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TODD MOE: It's four minutes past 10 o'clock. Good morning. I'm Todd Moe with regional news from Minnesota Public Radio.

Northwest Airlines and its pilots union have settled a dispute about overtime pay that could have resulted in canceled flights over the holidays. Under the accord, Northwest has more flexibility to schedule pilots for more than 80 hours a month, but will have to pay time and a half for the extra hours. Northwest has had to cancel flights at month's end because of the cap on flight hours. Paul Omad is a spokesman for the Airline Pilots Association, which represents Northwest's 5,900 pilots.

PAUL OMAD: We've been working on this problem for quite a long time. We had some special high-level staffing negotiations early this spring that broke off with the company. We started talks again about three weeks ago, and finally reached a conclusion about two weeks ago, and we formally ratified the deal on Saturday. I think this eases the tensions as we go into our main contract negotiations.

TODD MOE: The new staffing agreement is separate from the current round of contract bargaining, in which all three of Northwest's major unions are seeking pay increases.

Secretary of State Joan Growe wants all Minnesotans of voting age to be able to vote by mail in the next presidential primary. She plans to ask the 1997 legislature to establish the first statewide vote by mail for the next presidential primary.

Two Minnesota state senators say reforming the state's prison industries work program will be one of their top priorities for the 1997 session. Senators Tom Neuville and Dave Kleis coauthored a bill last year that called for a five-year plan that could make the work program pay for itself.

The city of St. Paul has declared a snow emergency beginning at 9 o'clock tonight. All night routes will be plowed, and tomorrow morning beginning at 8:00 AM, all day routes will be plowed. And that's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Todd Moe.

GARY EICHTEN: Tough weather conditions developing across all of the state of Minnesota. Again, a winter storm warning is in effect for the extreme southeastern corner of the state today, down around Winona. Winter weather advisories and snow and blowing snow advisories in effect for much of the rest of the state today. It's going to snow through the afternoon with cold, brisk winds causing some blowing and drifting.

Already roads have started to deteriorate here in the Twin City metropolitan area. All highways, including the interstates, are now in fair to poor driving conditions. They're starting to get icy, and the snow is starting to build up a little bit. Poor driving conditions in the Duluth area with lots of fog, light snow, icy roads, and the rest. Fair to poor driving conditions down in Wilmer in west central Minnesota. And down in southeastern Minnesota, again, fair to poor winter driving conditions.

[GENTLE MUSIC]

Today on Voices of Minnesota, we have two interviews for you. Later, we'll be hearing from St. Paul jazz vocalist Roberta Davis. First, though, we're going to hear from Fred Myers. One cold winter day 26 years ago, Mr. Myers had too much to drink. He fell asleep in a client's car. Myers was a successful executive for a large construction equipment company. Luckily for Myers, someone found him before he froze to death.

That experience, though, convinced Fred Myers it was time to change his life, and in the process he decided to change the lives of others as well. He is the founder of the 12-year-old St. Paul-based company called Rebuild Resources. The employees at Rebuild Resources are chronic alcoholics. The company repairs and sells lift trucks and has an apparel-printing business.

Now Myers is raising money to build a $3 million school, an academy, he calls it, because he says many hardcore alcoholics need education to get a job. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson talked with Myers on the shop floor of Rebuild Resources.

FRED MYERS: What we try to do is provide transitional employment to stabilize these people for about three to six months. And then we graduate them. We place them in jobs. And I'm not talking about menial jobs. Some pretty good jobs. So we have a constant turnover here.

DAN OLSON: So you're not a charity? The banks don't see you as a charity?

FRED MYERS: Oh, no. What we are is an investment, and we are an investment in a new way of doing things. And again, I want to say this. Our whole model, our outside model, is we should be building lives in this country instead of building prisons.

DAN OLSON: So the banks don't see you as a charity. They see you as a potentially profit-making business, although you're not turning a profit just yet. But you're dealing with some of the most unemployable folks in the country. How do you expect to make it go?

FRED MYERS: Well, we don't expect to make it go, we are making it go. Because what's happened is we started out with two kids and a supervisor back in '85, and gradually we've been building the business and building the graduates. We graduated six kids the first year. Last year, as an example, we graduated 43. The first year we were 10% self-sufficient, and this year we're running 85% self-sufficient. So it's been a growth curve.

We don't say we did everything right, but what we have is learned how to run it. And we know it works. And I always said if it works for one guy, it can work for hundreds of guys.

DAN OLSON: About how many graduates so far?

FRED MYERS: 375. It's right in that range.

DAN OLSON: You said about 375 or so graduates so far. About how many have made it? About how many are still clean?

