Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother,
Mother and Wife of German Descent
I've lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com
Finally I am able to show you our lovely Black Forest Cake that we had for Easter Sunday. Peter said this morning something about our router being quite old and the modem being even older. So he went today, bought a new modem/router, all in one, connected it and voila, now we can upload pictures again. What a relief!
So for good measure I include now some more pictures from Easter Sunday.
Little Lucas, our baby great-grandson, was allowed a taste of that delicious Black Forest Cake. He loved it and later on licked the spoon! He also loved to drink out of his bottle.
We all love little Lucas very much.
For breakfast I had hard boiled egg with a garnish of salmon.
Here are a few more of Easter Sunday’s pictures which I only just found in the files when I looked a bit more. There is a…
The Native American poet Diane Glancy writes: “It is a fragile gate, the opening of faith.”
We enter into it with all our human frailty, our sin, and faith asks of us more than our rationality — it asks us to believe.
In our relationship with God we find a new relationship with each other. Relationship beyond the fixed, bounded identities. As theologian Miroslav Volf would put it, we are asked to embrace what we would exclude.
We become, he says, porous “bounded yet permeable”. In letting others in we do not lose ourselves but enrich ourselves.
For Christians it is encapsulated in John 17, Jesus’ prayer offered to God before his betrayal and crucifixion: “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
Whether one is Christian or not, the act of forgiveness is essential for justice, for peace.(ABC News)
Volf says that in the Holy Trinity — the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit — we find love and reconciliation, an “unconditional embrace of humanity”.
While for many Easter is a welcome break from work, a quick trip away and some chocolate eggs, for Christians Easter is when we remember Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection and when we are asked the hardest of questions: can we love even those who have wronged us?
If Easter is to retain its full meaning, must we forgive even the most heinous of crimes?
How can we forgive?
Forgiveness is unequivocal. Jesus on the cross cries out: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus would ask for forgiveness even for those who would want him dead.
It is not selective forgiveness, but forgiveness for all.
Miroslav Volf says “Christ justifies the ungodly”. We must love our enemies as we love our neighbours.
But how? In a world of such suffering, how can we forgive?
Sometimes it is the church itself that is the source of exclusion and conflict.(ABC News: Erin Cooper)
Volf probes this question in his classic book Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.
The book has been named one of the 100 most influential religious books of the 20th century and starts with an acceptance that none of us is innocent. We are all with sin. We are, he says, “morally divided”.
Sin is “both the rot deep in our souls and a prowling beast of exclusion that holds captive entire societies, cultures and communities”.
Sometimes it is the church itself that is the source of exclusion and conflict. Volf says that we “inherit exclusionary forms of faith”.
This is faith that hardens identity. “A religion thus configured,” he says, “ends up justifying the group’s practice of exclusion and its deployment of violence”.
“Exclusionary forms of Christian faith are distortions.”
Instead, he says, we must act with will. It is a will to embrace, “not as a simple switch to turn the practice of embrace on, but as a site of struggle for the truth of humanity.”
A crack in the world
That truth is forgiveness. Between sin and our will is a “fissure”, a crack in the world. The cracks, as the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen wrote, are where the light comes through.
Simone Weil, the French philosopher, wrote of that fissure — her tension with Christianity. She said she had “not the slightest love of the church in the strict sense of the word”.
At its worst, she saw it as a tool of authoritarians. But this is not the spirit of the cross.
While for many Easter is a welcome break from work, a quick trip away and some chocolate eggs, for Christians Easter is when we remember Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.(Unsplash: Gor Davlyan)
Weil felt powerfully true faith; faith she says, “stronger than I was”. During a liturgical service, she wrote that she “felt the passion of Christ entered into my being once and for all”.
It was a Christ of the forsaken. It is a Christ of inexhaustible forgiveness.
For Volf, it is very personal. He lived through the wars of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. His father had been tortured in a concentration camp, and Miroslav was locked up and interrogated.
As a Croatian, he was once asked: “But can you embrace a Cetnik?”
The Serbian fighters, he writes, were “sowing desolation in my native country, herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches, destroying cities”.
What was Volf’s answer? “No, I cannot.”
But then he said, “but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”
Asking the hard questions
As a person of faith, I also have to ask myself the hard questions of forgiveness. Like Simone Weil, mine has been a life in the cracks — in exile.
As an Indigenous Australian can I forgive the sins — the crimes — committed against us? My family has suffered. Our history weighs heavily on us.
Were it not for the teachings of the Aboriginal church I was raised in, were it not for my elders of faith, my uncles, my aunties, my grandparents, there would be no light in the cracks.
