Groundhog Day

On the second day of February, most folks have an awareness that it's Groundhog Day.  It's on the calendar after all. Groundhog Day is a peculiar holiday, if one could call it a holiday. It's commemorated in a town fairly close to where I live, Punxsutawney, PA. Punxsutawney Phil, the esteemed groundhog, emerges from its burrow and the human observers determine whether the squinty rodent has seen its shadow, or not. The day was whimsically and dramatically portrayed in the 1993 film by the same name, Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray playing the character of Phil Connors. Phil, a reporter sent to do a story on Groundhog Day, experiencing it over and over and over again. 

Margaret at her K-State graduation

February 2 was Margaret Kritsch Anderson's birthday. 

Of course, when her birthday would roll around in our Lutheran Campus Ministry circle at K-State, we'd have to joke about it being on Groundhog Day. Born in 1977, she would have been 39 years old. As I've written and you may well know, Margaret was murdered on January 1, 2012. On that New Year's Day, in Mount Rainier National Park, Margaret was fatally shot in the line of duty on the road to Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park. Margaret responded to a call to intercept a vehicle that failed to stop at a chain-up checkpoint. The driver of the vehicle opened fire on Margaret, killing her, and then he fled on foot into the woods and later died of exposure.

Margaret on her last day of work, December 31, 2011, in Mount Rainier National Park

A photo I took at Margaret's memorial service, her boots are in the foreground

Our Thiel College student group at the 2015 ELCA Extravaganza

February 2 is also another poignant day of remembrance for me and one that I haven't been able to write about until today.  A year ago, I was with eight amazing Thiel College students and two great colleagues in ministry, Pastor Laurie Carson and Vicar Tara Lamont Eastman, at the ELCA Extravaganza for youth and family ministry in Detroit, MI. We were having a marvelous time until the morning of February 2. 

We were getting ready to head into another great morning session, when I got a call from Louie urging me to come up to his room. Something was wrong with his roommate, Cody Danner. I raced up to their room and discovered Cody in distress. Cody was recovering from a surgery to repair a break in the small bones in his foot. He needed to be in a wheelchair and Louie had been wheeling him around to the events of our gathering. Louie said that Cody had tried to get up and had fallen down, twice. He was disoriented and his face with a pale shade of blue. I asked Louie questions, I asked Cody questions about what he could feel, about his heart and I felt his forehead. It was icy cool. Cody, it seemed to me, was dying! 

"We have to call 911," I told Louie. So, I grabbed the room phone and dialed the front desk. I urgently told them that we needed emergency crews to come. While we were waiting, I messaged others in our group to let them know that we had an emergency. I asked Cody's friend Cheryl to come up and be with us. The first responders were the hotel medics. They tried to get a pulse, to no avail. Quickly, they applied oxygen. The EMT guys arrived next and took over, put Cody on a stretcher and wheeled him down to the lobby. Detroit was under a snow emergency and there were near blizzard conditions. Louie, Cheryl and I were allowed to ride in the ambulance with Cody.  We were whisked off to the Detroit Medical Center Emergency Room.  

After much waiting and testing, the doctors discovered that Cody had a large pulmonary embolism lodge in the saddle between his lungs near his heart. Had we waited or had other decisions been made, Cody would have surely died, they told him. 

We spent many long, tense hours in the hospital. Cody had authorized me to call his family and his fiancee way on the east coast of Pennsylvania to tell them about his condition. His mom posted this prayer request on her Facebook page: 

"Hi everyone I am asking for your prayers for our boy Cody Danner. He is in the hospital and we are waiting on an update from Pastor Jayne who is now my angel for being with my son at his time of need when we can't be there. She is a blessing to my family right now. I just ask for prayers that everything will be okay for our son. Be strong buddy your family loves you lots." 

Cody's family mom, dad and fiancee jumped in the car and headed toward Detroit. Meanwhile, I stayed with Cody and my other friends stayed back with the rest of the students at the hotel. We had to get them back to Thiel and I was going to remain until Cody's family made to Detroit. 

Cody and the Thiel College group joining in prayer-time in the ICU

Thankfully, Cody's surgery was successful and, with the permission of his nurses, we were all able to squish into the ICU room and share prayer time with him. The Thiel students took off for Pennsylvania and his family made it to the hospital. Once Cody was stable enough to leave, I rode back with them to campus. Cody wanted to stop in to say hello and thank you to his choir friends and band members who had been praying for him through his life threatening ordeal.

For me, this was a soul-draining experience and I think it's difficult for most folks to comprehend what it was like. I'm pretty sure that few have any idea what some pastors do in the hospital helping folks. We do everything from making friends with and engaging the nursing staff, to making inquires for the patient and the family about when the doctor will be coming by and how the tests are coming along. Essentially, we are advocates, running point and helping things happen to hopefully run smoothly for all involved in the midst of a very stressful situation.  When you're the only one available with a young person and the family is hundreds of miles away, the job is pretty intense. I'm so grateful that Louie had the presence of mind to call me and that I could be there for Cody in "his time of need" as his mom said. 

When Groundhog Day rolls around, it's filled with all sorts of memories and moments; with feelings of the sadness that comes from missing Margaret on the one hand and a sense of grateful relief that Cody is still here on the other. Cody graduated from Thiel College in May of 2015 and is back home with his family getting ready for his own wedding day. So, I give thanks to God and to all the medical people who took care of Cody and helped him mend. Cody and the rest of the students had an experience that will bind them together in ministry and friendship for the years to come. 

