remember this

 All of a sudden, something from my past, speaks into the lives of those close to me. (ABOVE) my 1987 journal. Remember this, Karl.

In 1974 my dorm room is on the basement floor of Heppner Hall, my first year at the University on Nebraska, in Lincoln. I am 19 years old. On this day I remember being all uptight. Students were making jokes in our room that bothered me, but instead of saying something about it, I stuffed my anger down inside. As I sat on the bed I swung my fist against the wall. Later, after the students had left, my roommate Jeff Taebel said to me, "You need to do something about that." or something to that effect.

Fourteen years later, in 1988 I am taking classes at the Bible Institute of California in Anaheim. (ABOVE, photo standing by school sign with Hispanic class, photo of class in session) I have been taking part in a night class called New Hope, where I am learning about co-dependency, how unhealthy it has been to not feel my anger. I am learning to choose other ways of acting on my feelings. Letting go, letting God handle things that work me all up, let him be my peace. I am 33 years old. My wife and I went to visit my parents during Christmas break in Seward, Nebraska. (The following entry in my journal recounts the inner turmoil I felt)

"I feel angry at Dad for trying to control my life. I thought he had released me from expectations with my art skills. But today Dad opened the issue again. 'Why can't I market my abilities in the states and not end up going abroad?' he asks me. He still believes in what I can do with art, He sees himself as aggressive and me as laidback like Mom. He thinks if I wait too long, my ideas WILL NEVER BE FULFILLED. He sees himself trying - failing - succeeding in motion. And see me in a standstill - neglectful use of my abilities."

"The idea of my wife and myself going ahead for missions bothers him. I explained that he and I are two different people. His efforts work for him. But I am different. And it seems he can only see it from his method of working. And that, if I don't get busy producing and sending and marketing my stuff, that (I will be cursed, in a sense). I will have to suffer the consequences!!!" Immediately after that He controlled, by refusing to show a video promo he had earlier offered to show me. My Dad has to work out his own co-dependency. And I have to work out mine.

 "But I'm angry because I thought this issue had been resolved. Now it's like my peace is being shaken up all over again. It's almost like Dad wants us to be enemies again...I really appreciated my talks with Mom this visit. She's smart and is working out her co-dependency. Dad thinks she has the problem, but he misses his contribution and his own co-dependency. I feel Mom is right on track. I DON'T LIKE BEING CONTROLLED." (December 29, 1988)

Two years pass, my wife and I are still living in the trailer behind Betty Larsen's house in Gardena, California. Her son, Larry, is a classmate of ours at LBIC. (ABOVE, photo front of Betty's House, Betty, Larry, and a drawing of our trailer/home)
During chapel time today, a black five-member drama team from England called "The Acts" does some of their acting for the meditation.

That night, after school and after our jobs, we joined our friends from England back at Betty's house, where they are staying tonight. In photo ABOVE, Brenda and Lurissa from Canada. Jackie, Carol, Marva, Verletta (Mum) Malcolm from North Hampton. Maureen from South Hampton. Victor Gibbons, Karl Marxhausen, Jan Marxhausen.
    
It was during the prayer and singing time, that happens on Friday nights, that the spirit of God ministered to me as I lay on the floor. During chapel earlier today I felt a knot in my stomach. I asked for prayer concerning that knot. What happened as I lay on the floor, was that a tremor began in my stomach. It then moved up my body to my chest. Then I burst into tears and sobs. After a bit, a deep peace came over my being. I felt like I was sleeping on the bottom of the ocean, so still. Then after some time passed, the cycle repeated, with a tremor that began in my stomach, and which moved up to my chest. Again I burst out in tears and sobs. Soon, a deep peace and rest came over my whole body. And then, the cycle occurred again. The group prayer time had ended long ago. Everyone was off in the kitchen, while I was laying on the living room carpet all by myself. God was having his way with me.

These brothers and sister in Christ were witness to the work God brought in me. The recurring cycle of sobs and peace went on for THREE HOURS and ended around 11 o'clock at night. This was the SAME NIGHT my father Reinhold Marxhausen was making his second appearance on the David Letterman TV talk show (January 17, 1990) There was a sense that pent up grief was being poured out of my heart and was being replaced with joy and God's healing activity. (In the photo BELOW, my brother Victor Gibbons and me in Betty's kitchen.)

