We Have This Treasure

The first week of the summer program is officially underway. If you have never visited Holden, the following views of the Village Center will give you an idea of the place in which worship services, summer sessions, concerts, meetings...AND the 4th of July Talent Show and Fireworks Display!!...take place. If you have been here before but are not going to be able to make the trek to Holden this year, then you will enjoy seeing the Village Center as we begin the summer.

The decorated ceiling is festooned with brightly colored banners which lead the eye up to the ceiling. In the very center of the space, there is an enormous mobile created by Jack Coffey. It floats under the banners and above the room.

"The Dancing Servant" sculpture, which was created in the mid-60's by Terry Sateren, has been placed near the entrance of the Village Center for the summer. The cracked clay pot is lit from within by a votive light. Dan Erlander's design on the summer theme tee shirt reads, "Holden Village...A society of cracked pots."

Although it stands in its usual place in the Center, the base of the baptismal font and the bowl are new. The base and the bowl were created this past winter by artists from St. Olaf, John Saurer and Christie Hawkins, a husband and wife team. The wood for the base of the font was salvaged from timbers formerly used in the narrow gauge railroad that served the needs of the copper mine located here.


John Saurer and Christie Hawkins have just returned this week to complete work on the font. They brought with them a copper-plated element of text to be placed on the bottom of the bowl below the level of the water. The lettering style on this insert was originally created here at Holden from calligraphy designed by Laura Norton. Using that calligraphy, Christie then designed the piece and supervised its implementation into a work of art in its own right. The text reads as follows: "You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

Their work on the font this week will continue this week and will include carving the wooden base with an appropriate inscription.

This year's summer theme ("We have this treasure.") is an echo of the words carved on the Village Center lectern many years ago. The carving itself was done in the mid-60's by Arnold Flaten and some 40 years later has come into its own in terms of coinciding with the summer's theme.

Two huge banners stretch across the east end of the Village Center. The scripture basis for the theme (2 Corinthians4: 6-7) is inscribed on the banners.

At the front of the assembly space, there is a collection of various and sundry clay pots, a further manifestation of the text.

The Guatemalan cross is in its usual location high in the corner of the room. For this summer, it is flanked on either side by a bright banner similar to the banners draped across the ceiling.


This is a close-up of the cracked clay pot on the table at the entrance to the room.

The Village Center has been at Holden since the days the mine was in operation. At that time, the building was used as a multi-purpose space capable of accommodating many different community activities...gymnasium, theater, worship space, ballroom, movie theater. Most of those activities continue to this day. As a large open area designed to be used in many different ways, it is an incredibly difficult place to "decorate."

Much of the credit for this year's display goes to Angela Mietzke who has served the village as the worship assistant. She, in turn, was assisted in the endeavor by others in the village willing to help with advice and with the actual construction and implementation of her ideas. I hesitate to mention names. If I mention 1 person, I will omit 10 names that need to be credited. If I name 10, I will leave out 1. As always at Holden, the work was completed by means of the combined efforts of the community as a whole. Whatever needed to be done was done.

The results speak for themselves. We do, indeed, have this treasure.