Erin Rudolph

Hello Honors family! And welcome Class Delta! Honors is certainly an adventure, I can assure you of that. :D

So far, this has been my summer: move out from CSP, unpack half of my stuff, repack the rest, and working at Camp Omega in Waterville, MN ever since. It's been so great - Omega is basically a second home to me, and I absolutely love being a counselor there and getting the opportunity to share God's love with all of the youngin's that come.  The staff this year is pretty tight too. Everyone has such a desire to serve the Lord, and we all get along great. So many inside jokes...it's fantastic.

So a little about me for those who don't know...I'm from Elk River, MN. My dad works at the Bank of Elk River and my mom is a preschool teacher at St. John Lutheran, otherwise known as my church. My younger brother is 16, a junior in high school, and a total band nerd. My younger sister is 14, a freshman in high school, and wants to be a chef/baker in the future. (aka, she is going to be catering my wedding when that happens). I have a dog named Duke; he's overweight, eats grass, and likes to sleep. I also have family besides my biological family; those people i call my best friends who keep me up when i feel emo, and a "big brother" to give me crap and protect me. God has really blessed me.

I really don't know what else to say about me, other than I'm me. that's it. :D

Have a great summer everyone, and God bless!

     The Poehler lecture is a premier event which is attended by the majority of faculty and students.  This year's lecture, given by Dr. Carl Schoenbeck, was about the integration of faith and learning.  It reminded me a lot of what we learned in our first semester of Honors, so long ago...oh memories...
     Dr. Schoenbeck first talked about creating a passion for learning in the children of today.  Basically, the better a teacher is able to teach the material to the students, the more enthused they will be about learning; conversely, the more excited the students are about learning, the better the teacher's teaching style is.  This passion for learning is created by three things: connections, applications, and questions.   From a Lutheran perspective, faith is the starting point for exploring all of the other disciplines.  By allowing a student to connect their faith to their other disciplines, the teacher also allows the student to apply what they learn in the classroom to what they know in real life and through their faith.  See, the key to the whole process is Faith - it provides a strong, yet flexible core for the student's learning.  It provides a home base for the student to reach out and explore from, and then return to at the end of the day.
   Like I said earlier, this was really reminiscent of the first semester in Honors, where the whole semester was based on "ways of knowing".  We talked about how the different ways of knowing (arts, revelation, reason, science, and emotion) interacted and affected our learning styles and our outlooks on life.  I really feel that Dr. Schoenbeck emphasized this in the lecture, and I liked the fact that he took everything from the basis of faith.
  The overall message that I got from this lecture would be that sometimes it is always possible to relate my faith to my learning and my practical life.  Although it is a goal of the Honors program to integrate faith and learning, it is sometimes hard to see how the two relate (such as statistics and faith, or the whole immigration topic and faith).  However, I am confident that there is always going to be a connection between faith and learning, because God had a hand in both; He created both our souls and our minds.  It makes perfect sense, then, to conclude that the two must always be related somehow.  it is the quest of the student, in their passion for learning, to discover this relationship and rejoice in how wonderful and marvelous the Creator really is.

     First of all, I'm sorry about the chliche-ness about the title, but that Hannah Montana song title was the first thing that popped into my head after hearing the Hmong artist Seexeng Lee tonight.
  Lee talked about the progression of art in Hmong culture.  For most Hmong, art is functional.  People such as silversmiths, blacksmiths, weavers, singers, musicians, storytellers, and embroiderers created beautiful things that served a purpose.  The most well known of these was a paj ntaub, which originally was a "flower cloth".  This was the type of garment that  was abstract and colorful; it was meant to keep the spirit interested and remaining with that person.  One such example would be a hat covering a baby's head; the Hmong believed it would protect the baby from evil spirits who want to steal the baby's spirit.  This was the traditional type of Hmong art.  In the refugee camps, however, the paj ntaub evolved into a "story cloth".  This was a gigantic piece of embroidered cloth that depicted the Hmong's journey from their homeland, across the river, and into the refugee camps.  This would be something that would be sold and would help provide the family with an income so that they would be able to eat.  Now in America, the paj ntaub is being found in sculptures, paintings, photographs, graphic design...everywhere.  The basic "job" of Hmong art is to now tell a story about the history of the Hmong people, and to communicate their plight to the rest of the world.
    Lee also told us of his personal journey to America, and how the clash between the Hmong and the American cultures has influenced his art.  He said, "Many may say that living with the collision of two cultures is a burden, but I find it a blessing in disguise."  He was able to find a balance between his heritage and his current country.  That is something that is important for everyone to find in their lives.

