Forthcoming: Hello from InterCity Train 954

My essay “Hello from InterCity Train 954” is forthcoming, to be published this spring. Here is an excerpt:

“I grew up in Cokato, Minnesota within Conservative Laestadianism, a socially conservative and highly controlling religious group with sect-like and cultish traits. Represented in North America by the Laestadian Lutheran Church, the group has roots in the pietist Lutheran revival initiated by Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861) in Gárasavvon, Sápmi during the 1840s. Performance art and contemporary circus are avoided in Laestadianism, understood as the work of the devil. My father would not even attend a classical music concert by the Minnesota Orchestra featuring the Kullervo Symphony, Op. 7 by Jean Sibelius, with Osmo Vänskä conducting the orchestra and the visiting Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat, Finland’s leading men’s choir. After officially apostatizing from the Laestadian Lutheran Church in fall 2015, I tried to come up with something for my parents and I to do together. Given our Finnish background and their strict religious lifestyle, I thought a classical music concert would be suitable neutral ground. They initially agreed to join, but cancelled the day before, my father saying, “who knows what that might lead to.” I went with friends instead and the distance between me and my parents continued growing.

The worry my father expressed lives strong in the minds of Conservative Laestadians, concern that something like a classical music concert could function as a source of temptation and an entry — a sort-of gateway drug — into other forms of culture, eventually leading to, for the life of a Laestadian believer, exposure to something spiritually damaging like the hedonistic and sensual performance I attended in October. I distinctly remember the calls I heard as a child in Laestadianism to be watchful for the work of the Devil. “If you give him your little finger, he will take your whole arm,” we were warned. I would often go to bed afraid, feeling too embarrassed to confess my sins and ask for forgiveness, worrying that the end of the world might come while I was asleep at night, and I would be sent to hell since I carried unforgiven sin on my conscience. Even impure thoughts and doubting the truth of the movement are sin in Laestadianism.”