Boundaries in Pleasant Places: Reflections on a Cultural and Spiritual Pilgrimage

By John E. Huegel

The book is divided in two parts. In the first, the author tells the story of his struggle to determine his home culture. He was born in Mexico on the south side of the Rio Grande but was raised by parents from the north side of the river, the United States. For a time, he felt at home in Mexico, on the south side, then tried to straddle the two cultures, and finally came to the conclusion that his home culture was on the north side, in the United States.

The second part of the book tells the story of his spiritual pilgrimage, his call to the Protestant ministry, his struggle to determine the will of God, his place in life, and the specific nature of his ministry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514485330

John E. Huegel

John E. Huegel was born in the city of Aguascalientes, Mexico, the son of missionary parents. He also served as a missionary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Mexico for forty-two years. During that time, he was the pastor of various Protestant churches, professor and president of the Union Evangelical Seminary in Mexico City, and director of the Center for Theological Studies in the city of San Luis Potosí. After he retired in 1996, he moved to Texas, where he served briefly as professor of pastoral theology in the Edinburg Theological Seminary and was interim pastor of three congregations. He has written various books in Spanish and English. He is married to Yvonne West, and they live in New Braunfels, Texas. They have four adult children who all serve the church in different ministries, and eleven grandchildren.

Book preview

BOUNDARIES

IN PLEASANT

PLACES

Reflections on a Cultural

and Spiritual Pilgrimage

JOHN E. HUEGEL

Copyright © 2016 by John E. Huegel.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5144-8534-7

                  eBook            978-1-5144-8533-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version NIV, unless otherwise indicated. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/26/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

732014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.jpg

Prologue

PART ONE

My Cultural Pilgrimage

1 Crossing the River

2 On Which Side of the River Do I Belong?

3 Life on the South Side of the River

4 Straddling the River

5 Returning to the North Side of the River

6 Life in My Cultural Home Base

7 Transcending the River

PART TWO

My Spiritual Pilgrimage

8 The Paradigm of My Life

9 The Encounter

10 The Awakening and the Call

11 A Thorn in My Mind

12 God Meets Me at Seminary

13 Two Poles of a Magnet

14 Stones for the Building

15 Finding Clothes that Fit

16 Wandering in the Wilderness

17 Discerning the Will of God

18 Unwrapping Presents

19 The Cross VS My Dream

20 The Storm and the White Stone

21 Back to My First Love

22 The Frosting on the Cake

23 An Extraordinary Message

24 The Banquet

25 The Day is Far Spent

Epilogue

Appendix A

Appendix B

Dedicated to all those who have enriched my pilgrimage through life.

PROLOGUE

1.jpg

My life has been shaped by the influence of culture and faith, the struggle to define my cultural identity and the attempt to faithfully follow my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Some time ago I wrote the rough draft of my cultural journey. As I started planning the second manuscript, the story of my faith journey, I decided to combine the two. This book, Boundaries in Pleasant Places, is the result of that marriage. It is divided in two parts, the first, the story of how I came to define my cultural identity and the second the story of my life as I have tried to follow my Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a connection between a person's cultural identity and his/her spiritual journey, for if what Charles H. Kraft writes is true that culture is the sum total of the customary beliefs, social norms, and material traits of an ethnic, religious or social group, then culture does form the framework in which all of life, including religious experience, is lived. I have not given as much thought to the interplay of culture and faith as I should, but at appropriate places in the following chapters I will comment briefly on how facets of my cultural background have influenced my religious faith.

In writing my cultural and spiritual autobiography I have made ample use of the journals I have kept over the years, including references to or quotes, from books that have left their mark on me, and have downloaded numerous experiences and reflections from the hard drive of my memory.

Psalm 16 is one of my favorite Psalms. In verse 6 we read:

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance (NIV), or as the NRSV reads:

I have a goodly heritage.

The boundary lines could refer to my cultural identity, the pleasant places to my spiritual journey as it is expressed in the closing verse of the Psalm:

You show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in your right hand are pleasures forevermore (NRSV).

