Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reverand Mariann Budde’s Prayer on Jan 21, 2025– to be remembered and Preserved

January 22, 2025 Andy V. Leave a comment

BISHOP MARIANN BUDDE: President Trump, ‘have mercy’ on immigrants and gay children

Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025 — “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.” (Budde is a graduate of the University of Rochester in the 1980s)

Posted 6:12 a.m. Today

– Updated 6:39 a.m. Today

Bishop Mariann Budde and President Donald Trump at the Inaugural Prayer Service in Washington, DC on Jan. 21, 2025. (NBC News photo)

EDITOR’S NOTE: At the inaugural prayer service Tuesday, Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, appealed to President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on the LGBTQ+ community and undocumented migrant workers. Her comments received extensive news coverage, including by the Associated Press, New York Times and network television broadcasts. Below is the full text of her sermon. You can watch it here. Of the prayer service, Trump said: “I didn’t think it was a good service.”

As a country we have gathered this morning to pray for unity as a people and a nation. Not for agreement, political or otherwise. But for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division. A unity that serves the common good.

Unity in this sense is a threshold requirement for people to live in freedom and together in a free society. It is the solid rock, as Jesus said in this case, upon which to build a nation. It is not conformity. It is not victory. It is not polite weariness or passive passivity born of exhaustion. Unity is not partisan.

Rather unity is a way of being with one another — that it encompasses and respects our differences that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect. That enables us in our communities and in the halls of power to genuinely care for one another. Even when we disagree.

Those across our country who dedicate their lives or who volunteer to help others in times of natural disaster, often at great risk to themselves, never ask those they are helping for whom they voted in a past election or what positions they hold on a particular issue. And we are at our best when we follow their example.

For unity, at times is, sacrificial in the way that love is sacrificial — a giving of ourselves for the sake of another. In his sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth exhorts us to love, not only our neighbors, but to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. To be merciful as our God is merciful. To forgive others as God forgives us. And Jesus went out of his way to welcome those whom his society deemed as outcasts.

Now I grant you that unity and this broad expansive sense is aspirational and it’s a lot to pray for. It’s a big ask of our God — worthy of the best of who we are and who we can be. But there isn’t much to be gained by our prayers if we act in ways that further deepen the divisions among us.

Our scriptures are quite clear about this — that God is never impressed with prayers when actions are not informed by them. Nor does God spare us from the consequences of our deeds which always, in the end, matter more than the words we pray.

Rev. Mariann Budde leads the national prayer service attended by President Donald Trump at the Washington National Cathedral, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Those of us gathered here in the cathedral, we’re not naive about the realities of politics. When power and wealth and competing interests are at stake; when views of what America should be are in conflict; , when there are strong opinions across a spectrum of possibilities and starkly different understandings of what the right course of action is — there will be winners and losers when votes are cast; decisions made that set the course of public policy; and the prioritization of resources.

It goes without saying that in a democracy not everyone’s particular hopes and dreams can be realized in a given legislative session or a presidential term. Not even in a generation. Which is to say: Not everyone’s specific prayers for those of us who are people of prayer; Not everyone’s prayers will be answered in the way we would like. But for some, the loss of their hopes and dreams will be far more than political defeat, but instead a loss of equality and dignity and their livelihoods.

Given this then, is true unity among us even possible? And why should we care about it?

Well, I hope we care. I hope we care because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us. We are all bombarded daily with messages from what sociologists now call the outrage industrial complex Some of that driven by external forces whose interests are furthered by a polarized America. Contempt fuels political campaigns and social media. And many profit from that. But it’s a worrisome, it’s a dangerous way to lead a country.

I’m a person of faith surrounded by people of faith. And with God’s help, I believe that unity in this country is possible. Not perfectly, for we are imperfect people and an imperfect union. But sufficient enough to keep us all believing in and working to realize the ideals of the United States of America. Ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence with its assertion of innate human equality and dignity.

And we are right to pray for God’s help as we seek unity, for we need God’s help. But only if we ourselves are willing to tend to the foundations upon which unity depends. Like Jesus’s analogy of building a house of faith on the rock of His teachings as opposed to building a house on sand. The foundations we need for unity must be sturdy enough to withstand the many storms that threaten it.