This is a holy calling and a blessing - this life in campus ministry amidst the gifted young adults and all the rest of the community who love them. 

Remembering Margarget

It's -- been awhile since I posted.

More about that in the days to come.

But for now, for tonight, it's a New Year's reflection. Four years ago on the fresh and first day of 2012, my cozy New Year nestled in my idyllic pine forest home in Minnesota was shattered by horrific news. Jack and I learned that one of our dear and beloved former Lutheran Campus Ministry and Aikido students from K-State was murdered. Through the anguish and tears streaming down my cheeks, I wrote about her death in The Lutheran online magazine in a post entitled, Margaret.

It wasn't just any, run-of-the-mill murder. Margaret Kritsch Anderson was serving with distinction as a park ranger in Mount Rainier National Park. On New Year's Day morning while she was assisting families and children up at the Paradise Center, she heard news over the ranger coms that someone had blasted past the snow tire check point. The driver's intentions unknown, Margaret took off in her ranger SUV to set up a blockade on the narrow and winding road that had as its destination the Paradise lodge packed with families enjoying their holiday.

Benjamin Colton Barnes, a very troubled Iraq war veteran who was notably suffering from PTSD and violent tendencies, was barreling up the mountain. His car was filled with an arsenal of weapons, including assault rifles with armor-piercing rounds. None of this was known to any of the rangers in the park, even though on New Year's Eve he had a violent altercation at a party in Seattle.

Waiting in her SUV blocking the road, Margaret was gunned down by her assailant. He fired on her vehicle as the rounds ripped through the door and her body. Then he kept other rangers at bay for 90 minutes firing on them as they tried to rescue her. Ben Barnes fled on foot down into a ravine on the mountain. He was found early the next morning lying face down in a creek.

Margaret's husband, Eric, also a ranger in the park that day, heard about all of this over the park radio as it was transpiring, but could do nothing to help his dying wife. She left behind two small daughters, Anna and Katie. They were one and three at the time. Later on in the month of January when I traveled to Seattle for her memorial service, chronicled in this post, Memorial, I met Eric and her beautiful daughters. It was heartbreaking and incredibly sad.

According to the US Center For Disease Control, there are over 33,000 deaths by firearms in our country each year. Figuring conservatively at about 30,000 firearm deaths per year, in the four years since Margaret was viciously gunned down, over 120,000 people have lost their lives due to gun violence in the USA. Let the number sink in...for a minute or so. In comparison, the Vietnam war military deaths weigh in at a bit of 58,000. It's beyond mind boggling and sobering to consider that we live in a country in which it is as if we are at war with one another and the lethal weapon of choice we use is a firearm. In one year alone, we kill the equivalent of the population one medium-sized town in America.

There are many reasons why Ben Barnes ought not to have been in possession of any weapons. The court was well aware that he was violent and it had issued a restraining order against him at the urgent plea of the mother of his daughter. His base outside of Seattle was aware of his struggle with PTSD and the list goes on. My heartbreak and the sorrow of my family, Margaret's family and friends is magnified and amplified over and over again in by other families who experience the same  in our country.

I commonly use the third person, "we," when I talk and write about this grave matter. I think we are all in this together and together, we must find a way out of this terror and violence that stalks our nation. I also believe that we are addicted to such violence and the weapons that wreak havoc on our neighbors. I fear that we are like the proverbial frogs in the kettle of water that is slowly heating up to a boil and don't know enough to leap out for our dear lives, but instead - do  nothing.

Since Margaret's murder, I've been working for change. A year after her murder, Dick Gordon of NPR's The Story, contacted me about sharing my insights about Margaret's death. I've been doing what I can, and I usually feel that it's precious little and that it's not accomplishing much at all. But on my best days, I have to believe that each small action, combined with the compassionate and persistent actions of others, must make a difference - some how.

So, I return to the words that I wrote four years ago and reflect:
But I fear that we will again, strain to make sense of the senseless act by focusing on the desperate, despicable act of a soldier gone bad. I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think Margaret, who was thoughtful as the day is long, would dismiss him so lightly. I know Margaret. I think she would ask deeper questions about Ben. She would wonder about his family and if any one was caring for and praying for him. Margaret would want to talk this through with others. 
We, O Church, owe it to Margaret and yes, to Ben, to ponder this more deeply. To dig down and do some New Year’s soul-searching as a nation about our addiction to violence, our support of its use under the state’s authorization in war, but our mass-projection and baffling monster-creation when one of our own turns on others out of pain, rage, despair and isolation. I didn’t know Ben, but I pray for his family and all who knew him, worried about him, loved him and mourn his violent actions and his cold, frozen death.

So, I pray, and we pray and we take faithful actions for justice, mercy and compassion. I want to keep her memory alive and before the world. Margaret was a beautiful and amazing human being. She was, and still I,s beloved by many. I hope that this tribute can give a bit of solace to all who remember and all who love her. Margaret was a campfire sort of person who loved the outdoors, her family and God. She was a beloved campus ministry peer minister and thus, her story is a fitting match for the blending of my blogs.

For the time being, as The Lutheran online magazine works on some transitions, I'm shifting my campus ministry posts to this blog. I wish you all the best and brightest blessings in this new year and I invite you to join with me in working for peace and justice for all of God's beloved children - and I mean all of God's children - in the world.