November 2022 Cover & Highlights

The cover graphic is a design from the artist Jane Rødden. Posters of her clever designs that incorporate song lyrics can be ordered at www.songshape.dk.  The well-known Grundtvig song “Nu falmer sloven trinket om land” serves as inspiration for this month’s cover. The music and Danish and English lyrics are on pages four and five. The Church and Life website also has YouTube links to both a keyboard accompaniment if you want to sing it in English and another video to sing along in Danish with Phillip Faber.

Keeping with a theme of leaves falling from trees, the opening article by Rita Simon is “The Spaciousness Between Our Branches.” She takes the inspiration of trees encountered on a walk to use as a metaphor for the seasons of life.

The Grundtvig song appears once again in “Interview with Thure Lindhart,” by Sofie Buch Hoyer, originally written in Danish for the publication Højskolebladet. The interview with the Danish actor was prompted by his performance in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of Grundtvig’s death.  Thure tells about his newly found interest and respect for the man and how this has led him to  initiate a new alternative educational opportunity.

In “Grand View University’s 14th President, Dr. Rachelle Keck,”Marilyn Andersen Gift introduces the person who will be leading the next chapter of the university and gives highlights of her inauguration. 

Sonja Knudsen, daughter of former Grand View President Johannes Knudsen, serves as secretary of the Danish Interest Conference. The board has already approved her minutes from this year’s annual Board of Director’s meeting, so they are published here for the sake of transparency.
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A little prayer of thanksgiving, shared at a Folk School Alliance community of practice meeting, appropriately comes with the listing of gifts to Church and Life. You may note a few gifts in memory of Don Lenef, Joy Ibsen’s husband. The next issue will carry a remembrance of his life.

The final Post Script by editor Bridget Lois Jensen is a personal reflection spawned by the death of a longtime family friend.

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