"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free" - Julia Ward Howe
Book I - Minnesota on the Map
“Stephanus! Wake up!”
“Wh-what?,” stammered Stephanus coming out of a dream.
“Awaken!”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am a spirit. And I am here to show you your future,” came the answer.
“But why? And how can you show me my future?
“It is my will,” answered the Spirit.
“Alright. What do you want to show me?”
“I want to show you a distant land on a distant shore.”
“Shore? You mean our Mare Nostrum or some inland lake?”
Stephanus knew that the Mediterranean (which was what the Mare Nostrum was called in Latin) was very big, and had heard talk of ancient stories of places far from his city.
“I don't mean Mare Nostrum.”
“But then what?” Stephanus was confused.
“Don't you remember your dream when I woke you?”
The dream was still in his memory and Stephanus ventured to recall.
“I remember a far, far place as if in another world, with many lakes. The name was in a strange tongue. And it sounded like an echo, or a poem. I think the name was Minnesotum…Minnesotum, Mare Clarum.”
“Does that make sense? It's, it's not clear to me right now.”
“That's right!” said the Spirit. “Your Mare Nostrum is not clear, but the distant bodies of water will be clear. They will be fresh water.”
“Fresh water? You mean from springs and rivers?”
“No, this fresh water will come from gigantic pieces of ice from the top of the world.”
Now Stephanus’s head was spinning like a giant planet. “Gigantic pieces of ice? I-I can't imagine!"
“That’s alright,” came the answer. “You don't need to. I will make it so.”
Life in Athens
Stephanus lived in Athens in the early years of our Lord in 5 A.D. The Greek youth Stephanus was speaking Latin because Athens had now been part of the Roman Republic—and Empire--for 150 years.
And now even the Spirit was speaking Latin! The world was indeed changing rapidly. Stephanus lives in an Athenian oikos built by his father, whose name Nikias in Greek means “Victory.”
The Fall and Rise of a Republic
But sadly the Athenians had lost their government to the Romans and were now governed by another republic—the Roman Republic which had in turn been overthrown by powerful generals who--unopposed by any civilians--proclaimed Rome was now an Empire. Dreams of freedom had been lost.
The Romans defeated an exhausted Athens at the Battle of Corinth in 150 B.C. ("Before Christ", who had just been born five short years ago and was now walking the earth, attracting a lot of attention). Yet in this time the family has a slave, Greek, named Theron, sold to them as a slave by the victor ruler Romans.
The Nikias family lives near the Aegean Sea, and mother Theano manages the small family’s household, including securing all the water they need.
Nikias isn’t a soldier, he’s a teacher. He’s teaching the new math in a Greek private school. His city-state Athens, the leader of all Greece, had decided to make war to drive off the Romans. Although it turned out badly for them, the idea of a republic was taken by the Romans themselves so there’s that.
Actually, Theron, the family’s slave had been teaching Stephanus since he was a child. Theron taught Stephanus the basics of reading and writing—in both Latin and Greek—and arithmetic (the three R’s) and discussed with him moral and ethical questions. Theron’s a trusted member of the family.
And so it was that Stephanus told his dream about Minnesotum, Mare Clarum to Theron and they both sat for a moment, wondering….
The Other Side
Novus Orbis
Far away and unknown to Stephanus or his father—or seemingly to anybody—there were distant shores, and a special place. A magical place in the center of what would become North America. A placed called Minnesotum, Mare Clarum--full of clear, fresh water, as American Indians would describe it.
And what a story it was.
Minnesotum
The beginning was the end.
Not only the world of men, but ALL LIFE, was mercilessly wiped out, ground down and pushed along, and into bodies of water.
Over the course of many centuries huge mile-high masses of ice and snow visited major population centers of what is today Minnesota and eradicated everything—scouring out rivers and streams, and giving the region Hennepin/Anoka Counties, home of Minneapolis; Ramsey/Dakota Counties, home of St. Paul (the famous Mississippi river boat city); Washington County, home of what would be Stillwater on the St. Croix, birthplace of Minnesota Territory. Stearns County of St. Cloud and St. Louis County, home of an inland seafaring city of Duluth.
Duluth would be set upon the Great Lake Superior (a body of water so monstrously huge and endless it exudes a foreboding, silent presence if you happen upon it at night if you happen to be a landlubber.) Somehow, magically, all the major cities in Minnesotum Mare Clarum had been shaped by glaciers. But first, all people and all life had to be ended--by a giant polar reach from the top of the world.
While far away from the terrific intruders life carried on, all that was left behind by the abominable snow and ice was defaced land—and the great Great Lakes (Lake Superior, and to the east, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie—stretching all the way to New York and Lake Ontario.)