It is now 2013. The youth group is reading verses about people in chains and darkness in the book of Psalms. The verses seem like they are written for today. It could be us crying out from our own situations, where feelings are repressed, where anger is stuffed down and held on to, where bitterness towards others smolders. I am 58 years old. I share some of the anger I felt at Dad those years ago. Our group takes turns hefting up a potato sack with a heavy heavy stone inside, the symbolic weight of our own resentment. We talk about forgiveness, letting go, crying out for release, and being open to receive help from One outside our realm of control. We look at the artwork I brought tonight. Students describe what they see in their own words. (My 36 by 24 inch painting on tempered Masonite from 2000, BELOW)

We read verses of an anxious suicidal man in disarray who becomes clothed, calm, and in his right mind. I share how God made a way in my life. Releasing new feelings, songs of hope and joy. How destructive ways of thinking were broken off and his glitter sparkle matrix did something I was unable to make happen. (Collage, Airstrike, 1998, BELOW)

Marvelous, O Lord.
You are that strong. You show me the way to walk in forgiveness. A way closed off that You opened for me. Precious butterfly Holy Ghost. Releasing tears and pouring in peace and joy and altering my reality. Jesus, you, so kind, so able, so generous, yeses through You, You are making. Remember this, Karl.

pages speak life

     In our conversation Betty Runge brought up two books Thursday, June 25th, at Seward, Nebraska. One had a brown cover, she remembered, while the other was green. The occasion was my mother's funeral. Betty and Leo Runge had made the trip in from Ames, Iowa. Leo was my mother's cousin. My grandmother on my mother's side was Amalia Runge Steinbrueck. Dorris Elenore Marxhausen was originally a Steinbrueck from Blackburn, Missouri. A small farming community twenty miles from where my wife and I live.

    As documents, both books were published in 1985. The brown book was sixty-four pages in length. The title was "Runge Book: Pictures and Impressions." It was self-published by son Karl Marxhausen through Christopher Press of Des Moines, Iowa. (See cover, next. Double click on image to enlarge)

    The green book was one hundred and eight pages in length. The title was "I Saw It On My Way Thru: Nebraska Traveler." It was self-published by father Reinhold Marxhausen through Independent Publishers of Seward, Nebraska -- a subsidiary of the Seward County Independent newspaper. The author had his son do the graphics. There was an edition of 1000. It was released on July 7, 1985. (See cover, next. Double click to enlarge)

   The Runge Book was based on drawings of relatives that I made during the three day reunion in August. All of us were housed in a dorm on the campus of St. Paul's College in Concordia, Missouri.

Some graphics depicted something about each person I met. Most were humorous and fun. Some embodied ideas I held at the time. The edition was limited to those who signed up for the book. It was an outlet, a gift, and now also served as a time capsule for my father and my own life.

  The Nebraska Traveler was formed to stimulate imagination among family members, young and old, as they looked out the window of their vehicle on the way to a vacation destination. In the introduction the author aspired to promote the thinking process at all levels, learn how things work, discuss philosophy and art, teach awareness no matter where they were, and much more.  Questions were asked and a place on the opposing page provided room for the participant to write down their thoughts. For example: "Do horses sleep standing up?"

    It was the SINGING RODS that my mind settled on. ABOVE, BELOW.

"In 1962 I became a colleague with him at the college. When there were office spaces at Jesse Hall I had a room on the corner just across from Founder’s Hall, where your dad had an office on the second floor of Founders. All of a sudden I could hear the notes of “Amazing Grace” outside. Your father was throwing metal rods out of his office window down to the sidewalk. They were cut in different lengths. (When they struck the sidewalk they rang out notes) As he threw the rods you could hear the tune of Amazing Grace. That’s when he started to move into that world of sound sculpture."

"I’ll never forgive the national announcer on television. David Letterman did not catch who Marxhausen was. Your father had brought with him the metal rods that he intended to play Amazing Grace with on national TV. Letterman picked up all the rods in one handful and dropped them on the floor altogether. He didn’t give your father the chance to play them (as he had hoped to). And then Letterman ended the interview right there." Jack Duensing   (phone interview interview, January 9, 2015)

This happened the night of January 17, 1990. That was the night I was laying on the den floor of Betty Larson. An important story which I will detail in another post. Click on Youtube link and move ahead on video to the 31:48 minute marker to see that Letterman segment. https://youtu.be/T31f2fU5Qc8  Four and a half minutes long.

     My wife and I were plugged into the green house fellowship just off Sixth Street and Forest Avenue, the inner city of Des Moines, Iowa. An older lady Linda arrived to the evening prayer meeting in her wheelchair. David Garcia led the street believers in bible study. Joe Dunn sang about being a green olive tree planted in the house of the Lord from behind his casio keyboard. Terry Sharlach, Michael Calton, Jim, Little David, Curtis, and others worshiped Jesus on the beat-up metal folding chairs, just down the street from the Salvation Army Center. The adult we called Little David stayed at our house for a season.
     I didn't know about speaking in tongues. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was new and interesting. It was nothing I learned about from my Missouri Synod Lutheran teachers.