As I share the story of my life, I could focus only on those positive aspects of my journey, but I believe that, to be honest, I must also reflect on the dark shadows that have fallen across my path. I find a biblical precedent for this in the stories of Job and Jeremiah who did not hesitate to reflect on the difficult times in their lives, and in the experiences of the psalmists who so cogently describe in more than a quarter of the Psalms, their frustration, confusion, sorrow, anger and sense of abandonment. Nevertheless, I hasten to affirm that though there have been dark days, the boundary lines of my life have fallen in pleasant places and the path of life on which the Lord has accompanied me has offered fullness of joy and satisfying pleasure.

Why write the story of my life? We all love stories for they can communicate real life experiences in a way that rational essays can't. Unfortunately, writing a cultural and spiritual autobiography could turn into an exercise in navel gazing which benefits no one, but it can also be a means by which the spiritual experiences of one's life can be instrumental in helping other pilgrims on their journey. This is what I would hope to achieve through this, the story of my pilgrimage.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca

(the valley of tears or of little water)

they make it a place of springs;

the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

They go from strength to strength,

till each appear before God in Zion.

(Psalm 84:5-7)

PART ONE

1.jpg

MY CULTURAL PILGRIMAGE

1

CROSSING THE RIVER

On a warm summer evening in the month of September 1920, Frederick Julius Huegel, his wife Alleen DeGaris and their nine year old adopted daughter, Mildred Louise, arrived by train in Laredo, Texas. The next day they rented a wagon, piled in their belongings and crossed the Rio Grande River on the international bridge that joins the United States and Mexico. Once on the other side, in the city of Nuevo Laredo, they were received by men with big hats and rifles, that Alleen feared were bandits, but turned out to be immigration and customs officials of the Mexican government. After the customary protocol involved in crossing an international border, the review and stamping of documents and the inspection of their baggage, they proceeded to the railroad station to board the southbound afternoon train.

Under appointment by the Christian Women's Board of Missions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), they were about to begin their missionary service in Mexico, a country they grew to love and eventually considered to be their adopted land. They brought with them their own cultural baggage. My father's parents were both descended from German immigrants, members of the German Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where his father owned a small shoe store. The Huegel family modeled the German tradition of hard work and disciplined orderliness. My father had recently been discharged from the U.S. Army where he had served as a chaplain with the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Germany at the close of the First World War. My mother's father was the son of a French Huguenot immigrant and her mother was from an old English family who had moved to Missouri from Virginia before the Civil War. Her father owned a small drugstore in the town of Hannibal, Missouri. The family cherished the southern cultural values of courtesy and warm hospitality.

During the fifty years my parents lived in Mexico, they maintained their American citizenship and cultural identity but loved and served the Mexican people and established lasting and intimate friendships. For ten years they lived in central Mexico, in the cities of Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí, and my father directed the outreach program of the churches and my mother was the treasurer of the mission. During the time my parents lived in San Luis Potosí they suffered the death of their first born infant daughter, Frances, which my mother said drew them closer to the people. In 1930 they were reassigned to Aguascalientes where I was born, and in 1932 my sister Mildred, was married in San Luis.

When my parents moved to Mexico City in 1932, where they lived for the next forty years, my father taught in the Union Seminary and my mother took care of the home.

While living in Mexico City my mother received, raised and adopted a beautiful baby girl by the name of Esther who gave me and my parents much joy. In 1939, while on furlough in the U.S. (the periodic home assignment for missionaries), my father expressed his sentiments in a letter he wrote to some friends in Mexico: You can't imagine how I have suffered in my exile (that is how he referred to his furlough). What mitigates my suffering is having little Esther with us. She is a piece of our adopted homeland. When I embrace her I am embracing you.

When my parents retired in 1957, they chose to remain in Mexico, my father continued writing and traveled widely preaching and teaching. In 1970 when he needed medical care, they returned to the United States and resided near their beloved daughter, Esther, in the town of Edinburg, Illinois.

