2000 Millennial Barcelona

2000   Millennial Barcelona. Spain, a New Year and new century, reflections on transcendence, Venezuela, Family: Jakob, Hannah, Elizabeth, Anson, Gloria. Barcelona and Catalonia, Jakob’s mental illness, visiting London, Wimbledon, US Open, Gordon Parks, a suicide attempt, Philhaven, Kidron, Miriam Kratzer, the Liberian acapella choir, Ruth Miller, Michael Yoder, visits to Cuba.

On January 1, 2000, I was writing in my journal, “Thoughts on Life,” sitting at a table near Barcelona, Spain, where Elizabeth had rented us a beach house. Elizabeth had come to Barcelona in the Fall of 1999 for a year abroad to study Spanish. I was enjoying the light of a new day, a new century, and a new millennium. I was thankful that I have another year to live and for the many blessings of work, family and friends. Most of these next paragraphs come from my journal entries in Barcelona where Hannah, Anson, Gloria and I had traveled for a week of vacation and Christmas. Jakob came over from England where he was in a graduate program at the University of London.

We were actually at Sitges, a small resort city on the Mediterranean Sea coast, and I was in a meditative mood, thankful for the creation and that the world was still standing these two centuries after the coming of Jesus Christ. I remembered in the mid-seventies to eighties, I used to despair that the world would not last. I thought that we would blow up in a nuclear war or another confrontation which would lead to the last world war. 

Then we went to Venezuela in a Christian mission assignment with Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM), and I believe we made a contribution to the church and mission in Venezuela, especially in regards to Anabaptism and the Mennonites. But more than that, I regained my faith in a transcendent God. Venezuela was a turning point for a middle-aged father to see and experience with Christians who whether poor or rich in worldly goods could be rich in spirit. I recognized that life is and will be more than the present and the material. I recognized in these souls that life on this planet may be saved by those who recognize that life is a gift from the Creator.

I had Venezuela on my mind because from December 14-16 torrential rains fell on the Vargas state causing terrible mudslides. It was estimated that 20,000 to 50,000 people lost their lives there. Mennonite Central Committee and EMM had a campaign of sending buckets in relief, and we helped collect buckets in Scottdale. We also sent a contribution of $1,000 to the Eastern Mennonite Missions for those who have suffered.

On New Year’s Eve we attended a party given by Elizabeth’s friends Manolo and Patricia and among those attending were the counsel and vice-counsel of the Cuban consulate in Spain. It was an enjoyable evening with the Spaniards and the Cubans and some Austrian friends who were visiting. As it turned out, with Spanish, English and German, I could communicate with all of them. The Cubans were looking to purchase computers and technology from the Spanish and their language and foods brought back many good memories of our time of living in Puerto Rico. Cubans and Puerto Ricans shared many Caribbean foods: rice, chicken, large red beans and cold vegetable pea salads were served.

I looked forward to the next century knowing that I will not live another one and wanting to take stock regarding my contribution to the 20^th century and what I might contribute to the next one. In other words, I needed to give an account of my life. Family wise, my biggest project was to think and act kindly with our son Jakob. He had come away from Turkey teaching and a difficult marriage and was making a new start. This change had freed him in his family, vocational and I believed spiritual choices. If his emotions were still fragile (were they not always), his mind was bright and he seemed to manage things in graduate school, or so we thought. Now, our main hope, prayer and support were for him to leave graduate school for his vocational life. The many options of life seemed freeing, but this multiplicity can also paralyze him in making decisions. Little did I know that the options had already paralyzed him at the University of London.   

If Jakob had so much trouble finding a meaningful profession or vocation, our young women seemed to have found life and vocational tracks with some ease. They had an amazing sense for their possibilities and had moved into the medical (Hannah) and teaching (Elizabeth) fields. But most important, they have a deep respect for God and the church. We had taken hymnals along to Barcelona, and on New Year’s Day, we sang in the evening with everyone joining together. We all had our variations of faith, the Christian faith and the Mennonite denomination, but singing was an important expression around which we could unite; it was an aesthetic experience, as well as devotion, praise and confession. Finally, there was Gloria who had been a true, healthy and handsome wife over the past 27 years. She was as strong as the sea and as stable as the earth in her basic intuitions and convictions. Gloria liked the sun, but she also was the sun, which the Ecclesiastes writer said, also rises.  