And so what are they, the foundations of unity? Drawing from our sacred traditions and texts, let me suggest that there are at least three:

The first foundation for unity is honoring the inherent dignity of every human being. Which is, as all the faiths represented here affirm the birthright of all people as children of our one God. In public discourse. Honoring each other’s dignity means refusing to mock, or discount, or demonize those with whom we differ. Choosing instead to respect, respectfully debate our differences, and whenever possible, to seek common ground. And if common ground is not possible dignity demands that we remain true to our convictions without contempt for those who hold convictions of their own.
The second foundation for unity is honesty — in both private conversation and public discourse. If we’re not willing to be honest there’s no use in praying for unity because our actions work against the prayers themselves. We might for a time experience a false sense of unity among some but not the sturdier, broader unity that we need to address the challenges that we face. Now to be fair we don’t always know where the truth lies. And there’s a lot working against the truth now. But when we do know, when we know what is true, it’s incumbent upon us to speak the truth even when — especially when — it costs us.
And the third and last foundation I’ll mention today, a foundation for unity, is humility which we all need because we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes. We say and do things that we later regret. We have our blind spots and our biases. And perhaps we are most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded, without a doubt, that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong. Because then we are just a few steps from labeling ourselves as “the good people” versus “the bad people.” And the truth is that we’re all people. We’re both capable of good and bad.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn once astutely observed that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And the more we realize this the more room we have within ourselves for humility and openness to one another across our differences because in fact we are more like one another than we realize. And we need each other.

Unity is relatively easy to pray for on occasions of great solemnity. It’s a lot harder to realize when we’re dealing with real differences in our private lives and in the public arena. But without unity. We’re building our nation’s house on sand. And with a commitment to unity that incorporates diversity and transcends disagreement and with the solid foundations of dignity, honesty, and humility that such unity requires, we can do our part and in our time to realize the ideals and the dream of America.

Let me make one final plea. Mr. President.

Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. And we’re scared now.

There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families — some who fear for their lives.

And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues … and temples.

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being; to speak the truth to one another in love. and walk humbly with each other and our God. For the good of all people in this nation and the world.

Greetings2FamilyandFriends, Uncategorized

A Memory from 1993—Parents’ Weekend in Cornell

June 9, 2020 Andy V. 2 Comments

Cleaning out a vintage purse, Tracy happened on the program of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity’s weekend in the spring of 1993 for parents of newly joined freshmen of the fraternity, my son Ryan being among them.

A pleasant weekend it was, with dinner cooked by an executive chef and wines served by a sommelier—both with III’s following their surnames. Only in Cornell?

Perusing the program, I found it contained a short essay entitled “The True Gentleman.” It is attributed to a John Walter Wayland (Virginia, 1899), according to a bit on the web from the North Dakota Chapter of SAE, which claims that it is the product of an essay contest held in Baltimore, Md., on the topic of defining the qualities of a gentleman–these are qualities that, naturally, can and should define gentle people of any gender.

I repeat the essay here as it lists qualities that I wish we saw more of in this day and age in our nation, especially in its leadership. Here is the essay:

The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.

– John Walter Wayland (Virginia 1899)

I’m glad that my son was associated as a young man with an organization that embraced them, and I believe he has come to embody them. From a proud father as Father’s Day approaches.

When is Son’s Day anyway?

Memories-USMC, Uncategorized

May 25, 2020: A Heavy Duty Memorial Day

May 23, 2020 Andy V. 3 Comments

Most Memorial Days I manage a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. That will not happen on this Monday. I don’t guess, given the state of the Covid-19 pandemic, that I will even venture into the District of Columbia to visit the Vietnam War Memorial. Unless things change shortly, I will stay home and think about the fallen, those I knew and those I did not.

Memorial Day Weekend at home in Reston, VA

I’ve posted on Memorial Days past:

“Memorial Day 2017–Paying Homage to Marine Classmates of 50 Years Ago” https://www.fanande.net?p=508

“Memorial Day 2017-Remembering a Solemn Duty” https://www.fanande.net?p=523

“Memorial Day 2018-Some Scenes, Some Thoughts” https://www.fanande.net?p=579

In those posts I thought of comrades who gave there lives believing they were defending the liberties of Americans. I think of them today. But I also must think of those who have died and are dying during this pandemic. And as I think of them, I can’t help but ask again, as those of us who put on uniforms of US military services have asked of themselves when taking our oaths, “What have I sworn myself to? What will be my solemn obligations? What will I be giving up to carry out those obligations?”

