Hello.
The news says pharmaceutical companies are rushing to get Covid-19 vaccines out by November. For my part, I have no interest in taking a vaccine that has been rushed through the testing process. I’ve done that once already, in 1955. My father worked for Parke, Davis & Company where he was given the project to build the manufacturing facility for the Polio vaccine in Rochester. My siblings and I were amongst the children used to test the vaccine. In fact, they moved so quickly they hadn’t even changed the paperwork, so officially I am Monkey No. A22-1. Happily, I can’t report any negative side effects… that I know of… so far.
But there are many risks with a new vaccine and I don’t want to see more people being hurt in this crisis.
Of note, there is a team in Germany researching the supposition that the nasal passage is the point of entry of the virus, and exploring the use of anti-viral nose drops to prevent contracting the illness.
In Tennesse a super computer has identified Covid as a vascular disease, not a respiratory disease. What’s noteworthy about this is that there are treatments available for vascular disease and many lives may be saved.
Perhaps we won’t need a vaccine in order to hold our reunion…. if the day comes when we know how to prevent contracting the illness and can cure those who do contract it. Keep your fingers crossed.
Birmingham: Maple Road Reconstruction
The reconstruction was projected to be completed this month. It looks to me like it will be done in October - but Hey - the way time is flying that will soon be here! The official update is available here:
The Productive Use of Knowledge
At our Baccalaureate service, classmate Dave Allwardt’s father presented the sermon. Dave found it in his father’s files of many years of sermons and wanted to share it with all of you. Here’s an excerpt:
“...one thing I am certain of - all of you have attained a certain plateau of knowledge that must be put to work in the near future - or be lost forever. You may be an honors student - but if love, care and concern for the welfare of others are not an integral part of your life, all the education and knowledge that you have stored up will become useless and vain…"
Read the sermon in its' entirety below this update.
Classmate Update
“Treat the system, not the symptom.”
Our classmate Harvey White is a cardiologist in Albuquerque NM. His clinic, Vessel Health, takes a comprehensive approach to well-being focusing on the cardiovascular system.
The exciting news is that he has a book coming out in October: On Life / Thoughts on Life’s Challenges and the companion On Life Journal / A Companion Workbook. You can visit onlifebook.com to learn more about the book and its’ release.
Our senior class president, Steve Bethel, has recreated his New Hampshire farmstead into a vibrant center for teaching yoga and organic gardening. You can learn more at their website: bethelfarm.org
"We made a video for our students who are keeping their distance so they can practice at home.
Please share this link to the video with our classmates. https://youtu.be/FoVB_XcDw0I
It's a basic class, appropriate for folks our age, especially if you take it easy and have fun with it.
I hope it might be useful. Thanks! All the best, Steve”
Thank you, Harvey, Steve and so many of you, for delivering on Reverend Allwardt’s call for “care and concern for the welfare of others."
CREEM ZOOM
Tonight at 7pm eastern is our ZOOM discussion of the documentary: Creem, America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine. Sue Whitall will present and Randy Bryant will moderate our discussion.
There’s still time to join in. Just RSVP “CREEM ME” to philip@woodburydg.com
The film can be streamed for $5 from youtube, search ‘Creem Magazine documentary’, look for full movie, 1:32:19 in duration. Hope you will join us.
Remember, Karen Roth Slepchuk has offered her services to set up mini-reunions on ZOOM for you. Her contact: slepchuk@comcast.net
Another year every month. This month: 1954
1954 Music: The Wonderful 50s 1954:
https://youtu.be/yh--wGS_sXk
Boy, that’s a lot to click on.
Enjoy.
Wood
Website: seaholmclassof1970.com
Case-sensitive password: SHS70@50
Facebook: Seaholm Class of 1970
Ask to join.
ZOOM reunions: slepchuk@comcast.net
“THE 2020 REUNION
Seaholm High School Class of 1970
Sermon for Baccalaureate Service
June 7, 1970
The Productive Use
Of Knowledge
In the name of Christ Jesus, Friends, Faculty, Parents and Honored Graduates:
Graduation from High School can be quite a nostalgic experience for those who have enjoyed their secondary years of education. It can be so for several reasons. It marks the end of a period of learning - a time in which you have shared many truths and academic insights with the Faculty of this High School.
I was tremendously sorry that I could not be with you last Friday morning at the Senior “Swing-out”. I understand there was quite a display of academic achievement on the part of many of you. I am sure that the knowledge gained in the classrooms of this beloved institution aided and abetted you in your fine performance.
Besides knowledge, we would also speak about love tonight. I suppose many of you may wonder what I can say about love to High School Seniors - many of whom have developed some rather close-knit relationships during this past year - to say nothing of a rather romantic experience at the J-Hop.
In all seriousness, I would like to speak to you this evening on these two subjects, “knowledge and love” using a word of God taken from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the 8th chapter and a portion of the first verse:
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
A famous writer included these words in his preface to a book on the art of household management. “Some are now saying, ‘If my son learns enough to earn a penny, he is learned enough.’ Nowadays nobody wants to rear children for anything other than the knowledge and the ability to make a living.” This indictment of modern education is frequently trumpeted today. However, these words were not written in the age of astronauts and interplanetary travel, but they were written 440 years ago by a man named Martin Luther, a keen educator in his own right.