This is an old picture of the dam that runs across the Mississippi River in my hometown, Elk River.  Every year the city sets off their 4th of July fireworks from the fairgrounds by the dam, which makes the dam a perfect spot to view the show.  Going to watch the fireworks there when I was little will always be a fond memory for me...even though I was barely tall enough to see over the guard rail that was exactly my height... :)


    This is a personal lesson for me; although I did not personally immigrate from a foreign country to America, I did emmigrate from my hometown of Elk River, MN in Sorta-Northern MN to CSP in St. Paul, MN.  This may have very well been an immigration, as the difference between the two places are substantial enough.  Sometimes it is hard for me to assert by difference from my home community, and yet at the same time retaining my roots while at college.  I'm working on finding the best of both worlds and learning how to assert my unique balance to everyone else.   While my personal and ancestral history might not be as accessible as Seexeng Lee's is, I already am able to find the beauty of both my new and my old home.  Communicating that invisible beauty and making it visible to everyone else is the work of a true artist, which I think everyone could be if they tried.
   

     For the past couple weeks, we've been having a series of Hmong speakers from every generation.  This week we heard from the young generation, the Hmong who were maybe born in Laos but grew up in the United States.  The speakers included three Hmong CSP students who told us their personal stories about growing up Hmong, but at the same time growing up American.
     The first speaker was Xia Yang.  She was born in a refugee camp in Laos.  Her dad had two wives, and when he came to the US he could only take one wife, and he ended up taking Xia's step-mom. So when Xia's family came to the US, her mom was considered a single mother.  Xia is a teaching major who is currently student-teaching.
   The second student to speak was Pattoua Yang, who came to the US because her dad has political asylum because he worked with the CIA.  They came to the US 8 days before September 11.  After she graduated from high school in 2007, she didn't know if she wanted to go to college because she didn't know if she was so smart enough.  Her dad, however, wanted her to to get an education, and because of his support she went on to CSP.
     The last speaker was Xang Lee.  He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and came to the US when he was maybe three or four. He doesn't really remember anything from Thailand. He's now a finance major.
    I thought it was funny that both of the girls were complaining about the strictness of the Hmong culture, and yet when asked how they would raise their kids, both said that they would raise their children traditionally.  Xang, on the other hand, said that he would raise his kids more modern.  It was also quite funny, because every time he tried to make a point he was inadvertently shushed and covered up by the girls. The girls must be more Americanized than they thought.
   This night seemed to sink in a bit more because the speakers were our age, and we could relate to them somewhat better.  It was interesting to see how each dealt with managing the two cultures that they grew up in.  Out of all of them, I think that Xang was the one that has embraced American culture the most.   I think now that I know a bit about their culture, and a bit about their lives, I will be able to interact with them with more ease.  It's going to be a lot easier for this mid-western girl to relate to others now that she is able to relate their lives to hers.

     Today I attended the convocation in the music building that featured art by and about immigrants.  It was really interesting to see how the different artists recorded their immigrant experience. There were several pieces that I enjoyed.  The first piece that really caught my eye was titled Passport to Freedom by Nikki Yang.  It depicted a young Asian boy holding a card with an identification number; next to him is a young Asian adult holding an American visa; next to him, on the far right, was the image of an old Asian man holding his US passport.  I liked this picture because it was a very powerful depiction of the time involved in the process of becoming a US citizen.  It was a very powerful piece that I was drawn to right away.
   Another piece by one of the CSP faulty members was called a knarly old tree stump fused with fresh, new, "synthetic" wood from Menards for the branches.  I really liked how it represented the immigrant experience, especially the immigrant children.  In my opinion, that's the hardest thing to go through: trying to merge ones home culture while at the same time exploring one's new opportunities as an American.
     The final piece that I was really drawn to was a self-portrait by Hend al-Mansour.  It depicted her hand on the steering wheel of the car, with her wedding band and her thumb, decorated with henna.  Again, I loved the juxtaposition of tradition and new opportunities (aka, the henna and the act of driving).  That sort of tension is something that I'm subconsciously drawn to in art.
   Overall, it was a pretty powerful experience.  Maybe it's not something that I can really relate to, but I have definitely gained something from it.  I'm not sure if I can actually explain the thing that I've gained.  But one thing is for sure - I am more aware of immigrants and their emotional struggles than I was before the convocation.
          

