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May Tangen Christmas Letters, 1961-1974
Tangen Christmas Letter, 1967
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TANGEN'S TRIBUNE 1967 To Jo, John, Kirk, Becky + Natalie-- as of September 1, 1967, I am leaving Iowa City to go to Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to be one their librarians. This, I feel, is how God would use his servant, how Jesus would use his body, the Church, the Christian, me, to show his love for his people. This is the result, the focus, the fruit, of my living. It all happened gradually, beginning in September of the year of the first Little Rock school integration crisis when I realized that communication between races was poor and that what one should do was to live together as friends, and coming to full reality on September 22, 1966, my morning off that week, as I was praying, not the "Dear Father, please..." type of prayer, but the "soul's sincere desire" kind, wondering what one could do about Viet Nam. I could write letters (I had), I could go to meetings (I had, and even was present at the protest meeting when Dr. Barnett spoke his decision to withhold grades from his students so they could not be used for draft purposes), I could read (I had), I could send money (I had), I could pray (I had). My nephews, Jerome, Chuck, Roger, and, as of August, Tom, are in the armed forces, in danger of losing their lives for a doubtful cause. I, the civilian, guilty of fat-fanny living, wanting to give myself, too, in the cause which was not doubtful, to live my compassion for my brother-man, to show that Christianity (and democracy) were real, got the fully-developed answer as I was running water for my bath that morning: Go and teach the Vietnamese refugees. I hedged: I can "give all my goods" (in reality, it'd only be my surplus) to pay a teacher. No. You yourself are a teacher, holder of a life certificate in Minnesota. You go. More: I'll go when I retire-- it's just three years until I'm 65. No. Now is the time, you have health now, you have the will now, the need is now. I snickered to myself as I sat in the tub, "Now, at 62, go serve God and his people, not at 65 when you've served Mammon to the uttermost, - and then give God's people the old-woman husk that's left." If you want to know what freedom is, what happiness is, what love is, sit there preparing to make a gift of yourself. In what I feel was active, alert living I gave myself until the end of September to fully test the idea before I acted. There was no fading, only deepening conviction and commitment. The idea was here to stay. Then in late September I wrote Methodist Committee for Overseas Belief whose ap-
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TANGEN'S TRIBUNE 1967 To Jo, John, Kirk, Becky + Natalie-- as of September 1, 1967, I am leaving Iowa City to go to Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to be one their librarians. This, I feel, is how God would use his servant, how Jesus would use his body, the Church, the Christian, me, to show his love for his people. This is the result, the focus, the fruit, of my living. It all happened gradually, beginning in September of the year of the first Little Rock school integration crisis when I realized that communication between races was poor and that what one should do was to live together as friends, and coming to full reality on September 22, 1966, my morning off that week, as I was praying, not the "Dear Father, please..." type of prayer, but the "soul's sincere desire" kind, wondering what one could do about Viet Nam. I could write letters (I had), I could go to meetings (I had, and even was present at the protest meeting when Dr. Barnett spoke his decision to withhold grades from his students so they could not be used for draft purposes), I could read (I had), I could send money (I had), I could pray (I had). My nephews, Jerome, Chuck, Roger, and, as of August, Tom, are in the armed forces, in danger of losing their lives for a doubtful cause. I, the civilian, guilty of fat-fanny living, wanting to give myself, too, in the cause which was not doubtful, to live my compassion for my brother-man, to show that Christianity (and democracy) were real, got the fully-developed answer as I was running water for my bath that morning: Go and teach the Vietnamese refugees. I hedged: I can "give all my goods" (in reality, it'd only be my surplus) to pay a teacher. No. You yourself are a teacher, holder of a life certificate in Minnesota. You go. More: I'll go when I retire-- it's just three years until I'm 65. No. Now is the time, you have health now, you have the will now, the need is now. I snickered to myself as I sat in the tub, "Now, at 62, go serve God and his people, not at 65 when you've served Mammon to the uttermost, - and then give God's people the old-woman husk that's left." If you want to know what freedom is, what happiness is, what love is, sit there preparing to make a gift of yourself. In what I feel was active, alert living I gave myself until the end of September to fully test the idea before I acted. There was no fading, only deepening conviction and commitment. The idea was here to stay. Then in late September I wrote Methodist Committee for Overseas Belief whose ap-
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