It would appear then - that this modern desire of learning for earning is not a new innovation of the 20th century. It still exists today because of our own natural desire to use all our potential and all our abilities purely for our own satisfaction. The very fact that even in the academically enlightened era of the ‘70s many people are so egotistical as to desire learning for the earning power it offers tells a story - and the lesson to be learned from it is - that knowledge in and of itself does not lead people to accomplish anything in the area of unselfish interest in the welfare of others.
Something more than knowledge is required, if that knowledge is to be used in a truly productive way. I would like to speak about the Productive Use of Knowledge this evening.
When the Apostle Paul first spoke of our text, “Knowledge puffs up but love builds up,” he was speaking to a group of people who were knowledgeable Christians - in fact, they were more knowledgeable in areas of Christian doctrine than were many of their fellow-church members. They realized that according to their Christian faith that they were at liberty to eat certain things that they were not allowed to eat previously. Some of their less informed fellow-church members were not aware of this, and so their attitudes towards defying old laws and customs were an offense to the less knowledgeable. This caused some of the less knowledgeable to even fall away from the Church.
Paul readily admits that the Christians who were “in the know” were really not doing wrong in the act of eating and purchasing previously banned foods, but he does scold them for not taking into consideration the attitudes and the welfare of those people who did not know their full liberty. Paul said that it was not their knowledge that was at fault, but rather the misuse of it.They were not using their knowledge in a productive way. They were using it for their own convenience rather than for the welfare of others.
Knowledge in the sense of an accumulation of facts and know-how is a body of information, facts and explanation for the facts - together with the ability to exercise some skill of reason or of the hands. However, the collection of facts and the skills you may have developed in your years at Seaholm, may have filled up your mind without giving you any direction in using it. Just to have knowledge in one’s head without the ability to make it productive is like what some of your Great-Grandmothers or Great-Grandfathers used to do with their life’s savings. They would slip it between the mattress and the bed-spring. They thought it was safe there, but they didn’t collect any interest on it.
Just so, knowledge has no value for life, until it has been put to a proper and productive use. Without direction - and the proper kind of direction - knowledge can make us conceited, proud and arrogant. We can be deceived into thinking that we can conquer the world with knowledge alone - only to discover that we fail to either conquer the world or ourselves.
By itself knowledge has never won a war, built a city or saved a soul. Many young people today who are possessors of keen minds and have accumulated a foundation of knowledge are almost vegetating without doing anything with their knowledge in the interest of mankind. How sad! With all the knowledge there has yet to be one more ingredient added - and that is love!
Do you know what love is? Please don’t say or think: “C’mon Preacher, you gotta be kidding!” I’m deadly serious. Strip away some of the romance and catch a glimpse of the love of God in action. When He recorded in the Bible: “God so loved the world,” He was in effect telling us that He loved the world more than He did Himself. His love to us in Christ Jesus was completely unearned, unmerited and undeserved. A few chapters following our text Paul has a number of things to say about love - Listen:
“I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels, but if I have not love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell.... I may have all the knowledge and understand all the secrets. I may have all the faith needed to move mountains - but if I have not love - I am nothing.... Love is patient and kind, not jealous, conceited or proud; not ill mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs, is not happy with evil, but with the truth... Love never gives up... Love is eternal...”
Paul is really saying that this love is the power of the heart to move us in the direction of helpfulness to others, rather than leaving us self-centered. The love we derive from God in Christ Jesus becomes the motivating power that creates within us the desire to use our hard-won storehouse of information and knowledge for the material and spiritual good of mankind.
When other people become the object of our love, we lose ourselves in the joy of forgiving and giving. Psychiatrist Karl Menninger of the famed Menninger Clinic in Topeka once said, “Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world.” Think about that for a moment! Think how that could apply to the tensions between the black and the white in America. Think how it might apply to the plight of the American Indian! Think how that could apply to the situation as it involves the poor throughout the world.
But more important - think how this can apply to you. Naturally, I am not aware of the academic level of any of you graduates except for my son, Dave and my Danish son Niels Hertel, but one thing I am certain of - all of you have attained a certain plateau of knowledge that must be put to work in the near future - or be lost forever. You may be an honors student - but if love, care and concern for the welfare of others are not an integral part of your life, all the education and knowledge that you have stored up will become useless and vain as far as God is concerned.
We encourage youth to become interested in the problems of today. From remarks made by our sons and daughters at the evening dinner table, we would have to say the faculty does a good job at Seaholm in encouraging such discussion. We want you to talk about these problems, but even more important, we hope you will attempt to do something about them. Most people today are vitally concerned about the big problems facing our society in America and in the world at large. However, in their concern for the big problems, they often neglect to have concern for the smaller things in life.
Perhaps you can’t move mountains as an individual, but by your care, concern and love for all people, you can move anthills. Love must begin in relationships that are a part of your life. Almost 2,000 years ago, a man once walked the roads of this earth giving an example of a loving life and of a loving God - His Father. His love reached out to all... It is still being felt today!
The knowledge you have received from your teachers is important. Cherish it. Determine that you will gather more... but do not neglect to use it in love, for “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up!”
… All our knowledge supported with love will do much to change the world in which we move.
God bless all of you as you continue to grow in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man, and you use what you have attained in love. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Reverend Howard Allwardt
Our Shepherd Lutheran Church”