Things I didn’t use to like

1.         Red beets: Mom made Harvard beets, and we pretended the sauce was lipstick, but the beets were not a favorite. I was probably 60 before being introduced to root vegetables. Roasted root vegetables and even just roasted beets have ascended to a top spot.

2.         Bluegrass music: Definitely wasn’t on my playlist. But then around ten years ago Sr. Rita Bilz needed a driver to a Ralph Stanley concert. She watched out of the corner of her eye to see my response. I was hooked. That was the beginning of many bluegrass band trips. I don’t think Rita ever heard a song she didn’t know.

3.         The Civil War: I went to Gettysburg once and crossed it off my to-do list. But I had noticed the quiet way people toured the battlefield. I went back a second time. Learned there was far more than killing and brutality to the war’s history and effects. Admitted my slim acquaintance with black history, the war’s cultural impact on women, differences between north and south, the roots of political strife and civil unrest. My education continues.

4.         Psalm 119: This psalm has 176 verses. In the Liturgy of the Hours it is always broken up into small sections and sprinkled among the hours. Because, as I once thought, it says the same thing over and over. Dear heaven, this ignorance is hard to admit in print. I am going to study it, to find out why it now has so much appeal for me, and after some work I will read what scholars say. In the meantime I will keep on praying it. And enjoying it.

         I am grateful to those who introduce the new, who open a door, who provide an experience that gives life in a surprising way. Jesus says he is the Gate. Then Jesus must be present in the cook who served the red beets, Sr. Rita who took a chance on a classical music lover, camping friends who’ve traveled from Gettysburg to Appomattox, and the sisters with whom I pray Psalm 119. Their gates are standing open.

                          Sr. Christa Kreinbrink, OSB

What Gettysburg Began

       I had never understood people’s preoccupation with the Civil War. We visited Gettysburg as a stopover on a return from someplace else. Quiet visitors on the battlefield. Rangers respectful of both blue and gray. Visitor Center impressive. But it didn't really take hold. 

Gettysburg National Cemetery

     We went back this year. Stopped by Little Round Top (for the view) and avoided the lengthy ranger talk nearby. Observed a group on horseback listening to another lengthy talk. Too lengthy. For the 150^th anniversary we came home and watched the movie Gettysburg. Over the next few weeks several of us watched the film Lincoln and the entire Ken Burns’ Civil War series. Shelby Foote, an engaging commentator on film, became an engaging historian over the 20 years it took him to write the 3 volume, 3000 page The Civil War. It was lengthy. I read every word. One might say the Civil War finally took hold. 

     Getting caught up in the war was appalling when I found myself rooting for general so-and-so to win the battle. All this killing should be painful to read; it sometimes isn’t. I was surprised, too, to find myself praying the psalms from the point of view of a soldier from either army:

                        Have you not rejected us, O God?

                        You do not go out with our armies.

                        Grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless.

                        With God we shall do valiantly;

                        it is God who will tread down our foes. (Ps. 60) 

       I am reading beyond the battles now, into war’s effects, which haven’t changed much. The anguish of a family, the struggle of a veteran to adapt to a prosthesis, unending work for civil rights, and the efforts to stamp out slavery, which has only changed its face. 

      Fifty years after the Civil War, veterans then in their 70’s and 80’s met at Gettysburg to reenact Pickett’s charge, a futile attempt resulting in an awful loss of life. As the old Confederate veterans looked up at the “enemy” and the old Union veterans looked down, a mighty groan of pain and remembrance arose from each side. The old soldiers rushed toward each other and threw their arms around each other. Fifty years of living with the “fruits of war” led them to reconciliation.

     Sr. Christa Kreinbrink, OSB