The members of my Marine cohort of 1966 knew their obligations included going to war in Vietnam. We also knew that our personal preferences stood low in the priorities of our service obligations. We knew our faces would be shaven daily, our hair cut weekly, our uniform standards and civilian clothing expectations non-negotiable—not subject to our whims or any sense that we had a “Constitutional” right to those choices while we were in service of the country and others (underline “service to others”). Invoking the Constitution to object to wearing a tie or getting a haircut under such circumstances was simply unimaginable.

Most Americans understood that sacrifices were in order during a crisis on the scale of World War II, at least I am not aware of any law suits objecting to rationing on Constitutional (or any other) grounds. Not having researched this, I can only guess, but in that emergency, it is hard to imagine a suit, if filed, could have succeeded.

All of this speaks, of course, to the anger, sometimes violent, over requirements or requests to wear face masks to reduce the risk that people will unwittingly spread the coronavirus to others. Perhaps this is a reflection of the fact that since World War II ordinary citizens have not been obliged to sacrifice even small freedoms to help advance a national cause. The chief obligation seems to have been to stand at sporting events and applaud men and women in uniform or first responders of one kind or another—all deserving to be sure, if somewhat tiresome to those for which it is intended.

Now, in this “war,” all Americans should think of themselves as combatants. How then is being asked to suffer the discomfort of facemasks to protect others too much to ask? How can such a small matter be such a grave infringement? I would ask those whose names appear below, “What is too much to ask in the service of fellow citizens?”

In memory of those many who have given their all in other wars. av

Postscript: Today (May 25) I received and read an emailed essay Maya Lin had written about her thinking behind the design and her experience in the competition and the completion of the memorial in 1982. She was only a senior at Yale when she entered her drawing into a design competition her architecture class fortuitously learned about. It was a competition that would draw more than 1300 entries. She wrote the essay soon after she designed the memorial, but it wasn’t published until the year 2000, when it appeared in the New York Review of Books. The above image, with B Company classmate Matthew O. McKnight’s name at the center, demonstrates precisely what Ms. Lin hoped to achieve. Read “Making the Memorial,” Maya Lin, November 2000.”

Memoiries-Parents, Memories-Childhood, Uncategorized

Stuck at Home: Catching Up on Images of Childhood

April 13, 2020 Andy V. Leave a comment

While I am doing work at home during the current crisis, the limits of the possible permit me to spend time doing other things. There is yardwork–a war of its own perhaps to be mentioned in another time.

For now, I have countless 35mm slides in our basement. So, I thought it might be fun to bring them into the digital world. I will try to do this mostly chronologically, but expect diversions.

I don’t know that I will have any deep thoughts here. Just reflections on memorable moments, moments illuminated by this long idle slide collection.

Part One: Father and Mother (Isa ja Ema) in the 1950s.

The collection, so far the earliest I have identified, contain a few images of my father and mother at times and places I remained home–an early latch key kid–another story I have toyed with.

The story I have told up to now has been of Ema’s devotion to me and to our mutual survival. As well, I have talked of Isa’s later arrival and his reunion with Ema and his pursuit of higher education and professional work in the United States. The image below shows the two together, with other Estonians at a small celebration of some kind–a marriage, a birthday, an anniversary? I’d bet on the former: flowers, champagne, a corsage of two.

Isa and Ema at a party — Isa and Ema at the far end of the table (in the right corner).

Another view of the party, Isa looking to be deep in some other thought.

For Isa, the early years in the United States involved work–eventually leading to a profession he had not been interested before the war. Music would have been his profession in Estonia. In the United States it turned elsewhere, work as a draftsman, schooling toward advanced degrees in civil engineering, and eventually computer programming early in the IT revolution. Below are two images that I can only speculate suggest an interest in the 50s in Columbia University, which had a major architecture program. Instead, he would eventually enter an eight-year night program at Cooper Union leading to a degree in engineering. It was a tuition-free program; Columbia’s would not have been. (Columbia rejected my application in 1961.)

Isa standing on the grounds of Columbia University. — Isa standing on the campus of Columbia University. Date unknown, probably mid-1950s. I would find myself there at commencement 2019, giving a presentation to the commissioning ceremony of the Columbia NROTC class in the Lowe Library, the building behind Isa.

Visible in the image above to the right of the Lowe Library is St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, a magnificent edifice that I would visit in 2019 when I participated in that event. Below during a lovely spring, Isa.

Isa t St. John the Divine Cathedral — A most impressive cathedral near Columbia University is St. John the Divine, by which Isa here stands.