    On Monday night we were honored to have two more Hmong speakers in class: Mr. Long Yang and Ms. Choua Thao.  Both of them were adults when they immigrated over to the United States from Laos, and so their experience was a bit different than that of last week's speaker. 
    Mr. Yang was a quiet gentleman; one had to listen closely to be able to perfectly understand him.  Apparently, he was a Hmong gurilla soldier for General Vang Pao.  He then escaped the country to Thailand, from which he and his family lived in detainment camps until they eventually made their way to the US where he worked in the computer programming feild.
    Mrs. Thao, on the other hand, boy was she a force of nature!  Her name means "tornado", and it suits her perfectly.  Back in Laos she was a nurse in charge of a hospital in the jungle.  She was married with three children at the time, and still found time to take care of many patients at the hospital.  Judging from her stories, if she wanted something she found a way to get it.  She talked and pushed her way to America, through an associate's degree in social work, and into a job where they had almost turned her away.  She has a personality that is barely contained by her tiny frame.  No matter what stories she decided to enthrall us with, she always emphasized the importance of getting an education and pursuing one's dream.  Ms. Thao wanted us to fight for our dreams, because if we didn't fight for our dreams we wouldn't get them.
    In a way, Ms. Thao reminds me of my grandma. Beulah.  Although Grandma wasn't a nurse deep in the jungle in a war torn country, she has had to make quick thinking decisions on her feet and making sure that her family was safe over all else.  She has always encouraged me to keep continuing with my education and to keep pursuing my dreams.  (I think if she could single handedly pay for my college education if she was able to.)  And like Ms. Thao, my grandma can be pretty single minded when it comes to getting what she wants. I guess it must be something about that generation. :)
     I think from this experience I learned just exactly had been going on during that time period; it has always been a bit fuzzy for me.  I was also very interested in their perspectives on American things like the fourth of July and such.  I hope that sometime we'll get to hear more from them - especially Ms. Thao. She was really fun to listen to.         

     So on Monday night we all trooped through the massive puddles to the Hmong Center on campus.  Really, I had no idea what to expect, since the center hasn't really been mentioned a whole lot.  I was pleasantly surprised when the center turned out to be an actual house.  Lee Pao Xiong, the executive for the center, talked to us about the Hmong culture and his own journey from Laos to America.  Overall I was very impressed with his story.  Unlike other lectures I have heard on similar topics,  Xiong's presentation was really quite interesting.  I like how he first told us a little bit about the Hmong presence on campus, and then continued on to his own personal story, some of which included growing up with his dad on an army base, being rushed onto a waiting airplane in order to leave Laos, spending time in a refugee camp, moving to Minnesota, pursuing a career in politics and eventually ending up at CSP.  One thing that was really surprising to me was actually how well known he is.  He had jobs at both the Minnesota and the United States legislatures, as well as serving as an advisor to former President Bill Clinton.  Despite his phenomenal success, Xiong chose to come back to the Twin Cities and become a staff member at CSP.
   Oddly enough, Xiong reminded me of the AP statistic teacher at my high school, Mr. Peter Newland.  Mr. Newland immigrated to the US from China, and like Xiong has made phenomenal progress in the states.  Yet it wasn't their similar success that helped me draw the connection; it was their attitude toward life in general.  Both of these men have an unexplicable drive for learning and growing; for Xiong, it is more in the way of politics rather than Mr. Newland, who prefers math.  Even though both of them could be making millions, they both chose to teach kids.  This might have something to do with the familial-centered cultures from which both of them came.  Although Xiong did remark that it was mostly the women who passed down the Hmong traditions to their children, I think that the men also have that drive, deep down inside.