Were it not for the example of elders like Aunty Jean Phillips, who taught us how to live a public life of faith to reach out to non-Aboriginal people to renew our nation, or Pastor Ray Minniecon, who lives the scriptural lesson of Micah 6:8 “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”, then forgiveness, for me, would remain out of reach.
Towering figures like South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu showed us the power of truth and reconciliation. Forgiveness was the highest form of justice.
To Archbishop Tutu, forgiveness and reconciliation were the “only truly viable alternatives to revenge, retribution and reprisal”.
“Without forgiveness”, he said, “there is no future”.
South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu showed us the power of truth and reconciliation.(Reuters)
Miroslav Volf tells us we must break the cycle of vengeance and resentment. We must free ourselves from the “affliction of memory”.
As we forgive we must forget. As Volf says: “If I forgive and add ‘but I will never forget’ I drape around the gift of forgiveness a grey shroud of warning, even a threat.”
Violence will beget violence.“Yesterday’s victims are today’s perpetrators”, Volf warns, “and today’s perpetrators are tomorrow’s victims.
“The line between the guilty and the innocent blurs and we see an intractable maze of … brutalities each reinforcing the other.”
A double-edged sword
But doesn’t forgiving and forgetting too easily absolve the perpetrator?
Is there not a place for anger? Is resentment not virtuous? Most assuredly so. The message of Jesus is that we should stand with the victims as he did.
Political scientist Michelle Schwarze argues we must consider “a victim’s resentment to be proper”. It is essential for justice.
Indeed she points out in her book Recognising Resentment that righteous anger and resentment have inspired powerful non-violent movements for equality and justice.
It is a double-edged sword: anger can inspire courage and, as we see too often in our world, it can lock us in a deadly embrace from which none of us can escape.
Forgiving and forgetting may be the destination, but first we must walk the road of justice.
Miroslav Volf says forgiveness will not come until “the wrongs have been named, forgiven and repented of and after the perpetrators and victims have reconciled, and after the world has been made safe from evil”.
This Easter, we live in a world that is far from safe from evil.
Whether one is Christian or not, the act of forgiveness is essential for justice, for peace.
Jesus on the cross asks of us the greatest gift of grace,“that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26).
But we live in the real world with all human frailty and it is hard to find ourselves in each other.
In Ukraine right now can we possibly ask the victims if they can forgive? Can a Ukrainian embrace Vladimir Putin?
We are not there yet. The answer perhaps would echo Miroslav Volf when asked if he could embrace a Cetnik: “No, I cannot. But as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”
Stan Grant is the ABC’s international affairs analyst and presents China Tonight on Monday at 9:35pm on ABC TV, and Tuesday at 8pm on the ABC News Channel.
Kevin Costner may have been famous for several decades now, but not everyone who knows and loves his movies will be familiar with his personal life. ——————————————————– Content and images are taken from: Boredom Therapy and Getty Images Nightdaily Scribol ———————————————- Please subscribe and follow my channel if you enjoy it. You can also keep up with the newest news by visiting the newspaper pages. Each of your donations brings me joy and inspires me to work harder every day. Thank you all so much. ———————————————– In this video, images are used that do not belong to me. If the images are yours, please contact me and I will take it down. Contact email: jamescruisers@gmail.com
If the parents separate amiably the children usually learn to cope with the separation. Some children may on the outside cope all right, even if there is constant struggle between the parents. Children can probably cope all right if they happen to be totally in agreement with the parent they live with.
I do not want to make this too theoretical. So I just start with a bit of my own experience. I fall into the category of the child who is constantly torn between the parents. To my mind this is a pretty bad state to be in. I think I can say that my parents’ relationship was very much a love/hate relationship. The way I see it, it was not the right kind of love that led my parents to each other. Their outlooks and aspirations in life were extremely different. There were separations due to conditions under the Hitler regime and to the disaster of World War Two. After the war they just could not live together any more, that is my mother refused to live with my father. I constantly heard her saying bad things about him. Her hate was unrelenting. She showed not one iota of compassion towards him. My two younger brothers and I lived with my mother. There was no question that we could have lived with my father at the time.
My parents got divorced when I was sixteen on the request of my mother for she wanted to marry someone else. It turned out, the man, who wanted to marry Mum, was not the right man for her. She decided she would rather not marry him. Instead she made an enormous effort to get some secure employment and become independent.
When I was in my twenties, Dad married a second time. This time a widow who luckily was just the right person for him. Sadly they had only a short life together. Dad died of cancer aged 62.
My parents had been in enormously strenuous circumstances after the end of WW II. Till the end of the 1950s they both struggled enormously to make ends meet. Dad died in 1966, Mum died in 1994 aged 83.