FRED MYERS: Well, I think that I have to tell you our ratio, first of all, how many we graduate. Now, we're talking about people that the halfway house people that we get tell you without this program, they're going to go down the tube. So they got limited if any chance at all of making it without this program. We graduate 35% to 40% of any kid that stays a week or more. I call them all kids. The average age in here is in the 20s.

But out of that we've made, of the graduates, we've made four major studies over the years, and we're fixed to make another one. And we've contacted every graduate we've had, and some of them you can't contact because they've moved on, or then some went back to another state or whatever. But every study has ended up the same. Between 70% and 75% of these people are retaining sobriety, and that are positive, contributing members of society.

DAN OLSON: The people who work at Rebuild Resources in many cases walk out the door into jobs, and there are those who don't. You want to build an academy, which will be like a school. It'll teach basic skills. Where are the families for these people? Why can't they, the families, be the academy, if you will, for the folks here at Rebuild Resources? Or if the families aren't there, why can't the community college system, the vocational technical college system-- it has different names now in Minnesota, I understand-- or those entities be the academy?

FRED MYERS: Well, the first question was about the families. Basically, these people haven't got a family. They come out of dysfunctional homes, broken homes, or no homes at all. So there is nothing behind the majority of these people. And the second place, in the stability end of the thing, you need to have something that is really the center of spiritual growth.

DAN OLSON: Why is the spiritual component important for a person addicted to alcohol, trying to kick the habit?

FRED MYERS: Well, if you really look at the 12 steps of AA, then you would understand that it is a spiritual program. And actually, what it needs is amplification, and it needs people from an opportunity to take in religious aspects of the community.

DAN OLSON: One winter you had an epiphany. A big part of business is entertaining. You were out with a client, as the story goes, and the client forgot you in the car.

FRED MYERS: Well, it was a celebration of a big sale, and we ended up having a pretty big bust on the drinking. And oh, I'd probably had enough behind me at that point to know that I had a real big problem. But it's easy to blame everybody else, but I couldn't deny this one. And that led me into getting some help. And I was 41 then.

DAN OLSON: I think the details are, the client forgot about you in the car. The client was drunk, and you nearly died.

FRED MYERS: Well, I say I nearly died, but what it was is that it was a really cold night, and if his wife hadn't thought about me I might have froze to death out there. But at any rate, it wasn't a desirable situation.

DAN OLSON: And that changed things for you. What happened in your mind after then?

FRED MYERS: Well, first of all, I'd had a guy who reached into my life earlier on and had given me a book to read, which was called Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired. But I put it on the shelf and never read it. But I kind of controlled my drinking for a while, and I think I was halfway controlling it, anyway. And then this episode led me-- I was so sick at that time, that led me to call him. And he ended up yanking me down into a recovery program where basically, in my view, saved my life. And so he was doing a 12-step, is what he was doing.

DAN OLSON: And it's been how long since you've had a drink?

FRED MYERS: Well, if I can make it to another week and a half, it'll be 25 years.

DAN OLSON: That's a long time. And you're still in business. You're around people, presumably, who drink.

FRED MYERS: Oh yeah, and I don't have any desire to drink. I mean, basically, for most people, that leaves after maybe the first year or two, any desire for chemicals. I mean, for most people. And I said, if I make it. I was being facetious there, because it's a heck of a program. And it's a heck of a positive way to live.

DAN OLSON: It seems to me an easy solution for dealing with some problem drinkers would be to make alcohol just a lot more expensive than it is right now, and that would make it somewhat less available.

FRED MYERS: Well, I don't know if that'd work or not. I think that people-- see, what they want to do is feel better. And if you don't have any self-worth-- and I don't think I had much, for some reason or another. I don't know what it was in my background. But if you have a need for a mood-altering drug, and they've got the price of-- we've tried to limit the amount of drugs coming into this country. Quite frankly, I don't think we have, because they're readily available. But one thing we've been able to do is get the price jacked up on it and cause more crime, in my view.

But I'll tell you something. If you've got a need to feel better, you'll find a way to get the stuff, and/or you'll steal it. So I question that. What we need to change is we need to change environments, and we need to change how people are getting raised. And we need to change how people view alcohol as they view drugs. Because what alcohol is, is a drug.

DAN OLSON: Why are you trying to do this privately with donations, running it as a business, as opposed to going to some nonprofit status and accepting a lot more public money and getting arranged that way?

FRED MYERS: Well, we are nonprofit, but we took the idea that-- I think that if the private sector ever decides they're going to lick this crime and chemical dependency thing, then I think they can lick it. But what we expect all the time is we got all these problems, so we try to call the government in to fix these things. And quite frankly, in this area, in this arena, they don't fix much.

