Spirit in Action

Bill Wiese - The Ministry

Bill Wiese has served as a kind of representative of 6 Eau Claire area churches to UW-Eau Claire in a program known as "The Ministry". Bill, a life-long Methodist, provides a portal to the community for the students and enriches their lives by doing things like teaching free yoga sessions and sharing from his more than a decade under a Native American teacher.

Broadcast on:: 08 Jul 2007
Audio Format:: other

I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep. No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep. I have no arms but yours with which to hold. The ones grown weary from this struggle and weak from growing old. I have no voice but yours with which to see. To let my children know that I am out and out is everything. I have no way to feed the hungry souls. No clothes to give or make it and the more. So be my heart, my hand, my tongue through you and will be done. The enders have my none to help and die. Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands, being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. I have no way to open people's eyes, except that you will show them how to trust the inner mind. My guest today on Spirit in Action is Bill Wiese. Bill has served as a kind of representative from six Eau Claire area churches to U.W. Eau Claire in a program known as the Ministry. Bill, a lifelong Methodist, provides a portal to the community for the students and enriches their lives by doing things like teaching free yoga sessions and sharing from his more than a decade under a Native American teacher. Bill is well disposed to meet people where they are with an open and inquiring mind that looks for value wherever he can find it. Frank Montano and the beauty of Native American flute drew him to an in-depth study and practice of Native American ways while curiosity and openness drew him into yoga all the time without losing his Methodist roots. Bill, thanks for joining me today for Spirit in Action. I thought you were supposed to be teaching yoga today. Well, none of my students were able to make it, so we're going to have a little extra time to visit and that'll be kind of nice. Like I tell my students, don't ever come rushing to yoga because that's counter to the whole purpose of yoga. So, in fact, if you're stressed and rushing, then settle yourself and go about your business. If you want to come to yoga good, if you don't, then don't come. Come next week. You're part of something called the ministry that's been running for just a bit over a year, a year and a half at UW Eau Claire, sponsored by several area Eau Claire churches. What is the ministry? In the past year or actually a year and a half, instigated by first Presbyterian church here in Eau Claire, an assembly of five or six churches put together a ministry that could be taken out of the campus, essentially a portal from the campus out into the community and featuring six of the mainstream Protestant churches. So, first Presbyterian church and first congregational church, first Baptist, Lake Street Methodist, Chapel Heights Methodist, and Hope Methodist, all sponsor this ministry, which included hiring me and putting me on the campus, trying to do things that are useful on the campus. And that's the essence of the ministry right now. And we're now in our second year. I'm sure some people might find it rather peculiar that you, as a representative of all these different Christian churches, are teaching yoga on campus. How does that come about? Why are you teaching yoga as opposed to teaching them how to take communion? Our goal is to do something useful. I must admit sharing yoga practice with students. Number one is something I find useful. It's a practice that I've engaged in for the last five years. It's also easy for me to do, as opposed to going into something that I may need to find an extra resource person for or involve someone else in, and especially in a world where I'm not sure on a given day if one student is going to join me, no students or five students. It's very easy for me to share yoga, and again, I find it to be very useful. I know at times it becomes a question in people's minds as to whether yoga is a somehow exotic eastern practice that has no connection, in a sense, to a Christian practice. I think for those of us who've been involved in it and use it for its various purposes, we recognize it as just a useful tool in whatever practice you're doing. Because it links mind and body and spirit, it's just a useful tool on a very numerous different levels. One of the buzzwords I use in promoting yoga on the campus, and especially in the Christian light, I sometimes use the rhetorical statement, it's a way of using the body to quiet the mind in order to enter the spirit, and that's very much the essence of hatha yoga in many ways. I think you're a lifelong Methodist. How did you get into yoga? I am a lifelong Methodist. I was raised Methodist by a huge number of members of my family who are Methodist clergy, including my grandfather, who was one of the first radio preachers in the state of Wisconsin. So my roots in Methodism go way, way back. And I think because of that sort of deep involvement, Methodism embraces a wide variety of ideas. In fact, the essence of Methodist preaching is to lecture, in a sense, to explore the scriptures through translation and through history and so on, and then give it to someone to work with in terms of what they want to do with it spiritually. And so that whole academic approach to Methodism and that background leads me to really be quite interested in other things, things that pique my curiosity. For instance, my practice of yoga came about, there was an old school in Menominee that was defunct, and it was purchased by a group of Tibetan Buddhists, and it became the Himalayan Education Center, and it's still operating, and that's where