Dear reader, an apology. Last year we were in the Ukraine and Russia, and now we’re in Spain and you are probably thinking I have gone to writing travelogues and trip reports of interest to few but the writer himself. I want to give a little rationale and defense because Spain was an important part of my education as I hope you’ll see. Elizabeth guided us around Barcelona, la Sagrada Familia, and the land Gaudi, all of which fascinated us. But the biggest realization in this modern and cosmopolitan city and post-Franco country was how civil and well, Western, it seemed. Spain had even stopped bullfighting in Barcelona. I had thought Spain was ungovernable in my youth and until the seventies. After fighting a fierce civil war and being ruled by a 19^th century general Franco for about four decades, Barcelona now seemed like a livable American or European city. Whether in art, economy or architecture, Spain as represented by Barcelona seemed totally at home in the democratic Western European countries of England, France, and Germany. This is not an apologetic for Western modernity, societies of pastoral pre-modernity also have their virtues. It is only to say both are preferable to Spain's earlier habits of anarchy, civil wars, and dictatorship.  

Still, on many of Barcelona’s shop signs and in its bookstores and schools was a language which I did not recognize: Catalan. Within cosmopolitan Barcelona was Catalonia; one found a strong provincial identity. Here was an emphasis of the region’s Catalonia identity and, in fact, a strong impulse to establish a separate country called Catalonia. I suppose the education for me was that history moves in several directions, often in paradoxical and complicated ways.

I often wrote in my journal on vacations and in transitions, and on the second day of the New Year, I wrote 1999 in my journal and then crossed it out. I would need to get used to writing 2000. I would also need to get used to our family being separated. All I could think about was that we left Elizabeth in Barcelona and Jakob at the airport returning to London. We had traveled many times, but this leaving had an especially sad part, and I think it may have had to do with Jakob and the fragile nature of his life, at the same time I was so glad for our children’s lives.

The new year and century was also a time to look at work goals and issues at Mennonite Publishing House; our computer systems did not go down at midnight of the new century, but little did I know of the impending crisis which waited in the next year. But all this seemed secondary to family and especially Jakob who I hoped was now on a new stage of adulthood and meaningful work and profession. We had many good conversations especially relating to his graduate study in international aid and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). But by April, Jakob wrote to us and then called us by phone that he was having anxiety attacks and could not concentrate on his studies. He was depressed, could not finish his papers, and he thought life may not be worth living. Elizabeth had visited him during her spring break and had mentioned that he seemed unusually anxious about his studies and life in general. Early in May I got a ticket and went over to London to visit with Jakob and to encourage him or to bring him home.

In some ways, it was a surreal visit regarding Jakob’s illness because he had relinquished his studies by that time, was quite disinterested in talking about his emotional condition or mental health and mainly wanted me to have a good time in visiting London. In fact, on the surface he seemed like the Jakob of old except that now he was emotionally tied to another woman, this one a young graduate student he had met in Turkey and with whom he was living in London. When we were out and about, about every two hours Jakob would call her, letting her know where and how he was. This attractive young woman seemed to be a prototype of the women who entered Jakob’s life; she was on an educational and career path and seemed to have her life together, and Jakob provided a handsome companion and erudite conversational partner.  

Meantime, although the intent of the London visit was to deal with Jakob’s emotional and mental breakdown, I now realize that neither Jakob nor I were capable of that project without outside help. Both of us had spent our lives ignoring counselors; we were far too strong for these therapeutic weaklings. We often called them shrinks, somewhat on the same level as dog catchers and social workers. In fact, I now realize that the Miller extended family ethos of mainly ignoring and even scorning the new therapeutic culture did not serve us well on these occasions. In Jakob’s case, he got it from both sides; the Miller-Schlabach tradition on my side was that work, willpower, or physical exercise would take care of any and all emotional problems. The Miller tradition on Gloria’s side had a similar approach to work along with a high appreciation for holding one’s feelings and emotions in check, always secondary to a strong will-power. 