I think the government is good at running police departments and fire departments and a lot of good things that they run. But when you get into this human element, I don't think they're all that well-prepared and motivated to do what we're trying to do. And so I'm thinking we need to run this as a business, so we need to get self-sufficiency.

We don't need a lot of red tape and we need only the board of directors and the management calling the shots on what we do. Now we can turn around on a dime and make a decision and make a move that would take forever if we were saddled with some government restrictions.

DAN OLSON: Well, you're a very optimistic guy. You exude confidence, a can-do spirit. But the odds are daunting. There are a lot of people out there who are problem drinkers. You're going to reach a relative handful of them. What more needs to be done?

FRED MYERS: Well, I think that the big picture is we've got to get this academy going. And I know we'll get it done, because we've got to make something happen. We're backed by a lot of people. It starts right with the criminal justice situation. Frank Wood, just retiring commissioner of corrections and advocate. Most people in the chem death field are a big advocate.

And what we're doing is setting up a model, and we've been asked from people all over the country, not all over, but anybody that's heard of us, they want to figure out how to run a Rebuild Resources. Well, they want one in Peoria. They want one in Denver, Colorado. They want one a lot of places. We think if we can get this model going, and we can develop people right through the program-- all our managers are kids that come through this program. They're now running all these operations. We think that this thing can multiply, as I say.

And we're not trying to get big-time or grandiose, but we think the model can be replicated anywhere, and then we'll really start making a dent. And the thing about it is we got to quit thinking about numbers. We've got to say, well, I'm satisfied if one person makes this thing that doesn't get locked up in the prison for 20 years. But I know it's done that in spades, and if it can work for one guy, it can literally work for hundreds and thousands of people, and god knows there's that much need.

DAN OLSON: Fred Myers, a pleasure talking to you. Thank you a lot.

FRED MYERS: Thanks much.

GARY EICHTEN: Fred Myers, who is the founder of Rebuild Resources, a St. Paul company which hires and trains chronic alcoholics. You're listening to our Voices of Minnesota segment on Midmorning. Gary Eichten here sitting in today for Paula Schroeder.

Roberta Davis is one of Minnesota's foremost jazz vocalists. And today on Voices of Minnesota, Davis talks about her music and the racism which affects her family's life in St. Paul. She's a classically trained musician who became a teacher. Then Davis turned to jazz. She hit the New York City jazz scene and sang and recorded with Manfredo Fest, among other artists. Davis sat at the piano in her home recently and talked with Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen about her life. The interview contains some rough language, so we warn you in advance.

ROBERTA DAVIS: I grew up in the most racist state that I've ever been in my life, called St. Paul, Minnesota. It's a terrible thing for me to say, but the racism is subtle. In Mississippi, when you go down there and Louisiana and everything, you better not go here. You better not go there. And in Boston, after 10 o'clock at night, you better not be in Charlestown and everything like that. But everything is so subtle in Minnesota.

In school, I wanted to take business classes, and Mechanic Arts High School wouldn't let me take business classes because all I was going to do was sew or clean somebody's toilet or cook in somebody's kitchen. So why should I have to learn how to work a typewriter? So I learned a typewriter at Hallie Q Brown Community Center. I typed 90 words a minute. And I was one of the first Black clerk typists hired by a private industry in the state of Minnesota in 1955. And I had to go through a whole lot of stuff to make sure that everybody was OK with hiring somebody else after I left.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: You had to go through a lot of stuff?

ROBERTA DAVIS: Oh, I had to go through a lot of bigotry. So then I decided that the post office was probably the thing that I could get through, so I ended up working at the post office. And I spent a year at Philander Smith College down in Little Rock, Arkansas, because the president of the college came up to our church, and I was playing the organ, and he said-- a pipe organ. And he said that they had a scholarship for me if I wanted to go down to Philander Smith.

And so I was one of the first freshmen that went on a six-week singing tour to raise money for the college. And that was very interesting because we were going through the state of Kansas. And so we'd sing in a different town every day, and we were in an airport limousine-type car that the gas gauge didn't work, and all this other stuff. Anyway, it was so terrible because then I really saw racism as what it really was. And it was like, oh yeah, we enjoyed your concert at the church last night, but you can't eat breakfast here.

But I had to do something like that, because I had to find out what was wrong, or why everything was going the way it was. My grandparents and four other families started the Camphor United Methodist Church on Fuller and Dale Street in St. Paul. And I was raised in that church believing everything that was said to me about have faith, and all of this kind of stuff. And I don't say that there's anything wrong with having the faith. But at 60 years old now, it's about time for some of this stuff that they're preaching at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning comes true.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: So you felt even when you were a child, or when you were young, you felt that--

ROBERTA DAVIS: Only from high school. Only after about the last couple of years, and after high school.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: But you sensed that contradiction between what you'd been hearing and what was really going on out in the streets and in the business world.