These great new waters were not lakes so much as a collection of new oceans joining the North Atlantic with this new gigantic waterway. And ending way down in Minnesotum Mare Clarum. New plains had been graded by a fantastically huge grader never seen in North America before, a plane which created vast new lands for new forests and new farms. But not before more richness was dropped by the abominable ice.
For Minnesota Mare Clarum, the snowy visitors left lakes and rivers.
Life of a Dream and a New Fellowship
Stephanus’s ancient dream, born long before he was conceived, lasts forever. The cauldron into which Rome fell was followed by a contest for the West and dreams of what lay beyond as men would come to venture across the endless sea.
The spirit had spoken of a land of the mighty Mississippi River, left behind by the Minnesota glaciers. And, through a long and winding road after those cataclysmic snows and glaciers, men at last did return to the land envisioned, Minnesotum Mare Clarum. The heart of this storied land was a river, called the Mississippi, known to generations as the four-eyed river.
And so it was that a glorious expedition in 1832 A.D., a fellowship of seekers of the source, made an arduous voyage to the very origin of that vast glacial flow that--gathering water and power along the way-- fill the Gulf of America (which Columbus's leader Amerigo Vespucci would discover and whom that immense body of water--over half the size the Mediterrean itself--would be named after, in 2025). To that vast gulf, future voyages from the Old World of Stephanus would evenually come, even to the fabled Minnesota Mare Clarum and men from a place called Europe would actually discover the New World Stephanus had been shown in his dream.
The Indian School
Schoolcraft was the teacher’s name. Today we might call him Indiana Jones. A leader, and a teacher like Stephanus’s father Nikia, and a true explorer. Accompanying him were the native American Indians, for after many centuries, they came to possess a deep knowledge of the landscape, life systems, and natural resources of the Mississippi Region. They were key to the Minnesota Fellowship including the American explorers like Schoolcraft and Joseph Nicollet.
This included the guide for the Schoolcraft’s quest, Ozawindib, the Ojibway (Chippewa) guide, who spoke Ojibway. Along the way Schoolcraft and his explorers interacted with all the other American Indian tribes they met, including Dakota in Minnesota and Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin (Winnebago).
In 1832 A.D. Schoolcraft’s Itasca Fellowship located and discovered the sources of this storied work of nature, the Four-Eyed River. He identified Minnesota’s Lake Itasca as the River's true source. Schoolcraft had a background in classical studies—including the very Latin and Greek the slave Theron had taught to Stephanus and his family. The clever scholar even invented a brand-new name for the Great River Source, ‘Itasca.’ The source of the Mississippi is named after "veritas" (truth) and "caput" (head)--meaning "true head" of the Great River. It announced Minnesota to the world before we were even a territory or could vote in Congress.
This invention of Schoolcraft’s School preserved the knowledge of the ancient lost dream of Mediterranean hope—the freedom Stephanus and Theron sought.
Through it all Latin--considered a universal language, was still being used in the 19th century! In fact when an Italian man called Columbus, from another center of trade on the Mediterrean like Stephanus, was still speaking Latin while chasing down a way to get to India. In 1477, before he set sail for Central America in 1492, he visited the farm Ingjaldshvöll in the land of Iceland. Still in Stephanus’s new language of Latin. 1500 hundred year’s after Stephanus, Columbus stayed the winter at that farm before he made his famous voyage to meet the Indians of North America.
Book II – The Voice of God
Και άκουσα φωνή από τον ουρανό, σαν τον ήχο πολλών υδάτων
"And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters
και σαν τον ήχο μιας δυνατής βροντής». Αποκάλυψη 14:2
and like the sound of loud thunder." Revelation 14:2.
Stephanus and Theron began their class one sunny Greek day under Roman rule. The sun glinted off the surface of the Aegean Sea out the window. The sea air seemed free if a little salty.
Theron the family slave asked his student Stephanus if there were any moral topics the student wanted to discuss today.
“I keep remembering that dream I had where the spirit showed me Minnesotum, Mare Clarum,” Stephanus answered thoughtfully.
“Is that a moral topic?” asked Theron.
“Well, the spirit talked about the clear waters, not the salt water, but a rush of clear waters left behind by huge sheets of ice, sky high. And I’m wondering if he could have meant a world free of slavery, and of these Romans everywhere,” he answered Theron, looking about and out the windows.
Theron was silent for a moment. Slavery was something he rarely talked about, or thought about. Romans prided themselves in seeking an enlightened, civilized and free world for humankind. And he knew they engaged in a more enlightened slavery, because it was needed. They relied on slavery to run their empire, including their military and police operations and to produce their wealth.