My high school math department...Mr. Newland is the one in the front row on the right.  He is insanely crazy about math, and at least once a day said "Math gives me tingles!!"  I think my favorite Newland-ism was: "Doing math is just like eating dessert, except no calories!!!"  Oh Mr. Newland...
     Although this maybe did not change me in any way, I still appriciated getting out of the classroom and actually "experiencing" Hmong culture rather than just reading about it.  It was cool to see that the Hmong is an actual people, rather than just some obscure people group that we hear about in passing on the evening news.  What I really admire about the Hmong people, and Lee Pao Xiong in particular, is their ability to adapt, grow, and thrive in their different environments.  I would love to learn more about the Hmong culture, and experience it, rather than learn about it in a classroom as usual.  I think that once we experience a culture, it makes it more meaningful. 

     I had some mixed feelings about seeing this film. On the one hand, I didn't really feel like dealing with such heavy subject matter as Hmong immigration; on the other, I was kinda eager to see Eastwood return to his classic "Man with No Name" attitude. Much to my surprise I actually enjoyed the film.  Living in a city with one of the largest Hmong populations in the US, I suppose it was a good thing I saw this.  Although I am not prejudiced in any way, I have never really had as much exposure to that culture as I probably should have.  In any case, it was a very good movie.
     The film centers around a Korean War vet named Walt who is trying to get over the death of his wife.  In the course of the movie, he becomes a mentor and friend to the teenage members of the Hmong family next door, Thao and Su.  Walt inadvertantly teaches the seventeen year old Thao about the value of hard work and honestly, all the while keeping Thao out of the Hmong gang led by his  cousin.  But when Su is beaten and raped by the gang, Walt discovers that he has come to care for his Hmong neighbors more than he ever thought possible.
 
      Walt stops Thao from exacting revenge on his cousin, and instead goes to confront the gang alone.  Although Walt, unarmed, is shot to death by the gang, in giving up his own life he also made things safe for Thao, Su, and their family. (The gang was arrested and jailed for a long time.)  Thao had become like a son to Walt, more so than his biological sons.  As such, Walt left his beloved 1972 Ford Gran Torino to the teenager, so long as he didn't "chop top the roof...paint any idiotic flames on it like some white trash hillbilly, [or] put a big...spoiler on the rear end."
     Ideally, what I saw in this movie was not a message about culture or racism; what I saw was a message about prejudice and having the courage to get over that prejudice to forge a lasting relationship.  This message is not limited to cross-culture; it pertains to every situation, every stereotype we encounter in our lives.  Now that I think about it, even though I may not have experienced much racial diversity, this phenomenon has happened a lot to me over the course of my life.  One example that quickly comes to my mind is my relationship with one of my co-workers.  Although at first I percieved him to be a bit like Vanilla Ice (sorry, that was the best reference I could come up with...), he ended up being more like my big brother. Being the oldest child with huge age gaps between herself and her cousins, I had never really had that figure in my life.  This is a bit like what Walt experiences with Thao.  By some miracle or another, Thao became more like a son to Walt than his own biological sons. Thao recieved all of the "wisdom", tools, experience, teaching, and sarcasm that a son should be recieving from his father.  This is reflected in Walt leaving his prized Gran Torino to Thao in his will; he chose Thao over his biological granddaughter.  Oddly enough this remindes me of the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice, because not judging a book by its cover is one of the main points of that book.
   We all are guilty of this, of judging people based on their outward appearences. This movie was a nice reminder of the follys of judging someone based on their race, gender, ect. Like God, we should strive to see people for what's in their heart, not what the color of their skin is. 