ROBERTA DAVIS: Well, let's put it this way-- if you can't get a job, you know that there's something happening if you type 90 words a minute and everybody else is typing 45.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: What did your mother and father do? You said your grandparents started the church.

ROBERTA DAVIS: Daddy came into this state to play hockey. He had a hockey scholarship. And when a nigger showed up in Minnesota at Hamline University with a hockey scholarship, they wouldn't let him sleep in the dorm or anything else like that. He wanted to be a doctor. But after spending about the first half of those cold months in cars trying to find someplace to live and everything like that, they wouldn't let him in the dorm. So he lasted probably a semester.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: And they gave him a scholarship to Hamline, but then wouldn't really let him in?

ROBERTA DAVIS: Because I guess he was so light, they didn't think that he was Black.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Interesting. As soon as they found out, that changed everything.

ROBERTA DAVIS: Changed everything.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Mm-hmm.

ROBERTA DAVIS: Well, when I was 16 I started taking classical music lessons, because that was all there was in Minnesota, from a lady that was run out of Germany during World War II named Mady Metzger-Ziegler. And everybody will tell you, we haven't had a teacher like her since she died. She was a teacher. She really knew what she was doing, and she spent so much time with me. She taught me how to sing.

Well, I sang classical music for about 15 years. But then they wouldn't hire me unless it was the day before a concert and somebody got sick, because they knew that I could read music, and I could put it all together, just like that. Nobody, nobody ever came to me and said, well, Roberta, we want you to sing. In two months, we're going to do this thing. And here's the music, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Never. Never.

So I went through that stuff. And then one day I woke up. After about 12 years I woke up and I said, hey, this ain't my music anyway. So I said, I'm going to stop reading music, and I'm going to start playing again by ear, so.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: So classically trained, but didn't really find much satisfaction in that.

ROBERTA DAVIS: Classically trained, gospelly freed, jazz-oriented. That's where I am.

[PLAYING RAPID PIANO MELODY]

This is a hymn.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Anyway, it's fast.

(SINGING QUICKLY) I must tell Jesus all of my trouble

But Black people have a feeling in their heart, because of all the bullshit that they've been put through in this country. Now, and when I say this country, I know that other countries in the world, because I've been there, are worse. And they would not maybe treat me as well, and everything like that. But I'm talking about what the United States is doing. I'm not talking about what I can get in the rest of the world, OK? So the song, that same song, it comes from the heart.

[PLAYING SOULFUL PIANO MELODY]

It doesn't sound like a hymn anymore, does it?

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Something like that.

(SINGING SOULFULLY) I cannot bear these burdens alone

I mean, why, see--

(SINGING RAPIDLY) I must tell Jesus all of my trouble

I cannot bear these burdens alone

I mean, sing it with some feeling from your heart.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: In the jazz world, is classical training useful or important?

ROBERTA DAVIS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Especially to singers that don't want to learn anything. They think, God has given me a natural talent and all I have to do is open my mouth and sing. But you know something? You can get nodes if you don't sing right. Those are lumps in the middle of your throat, you see?

You can sing for 45 minutes, and all of a sudden your throat hurts and everything. You're singing wrong. I can sing for 12 hours, and it don't bother me because I was taught how to sing. You have the only instrument that cannot be replaced. You can buy another piano. You can't buy another voice. But I mean, that's one of the things that bothers me the most about singers.

And I'd do the gospel music for about five years, and then Manfredo Fest picked me up and I started doing Brazilian music. And then about 1980, I decided that jazz is-- there's something here. So I started going out into New York to find out what would happen.

And the first night that I was in New York, I was looking for a friend of my cousin's named Clifford Jordan, who was one of the greatest jazz saxophone players, but I didn't know it. Coming out of classical music and gospel music, I didn't know nothing about who was in jazz. So I went up there and sang with the guy and come to find out that I was singing with four of the greatest jazz players in New York. In the world. In the world, really.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: And they were impressed by you?

ROBERTA DAVIS: Huh? Oh, yeah. They took me into a studio, and they put me on an album, which is-- one of the songs that they put me on is on that CD that I just came out with.

(SINGING) You're on your way home from the store

May I walk you to your door?

I would love to give you a call

You say you wouldn't mind at all

Can it really be?

Maybe you're the man for me

Mmm, you're sugar and spice

And everything nice

You're fire and ice

I'd better think twice

I met a man, the handsomest in the land

Can it really be?