But he did not know about this dream of Minnesotum, Mare Clarum. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t know if such a world can exist. Can the new world be truly free? Without slavery?” Soon the Old World Stephanus and Theron lived in explorers would begin to look for a “new world”, which is where Minnesota lay. After the forces of Spain, the Iberian peninsula already conquered by the Romans, would be defeated by the British navy, the English Kings would plot to develop the New World in colonies on the East Coast of America.
“I cannot see into the future of the dream,” said Stephanus after considering the question. “I have heard some interesting things coming out of Judah, in Capernaum, though. A terrible attack on children by the rulers trying to suppress any ideas about a “new world.” Unbelievable barbarism by the Roman agents in crushing rebellions by the Jews, who no longer govern themselves either.” “Right, just like Greeks no longer govern in our home” thought Theron to himself.
“The Roman system of laws is one thing for Roman citizens, and another thing for us, the Greeks,” offered Theron. “And the same thing applies to the Jews in Judah. Ever since they were conquered by Alexander they have not been able to live under their own laws. And now they’re ruled by the Romans, the Jewish Herod Antipas, as the tetrarch of Galilee installed by Rome.”
“But now there is a challenge to that arrangement and that led to the slaughter of all babies under two years old. Because he feared a Jewish prophecy that a peacemaker and savior would be born there in Bethlehem.”
“Your dream, Stephanus, appears to be our best hope. But how can it be”?
The spirit said “Because it is my will.”
That night at supper, Stephanus asked his father Nikea about it. “Why do we have slaves, father? I mean why do so many Greeks have slaves? And now, why are so many Greeks slaves? If slaves could vote would things be different?”
Normally Nikea and Theano didn’t like such subjects at the dinner table. But Stephanus had appeared troubled for the last few days and Theano had overheard some of Theron’s lessons. So finally Stephanus’s father Nikea spoke up.
“Well, son, just like you are not yet able to vote in the Ecclesiastic elections, slaves cannot vote because voting is based on a certain degree of knowledge and education, and qualifications. I myself am only allowed to vote for the Ecclesia, our principal assembly for Athens and that’s because I’m a free male and completed Athenian military training. But I can’t vote beyond that.
“Theron being a slave, he cannot vote, because the right to vote is for the well-being and good governance of our city state, big issues for the good of the whole.”
“Has Theron been talking with you about slavery?” He pressed Stephanus.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Stephanus saw his father differently somehow. Then Theano said “Theron’s father was free when he was living in Judea.”
Stephanus answered, “Well, I had this dream the other night where a spirit showed me a different way of living. It was in a far-off land called Minnesotum Mare Clarum carved out by great sheets of ice and rushes of water. And I wondered what it would be like, and talked about moral and ethical issues in my class with Theron.
Turning to Theano, Nikea asked her “What did you say about Theron’s father?”
“He was captured as a slave in Judea.”
Theano didn’t know about Jesus even after he was born, but she knew about the Jews and their uprising against the Macedonians, they had a different notion of law, freedom and justice than Alexander and now different than the Roman emperors and their officials.
She recited a passage from Isaiah, that touched her. “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and there tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God Israel with not forsake them.
“I will opn rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry lands springs of water. I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.”
Stephanus and Nikea both listened intently to Theano reciting, enthralled. They knew how hard Theano had to work, as all the women of Athens households, to fetch the water. Did it come from God? Greeks and Romans had not thought much of that, they had many Gods and not one God of water, or of Creation, that was a mystery to them.
Well, we are definitely the poor and needy compared to the great empire, but we have the same needs as they do their great aqueducts that we slave on.
Theano was also thinking, how hard it is to carry the water from the Aegean Sea when we also carry an unborn child. But God hears us. I wonder what he will create for us?
Book III - The End of Slavery
“Slavery is ended! Slavery is ended! Praise Jesus slavery is ended!”
Stephanus had a strange premonition as he drifted off to sleep. “Boy, he thought, seeing the future really messes up your sleep!” Probably indigestion from that discussion about slavery at supper time, he mused.
The voice Stephanus had heard was another youth, this one a Swedish youth named Magnus. Magnus Carlsson lived in the Swedish coastal of Malmo in 1350 A.D.. Sweden too had been tempered by massive glacial monstrosities at the same time Minnesotum Mare Clarum had been, and those monstrous visitors shaped Malmo, and also carved out the farmland of Marstrand.
Astrid, the cousin of Magnus livid in Marstrand, about 180 miles away by horseback and boat on a piece of land her family farmed. Their uncle had been freed from slavery. Astrid Carlssen still celebrated and when she visited Malmo to study at the university she talked with Magnus.
“It seems that in such an imperfect, wild world, that such a beautiful perfect thing can still happen,” referring to the courageous action of King Magnus IV ending slavery for all Christians in Sweden and Norway.