we practice today. They brought a monk over from India, a lifelong practitioner named Yogi Raj. I think Sant, who is the director of the center, called me because he happens to know me, and he was calling everyone he knew just because they got this guy all the way from India, who's going to teach yoga, and he wanted some people in the room when the guy stepped out to teach, and so he said, "Why don't you come out?" Well, I did it mainly out of curiosity as well as to help out Sant, that there would be a body in the room when Yogi Raj demonstrated yoga. After practicing for an hour with Swami Raj, I realized, number one, I had just exercised for the first time probably since high school calisthenics, which was 40 years ago, and I also wasn't feeling winded, stiff, or uncomfortable. I actually felt kind of exhilarated and energized, and so I went the next time as well, and from that point, I just never stopped. So you started some five years ago doing that. I don't think you've taken a particular certification training, but somewhere you took over as the teacher, the leader for that group, maybe shared with other people, and now you're teaching at UW-Eau Claire. Is yoga something that you have to be certified at to be okay for teaching? There are two. It's kind of amusing because, especially in the Western world, in some respects, I guess you do. In our Western world, we're certification and accreditation, and credentials are deemed important. Oftentimes that's important, and it is. There are things to be learned and safety things to be concerned with. I was given the leadership of the group that we have in Menominee by our yoga master inadvertently. He spoke English as a second language, and so I wasn't always 100% sure I was understanding what he was telling me at any given time, and one day he asked me, they all made a clear to me, that he wanted me to lead a session, and I said, sure, I can remember the form, and I would be glad to lead the session, and I was a senior member of the group, so it made sense. After leading that session, he was back for the following session and made it clear that I was going to be leading from that point on, because he was leading for a permanent assignment in Chicago, and so he left, and I haven't seen him since, and he smiled at me and assured me, he said, it'll be fine. He just keep doing this, and keep learning, and keep leading, and you will be fine. After five years, I still feel fine. Where do you lead the classes on campus, and how do people get involved with those UW-au-Claire yoga classes that you teach? We've been using the Davey Center. The style of Hatha yoga that I practice lends itself very well to that, but we can literally practice on grass, we can practice on carpeted floors, ideal, but there's no need for mats or blocks or any other paraphernalia, so we meet in one of the rooms in the Davey Center, typically the Arrowhead room. There's posters posted around the campus. For the coming semester, my students were eager enough to have a little more opportunity to practice. They wanted me to jump up to two times a week instead of one, so we're going to meet at three o'clock in the Davey Center in the coming semester on Wednesdays, and then we're going to meet on Fridays at noon in the Davey Center, and typically it'll be the Arrowhead room unless otherwise posted. By the way, I always try and remind people, even though I promote it, and it's designed on the campus for students and staff and anyone else who wants to be involved, anyone in the community is always welcome to join us. There is no charge when we practice yoga and we typically practice for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on how available the people are who are working out with us, and anyone can come. If you can weather the predator parking on the campus, you're always welcome to stop in in the Davey Center and join us. Do you mean that you don't have to pay for it at all in any way? You mean you don't even have to pay by getting baptized Methodist or something? No, you really don't. Again, I think Hatha Yoga is such a useful practice, and they're again one of the amusing things I've found in being even attached to the Himalayan Center. I think any of us who have been involved in a church recognize that there's a spiritual place and there's a physical place of managing a group, and then there's a sort of dogmatic place everywhere. My first exposure to Hatha Yoga and some of the other practices that are attached to Buddhism and Hinduism and some of the Eastern religions, I thought, "Wow, I finally found the most pure and perfect place." And after I was around long enough, I realized, no, there's fiscal management and there's administrative Buddhists, and there are dogmatic Buddhists, and some Buddhists are bigger than other Buddhists, and there's the same sort of clutter that we find in our Christian practices as well. But no, there's no requirements, there's no mandates. In fact, I'm delighted by the fact that almost all the students I come in contact with have sort of multifaceted connections on the campus, and there's many Christian connections on the campus and other connections on the campus that are really useful, and most of them use the ones that are most useful at any given time. What does a typical yoga practice that you do on campus consist of? You said 30 to 40 minutes. My wife, when she teaches yoga, for instance, she likes to work out, she says an hour, minimum, hour and a half is really optimal for yoga practice, from her point of view. What kind of yoga practice could we expect from Bill Wheezy? Particularly when I'm working on the campus, although I kind of follow that same idea, there are certain stages, I guess I would call them, any workout that are pretty useful and almost necessary the way I practice. One of them is always a joints and glands workout. One might equate it almost