You're the man for me

GARY EICHTEN: St. Paul jazz vocalist and teacher Roberta Davis. She talked with Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen. Our Voices of Minnesota interviews are heard nearly every Monday as part of Midmorning. Voices of Minnesota intern is Brian Bull, and the producer is Dan Olson. A reminder that programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by 3M, who generously matched more than 900 employee contributions to Minnesota Public Radio.

The weather forecast for the state of Minnesota, boy, it's familiar. Another snowstorm is moving through the area. I don't know. Maybe we're going to set a record this year, if we don't watch out. Winter storm warning in effect for southeastern Minnesota, and a winter weather advisory or a snow and blowing snow advisory, take your pick, is in effect for the rest of the state through the day.

Snow all across the state today. Cold, brisk winds. High temperatures today from a pleasant 15 below in northwestern Minnesota to 25 above in southeastern Minnesota. The Twin City forecast includes snow and blowing snow advisories. 3 to 5 inches of snow likely in the Twin Cities by midnight tonight. High temperature in the teens.

[CHEERFUL MUSIC]

IRA FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow. Join Talk of the Nation for a look at what it's like to be part of an interfaith marriage during the holiday season. What happens when a couple doesn't celebrate the same religious holidays? How does it affect their children? Ray Suarez and his guests will discuss the choices and sacrifices people make when they marry outside the religion. On the next Talk of the Nation, from NPR News.

GARY EICHTEN: And of course, we're going to be talking religion here just in a moment on Midmorning. Gary Eichten sitting in for Paula Schroeder. First of all, before we get to that conversation, a reminder that today's programming is sponsored in part to honor Neil and Natalie Kennedy of Williamsburg, Virginia, who celebrate their very first wedding anniversary today. Congratulations.

It is about 28 minutes now before 11:00, and this being Christmas Eve, we thought we would spend some time today taking a closer look at how churches get ready for Christmas. And joining us here in the studio is the Reverend Paul Romstad, who is the pastor at Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis. Morning, sir. Glad you could join us.

PAUL ROMSTAD: Nice to be here.

GARY EICHTEN: Well, you've got the pastor's voice, too. Just stay in that business. You've got a great radio voice. [LAUGHS]

PAUL ROMSTAD: Thank you.

GARY EICHTEN: Are there lots of special activities involved in preparing for Christmas, or does it take care of itself?

PAUL ROMSTAD: No, it doesn't take care of itself. It's a lot of work, but it's the most fun job we have all year. We find a theme for the season, which is Advent and Christmas and Epiphany, and then we find ways to express that theme visually and ways to express it in music and ways to express it in the content of worship, and ways to invite people into the symbols of the season, which are very, very powerful.

GARY EICHTEN: Mm-hmm. Now, used to be the late-night services were always the most popular. Is that true?

PAUL ROMSTAD: The Christmas Eve service, midnight, is the most well-attended service in the world. More people are in church at that time than any other time of the year, because that is when it happens. That one and then Easter sunrise. And we have a huge crowd, 11 o'clock Christmas Eve. We are televising our service again this year, because it's such a beautiful, beautiful moment. But people are drawn to it like at no other time of the year.

GARY EICHTEN: Now, you have, you said, about 4,000 members?

PAUL ROMSTAD: Yes, we do.

GARY EICHTEN: How many people will turn out for the Christmas service?

PAUL ROMSTAD: For that particular service, probably 1,500. It'll be a very large congregation. And it's a congregation that is very, very nice to have, because what we do is so powerful that they respond beautifully. It's a very energized congregation, and there's a lot of beautiful feeling in the room as well.

GARY EICHTEN: Are most of the people who come regular members of the church? Or do you get some first-timers or one-timers?

PAUL ROMSTAD: We get a lot of visitors, and our regular members too. In fact, some of our regular members like to avoid those services because they are so crowded, and so our regular members will come to some of our others. But it's really fun. I just love it.

GARY EICHTEN: Uh-huh. For a person who wants to improve their spiritual life, does it do much good to show up once a year for a ceremony like the Christmas ceremony?

PAUL ROMSTAD: There is always the chance that people will be touched powerfully. And last year, someone came who asked to see me the next day, as a matter of fact. And I put them off a day because the next day was Christmas, and I was planning to collapse and crawl into my hole to recover. But I saw them the day after, and they'd had a very powerful experience of spiritual awakening. And so we always expect that, and it always happens. Yes, very much so.

GARY EICHTEN: You said some of the regular church members sometimes avoid what would otherwise be their favorite because it gets so crowded.

PAUL ROMSTAD: That's true.

TODD MOE: Are they as open as maybe they should be to the people who just stop by once a year?