Another view of Isa is in a visit to Battery Park. I imagine the view of the Statue of Liberty from there would have held great meaning in those early days of his life in New York. Fortunately, he did not live to see the television advertisements of the insurance company, Liberty Mutual, that have trivialized the great monument.

And finally, in this portion, I offer an image of Isa in front of the under-construction New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle in New York. The highly controversial project went up during 1954–56. I can only guess that at that point Isa was working for a drafting firm that had some share of responsibility for the project. One can’t say it would be lasting monument to anything. By 1986 it was gone. I remember it from the its years of existence as a destination for a pair of adolescent friends from the Bronx out to see the latest at the annual automobile show. The coliseum was also a feature of our journeys to New York Ranger hockey games at Madison Square Garden, just ten blocks down the street from the Columbus Circle subway station. That, too, would evaporate later, its name moved to a structure at Penn Station a mile south.

To be continued.

Memories-Childhood, Memories-Parents, Uncategorized

A Miracle Delivered to Our Doorstep

March 9, 2017 Andy V. 3 Comments

As an Estonian-American (some would say a lapsed one), I am a small contributor to the Estonian American National Council, which represents the interests and heritage of Estonians and their offspring living in the United States. Its most recent mailing urging renewed contributions contained a spot announcing the availability of its recently published book, “Exiles in a Land of Promise: Estonians in America, 1945–1995. ($90 plus shipping.)

The book arrived yesterday—the miracle of the subject line. It is a professionally done masterwork, one that should interest—actually enthrall—those still-living emigres in that community of exiles and their descendants. Indeed, the inside title page, with its image of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, taken from the harbor on September 22, 1944, set my heart a pounding. I immediately imagined my mother, with her two-month old son (me) in October 1944, taking in that same view as the ship on which we were embarked pulled away for its voyage to Germany—and away from a Soviet army soon to occupy all of Estonia.

Although written and published well before November 2016, the book’s first chapter speaks directly to today’s climate surrounding refugees and their immigration into the United States. “Who knew?” is the question that explodes from the book’s first chapter, “Arrival of the Viking Boats.” It recounts, based on solid research, the voyages and arrival in the late 1940s in the United States (all illegal) of Estonians and other Balts on sail boats that took weeks to cross the Atlantic. Rudimentary instruments and elementary maps and courageous pilots (and passengers) brought most across the wide Atlantic. Though the numbers researchers offer vary, one cited in the book says “46 boats left Sweden before 1949; seventeen landed in the US; and ten reached Canada. Six ended up in South Africa and five in Argentina. Three stopped in England, and one headed south to Brazil. Two others were lost without a trace. Perhaps 250 Estonians reached American shores after grueling, storm-lashed voyages.” Images accompanying this chapter suggest that calling these vessels “Viking Boats” grossly overstates their size.

But never mind, the most salient points of this chapter are that the passengers of this little collection of boats became illegal aliens in the United States and their arrival sparked a mixed, though ultimately favorable, reception. Some saw an invasion of potential Marxist subversives. Others saw the Estonian displaced persons (DPs) as “Delayed Pilgrims,” the narrative that won the day and became a key factor, the book argues, in opening the doors to legal immigration by an act of Congress that President Truman signed in 1948. As a beneficiary in 1950 with my mother (and a year later my father) of that act, I find this story both eye-opening and breath-taking.

From that beginning, the book settles into a well thought-out rhythm (beautifully illustrated and laid out over more than 550 pages) that addresses the political context in which the emigre populations lived in their various communities around the United States and the political movements within which its hopes evolved and were pronounced and ultimately realized with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the restoration of independence.

As a New York City-centric Estonian-American who empty-headedly figured all Estonian Americans existed within sight of the Empire State Building and who met to eat and drink at the Estonian House on 34th Street, I now beg forgiveness for my lack of awareness of communities of Estonians from Alaska to Cucamonga, California, to Fresno to Minnesota to Chicago and to Alabama and to Connecticut and places in between, which are described in this culmination of twenty years of work.

In addition, the book provides a wealth of material on Estonian-American organizations of all sorts, religious, musical, military, Scouts, and more. It contains reference material and extremely well done graphics displaying the distribution and number of Estonian-Americans and more.

Much more could be said, but let me end here with the most hearty congratulations to all involved in this work, including the leaders of the Council and the crew led by Editor Priit Vesilind.

And, most of all, a sincerely heartfelt Thank You!!

For information on the Council and the book, go to: http://www.estosite.org/

Rummaging through Andy's Memory Shack