     To be honest, I was not looking forward to this semester of Honors at all.  I mean, immigration is not my favorite subject in the world.  I have spent the past two years discussing subjects such as immigration, war, child soldiers and the like in my English and social studies classes; I was ready to take a break from all of the heartbreak and talk about a lighter subject for a while.  So needless to say I was less than enthused when I discovered that immigration was the topic this semester for both Honors and my Adolescent Psychology course.
     Reading The Middle of Everywhere was a bit of a challenge, probably due what I just explained.  The book was entertaining and wasn't what I expected it to be, don't get me wrong, but...it didn't seem quite real to me.  I was unable to really connect and identify with the stories at all.  Their stories seemed so much more important than my own struggles; any time I tried to relate personal stories from my life to their experiences it felt shallow and superfluous.  I didn't begin to relate to the subject until Monday night.
     Monday night threw me off balance a little bit; here I was expecting a long big discussion (or debate, as it might be called) on the political aspects of immigration.  I was a bit surprised when the class started and we were telling stories; stories about our families, our history, our traditions (TRADITION! TRADITION!!....anytime I see that word I think of Fiddler on the Roof...but I digress...).It was interesting for me to see and note how similar (and in some cases, very different) my family and families of others were.  Listening and telling those stories also helped me better understand the others in the class.  This is the sort of thing I gravitate to; the stories, the ability to relate to my own life.  This is what I had missed when reading the book initially - I had missed that personal connection.

(One tradition in my family is making fun gingerbread people with my sister Alison at Christmas...here she is in the middle of creating our masterpieces, which included Edward Cullen, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, and Tim Gunn.)

   Like I mentioned earlier, my Adolescent Psychology class is going to be working with a group of Somali high school students to create a PSA announcement that can help educate the Somali community. I am going to be totally honest here: this is going to be really hard for me.  Don't get me wrong, I am the exact opposite of rasict.  But I come from a place where there was little diversity in my community, or at least the part of my community I frequently interacted with.  I think that my main problem is the fear of the unknown.  In her book, Pipher states that "fear of the other is basic to human nature" (330). Combined with my slightly (ok, mostly) shy tendencies, that lack of exposure is a big thing to overcome. No doubt that after a day or two I am going to be fine; I'll probably end up being the person most enthused about Somali culture in the entire group.
     I can remember feeling the same trepidation when going to Juarez, Mexico on a mission trip for the first time.  What if they made fun of my mediocre Spanish skills, my height, my weight, my American accent, my overly pale skin...but once I got there, all those silly concerns melted away.  After being immersed in the culture, I became a part of it.  I built a wall for a school...led VBS (or Club de los Niños) for the local children...climbed a mountain...got stuck by a cactus...walked with local children to the corner store to buy orange Fanta...played jump rope at an orphanage...went to a church service conducted entirely in Spanish...translated for the adults in the group (i started to think in Spanish after a while)...had my red/blonde hair examined and played with by little girls with hair of the darkest of black...The list goes on and on. They didn't care about any of the little things that I had worried about.  All they cared about, and I discovered all that I really cared about was becoming a part of their story.  Although we might not have spoke the same language, we connected through something else, something that I'm not quite sure I have the ability to explain.  I was just happy to be a part of their story, like they had become a part of mine.
(This is on the mountain overlooking Juarez. For those of you who can't speak Spanish, it says: "The city of Juarez. The Bible is the truth. Read it." Pretty sweet, huh?)
    I'm eager to learn about different cultures, although I am terrified.  But I will be fine, in time.  It's the exposure, the immersion that makes it real for me; first hand accounts of personal stories from immigrants is what makes it hit me.  (And yes, I realize that the entire book we had to read was basically a bunch of personal stories.)  It is my hope that this semester we can focus not on the political ramifications of immigration, but rather learning how to weave our stories together with those whose voices may sound strange to us. At least, that's what I want to do...
               

Children are perhaps the world's most remarkable creatures.  Aside from their ability to quickly rebound from difficulties, children have the ability to believe in fairies and princesses, witches and terrible monsters.  This baffles those adults preoccupied with reason, as those are things which are not supported by logic, physical proof, or even common sense; and yet, this topic of improbable events, otherwise known as miracles, becomes the focus of an entire chapter in the book Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: The Interplay of Science and Religion by Phil Dowe.  Dowe argues that, contrary to the views of David Hume, miracles do not necessarily prove that God exists, but rather they create faith in him.

                In the chapter, Dowe's argument against Hume has three main parts: the definition of a miracle and his response to Hume's first and second arguments against miracles.  The definition of a miracle has always been a tricky one; Dowe states that a miracle can be defined as a "'very unlikely event'"(Dowe 87) or "an impossible event" (88).  One must also consider the definition that Hume himself made, which was that a miracle was "a violation of the laws of nature" (88).  A law of nature is a universal regularity, something that occurs 100% of the time without exception. 