PAUL ROMSTAD: No.

[LAUGHTER]

However, we live in the real world. And in a way, I can certainly understand. There's a contemptuous term for people who come at Christmas and Easter that I don't use, but some people call them two-timers, which means they come twice during the year. I'm delighted to see them. I love to have them. And for me, that's one of the great joys of the season. It's the power of the season and the story and the symbols and the expectations to assemble people who otherwise would never come close.

GARY EICHTEN: Why do you suppose Christmas has so much power with people? According to the Christian calendar, Easter is still the more important event, right?

PAUL ROMSTAD: Yes, very much so, yeah.

GARY EICHTEN: And in fact, for a long time, my understanding is that Christmas was at least an afterthought, if not-- some of the church officials discouraged Christmas celebrations, did they not?

PAUL ROMSTAD: That's true, because Christmas was literally invented by the early Christians to counteract the pagan celebrations of. the winter solstice. And so Christmas is not a holiday that goes back to the beginning of Christian tradition, but its power lies in the fact that it's a beautiful story. You take a mother and a baby and a birth and add the element of drama, and you have something very, very powerful.

Plus, in our society it's the time when families often have beautiful moments together. And as children, I think all of us had great joy at Christmas. I can't live through a Christmas without thinking about my childhood, and some of the most powerful experiences that I had as a child came at Christmas. And so for me each year, Christmas is the hope of reliving at least some of that, or at least touching it.

GARY EICHTEN: Mm-hmm. Explain for people who aren't familiar with Christian theology why Easter is considered to be more important than Christmas.

PAUL ROMSTAD: The moment in the life of Christ that transformed his power was the Resurrection. And Easter is the time when we prepare for the Resurrection by rehearsing the suffering and death of Jesus, and then coming together at sunrise on Easter morning to relive the discovery of the empty tomb and to participate in the joy. Christmas simply deals with the birth of Christ, and not all the Gospels even cover the birth of Christ.

And in the early church, there was a great deal of speculation about details regarding the birth of Christ that often were not reliable, but at the center was a very beautiful story. But it's not as central to Christian theology, except that the central Christian doctrine is that of the incarnation, meaning God become flesh for the sake of the world. And Christmas connects with that, so that there is a powerful theological message in Christmas as well.

GARY EICHTEN: What's the latest thinking on the actual date of December 25? Was that more or less pulled out of the air?

PAUL ROMSTAD: Well, yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

I think so. But it probably was sometime this time of year. I've read all the stuff, and I don't keep up with the scholarly opinion on it, even though I do read scholarly stuff. I think there probably are questions far more important. But scholars speculate that it was sometime in the fall, the late fall, early winter. Karlis Kaufmanis over at the University of Minnesota, an astronomer, someone who's now retired, does a very popular presentation where he links the Christmas story to actual astronomical events which occurred. So there is some scientific basis as well for connecting the date.

GARY EICHTEN: Mm-hmm. What about some of the other details of the Christmas story as it's traditionally been told? The shepherds, were they actually around? Did these three kings actually travel from afar?

PAUL ROMSTAD: The shepherds, of course, were in that area. It's an area around Bethlehem. It's still there. It's still full of shepherds. It's still as it was described. There's a beautiful monastery in the Shepherds' Field which is one of the most peaceful, wonderful places I've ever seen. And yes, the details of the story, especially in Luke, represent what certainly was reality in that region at that time. The wise men, they could have come just as the story describes it, yes.

GARY EICHTEN: Hmm. Now, you have, as you noted, 1,500 people showing up just for even one service on Christmas Eve. Do you get nervous with all those people out there?

PAUL ROMSTAD: One of my friends came to services last year. He saw me just before the service started. And he said, you look like a wreck, Romstad.

[LAUGHTER]

And so I would love to tell you, no, I'm as calm as a cucumber and collected and mature. But yes, I get nervous.

GARY EICHTEN: About what? What are the things that you worry about?

PAUL ROMSTAD: So much rides upon how things go. People have high expectations. The potential for that service is so great. And it is so complex as we do it that a lot could go wrong, which would destroy it for people. Last year, we televised our Christmas Eve service, and the televising operation was intrusive and people were very disappointed. The lights were glaring and the camera people moved around a bit too much, and in a way it destroyed what people wanted. Christmas comes only once a year, and it's so important that we do it well so that people can experience its beauty and its power.

GARY EICHTEN: Mm-hmm. Give us a sense of, what's the service like? What do you do that is--

PAUL ROMSTAD: The midnight service is a service with communion, full liturgy. There will be a beautiful processional. The church will be darkened. There will be candle lights. There will be a meditative quality to it. There will be this beautiful moment when the candles in the church, in the hands of every member, are lit from one candle held by the presiding minister as a symbol of light. There just are so many things, and we work very, very hard to do it.