to the warm-ups you watch a football team do or whatever. It's the movement of the body in order to kind of wake it up, stimulate it, get it prepared for more aggressive or maybe better put, more demanding types of moves, so I always use that. In my regular daily practice, that's a 30-minute practice. If I'm going to do a 30-minute session, obviously that might limit to about five or ten minutes probably, but a third of that session will be limbering, stretching, getting the body prepared. From that point on, we'll move into more of the more classic yoga that you might see in Yoga Journal or in a yoga workout tape called Asana Yoga, where we'll go down on the floor and actually do various meditative poses that stretch and use different postures of the body to stimulate different systems in the body. What I overlook in mentioning this, Prana awareness is everything. In fact, sometimes I find myself saying when I'm teaching yoga, if you can learn to breathe, all the rest is just trappings hanging around it. In fact, if you breathe, therefore you live, everything else will fall into place. In fact, the first stage of any who joints and glands work out is breath awareness. I like the analogy that one of my instructors once made that it's not really breath control and don't turn it into breath control, but become aware of the breath, know where the breath is and everything else will just layer over the top of it and build on it. [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] [Singing in Kṛṣṇa] You said you're a lifelong Methodist. You've never been to a seminary or whatever you have to do to get certified as a Methodist preacher. Do you see yourself as a minister? I think I certainly do. To back up a little bit in my career, I started out as a journalist. After being a journalist for 20 years, I saw that as a ministry. I had real information to do, and I took it very seriously when I was a journalist, that when I was given information and reporting on situations and so on, that the ministry was for me to be able to take those events, make them concise enough that people could have time to absorb them, but also make them precise enough that they would be very understandable and very useful to them. That's how I ended up in Western Wisconsin. I came up to the Menominee and Eau Claire area and was Regional Public Relations Director for Wisconsin Public Television and also Wisconsin Public Radio. Over time, things changed and restructured and eventually my position was moved to Madison. I waved goodbye to the position and decided I wanted to stay up here. That's when lots of interesting doors opened up, things that I could explore that I never thought I would be doing as a career. I've been able to explore many employment opportunities, but I've seen them as ministry opportunities. One of those came up when I was able to take on a part-time position running the House of Hope and Menominee. That's the homeless shelter that's run by interfaith volunteers there. It was in its infancy. They were looking in the near part-time director to run her over to keep an eye on the facility as well as work with the people who passed through the facility. And I took that on as a job, you know, I need income, but I also found it to be fascinating. And I wasn't in that job very long before I recognized it that it was ministry. And it may be too lofty a term, but the truth was I was nothing but a gatekeeper for the Holy Spirit and the spiritual things that could happen in this world. All I needed to do was be there and open myself to what could happen. And I got to watch miracles happen in a homeless shelter over and over again, which made it delightful. In the process of grabbing at things that came along, I'm now a professional mentor. I have been for 12 years in Dunn County. That gives me the opportunity to be paired with at-risk young people who are identified by the juvenile justice system. And I just get to spend fun and wonderful time with them. And there again, there's an element of ministry there, although it's mainly friendship and relationships that I get to forge with enjoyable young people. You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by, and so become yourself. Because the past is just a good life. Teach your children well, their fathers help. Did slowly go by and feed them on your dreams. The one they'd pick, the one you'll know by. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you to cry. So just look at them and sigh. And know they love you. And you'll be up ten years. And I know the things that your elders grew up with. And so please help your children with your youth. They see the truth before they can die. To live and teach your parents well. That children's help will slowly go by and feed them on your dreams. The one they'd pick, the one you'll know by. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you you would cry. So just look at them and sigh. And know they love you. This is probably the most formal, again with a name tacked on it. The ministry and my opportunity to work on the university campus is probably the most formal version of ministry I've ever been involved in. And even there people find it different than putting on a robe and preaching on Sunday morning. The six churches that are involved locally are incredibly supportive of that, recognizing that my blue jeans and my ponytail and my time on the campus might not look exactly like they think of as what a ministry would be and yet it has useful result. One of the things I think you have in your background bill is a fair amount of engagement with Native American practices. You've been on a path of learning with Native American practices. I think you're being mentored in at least one particular practice of Native American recognizing there's a lot of different varieties and strains of Native American practice. How did you get connected