     I do remember Curtis Manchester. What I admired about him was that he walked the city streets and was able to pray for hours and hours because of this prayer language. My spoken prayers ran dry after a couple of minutes. He had full control over the gift. And the Holy Spirit gave him the ability to praise God fluently in what sounded like foreign language.  It was a wonder to me. I also witnessed raggedy clothed believers of Jesus minister in the group. What I mean by that is some knew scripture very well, and were able to share scriptures that gave hope and comfort to someone who asked for prayer. None of them were ordained. Yet, they were able to speak words of life, say yes to God's presence, with hearts knit together, and came back to meet and sing and pray.

     While living and working in Des Moines I met people and groups of people who were charismatic. Where you could ask for prayer and believers in Christ would pray for you right there. God was close. God was active. Jesus was lifted up and bragged about. The Holy Spirit was credited for opening hearts and making Jesus someone you could get to know. Many lessons were learned. There were surprises. My night job of cleaning office buildings for two years turned into a day job working at Redeemer Lutheran Church.
     By 1987 Jan and I had gone on two team trips with members of that church in a van down to Nuevo Progresso in Mexico. At a family camp we heard missionaries speak about their work, and we took part in a Candidate Retreat in Minneapolis to see if missions was for us. The Lutheran agency World Mission Prayer League encouraged us to get contextual bible schooling. So as to understand the Bible from a culture outside of the United States. Jan already had her Bible schooling through Concordia University in Seward. It was I who needed the classwork. God opened the door for us to attend the Lutheran Bible Institute of California in Anaheim. Sixteen hundred miles from home.

     Back in Nebraska, during the summer of 1987 my mother Dorris Marxhausen enrolled in a college class trip to Nicaragua in Central America through Concordia University. She was studying also Spanish. The back of the above photo read "July 21, 1987. Coke (soda) in a bag"

These photos are in the Marxhausen Estate.

    

   Jesus made it possible for feelings of rejection and being unwanted to leave me. I had been born with clubfeet. That is, my baby legs had no heels, they stretched out down to the toes. Through the years those internal feelings followed me and shaped my life.
   A friend Larry asked Jesus to heal those emotional wounds in me. In a time of tears and grief, Jesus held me in his arms and let me cry. He replaced that grief with a rootedness, a sense of being loved by him. I was not unwanted, I belong to him. He brought a calm into my little heart, in my grown up adult body. And he brought a rest that was not there before.
Larry said the prayer for me. But Jesus healed the wound. (Gardena, California, 1989 entry)

The tendency to judge yourself without mercy--to have difficulty having fun--to take yourself very seriously--I could relate to that.

Learning about co-dependency opened my eyes. Patterns of thinking were glued to my being. They described my life choices exactly. They seemed like unbreakable walls.

The wall breaker comes to cradle and nourish. He touches my life  through people, through counsel, through hands-on prayer, letting me cry without embarrassment, without ridicule, without shame, and the embrace goes deeper than deep. It is silver. It moves the internal landscape. The restless architecture is given outside strength and joy emerges, laughter spills out, the brittle meaness softens.

     Jesus led me across the LBI campus to Guy's apartment. To exercise the next step in the New Hope program, I would share "all the things I know I had done wrong to people," I would disclose them to another human being. Guy was just another student who sat in the same classes as me, someone I did not know well. He knew Jesus and he did listen to my long list of mistakes. What I remember the MOST was the hug at the end. When I did, I began to cry and all the tears came out. He did not pull away from me. I was so embarrassed to soak his shirt with tears. Guy said it was ok. And so I just stood there crying on his shoulder. It was like Jesus was holding me and it was a safe place to cry.
    Jesus became very real to me in THOSE MOMENTS!!! He was not ashamed of me or my behavior. He let me pour out my heart. And after all that crying there came a peace. (Anaheim, California 1988 entry)

    In Isaiah this morning (chapter 40 verse 11) God comes to every person as a shepherd to cradle his young lambs. He comes to settle the anxiety and the restlessness that bears no name, that is glued to my being.

    Joy expressed in my life these past twenty years came out of his nurture and cradling. Enjoying life, enjoying my job, enjoying painting, enjoying assemblages, enjoying singing and humming and playing guitar, making melody, enjoying cooking, enjoying bike rides, enjoying people, being open, being myself, enjoying times in his presence, caught off guard when he taps my shoulder, enjoying the fingerprints of his knowledge that scientists have recently published,
laughing, and cracking up; going easier on myself, and telling him he is remarkable.

He paints this value of himself ON TOP OF ME. the architecture laughs, the brittleness sings, the rusty kettle blogs yes.

You Paint Joy On Top Of Me by Karl Marxhausen, 40 by 40 inches, sand and acrylic paint on panel 
Elsewhere art exhibit, All Souls Gallery, 4501 Walnut, Kansas City, MO. November 6th to December 2nd, 2011