As it turned out, the original purpose of my visit was put aside, and Jakob and I spent the week traveling all over London, he serving as an unusually capable guide. We visited the new Tate Art Museum, Westminster Abbey, and 10 Downing Street. One evening we boarded the Eye (a huge super ferris wheel) and viewed the skyline of London, and another day we rented a car and headed out into Shakespeare country -- Stratford on Avon. This visit was an especially comfortable day as we drove through the well-trimmed countryside and farmland. We stopped at various times to see pheasants along fence rows or to get a coffee or ale. Only at Stratford itself was Jakob uncomfortable with its huge stream of tourists and the commercialization. One day we went to Oxford, visited bookshops, and another day we visited the Mennonite Centre at Shepherds Hill (they sold a lot of our Herald Press books).

On Sunday morning, I attended the Mennonite worship at Wood Brook; it was the first Sunday after the departure of the long-term American missionaries Alan and Eleanor Kreider, hence still a time of some grief. In the afternoon I visited Karl Marx’ large grave site at the Highgate Cemetery (East) not far away: “Workers of the world unite.” I paid a two Pound entrance fee “to 

aid in conservation, restoration, and maintenance.”   

Another day Jakob and I went out to Wimbledon and saw the Pete Sampras on Centre Court and Jennifer Capriati on the side courts. The one-time child tennis prodigy Capriati had made a come-back in tennis after going off the rails with personal problems. She showed up in London looking exceptionally well-fed, and the London tabloids were having a field day with her weight, or overweight. Jakob was humorous and as lucid as ever in discussing family, tennis and world affairs as well as the sights and sounds of London, and he was equally opaque and seemingly quite incapable of assessing his own emotional situation and making the small decisions which would have led to a greater sense of accomplishment. Since he had left school, I encouraged him to return to the States, and he seemed to think this was his next move.

In late August I got a call to pick up Jakob in New York where he had arrived and was ready to come home and start another chapter of his life. By this time the US Open was being played, and Jakob and I spent a day there before returning home. But what I recall from that day was not so much the tennis as the Arthur Ashe sculpture in front of the large stadium named after him. That evening who should show up taking photos of the Ashe sculpture but Gordon Parks, one of the century’s best photographers and author of one book (The Learning Tree, 1963), a growing-up story which had influenced me so much as a youth. I don’t recall if there was some special occasion around the Ashe sculpture or whether Parks simply happened to be visiting. But somehow to be with Jakob and Gordon Parks on that afternoon seemed an epiphany. We were all growing up and learning.  We drove home to Scottdale, and I thought Jakob was ready for a new beginning.

A few days later, one evening Jakob and I sat on the back patio visiting, and he brought up the hereafter and what I believed regarding death and life after death. I told him my Christian beliefs, but little did I realize how depressed he was with life and that death was near.  He left that evening with the car, and early the next morning we got a call from an East Cocalico Township police officer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The police officer said that they had Jakob under suicide watch at a local hospital and were planning to take him to Philhaven, a mental hospital at nearby Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania. Jakob had stopped at a nearby Turkey Hill convenience store, and called the police officers, asking for help and telling them he was on his way to the Atlantic Ocean to end his life. So the officers drove him to a local hospital for the rest of the night under suicide watch and then transferred him to Philhaven. A week later we went to visit Jakob at Philhaven. He was ready to be released, given prescriptions on medication, and he seemed much better.

In the meantime while Jakob was at the hospital, my sister Miriam and Veryl Kratzer volunteered that he could come out to Kidron and live with them for a while. He might possibly find employment with a former teacher; I believe his name was Jim Nussbaum, who had a painting business. This seemed to be a good fit for Jakob, and he lived and worked in Kidron until the end of the year. A decade earlier, Jakob had a good high school year with the Kratzers, and again he found Kidron a healing and growing place. On the surface, at least religiously it should not have worked because Miriam was an emphatic evangelical believer and Jakob closer to a tolerant agnostic.