with that? And again is this Methodist thing to be involved with Native American practices? Certainly some Methodist would shy away from Native American practice and in the same breath I could say some Methodist would recognize how beautifully it layers into our Christian background and even into our particular denominational background. Native American practice just to make a quick general statement about it has such a useful place where we live and it's by the nature of what you're saying native to where we are. The places, the herbs, the things that are needed are absolutely available here and that's because the people who practice this and practice it had those things immediately available. Didn't have to manufacture them, didn't have to import them or whatever and so there's some very strong valuable items to be learned from it. Again my background told me to look into things that made me curious, embrace things that looked interesting and curious. Don't shy away from them for any reason and if they're useful then practice them. Don't just look at them and study them and stay a distance from them but in fact if they're useful if they prove to be valuable then practice them. I'd like to say immerse but I think that would be too strong. I'm not that disciplined but in fact practice. When I was first exposed to Native American culture many years ago I happened to see Frank Mantono play traditional flute at the La Crosse Folk Festival and was quite drawn to it. Beautiful instrument and he's a powerful musician. Several years later I happened to read a paragraph in the Dunn County News that noted that there was going to be an artist in residence working on flute carving at the high school. I kind of figured it was Frank and I called the activities director there and indeed it was Frank Mantono doing an artist in residency at Menominee High School and I asked if I could join the class and there was a little bit of a hoop dance. It's called well it's just for the high school students and on and on it went but to make a long story short they allowed me to join that flute carving class. I think on the strength of the fact that I said you may not realize who you have here. I said this would be an equivalent of having a little cello workshop being taught by Yo-Yo Ma and that's how powerful Frank's status is in the traditional flute world. I said this is like having Yo-Yo Ma here I said I really can't afford to miss this and like so many things you know if it's meant to be it was meant to be and so I carved flutes with Frank for two weeks in this workshop. By the end of two weeks much to my surprise I thought he would be booked constantly by members of the community wanting to just have more quality time with him visiting and actually he was alone in his motel room for two weeks and so he came over to my house almost every night and we began to look at things beyond the flute and I recognized very early on that there were incredible lessons to be learned from the carving of the wood and the relationship with a piece of cedar that becomes a voice and very soon after that realized that those types of relationships are all around us. And that's the essence of the Native American spirituality that I've been taught and that I practice it's awareness it's awareness of all the forces that are around us and available to us if we just open our eyes and pay attention to them. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] For some I think if you're in typically western oriented it looks like a lot of meaningless superstition but when you start practicing and using medicine you start to recognize just how profoundly these things affect you. For instance the use of sage one of the very first medicines that I ever tried and experimented with. I have very very strong memories of the very first times my teacher and I went out to seek sage the process we used and giving thanks to accept that sage for our use. After I had I mean the fact that first times I looked for it I couldn't find it and yet sage leaps off the landscape with its distinctive gray green color so brightly that now I can see it at 75 miles an hour traveling down an interstate but when I first looked for it it was like I was totally blind to that plant. Shortly after I'd begun the practice of smudging my teacher one time probably six seven months after I've been smudging ceremonially said Bill when was the last time he had a cold or a virus that you can remember. I said hmm I can't think of one and he said well that's physiological recognizing that our bodies extend beyond our skin and so in fact the aura around our body is part of our body. Our body will extend somewhere between six inches and three feet beyond our skin depending on the energy in our aura at any given time. Every bacteria every virus every foreign element that has to get into our body has to pass through that envelope around us. He said if you're brushing that sage through there that's constantly cleansing that aura that's the whole concept of a smudge. He says it just makes logical sense that if you're constantly brushing that sage in that aura it's constantly just like washing it outside of your skin. You are constantly flushing these things away from yourself and if they can't get into the aura they can't get into your body. Again these things make logical sense to me after exploring the use of various herbal medicines. You have a teacher for these Native American practices are you in turn able to be a teacher? Have you done things like sweat lodges and so on? I do share some of these things and it's on a sort of situation by situation basis. My own feeling has been that out of curiosity I've explored some things that might have been thought to be incompatible with my own background. And yet as I've explored the ones that have really caught my interest I've decided that I need to practice some. I can't