Celebrating Leonard Swidler and Arlene Anderson Swidler at Age 75

Rebecca Alpert
Jim Biechler
Marcus Braybrooke
Ellen T. Charry
Leobard D'Souza
David Efroymson
Gabriele Feyler
Stefan Feyler
Eugene Fisher
Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer
Krystina Gorniak-Kocikowska
Yitz Greenberg
Wan-Li Ho
Sanaullah Kirmani
Reinhard Kirste
Hans Küng
Lihua Liu
Jack Malinowski
Patricia Martinez
Sergio Mazza
Alan Mittleman
Ronald Modras
Paul Mojzes
Malcolm Nazareth
Angelika Quade
Ida Raming
Virginia Kaib Ratigan
John Sahadat
Simone Schaupp
Ingrid Shafer
Shu-hsien Liu
Thomas Thompson
Catherine Berry Stidsen

Virginia Kaib Ratigan

IHR SEID DAS SALZ DER ERDE!

As we reflect on the lives of our scholar friends it does not take long to realize how deeply connected their scholarship and teaching are to the relationships among family, friends and students that Arlene and Len have nourished over the years. Although it would be easy for me to focus on the importance of their mentoring and friendship in my own life this little tribute will reveal many of the facets of their relationship to our children, Beth, Jamie and Anna, who always experienced them as Aunt Arlene and Uncle Len. These "children" are now grown with their own families but their adult lives have been shaped by these earlier years. Upon a deeper look at the impact on our children's lives I realize that in retrospect one finds a key revealing the Swidlers love of people, of learning, of travel and of challenge that consistently has been embedded in their research, teaching and writing.

When I asked our daughter Beth what she remembers most clearly about Aunt Arlene and Uncle Len, without hesitation she gave me a long list. First she remembers that they were interested in her school work and in the opportunities for music and drama that her public school presented. She remembers many fun times in our home and the easy way that they could converse about so many topics with her. She remembers a steady stream of Ranger Rick magazines recycled from the earlier years with their own daughters. She remembers lovely scarves and beads that were treasures from the many trips the Swidlers made all over the world for teaching, dialogue, and recreation. Most of all Beth remembers an important turning point in her elementary school music career. She had rented a violin from the school during her beginning years. The school's administrators decided that after the first year students would be responsible for obtaining their own instruments. I remember telling this to Arlene and Len. They knew that our budget was limited at the time so they went shopping for the violin and presented it to Beth. Through the years they attended the school concerts and were supportive in every way. The little violin remains in our closet waiting for Beth's daughter, Zoe (age two), to be its next proud owner. Expanding her world vision there was the steady stream of large envelopes containing stamps from all over the world that came to the house. These stamps (from the office of The Journal of Ecumenical Studies) prompted us to take down the globe in our office and look for the geographical locations indicated. Actually all of the children benefited from this gift. Finally Beth remembers the many demonstrations that we attended, particularly on behalf of Women's Ordination. These events were exciting for our children and the lesson learned is the importance of speaking out on issues. Beth presently makes her home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and recently she was driven to bring little Zoe to a Mother's Demonstration for Peace. She said it felt right and consistent with those early days in Philadelphia.

Our son Jamie had a special relationship with Aunt Arlene and Uncle Len as well. His interests were travel and studying German. Both of these were honored in the years that he was growing up (in fact we traveled twice with the Swidlers in Germany). Fortunately his school offered German as one of the language options and so he jumped in to his studies with help from his father, Jim, and the Swidlers. Arlene would continuously send little notes helping him gain vocabulary. At one point along the way

Arlene and I were working on a book together (A New Phoebe*), and some of the essays and interviews that would be included were to come from several German women.

Since Len was teaching at the University of Tuebingen for a semester and Arlene was there doing research Jamie and I traveled to Germany for both work and recreation. The many little "vocabulary notes" that Jamie received from Arlene were stepped up in preparation for the trip. Recently I found one of these notes in a salt cellar that has been in our china closet all of these years:

Jamie --

This is a salt-cellar. I don't think I know anyone who uses, or maybe even has, one, either here or in Germany. But this was given Uncle Len by someone in East Germany. It says You are the Salz of the Erde. I imagine it's one way of keeping up their Christianity in a difficult environment.

Anyway, Salz is salt, a handy word. The City of Salzburg, which you can figure out now, was originally a place where boats were stopped to pay a salt tax, I am told. There are also a lot of salt mines in that area. And Pfeffer is pepper, as in Pfeffernusse, peppernuts, those good spicy cookies we get around Christmas time.

The other word to know is Erde, earth. Geography in the German schools is Erdkunde. Erdgeschoss is the ground floor. This is important to know, as what we call the first floor is the Ergeschoss, and what we call the second floor is only the first in Germany, the erste Geschoss. Erdbeeren are strawberries; the German word seems to make better sense. Erdbeereis is strawberry ice cream. And Erdgas is just natural gas, from the earth.