“Someday I think the reason for this miracle will become more clear to us all,” answered Magnus. “The King was following the word of Jesus. Maybe the only who can save us from our slavery is the Man who saved us from all our sins.” Astrid was impressed with the intelligence and seriousness of his response.
Malmo, a coastal city in western Sweden relied on trade for its free and prosperous lifestyle. Vikings used the port. The city engaged in a lot trade with the Hanseatic League, a loose confederation for trade and defense based out of Northern Germany. Herring was big business.
There was still slavery. But in 1335 the king, Magnus IV had declared that those born to Christian families could no longer be held as thralls. Centuries later, this would be important again, as Christians would be allowed to emigrate to a place they called Amerika, where the fabulous Minnesotum Mare Clarum would be. In 1335 it abolished slavery in both Sweden and Norway, and also Finnish slaves.
Like Moses, was named as Lawgiver. However, the laws he gave were of Jesus Christ, of the New Testament, while Moses was of the Old Testament. Both had a great impact on the world and on Minnesotum. In the end it would be Minnesotum Mare Clarum who abolished slavery, driven by this same Christian impetus and rejection of the sin of slavery.
But after Christ many people who followed him would be persecuted, killed and yes, enslaved. But along the way his followers in Sweden, Norway and Minnesota for found the way to abolish it.
“You know, Astrid, Jesus was betrayed to the Cross for 30 pieces of silver. That was the typical cost for “buying” a slave. But Jesus defeated that bargain by rising again from the grave. He saves us from our sin, including enslaving other people.” Magnus was thinking of that dream of freedom and justice. Slavery and tyranny were still out there.
The fight against slavery
The end was the beginning. Slavery was being attacked in different ways since at least 600 B.C. in Athens when Solon ended debtor slavery in Greece. Other forms of slavery persisted. In 873 A.D. Pope John VIII declared the enslavement of fellow Christians a sin and commanded their release.
Magnus Carlsson, like all Swedes, was Catholic. They were the first Catholics to visit Minnesota, long before Columbus stumbled into the Caribbean Islands. Near a town that would be called Alexandria, Minnesota where during the last Ice Age, the Laurentide ice sheet advanced and retreated, leaving a drumlin field formed by glacial till, by the Wadena lobe of the glacier. The cleansing power of the glacier wiped away the sinful past and unleashed the voice of God.
From Minnesota and Wisconsin the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, who would Proclaim the end of Slavery during the United States Civil War and whose victory would result in amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit slavery, was created. It was followed by troops, U.S. Army Regiments from the State of Minnesota sent to Lincoln resulting in the rescue of the Union and the end of slavery.
Galatia
King Magnus was on the freedom road. Another Greek, named Titus, traveled with a follower of Christ. They went into what is today Turkey. At the time, in 50 A.D., decades after the wrenching discussion between Stephanus and Therano on the Aegean Sea coast Paul, the Christ follower talked about slavery and freedom. There was widespread slavery throughout Galatia—but also this new idea of freedom.
Titus may well have been in Athens, part of the Hellenistic environment created by Alexander as he conquered lands in the Mediterranean world. He was converted by Paul’s ministry.
Slavery was part of Mosaic Law, which was fulfilled as Christ, who by now had lived and been executed by Rome and Jewish religious leaders. But who had resurrected and converted Paul as he was on the road hunting down and killing Christ’s believers. Slavery indeed. Things looked dark for the hopes and dreams of Stephanus and Theron and for which they hoped for Minnesota—Minnesotum Mare Clarum.
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Thank you for inviting me, and I’m glad I could make it, glad to be discussing this critical issue of Minnesota agriculture, a source of immense pride, actually, our farming, I’ve worked in several private and public companies helping to market your great work—Cargill, Pillsbury and General Mills, and you are a treasure of the entire state. And we need the farmer back on the flag, and the Indian too, and regarding that I am calling for clemency for Leonard Peltier based on the record that has come out.
I met Amy Klobuchar who has represented Minnesota on the Senate Agriculture Committee since soon after she was first elected in 2006, and in fact I was there when she walked through the precinct caucus where my friend who headed Migrants in Action sent me as a proxy for health reasons, and I had just been told I should get him off the voting delegation because he was a man, and DFL rules limit men. But I first met her as she attended a government meeting I had at the University of Minnesota with those active migrants, the Chicano activists, and talked with her about her dad, the very talented writer Jim Klobuchar (I had delivered his papers). And Amy confirmed this at the FarmFest debate where she sad right next to me.
Now Amy is very serious about her politics, and she is passionate about some things, especially abortion, which from the farmer’s point of view is bad, it hurts the families which are very important to a farm family, and it literally kills your market with 65 million souls lost since Roe. But Amy doesn’t come from a farming family, but rather an iron ore family. Very different.