just touch on them I can't just look at them I can't just learn about them until you immerse yourself enough to actually practice some of these things. Might be the equivalent of looking at the cover of a book until you've actually opened that book and read from cover to cover. You really haven't experienced the book so the Native American practices I clearly have opted to use the information. Daily put it to use and experiment with it and play with it the same with the yoga practice. I've chosen to practice consistently week in and week out and see what kind of effect it has on me rather than just touch on it and then move on. I think there's always a wonderful place for looking at things and being curious about them. And I call it dabbling but not in a negative sense but just dabbling in things touching them lightly. But if we really want to experience them and find their benefits then we need to take the next step and practice and move from being a dabbler into being someone who is actually practicing things. In light of the question I'm slow oftentimes to share some of the Native American way. I do as it's necessary when people need it or specifically ask about it I oftentimes share it. A good example of that some of the utensils we use and so forth in native way are gorgeous. I remember one time I was doing a pipe ceremony and my son happened to be back from college. He happened to walk into the yard and see me in the process of this and he sat down and he said wow you really got some neat stuff now dad. And I have accumulated some wonderfully beautiful objects and they're very useful objects and I find that in and of itself one of the great wonders and pleasures of practicing some of the Native American medicine way. On the other hand I'm careful I think not to put those in front of young people or impressionable people because the objects themselves are not the point and sometimes I think they can be drawn to them mistakenly and not recognize again dabbling the objects and not realize what the purpose is. How does something like Native American practice compare with something like your Methodist practice and I'm assuming kind of that you're doing both at the same time are these just two completely dissimilar worlds or is there overlap? Is there a way in which they have commonality? I so often see these things as layering particularly Native American practice the longer I've practiced that I've realized all of us have a traditional ancient tribal religion that we came from. Regardless of where our orientation may have shifted to Christianity for instance in my case my roots go back into Western Europe and the ancient Western European ways literally mirror precisely the ancient Ojibwe ways that I've been taught. And the interesting thing is the only difference is they were Native to Western Europe and therefore use the herbs, use the locations, use the environment that's there as opposed to the Ojibwe way which is consistent with the Great Lakes and the herbs and the places and so forth there. So that's one of the things that I've found to be a commonality. Several years ago on Native American Sunday my home church asked me if I would share some Native American liturgy if you will some Native American way just to honor that day within our church. What I suggested we do and that we ended up doing was that I would layer a traditional pipe ceremony over the top of our traditional Methodist liturgical worship time. It came to me because many many times when I've gone through a traditional prayer ceremony in the Ojibwe way I even kind of chuckle because I can almost see the little lines in our Methodist discipline that would say now at this point a hymn should be sung or whatever and as you read through the liturgy and literally find that in fact the elements of worship were identical. I practiced in a different way, said in different words but the invocation of spirit and the focusing of the self inward, the opening of the mind to the word. All of these stages are very as natural in the Ojibwe way as they are in the Methodist way and it was rather fascinating actually when we actually dissected it and then layered it specifically as opposed to just recognizing that the spiritual practice is spiritual practice and it doesn't matter what words or what discipline you use. I think that there's a lot of Christians out there and I would probably think of towards a more fundamentalist edge that would be absolutely aghast that you would say that there is any similarity because after all the Native Americans don't talk about Jesus and therefore it's not real spirituality and it's not real God and it's not really anything that in fact it's like false gods or something like that. Do you bill have any hesitation about this and what's your feeling about how you have to include Jesus in everything if you're a Christian? That's a challenging question because again I can honor the place of someone who has a very clear definition of who Jesus is, what Jesus is, what the word is, what the Christ is. And I think for many people it's very very useful. For me that definition is just broader. I guess as there are hundreds of languages in this world and the name of Jesus can be said in numerous different languages with different translated surnames if you will, just as the term the word of the Christ can be defined in many many ways. For instance I had a more conservative friend of mine one time raised exactly that issue of when you pray and lift herbs into the upward and downward and the four directions and you salute the spirit in six different directions. Are you not doing some sort of pagan if not blasphemous thing rather than recognizing the Holy Spirit? And she was comforted by the fact that I said yes I guess if that's your belief system. No if you're me who recognize those six directions as simply tools for me to get organized. Tools for