My wife, Yvonne was born and raised in Texas and comes from a family with white middle class values. Her father was a radiologist and inventor and her mother, raised two children, and kept books for the family business. Two of my children were born in Mexico and two in the U.S., but all of them were raised in Mexico and have spent time in the U.S. My three sons all married women from Guadalajara, Mexico. David, the oldest, lives with his family in Richmond, Texas, near the city of Houston. Daniel, the second, lives with his family in Southeast Asia. Elena, the third, has lived in South America for many years. And Joel, the youngest, lives with his family in Guadalajara, Mexico. They have all maintained both their U.S. and Mexican citizenships, and worked in different ways to come to terms with their cultural identity.

***

The River, known in Texas as the Rio Grande, but in Mexico as the Río Bravo, marks the boundary between two very different nations with very different cultures, one a first world power with predominant northern European protestant values and the other a third world nation with a rich mixture of Spanish, Roman Catholic and indigenous values. The River invites many from the north to visit, explore and enjoy the land beyond and even invest in its emerging economy. For multitudes from the south the same river forms a barrier to the opportunity for employment and better living conditions in the north.

In this first part of the book I share the story of how I have tried to come to terms with my cultural identity, and have struggled to discover which side of the River is truly my home. I recount the tensions and satisfactions, and the burdens and blessings of living in two cultures. Perhaps I am what David Pollock has called a third culture kid, a person who participates in a culture that is unique in that it is a blend of two cultures.

2

ON WHICH SIDE OF THE RIVER DO I BELONG?

I was born in the city of Aguascalientes, but since my parents were reassigned to Mexico City in 1932, I spent most of my childhood and youth in this cosmopolitan environment participating in both Mexican society and the American expatriate community. In my family of origin my parents imparted protestant middle class values to us, and, though they spoke English in the home, due to the influence of my playmates, I learned Spanish first. In 1934, a few months after her father's death, my mother took me on a short visit to Hannibal, Mo., and it was at that time that I experienced my first cultural disconnect, for since I spoke only Spanish, my grandmother was upset because she could not communicate with me. One day, frustrated, she said to my mother: Why don't you teach this child a civilized language? Her small town, provincial perspective on life did not permit her to realize that I spoke the language of Cervantes.

In Mexico City, though I enjoyed my playmates, children of the neighbors, and felt comfortable with them, I soon learned that I was different. Every Sunday my parents took me to Sunday School at Holy Trinity Methodist Church in downtown Mexico City. When I filed in for closing exercises, I was singled out from the other children with numerous oos and ahhs of mira qué bonito güerito, words of admiration for being such a cute blond little boy. I hated being singled out from the rest of the children and early on developed the secret wish that I could have dark hair. When my mother decided to take me to the Sunday School of the English speaking Union Evangelical Church in the city, I felt much more comfortable, and this became my church home where I spent many happy hours in the boys clubs, The Friendly Indians and The Pioneers.

I also learned that I was a gringo apestoso, a smelly gringo. No one is sure about the origin of the word gringo, but it is the term that many people in Mexico use in a derogatory sense when referring to people from the United States. I soon came to feel that, though I lived in Mexico and spoke the language of the people and wanted desperately to be identified with them, I did not completely fit in.

During 1938-39 my mother, my sister Esther and I spent a very happy furlough in the U.S. By that time I spoke fluent English and enjoyed my relationship with my grandmother. I had a good year in school, and made new friends. Later that year, my father joined us, and we spent a memorable summer in a cottage by Lake Monona, in Madison, Wisconsin, where I got to know my father's brothers and sister and their families, and enjoyed feeling connected to his extended family.

When we returned to Mexico, the Second World War had begun, travel restrictions were imposed, and we did not return to the U.S. until after the war ended in 1945. During that long hiatus I caressed an image that reminded me of the happy times I had enjoyed in the U.S. One evening while we were in Hannibal, a friend of the family, Muriel Williams,