But Miriam and Jakob always got along. They seemed to empathize with each other in a positive way for various reasons; I suppose both having their share of angels to welcome and demons to repel. Years later, Miriam reflected on those years and saw them as Jakob’s search for God and God’s search for Him. In any case, she led him and his young twenty-something friends in a small group Bible study during those years.  

Jakob also attended the Kidron Mennonite Church, and one Sunday morning the need was presented for a road manager of a Liberian men’s acapella choir. They looked around the circle for a volunteer who had qualifications and was available. They all pointed at Jakob and he was named to this job, a voluntary service assignment for the next several months of 2001.

These young Liberians most of whom were blind had survived the cruel civil war which had wracked their country in the 90s, killing an estimated 200,000 people. They were also confessing Christians and sang of joy in being alive and also for their Christian faith. Their very presence told a story of some of the most brutal atrocities which they had experienced, and they were raising funds for schools and orphanages back in Liberia. The project was a good fit for Jakob for several reasons: he was a good public person and gave them a good introduction; their acapella African music was aesthetically beautiful and authentic; and he enjoyed contributing to a project which was altruistic and giving.  

Jakob did this service project beginning with churches in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and eventually going so far west as St. Louis, Missouri. By Spring the tour was complete, and Jakob came back to Kidron and began to work as a counselor for Boys Village (now the Village Network) near Smithville, Ohio. Jakob had good supportive friends; at this point. Central Christian High School was having strong in enrollment, and young teachers were added to staff. Among these young friends he discovered in Kidron were his cousin Ruth, who had started to teach at the elementary and Michael Yoder, a Hartville native and high school social studies teacher. Jakob and Michael and some cats (Trotsky and Plato, as I recall) soon moved together in a mobile home out at Kidron Road Route 30 intersection and they were sometimes joined by another Central graduate Tom Messner. Other young people who were at Central during those years were Anna Dunn and Tim Kennel. Jakob also got acquainted with his Miller cousins, especially Ruth’s sister Amy and Mark Schlabach who would come up and visit him during those years.

I think those two Kidron years were mainly good years for Jakob, even as he would also get discouraged. Around the holidays of 2001, I mentioned to him that if he could hang in for another year (he was now with Wooster Community Services), why don’t we celebrate with a summer vacation together in Cuba. So in the summer of 2002, we headed for Toronto and then Havana and spent an enjoyable week, staying in the old Sevilla Hotel where Graham Greene had stayed in an earlier day. The hotel served a good breakfast in the open-air top floor, a kind of Marxist heaven with a string quartet playing Beethoven, Bach, and John Lennon’s “Yesterday.” Michael Yoder and his sister Maria were in Havana during the same week, and Jakob visited with them too.

The Cubans were friendly hosts, but our guide at the Museum of the Revolution was such a fervent Castro devote’ that about an hour into the long-winded tour (she had announced that we should be prepared for at least three hours), Jakob quietly told me the place has bad karma. He made a quick escape, and our guide was crestfallen for losing her young audience, and wanted to wait until Jakob returned. I told her Jakob was not feeling well, and I would try to find him. We both escaped the museum, but the island and the Cubans were enjoyable to visit. It was a time of Cuban and American rapprochement, and by Fall the University of Pittsburgh was organizing a teacher exchange. Gloria went to visit with the Cuban teachers and classrooms around Thanksgiving time. Since then relations between our countries cooled, but I post this during 2015 when Cuban American relations are again normalizing. I hope it continues.  

By the summer of 2002, Jakob’s Kidron period ended as he, Michael Yoder and Ruth Miller all moved to Pittsburgh which will be, well, another chapter. If Jakob’s life was transitions, this was also the life of Michael and Ruth and Hannah, Anson and Elizabeth. They were also going through educational, professional and cultural changes which they had initiated and with fewer and smaller crises. Meanwhile, an institutional crisis was looming in the new century at the old Mennonite publishing firm with which I worked, but those chapters also can wait until another year.        

Most of this comes from memory and my files and journals from 2000. Part of the section on Jakob’s Kidron years comes from my Sister Miriam Kratzer’s reflections at Jakob’s memorial service on September 7, 2005.