me to be aware of forces that I tend to place in the upward direction or force the Holy Spirit as it appears in the lower direction on this planet or the Holy Spirit as it appears in the elements of everything in the earth. I said for me it's just a way of organizing a prayer so that I am adequately grateful for all the things that are given to me. Easier for me to do it or sometimes easier for me to do it in a six part prayer that has definitions that are based on direction and color and different elements within our earth as opposed to one lump sum the Holy Spirit and Jesus through the Holy Spirit. It keeps me at it longer if nothing else and I joke about that once in a while when someone asks me to offer an Ojibwa table grace. I said how cold do you want the food? I mean there's a lot of thanks that has to be done in a traditional Ojibwa table grace and you might want me to get started at four o'clock in the afternoon so we'll actually be eating at six. [Music] He used to call him Jesus all the time ago but still calling Jesus all the time ago. Let's do my son to stand here close if you don't know and it gave him his heart a lead of life. [Music] They call him not my Buddha all the time ago. He turned the world to water, launch him home. He used to set knowing all the time ago where you will need the wind. [Music] Build these six churches have hired you to be the ministry on campus and obviously there's a lot of other ministries going on on campus both Christian and I think non-Christian. How do you sit relative to these other folks you know campus crusade for Christ or the Lutherans or whatever where on the continuum do you exist relative to them? Part of my question is are you more liberal conservative if those words fit but more theologically open and close how do you see yourself as different or similar than them? I guess if we had to use the L word I personally probably fall in a kind of a liberal place in the sense we've been talking for a while and obviously I'm willing to embrace things that some people are less comfortable with. I think that's exactly why I was put into this position is there are very few things that I will recoil from and be uncomfortable with. So it gives me the opportunity to connect with students on whatever they want to come to the ministry where whatever they bring to the ministry I'm going to feel very comfortable with. It's certainly one of the challenges of campus ministry today. One of the basic challenges is spirituality and the pursuit of Christian way or any spiritual way is probably less important to a traditional college student than some of us would like to think it should be. There too I come to the ministry at UW Eau Claire with an underpinning feeling that the most important thing for someone between the ages of 16 and say 26 is social relationships and how to forge those. In essence how to make friends and how to find a life mate if you will or someone people you're comfortable with and forging relationships and therefore I can embrace that side of things that says the most important thing you're doing. The only thing you're doing is social. You will have time to explore inward or outward in the spiritual world that's also part of your life. Right now make sure you understand how to live and get along with each other and then everything else will start to fall into place. With that in mind I can lovingly and joyfully embrace the person who turns up for an event that we're doing with the ministry and it's very clear they're just cruising to see who's around and who they can make a relationship with. I think that's ideal. I can also embrace the person who is starting to seek some sort of spiritual guidance and what direction can we go with that. I may offend some people here by using a few stereotypes. To me you look more like you came from the hippie strain than from used car salesman televangelist strain. Does that fit for you? Is that your roots? Are you co-op natural foods person from way back or what are the kind of life choices that you've made that are part of the basis of how you live your life? Well surely the ponytail gives me a way. I am an aging hippie. I also think that's one of the reasons that the hiring group was willing to put me on campus. The one thing that could be sure of is I stand out as I wander the campus at 6'5" and with a ponytail it hangs to my waist. People can pick me out and figure out that I'm not on campus just at random. In answer to the question it's sort of yes yes no and I'd like to think I was all those things. I was a college student in the late 60's and early 70's that says a lot particularly I was on the University of Wisconsin Madison campus and in an era that both flower power and of course war protest and ecological issues and racial issues and so forth were raging on the campus. I was attached loosely at times and more involved at times in those things but I did come from that place. As I passed through a more conservative if you will appearance wise time. At age 40 I happened to look in the mirror one day and thought you know when I retire I'm going to grow my hair back out and be more of what I want to be and am than what I'm trying to do to please others. And I decided wait a minute why wait and so in fact I think since I was 40 I've had a tendency to do more of what I really am and less of what I think people think I should be. An amusing anecdote on that my oldest son one time I happened to reference a friend of mine who was engaging what I considered fairly outlandish behavior and I made the comment that she was going through her mid-life crisis. My son looked at me and he said so like you've never done a mid-life crisis I said not really. I said I think I feel like I've rather smoothly evolved into what I am. He said so you didn't notice the year that you turned 40 quit your job and became an Indian. So Bill you've been doing