We're having the Christmas gospel this year red in two languages. In English, of course, and then in Aramaic, which was the original language of Jesus, being read by one of our associate pastors who has a PhD in Aramaic, as a matter of fact. And as a way, again, of awakening some sense of new possibility for what can easily become old.

GARY EICHTEN: Does each church come up with its own service, or is there a is there a standard service that you might work off?

PAUL ROMSTAD: Many, many Lutherans follow the service of the Western Church very responsibly, which means that all of the elements of the service will be there. On the other hand, there's a great deal of freedom to represent those elements in different ways, to do different things visually. But the lessons, the prayers, and the basic elements of worship, are all the same.

The hymns are different, and the sermon, I hope, is different. And the flavor of the service can be very different. And churches not only are free to express that individually, but have an obligation to express it individually. Because unless there is that creative investment, it can easily become repetitive, prosaic, shallow, and not very powerful.

GARY EICHTEN: Now, do you have a stage manager who's in charge of all of this, or do you have to do that yourself?

PAUL ROMSTAD: Well, actually, we do. It's one of my associate pastors, and last Saturday, she was leaving the church after decorating and she fell and broke both of her wrists. So all of a sudden, we are having to do some rapid reorganization. Plus, we dearly love her, and so we're working with her just to help her get through it. It's a tough time for her.

But we also have what's called a sacristan, who is a person who operates behind the scenes simply to work with the details and to be there to deal with emergencies that come up. And sometimes emergencies do come up. Last year, one of the communion stations in the balcony ran out of wine.

GARY EICHTEN: Uh-oh!

PAUL ROMSTAD: [LAUGHS] Which sounds minor, but can be very major for people who are waiting for participation in the communion at Christmas. So just things like that.

GARY EICHTEN: Your sermon. How do you prepare that sermon? Or do you just pretty much give an-- since it's Christmas, kind of reiterate the Christmas story and be done with it?

PAUL ROMSTAD: Well, that's an embarrassing question in a way, because I work very hard on my sermons. And my way of preparing a sermon is to live with the text upon which the sermon is based, which for Christmas Eve will be the Christmas story, and to come to the point where it engages me to feel it and to somehow be awakened by it, and to find ways to relate it to my own experience and to the experience of people who will listen.

And also to find ways to engage people's attention and keep them with me until the end, because a sermon can be either very powerful or it can be utterly tedious. And I have been guilty of preaching sermons from time to time which are utterly tedious. So I don't want that to happen at Christmas.

GARY EICHTEN: [LAUGHS] How do you know if they're tedious? Do people just wander off and--

PAUL ROMSTAD: Well, I watch the people I'm preaching to, and when their eyes start to get glassy, I know that I've exceeded their attention span, and it's time to change the subject or do something to re-engage them.

GARY EICHTEN: This is a difficult time of the year, I would suspect, for people who aren't Christians.

PAUL ROMSTAD: Oh, very much.

GARY EICHTEN: What would you say to those folks who don't believe in Christianity, don't believe in Christ? What should they do here to get through this without being bombarded and overloaded with Christian messages?

PAUL ROMSTAD: I think that the specifically Christian, in many ways, corresponds to a reality which is common to all people, which lies beneath the specifically Christian. And here, I would quote Abraham Heschel, who was a great Jewish thinker, who says, standing between the sky and the earth is to be overwhelmed with awe. And I think that is a universal human experience.

And Christmas is about awe and about wonder and about the basic realities of human life, which are love and somehow breaking out of our self into a larger sense of community. And I think that the Christian story represents those things beautifully. But I think also that even those who are not believers in the Christian message certainly are believers in what is most real and most beautiful in human experience. And Christmas is about that, too.

GARY EICHTEN: Mm-hmm. Well, thanks for coming by today. And good luck with your sermon. Good luck with the entire service.

PAUL ROMSTAD: Thank you. Thank you.

GARY EICHTEN: Don't get too nervous.

PAUL ROMSTAD: And good luck getting home tonight.

GARY EICHTEN: [LAUGHS] Our guest today, Pastor Paul Romstad. He is the pastor at Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis.

[STEVIE NICKS, "SILENT NIGHT"] Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon virgin mother and child

Holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night

Well, it was a holy night

Silent night, holy night

Shepherds quake at the sight

Glories stream from heaven afar

Heavenly hosts sing hallelujah

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, holy night

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night

Well, it was a holy night

Well, it was a silent night

Ooh, holy night

Well, it was a silent night

Well, it was a holy night

Well, it was a silent night

Silent night

Holy night

Well, it was a holy night

Yes, it was a holy night

GARY EICHTEN: This is Midmorning coming to you on Minnesota Public Radio. Gary Eichten sitting in for Paula Schroeder.