Indeed the trip to Germany was a great success and the vocabulary continued to build as Arlene, his teacher/aunt, would drill Jamie at the breakfast table, on walks, in museums, in churches, in beautiful gardens and in restaurants and ratskellers. Jamie found breakfast a great challenge since Aunt Arlene insisted that he eat a very large bowl of oatmeal for a healthful start to the day. Uncle Len knew just the right time to suggest that Jamie accompany him to the market and bakery for the daily shopping! To Arlene's dismay they never failed to buy chocolate bars at every opportunity, especially when we stopped for gasoline.

Jamie recalls the more serious aspects of his travel as well. His interest in Holocaust Studies was confirmed on the pilgrimage to Dachau where what he had studied in school became "real" in the tragic testimonies he found at every turn. And true to their extraordinary teaching skills Arlene and Len suggested questions and explained the historical and cultural contexts of this dark night of history as well as the broader world picture of that period (along with consequences today). Jamie continued to follow up on this amazing introduction to the many threads of World War II and wrote two papers subsequently in his student days: one on the children's poetry of the Holocaust and the second an oral history project on World War II. He remembers the serious talk of the theologians that he met on those trips, lectures that he did not understand and a theater presentation on the Holocaust. In all of these cases he was treated with such care - Aunt Arlene and Uncle Len always bringing him into the conversation and offering explanations. Jamie remembers an intriguing luncheon with Swiss lawyer (and advocate at Vatican Council II for Women's Ordination) Dr. Gertrude Heinzelman. Arlene and I wanted to interview her as we continued to do research on women and the permanent deaconate. That wonderful afternoon brought him in contact with one of the "grandmothers" of the Women's Ordination movement and I think he began to grasp the work that Arlene and I were so intent on finishing. Also Jamie remembers staying the night in Dr. Hans Kung's apartment. As it turned out Dr. Kung was out of town and Len was able to secure overnight hospitality at his apartment as we continued to travel through Germany.

During our second trip a great historic moment occurred. Jamie remembers that on the way to Frankfurt (where we would take the flight for home) there were cars honking and people yelling out of the windows and great chaos all around. We discovered quickly that the Berlin Wall had come down and the whole atmosphere was literally charged with the release of years of pent up frustration, and the euphoria in the country was never to be forgotten. This historic moment lives vividly in Jamie's mind to this day.

Although I am so grateful for these opportunities for our son, Jamie, I realize that this very enjoyable and challenging "first level research" is what has permeated the teaching styles of both Arlene and Len over the years. One might truly say that they would travel to the ends of the earth to encounter one more person, experience one more lesson from history, visit one more church or museum and participate in one more ritual or conversation!

When asked about her memories of the Swidlers our youngest daughter, Anna (who adopted us by way of Korea when she was eighteen months of age) remembers that Aunt Arlene and Uncle Len always supported cultural interests and had special connections to her native land, Korea. During Anna's early years the Swidlers were working closely with the fledgling community of Won Buddhists in the Philadelphia area. Won Buddhist, Bokin Kim, was a doctoral candidate at Temple University's Department of Religion at the time (now Dr. Kim serves as Academic Dean for the newly established Won Institute of Graduate Studies in Glenside, PA). Arlene and I were teaching courses at Villanova University in the Religious Studies Department and were each asked to do a section of one of their introductory courses entitled: Religion and Human Experience. This was a natural for Arlene. She immediately began to think of speakers for our students and this is when she realized that asking Bokin to come to our classes would be good for both our students as well as Bokin. As a result of this introduction to our new immigrant friend, Bokin took a great interest in Anna and was a frequent visitor to our household. But it was through Arlene and Len that this friendship flourished. Anna remembers that Aunt Arlene was particularly generous in sending her little cultural items: fans, shoes, books, chopsticks and anything that she found that would speak to the beauty of Korean culture. One experience in particular stands out that involved an excursion to one of the many Asian markets in the Philadelphia area. We delighted in the marvelous array of vegetables, fruits, noodles and the many sauces that we would purchase for our households. Meanwhile Anna was able to experience the flavor of such a market and get a little closer to her roots. But her appreciation and respect for Korean culture goes back to those early days and she will, undoubtedly, pass this on to her own daughter, baby Lenora.

Through these many little stories from our children's lives, the lives of Prof. Arlene Anderson Swidler and Prof. Leonard Swidler are reflected in the larger mosaic of their academic careers. Our family has been the beneficiaries of their legacy. Their friendship, their love of children, the intense interest that they demonstrated as they shared their knowledge and insights with others, their sense of humor and earthiness, their dedication to dialogue and global understanding, and their fine teaching and "good" hearts endear them to all of us. The ravages of illness that Arlene has suffered during these later years has not in any way faded the memory of her extraordinary gift of self to us. Arlene and Len, "Ihr seid das Salz der Erde"!

Dr. Virginia Kaib Ratigan
Professor Emerita
Religious Studies
Rosemont College
Rosemont, PA 19010

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*A New Phoebe, Perspectives on Roman Catholic Women and the Permanent Diaconate, Edited by Virginia Kaib Ratigan and Arlene Anderson Swidler: Kansas City, MO, Sheed and Ward, 1990.