this thing for a year and a half I assume you're projecting something into the future. What is really supposed to come out of the ministry the title of the organization or the effort that you're doing. What's really supposed to come out of this as far as you're concerned or maybe as far as your six church sponsors are concerned. First off I think we're still formative enough that that's a hard one to define but let me talk in terms of my personal vision for this ministry and in many respects that's the same as what the definition is right now. I really see the ministry as a portal a gateway from the campus into the community. Obviously that pathway because of its sponsorship and the way we're going about it is a pathway from the campus through the churches that are sponsoring us. Although obviously in our conversation you're recognizing that that's way way broader than denominational or specific church buildings or church ways. I think that's a valid goal I have always felt from my own college experience from watching my own sons go to college and the people I know in colleges. If I had anything to in a sense remake out of my own experience I was on an incredibly exhilarating campus in an incredibly exhilarating time and left myself locked in a little bubble of that academic and social world that was the University of Wisconsin Madison. I think that's fairly characteristic of traditional students that they allow themselves to immerse themselves in that bubble and in that respect is very good but also miss out on all kinds of things that I discovered about Madison after the fact and I've discovered in the various communities I've lived, resources, simple things like friendships and maybe a hot meal on occasion where somebody else cooks it for you or whatever. Involvement with neighbors and friends and beautiful places that are five miles off the campus that you just never realized because again you tended to think of the boundary of your life as being the edge of the campus. So in fact I really see the ministry as that tool for students to explore out into the community via a Christian path because it is the ministry but in every way shape or form that they can see fit. Bill, if people want to get a hold of you and connect with you, how should they do that? I guess one way is that they can show up for yoga class on either Wednesday at 3 or Friday at noon in the Arrowhead room at Davy Center. That's one way. How else can they get a hold of you? That's the most, what you just described is the only fixed spot where we exist on campus at this point otherwise we have an active phone line that I always joke about. I carry in my pocket and that is the central office for the ministry right in my shirt pocket. That phone number is 715-2710122. I've also got an email address at UWEC ministry at Yahoo. Our six sponsoring churches, if anyone happened to contact any one of those, they typically always know where I am or have a sense of where I am and what's going on. Bill, thanks for taking the time to be with me. It's good to see someone with a nice long ponytail. Unfortunately, my hair has disappeared to the point where I can't even make a tiny braid much less full-scale one. I really envy you, your beard. I've never been able to have the patience to let my beard grow much even though I haven't shaved in 30 years. Well, at my age, and maybe I dare say at our age, when people ask me why I won't cut my hair, at my age I figure I've got a flaunt, anything I've got left, and I think that's about all that's left. But yeah, it's been real fun to visit, and I guess I'm going to continue to look and be what I am and enjoy every minute of it. Good luck with the ministry on campus. Thanks, Bill. [Music] In the time of my confession, in the hour of my lead is near. When the pool of tears beneath my feet, flood every newborn sea, there's a dying force within me, reaching out somewhere, toiling in the danger, and in the miles of despair. Don't have the inclination to earth back on any mistake, like can I now behold this chain of events that I must break. In the fury of the moment, I can see the masters hand, in every leap that trembles, in every grain of sand. All the flowers of indulgence, and the weeds of yesterday, like criminals they have choked the breath of conscience in good cheer. The sun be down upon the steps of time to light the way, to ease the pain of light and death and the memory of decay. I gaze into the doorway of temptations and remain, and every time I pass that way, I always hear my name. Then onward in my journey, I come to understand that every hair is numbered, like every grain of sand. [music] [music] [music] I have gone from rags to riches, in the sorrow of the night, in the violence of a summer stream, in the chill of a winterly light, and the bitter dance of loneliness, fading into space, in the broken fear of innocence on each forgotten face. I hear the age in footsteps, like the motion of the sea. Sometimes I turn there, someone there, or the times it's only me. I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand. [music] [music] [music] You've been listening to an interview with Bill Wiese of the Ministry at UW Eau Claire. Music featured on this program has included "Om Asatoma" by David Premal, "Teacher Children" by Crosby Stills National Young, "On Eagle's Wings" by R. Carlos Nakay, Jesus by Kat Stevens, also known as Yusaf Islam, and finally "Every Grain of Sand" by Bob Dylan. You can hear this program again, find more links and information about this program by on my website. That's northernspiritradio.org. The theme music for Spirit in Action is "I Have No Hands but Yours" by Carol Johnson. Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. I have no higher cause for you than this. To love and serve your neighbor, enjoy in selflessness. To love and serve your neighbor, enjoy in selflessness. [Music] You