PERRY FINELLI: Many experts agree the nature of the American workforce has changed dramatically since the early 1900s. Hi, I'm Perry Finelli. On the next Midday, a speech by JE Hollingworth, a communications professor at Harvard University and Emerson College in Boston, who teaches his students their careers will change five to seven times before they retire and they must be ready and willing to face change with the appropriate tools. Midday begins at 11:00 with the latest news and weather. JE Hollingworth at noon on KNOW-FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

GARY EICHTEN: By the way, in the 11 o'clock hour of Midday, the city of St. Paul is looking to add up to 1,000 new jobs and Perry will be along with the latest on two separate announcements this morning that will have an impact on the city's economy. We're also going to hear about a program in Le Sueur that makes parents accountable for the actions of their children. All that and a story about virtual audio, too. So that's coming up on Midday. Perry Finelli and yours truly playing musical chairs today, and tomorrow for that matter, sitting in for Paula Schroeder.

Winter storm warning remains in effect for the southeastern corner of Minnesota the rest of today, down around Winona. Everybody else is going to get some winter weather too, with 3 to 5 inches of snow forecast for the Twin Cities, a snow and blowing snow advisory in the Twin Cities. Highs today, 15 below in the northwest, 25 above in the southeast. Here's Garrison Keillor.

[GENTLE MUSIC]

GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is The Writer's Almanac for Monday. It's the 23rd of December, 1996.

It's the birthday of poet Robert Bly, born in 1926 on this day in Madison, Minnesota, son of a farmer. Robert Bly, the American surrealist and imagist poet. It's the birthday of the American painter John Marin, born in Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870, who painted New York City and also the coast of Maine. It's the birthday in Chicago in 1860 of Harriet Monroe, who founded and for a long time edited Poetry magazine. First appeared in 1912 and three years later published "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by the then-unknown TS Eliot.

It was on this day in 1823, a poem turned out to be by Clement Clarke Moore was published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel. The poem that begins, "'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there."

And today is the birthday of Joseph Smith, 1805, in Vermont. He was the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Here are six little poems by Robert Bly, on his birthday. Six winter privacy poems. One. "About four, a few flakes. I empty the teapot out in the snow, feeling shoots of joy in the new cold. By nightfall, wind. The curtains on the south sway softly."

Two. "My shack has two rooms. I use one. The lamplight falls on my chair and table and I fly into one of my own poems, I can't tell you where, as if I appeared where I am now, in a wet field, snow falling."

Three. "More of the fathers are dying each day. It is time for the sons. Bits of darkness are gathering around them. The darkness appears as flakes of light."

Four. "Sitting alone. There is a solitude like black mud, sitting in this darkness, singing. I can't tell if this joy is from the body or the soul or a third place."

Five. "Listening to Bach. There is someone inside this music who is not well-described by the names of Jesus or Jehovah or the Lord of Hosts."

Six. "When I woke, new snow had fallen. I am alone. Yet someone else is with me, drinking coffee, looking out at the snow."

Six winter privacy poems by Robert Bly from his collection Sleepers Joining Hands, published by Harper and Row. That's The Writer's Almanac for Monday, December 23rd, made possible by Cowles Enthusiast Media, publishers of Early American Homes and thehistorynet.com, where history lives on the world wide web. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

GARY EICHTEN: Well, that does it for our Midmorning program today. Gary Eichten sitting in today for Paula Schroeder. Sure like to thank you for joining us, and we hope you'll be able to join us tomorrow, Christmas Eve. And we're going to spend the day doing a Christmas program tomorrow. Now, don't be scared off by that. I think you're going to find it to be fun and entertaining and inclusive. So we'll get to that tomorrow. All kinds of special Christmas-related things tomorrow, including some proof, mind you, proof that reindeer can fly and that Santa is on his way.

[BEEPS]

JON GORDON: The top computer and technology stories of 1996. I'm Jon Gordon, and you can hear that story on the next Future Tense in one half hour on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW-FM 91.1.

GARY EICHTEN: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio.

[BEEPS]

We have some snow. 20 degrees at KNOW-FM 91.1, Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Weather Service has issued a snow and blowing snow advisory through the afternoon today. 3 to 5 inches in the Cities with a high temperature in the teens. Cold tomorrow in the Twin Cities.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

PERRY FINELLI: Good morning. This is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio, with Monitor Radio's Sara Terry. I'm Perry Finelli. In the news today, officials have announced more expansion plans in St. Paul.