Mum had two sisters and a brother. One of the sisters, who never had any children, divorced her first husband and had a very good marriage with her second husband. This was ‘meine’ Tante Ilse. She played a big part in my life. She was a very motherly woman.
Dad was one of six in the family. All his siblings married and had children. None ever got divorced. One of Dad’s nephews lost his wife after she had given birth to a little girl who was then raised by the second wife as though it was her own. The nephew also had a son with the second wife.
Mum’s other sister had only one child. This was my cousin Sigrid. Sigrid was four years my senior. She was a great person: Outgoing, fun loving, very musical. I adored her. She was such good company. She married a dentist. The dentist divorced Sigrid in a very amiable way. I think their two children were grown up already at the time. Walter, the dentist, then married his receptionist and had a child with her. Sigrid remained good friends with Walter and his new wife.
When I met Peter, my future husband, it turned out, his parents were divorced too. Maybe this is another story along with the divorce of one of our daughters.
Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Mother and Wife of German Descent I’ve lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com View all posts by auntyuta
catterelEditDivorce usually leaves sharp jagged edges that hurt everyone involved in the relationship, parent and children alike. Even where parents refrain from badmouthing one another, I believe the children are inevitably torn between mother and father. But – besser ein Ende mit Schrecken als Schrecken ohne Ende.Reply
auntyutaEdit“Besser ein Ende mit Schrecken als Schrecken ohne Ende.” I agree, Cat, if the parents can refrain from badmouthing one another after a separation the children might still be torn between mother and father, however in this case an ending of the marriage is probably beneficial for all concerned in the long run.Reply
rangewriterEditRelationships are so complicated. This is an area in my life where I have not done well. What I do understand, however, is that women today have far more options to control their own destiny than in former times. The result is that if a marriage isn’t working, it is relatively simply to disengage from it. Simple legally, but never emotionally. Who knows what completely bizarre strains the German politics of the 1920-40s put upon all relationships.Often, people were forced to compromise their principles in ways we cannot and don’t want to imagine. And then the heart remembers those compromises and finds reconciliation difficult. My heart bleeds for your mom, your dad, and you and your siblings for the upheaval that ensued.While all divorce leaves a wake of confusion and grief, much of that pain can be ameliorated if only the parents can bring themselves to act like adults. Refraining from badmouthing a former spouse can be difficult, but it is a parental duty.Reply
auntyutaEditI did not do that well all the time either, Linda, even though I have been married now for close tor 58 years. But believe me, there were periods in my life when the togetherness did not seem all that harmonious. Sometimes I very much questioned my ability to function as a wife and mother. It can be hard work to make a marriage work; most important seems to be to keep love alive somehow. When love is regularly turning into hate, we have to face up to it that the marriage is unsustainable. Should my mother and father never have married? Then my brothers and I would not exist. But as far as there staying together is concerned, well, this is a different matter. I do accept that for them it was better that they separated and later on were divorced. It would definitely have been better if they could have done this without all this fighting. You say, Linda: Refraining from badmouthing a former spouse can be difficult, but it is a parental duty. In this regard I stand totally on the side of my father. In my experience he never badmouthed my mother. Even though he tended to be extremely emotional and hurt by my mother’s rejection of him, he always stressed that he did not want us children to have a bad relationship with her for she was our mother. When I let my mother feel that I did not reject my father she tended to be angry with me ‘for taking his side’. The way I saw it, my mother was totally guided by her emotions, whereas my father tried very hard to act as an adult towards us children.Reply
cardamone5EditAh, Aunty Uta, how glad I am that we found each other. You are blessed in your marriage to Peter, having not had good role models. I often find myself struggling with how to be the right wife, but my husband is enormously loving and forgiving. He is my rock (in the good sense that he doesn’t go anywhere if I break down, which I have done twice, and in the challenging sense that he is very stubborn.) I have no doubt that my own lack of role models will not effect the longevity of our marriage. We have been together for a long time already and have withstood all trials and joys. In fact, yesterday, we celebrated early our fifteen year wedding anniversary. It was lovely. Thanks for echoing my experience with your post.Fondly, ElizabethReply
auntyutaEditThanks very much for this beautiful comment, dear Elizabeth. I think, we, as women, cannot praise men like our husbands, highly enough! Cheerio, UtaReply
elizabeth2560EditYour post spells out the difficulties all those affected by divorce have. It goes down through the generations. And I know that much advice says that we (the divorced) should ‘act like adults’ but I think sometimes it is much more difficult for the ‘leavee’ to cope. For example, I know that I cannot pretend to be ‘friends’ as it is simply too painful. However, civility is managed most of the time.Reply
auntyutaEditOf course, Elizabeth, to be friends requires that you have overcome pain or maybe not felt much pain in the first place. However I think it is a great achievement if you can manage civility most of the time. Sadly my mother was not capable of this at all. Thanks very much for commenting, dear Elizabeth.Reply
elizabeth2560EditThank YOU for this series of posts. I have connected with them and I have been interested by your views on this topic.
auntyutaEditI thank you very much for your comments, dear Elizabeth! Means a lot to me. Thank you.
