One of the surprises of the past year: descending from an actively Lutheran maternal lineage. A surprise because little of this was part of childhood awareness. Only the Lutheran identifier. A document found among the belongings tells brief history of the Suomi Synod (attached below as PDF, 89 pp). From the grandparents’ generation (second generation Finnish Americans), baptism certificates are poster size, calligraphy, gold leaf, in Finnish. By the the mother’s confirmation, document is all in English and greeting card size. As fourth generation: none of us (siblings) baptized, nor churched.
Mother’s confirmation, Sunday, June 20, 1954, Upper Peninsula, 12:00 CT:
Chiron 27° 25′ 05″ Rx Capricorn
Transits, Saturday, December 24, 2022, local, 00:00 CT:
Pluto 27° 25′ 04″ Capricorn
Our Church: Suomi Synod, The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, by Alfred Haapanen, Hancock, Michigan [PDF]
Quote: Reminded recently of Kundera via Toomas Ilves on Twitter, but can’t relocate reference. Perhaps @sankuperis. [Edit 12/25: Found it @lapatina “Privileged to do at least tiny research on collective memory and the continuity of Russian oppression via the case of Crimean Tatars. It’s very sad to see so little professional work on this topic in academia.”]