The statements 'dead persons remain dead' and 'all metals expand when heated' are both taken to be laws of nature if in our experience there are no cases of persons rising from the dead or heated metals failing to expand (Dowe 88).

It is at this point that Dowe starts to attack Hume's theory with force using an argument pioneered by John Mackie.  If, Dowe argues, by definition a miracle defies the law of nature, how can a miracle happen at all? Say a metal was found that did not expand when heated; this would render false the universal regularity that all metals expand when heated.  Because this universal regularity is now false, it ceases to be a law of nature, and therefore any cases of a metal expanding would no longer be considered a miracle because the law of nature which it used to violate no longer exists.  At this point one may applaud Dowe for seeming to have made a valid dent in Hume's armor.  This, however ironic it may be, is also a weak point of Dowe's argument, as he does not present any real-life examples of this.  If Mackie's line of reasoning in use by Dowe is valid, than he should be able to present some sort of evidence to support his case.  Without the evidence, that is all Dowe's argument is: reasoning.  This particular argument makes perfect sense, but is not applicable in the real world.  Despite this, Dowe's strong point here comes toward the end of the section when he cites Hume's amended definition of a miracle.  According to Hume, a "more accurate" (90) definition of a miracle is an event that not only defies the laws of nature, but also must have proof of God's intervention.  Dowe says this is just absurd, as Hume is using the very thing he is ultimately trying to disprove (the existence of God) to prove his point that God doesn't exist.  Because of the ultimate absurdity of this claim, Dowe is able to emerge victorious in the battle.

                The second part of Dowe's attack against Hume involves Hume's first law against miracles.  Hume essentially says that testimony cannot outweigh physical proof for a miracle.  This all starts with Hume's belief that a person's belief in an event should be proportionate to the evidence in favor of the event.  According to his first law, if there is equal evidence for and against the occurrence of a miracle, then they cancel each other out and the debater is forced to admit they do not know where to proceed.  If the testimonial evidence in favor of the event is less than the scientific evidence against the event, than the evidence does not favor the occurrence; therefore, a miracle can never be proven.  The flaw in this argument, pointed out by Dowe, is that Hume later goes back and disregards the first rule. 

However, suppose that the testimony [for the miracle] was extremely strong...suppose that there is no disagreement amongst these reports, and that in every culture there is a lively memory of this event.  This is a case, claims Hume, in which we would have to admit that a miracle has occurred (Dowe 95).

Since Hume goes back and disregards his own rules, then the whole piece may be disregarded as reasoning against proof for miracles.

                The last piece to be put under Dowe's scrutiny is Hume's second law against miracles.  According to this, there are three possibilities for the occurrence of a miracle: it is either an act of God, it has no explanation, or the explanation just hasn't been discovered yet.  The second option is the weakest and is therefore eliminated, while the third is most probable; however, there is difficulty in proving either the first or the third option.  Here Dowe points out the vagueness of Hume's argument, and how it contradicts his earlier arguments. 

According to Hume's second definition, it is not a miracle because we should suppose that there is some natural explanation that we can't yet see...However, Hume does not advance any argument as to why we should pursue naturalistic explanations rather than divine explanations.  For this reason his argument begs the question at hand (Dowe 98).

Hume does not offer any evidence or other reasoning in support of his claims.  Dowe is now able to walk victoriously over the beast of a problem Hume's argument against miracles presented to both religion and scientific reasoning.

                Overall, Dowe's use of simple logic and his consultation of others in the field allowed him to emerge the champion.  However, the question remains: do miracles provide proof for the existence of God?  Miracles are not proofs for God; the only proof for God lies in the Gospel.  It is at this point that this author feels one should set aside the confusing arguments presented by both Hume and Dowe and take miracles are at face value; instead of "proving" that God exists, they promote faith in Him.  Although to some believing in miracles may seem as absurd as believing fairies, the leap of childlike trust needed is just the sort of thing one may need.  As the comedian Groucho Marx once said, "This is so simple, a child of five would understand it.  Somebody fetch me a child of five!" Perhaps those children who believe in the impossible have the right idea after all.