheerios, and Trix. Here follows a review.

Honey Grahams are the best so far. I have always been a fan of Graham crackers and milk as comfort food. And chocolate covered Graham crackers are a special treat to be rarely enjoyed. I once walked a mile with my grandmother Kofink to a drugstore to buy chocolate covered Grahams because they were on sale. Nothing like a sale to suggest the need for a special treat. I think I'll buy a box of Honey Grahams to eat on special occasions, but not too near my doctor's appointment when I have to get on that demon scale.

Lucky Charms. Yuck. I'm not sure what the cardboardy cereal itself was made of (wheat, oats, corn, barley?), but the special added feature of colored marshmallow bits was just too strange for words. Marshmallow is for toasting over a fire or putting in hot cocoa (though I prefer whipped cream), but not floating around in youe breakfast bowl.

Frosted Cheerios were good. I had eaten regular Cheerios as a kid, but the sugar coating was a new feature. I always use artificial sweetner, so I probably won't be buying them for regular consumption. Besides, every time I'd eat them I would picture a disaproving look on my mother's face.

Finally, Trix.* The first thing is the shocking colors, like a bowl full of marbles. I was fortunate that I eat a late breakfast on Friday (around 9:30 after I finish the laundry). If I had chosen them for breakfast at my usual 6:30 hour, the shock might have done me in. And then the taste. They are supposed to be fruit flavored and I suppose that is fruit flavor, but I have no idea what kind. Many years ago when I put lemon in my tea as well as sugar, the notion took me to use lemon drops and thus cover both lemon and sweetness in one small package. AUGGGUUHH! Was that awful. Well, Trix has something of the same effect. I think I might be inclined to serve it as a desert rather than a breakfast food. It does have 12 grams of sugar per serving. No wonder some little kids are so wired in the morning. A bowlful of Trix would make anyone hyperactive. For us older folks it probably causes instant diabetes.

The nice thing about receiving this variety pack (thank you) is that I have been able to sample things without buying the giant economy box and then finding out I don't like it. I am looking forward to trying the remaining four flavors.

May your life be flavored with true delights. And may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

*There used to be a commercial where a rabbit (the one on the Trix box) tries to get the Trix away from two little kids. It always ended with the remark, "Silly rabbit. Trix are for kids." From that commercial comes this joke. Once upon a time there lived the twins Samuel and Sadie. Every time they went to their religious school, they had to cross a bridge, and under that bridge lived a mean old troll. Every time the twins crossed the bridge, the troll leaped out and gave each one a hard kick. Samuel and Sadie soon grew tired of this treatment and complained to their rabbi. "Rabbi," they said. "A mean old troll kicks us every time we cross his bridge and we're tired of being kicked." "He kicks, you, does he?" said the rabbi. "Don't worry, I'll handle this." So the rabbi went out to the bridge where he shouted, "Come out right now, you mean old troll." And the troll said, "Who are you?" And the rabbi said in a loud voice, " I am the rabbi." "What do you want rabbi" the troll growled." I want you to stop kick kicking the twins, Samuel and Sadie." "I won't," said the troll. "I'll make a bargain with you, " said the rabbi. "If you stop kicking the twins, you can kick me instead." And the troll replied, "Silly rabbi. Kicks are for twins."