Helen Mirren played Elizabeth II in the movie THE QUEEN. We watched this movie last night on TV. This movie made me think about the issue of divorce in our society. I contemplated what leads to divorce, and how it effects our lives, for example in my own family but also in families like the British Royal family. Often one can see the signs that lead to divorce, but sometimes a divorce can come more or less totally unexpected.
First I want to say how well I think Helen Mirren portrayed the queen. We already saw several movies with Helen Mirren as British queens.
Wikipedia says apart from Elizabeth II Helen Mirren portrayed these queens: “The first was a queen consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in The Madness of King George (1994), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; the second was a queen regnant, Elizabeth I, in the 2005 miniseries Elizabeth I. She also played a policewoman, under cover as the Queen, in The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu.”
THE QUEEN is a 2006 British drama film that depicts the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, who died on 31 August 1997. I remember, how shocked we all were about her death. After her divorce from Prince Charles the media had kept haunting her unceasingly. I ask myself, did the public expect her to live like a nun after her divorce? Probably not. However the interest in Diana’s private life was kept alive by a very intrusive media. She was an extremely good looking, very kind woman. The public just loved her. The excessive media attention led to disaster. In the end not only Britain but the whole world was grieving her death.
I recall an interview with Diana as she opened up about her marriage. She said it was like there were three people in the marriage. She came across as being very honest and heartbroken about it. I think she felt as though she did not have a husband any more. She had fulfilled her duty to give the throne two heirs. Now Prince Charles felt free to follow his muse. Diana was too young and fun loving for him. She played no big part in his life. He probably had married her more or less only because she was young and good looking and likely to give him some children. But it turned out he had no real connection to her. She wanted some affection in her marriage. She did not get it the way she felt she needed it. How very tragic! Divorce followed after a long struggle. The rest is history, as the saying goes.
There were quite a few divorces in my immediate family: First my favourite aunt was divorced, then my parents were divorced, my husband’s parents were also divorced, my favourite cousin was divorced, also one of my daughters did get a divorce (in her twenties!), one of my brothers got a divorce. And so it goes. It seems there were plenty of divorces within my immediate family. Have divorces increased during the past fifty or a hundred years? Probably. Is divorce always a disaster? And who benefits from a divorce?
These are very general questions. I would say more often than not one partner wants a divorce to be able to marry someone else. The partner who is left behind may initially feel quite deserted but in time adjust to the new conditions and possibly be able to find solace in being free again. Sometimes divorce may be due to difficult economic circumstances . . . .
Does a deteriorating love life necessarily lead to divorce? Yes and no. After a man has been married for a number of years, he may wonder what it might be like with somebody else. He may feel that some new exciting love affair would be quite a challenge. What man can resist if an attractive woman indicates to him that she could be willing? The man tumbles into a new relationship. The new woman is hopeful the man is going to leave his wife and marry her. So he needs to get a divorce. Then he can marry the new woman. As simple as this.
In the ‘old’ days some women would refuse to grant the husband a divorce. Then maybe the husband would just live apart from his wife with the other woman. Sooner or later the other woman might find another man who could marry her. Then perhaps the first wife would end up with her husband living at home again. Or not, if she found it impossible to forgive him. Or found someone else herself in the meantime!
If a woman falls in love with a man who is married already, is it morally right if this woman accepts the advances of a married man. They both might feel they are made for each other. It may turn out then that the first woman is left behind. The new woman might be married herself and end up asking for a divorce if she wants to stay with the new man.
So far I have never mentioned children of divorced marriages. If there are any young children involved this can complicate matters quite a lot. I’ll write about my thoughts on this some other time.
Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Mother and Wife of German Descent I’ve lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com View all posts by auntyuta
The EmuEditHaving divorced my first two wives Uta, I am not game enough to mention the word with Ana. Diana’s divorce was a disgrace to Prince Charles, he lost a lot of credibility then. EmuReply
auntyutaEditThanks for commenting, dear Emu. As far as Prince Charles is concerned, yes, he probably lost a lot of credibility in the eyes of a lot of people. I feel for Diana, but I also feel for Charles. They just were not suited to each other for a long term relationship. Aunty UtaReply
elizabeth2560EditYou give a balanced view here on divorce. Are you still affected by your parents divorce even though it was many years ago and they have both passed on? Is it hard looking back on old photographs when discussing the family tree and your heritage and family traditions?Reply
auntyutaEditThanks for the questions, dear Elizabeth. The post World War II years were rather difficult for us. The divorce of my parents made everything probably more difficult than it should have been. But I knew both my parents always loved me. I felt I was a bit of a disappointment for my mum. I loved her, but I did not want to be like her. I developed my own character and I am what I am. No regrets. I mean my mum was a very capable, good looking woman. For a lot of things I did admire her a lot. That she did not want to have my father around, well, I do not blame her for this, She just had not affectionate feelings for him any more. I accept this and understand this even though I did not feel at all like this myself.Reply
elizabeth2560EditI think that it is a very big step in one’s own personal development to decide that you do not want to be like your mother. It is a fundamental step of your own character development. You have much integrity and kindness and being true to yourself has been an inspiration to me.
auntyutaEditYou see, Elizabeth, it was not that I did not love my mother. I loved her a lot. But I could not be like her. A much stronger role model for me was for instance my father’s younger sister. Her name was Elisabeth. I called her Tante Lies. I always wanted to be more like her. You are right, being true to myself, I find this very important. Thanks, Elizabeth.
I locked myself out today. The front door was not even double locked, but none of the neighbours were able to unlock this very simple lock,
Someone said, a simple lock, like this one, one should be able to unlock with a hairpin! 🙂
This is how they show it in the movies! 🙂
After a few phone calls, Joan, my neighbour, found a locksmith who was willing to come. It was not so easy to find someone, since it is Good Friday today, a public holiday!
Soon, Joan gave me a bit of wine to drink. This helped me, to relax a bit! 🙂
When the kind locksmith arrived, I felt happy and also a bit tipsy. I joked to him, the locksmith, about using a hairpin, whereupon he mentioned something about James Bond. In any case, it was quite easy for him to open the door for me. I paid him what he had asked for and told him how grateful I was that he had come to my rescue.
I had had a good lunch at the nearby Bowing Club today. But I did end up with a broken off tooth. The part that is still left from that offending tooth soon caused me a splitting headache.
In the meantime, I was able to have a little nap, and I also relaxed a bit watching some enjoyable TV programs. 🙂
I also took a few pain killing tablets. So, I feel not too bad now. 🙂
Thank you, Anita, for sharing these very interesting memories about your growing up years. Three of my four children were growing up in NSW, Australia, during the sixties. Soon after migrating to Australia we
my husband and I started living in a garage with our three children
under three years of age! 🙂
Today, I live in a three bedroom house all by myself! 🙂
Delhi in the mid-sixties was quite different. It was a blend of the urban and the rural. It had wide-open spaces and was interspaced with villages. It had and still has a forest area within the city called the Delhi Ridge area.
I was brought up in South Delhi. We lived for many years in Wazir Nagar…next to the South Extension. South Extension was considered to be a place for the rich. South Extension is one of the posh localities in South Delhi. It is on Ring Road. There is a very popular market in South Delhi. But most people who lived in Wazir Nagar belonged to the middle class of that time. Nowadays definition of the middle class has been changed.
Delhi back then was a very different place from today. I grew up here and have many beautiful memories from this…
We’ve gone from “two mRNA jabs will ensure you won’t carry the virus or get sick or die of COVID” to “you need a booster every four months and you can still contract, transmit, get sick and die of COVID.” At this rate, we’re looking at three injections per year, and the fully-jabbed and boosted are still getting sick with COVID.
Story at-a-glance:
A preprint study posted April 3 reports high rates of infection with BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2 — variants of Omicron — among triple-jabbed health care workers. In all, the incidence rate among the triple-jabbed with one of these variants was 22%, and only 10% remained asymptomatic.
March 29 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a second booster (dose No. 4, for those taking Pfizer or Moderna) for adults over age 50, as well as a third booster (dose No. 5) for immunocompromised…
We knew already well over two years ago, that Peter would not be able to survive his cancer. –
So, more than two years ago, we did know, that the spread of his cancer from the bladder to the bones, could not be prevented!
A major operation on his bladder had not been possible, because he had a very serious heart condition.
As far as I am concerned, I must say it still did come as a kind of a shock to me, when it happened, that all of a sudden I had to completely live on my own!
However, right now, I am really glad, that I can live on my own, and that I am not dependent on anyone in the family to stay with me 24/7! 🙂
cardamone5
AuntyUta 