Ann S. Eckert

Ann S. Eckert, 85, of Port Charlotte, FL, died on Monday, April 7, 2025, at Advent Hospital in Port Charlotte, FL.  She was born in Madison, WI, on October 16, 1939,  Ann was the only child of Clifford and Virginia Peterson. 

Ann was married for 65 years to Rev. Jerry Eckert.  They had two children, David and Karen.

Ann was a 1957 graduate of New London High School and earned her BS degree at Texas Women's University in Denton, TX, in 1961 with a major in home economics education.  She taught a year in Seagoville, TX, and a part of a year in Beloit, WI.  She earned a Masters Degree in College Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1984.  She was Associate Director of Records at the University of New Orleans (1985-1990) and Registrar at Carroll College, Waukesha, WI, 1990-1995.  The Eckerts both retired in 1995 and returned to the New Orleans area.  To care for her mother, they moved to Port Charlotte, FL in 2003 where they lived until entering a life care facility in 2022.  

Ann enjoyed music, playing the clarinet, piano, and guitar; playing in high school and university pep bands; participating in bell choirs; and singing in church and community choirs.

She grew up in the Methodist Church in Montfort, WI.  She had to change her membership many times as a pastor's wife but was able to have significant time in the United Methodist Church (UMC) of Whitewater, WI; Aldersgate UMC in Slidell, LA; and Gulf Cove UMC in Port Charlotte, FL. 

Ann is survived by her husband Jerry; her son David, his wife Sachiko, and grandson Enzo; her daughter, Karen, her husband Peter Jest, and granddaughter Elise who is married to Michael (MJ) Carvan; and many caring friends.

She is preceded in death by her parents Clifford and Virginia Peterson.

Instead of flowers, the family invites everyone interested to send a donation to the Morton Cure Paralysis Foundation (5021 Vernon Ave S, MN 55436, or MCPF.org) in her memory.  Also Ann understood how others might send a donation to a charity of their own choice in her name.  She would have been honored by that gesture as well. 

There will be a graveside service on August 2, 2025, at 3:30 pm for family and friends at Hill Crest Cemetery, Montfort, WI, followed by lunch and visitation at the Cottonwood Inn, 4716 Green River Road, Fennimore, WI.  RSVP to aj_eckert@hotmail.com or to Rev. Jerry Eckert, 23013 Westchester Blvd. #358, Punta Gorda, FL 33980.

Two Great Mysteries of Life: Solved

There are at least two great mysteries of life:  What is its purpose? and Why did great civilizations fail?

I figured out the first a long time ago.  Most people do in their lifetime: to love and be loved.  Individually speaking, caring and being cared for about are as basic as we can get and if we attain those, we are usually satisfied and happy with our lives over all.

That's easy to say and holds up pretty well no matter the context.

The answer to the other question is really profoundly related.  Maybe not at first glance.

Archeologists are discovering that civilizations made up of vast populations thrived in various parts of the world for millenia and then disappeared.  The physical aspects were obviously drought, pandemics, war, volcanic action, etc.  Cataclysms that broke the infrastructures are blamed.  But our current western civilization has survived wars, pestilence, and climate change, as must have other great eras of humankind.  In fact, catastrophe tends to bring people together and can lead to better technologies to recover and thrive.

But not always.  

Skipping past all the things most commonly blamed, I want to go biblical.  When Jesus was asked what was the greatest sin, he replied, "Sin against the Holy Spirit."  Okay.  What is that?

In my understanding, the Holy Spirit is experienced when we bond in collaboration.  Most simply put, it's when we discover two heads are better than one.  It's when harmony is achieved through joint effort.

Sin against that spirit would be to fail to pay attention to the knowledge and offerings of the others around us.  It's when some stop thinking others are real.  It's where empathy has been lost.

When that happens, when we stop listening to all the voices, when we stop caring about what they know, that's when things begin to fall apart, just as in not loving or being loved,

There.  You don't have to go up the mountain to seek wisdom from the all-wise prophet.  Its right here in black and white.   

Aren't you glad you checked with me today?

If you still don't get it, be patient.  You'll figure it out.

The Prosecution failed to Make Its Case Against OJ.

O J Simpson passed away from prostate cancer on April 15.  The papers and TV were full of rehashing his guilt so I sent the following to the Letters to the Editor of our local paper.  It was printed by them on Wednesday Apr. 17.

In the OJ Simpson case, the prosecution was unable to establish exactly when the murders took place.  Even if either of their guesses were true, OJ still could not possibly have done everything the prosecution said in the time he was said to have done it.  Timelines matter.  The best book on the crime that I would recommend is KILLING TIME by Freed and Briggs.  They help the readers work with the timelines. 

The other thing they do is include the autopsies of the victims.  The autopsies show four different knives were used.  It took four guys, not one, to take down the two athletic victims.

What makes this case so hard is that the media played up everything about the case they got, which was mostly from the prosecution, and the general public saw and heard what they wanted to hear.  The European-American folks heard and saw all the terrible stuff about OJ and the African-American folks heard and saw all the racist gimmicks they had experienced.  

What the general population did not experience was sitting in the courtroom for months on end as the prosecution talked down to the jury of mixed races and the jury having hours to study the photos and other visuals left by the prosecution.  That experience was put into a book MADAM FOREMAN, A RUSH TO JUDGMENT by Amanda Cooley.  It was not Johnny Cochran's theatrics that pursuaded the jury.  It was the lousy DNA work done by the police and pictures of the bloody gloves rolled up in balls.  Read the book to see why.

Reminder of the bad old days

 In 2008, Robyn Carr wrote a novel entitled VIRGIN RIVER CHRISTMAS.  In it, she portrayed a vet from the second Iraq war begun during the G. W. Bush administration.  The description of the isolation and lack of services for most of the vets returned home was appalling.  

That reminded me of how the VA had been cut by the GOP Congress and no provisions had been made for casualties and returning vets with PTSD and other hidden maladies.  Whan Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was asked about the lousy equipment our troops had in Iraq, he said, “We go to war with what we have.”

I wrote a novel at the time that also challenged the war and the way it was being waged.  I’d be glad to send you an e-copy by email if you care to go back to those old days that MAGA remembers as “good.” 

The Definition of "woke"

Gov. DeSantis has offered a negative, indecipherable definition of what it is to be woke.  Yes, the way the word is used, it comes over from the African American community where it has been used for at least a generation.  It became a white American term in Minneapolis the summer George Floyd was murdered.  

White young adults joined the BLM demonstrations and men dressed in reservist-type garb kidnapped and held some of them because they looked like the leaders of the white demonstrators.  The next night, the mothers of those young demonstrators hit the streets to also march with the BLM people.  Those reservist-type enforcers used teargas on the lines of moms.  So the next night, the BLM marchers were joined by the young adults, their moms, and their dads who carried leaf blowers.  

Some Black preacher used the word "woke" to describe the white folks and it stuck.  

The "woke" are people who care about justice and care about each other, even across racial lines.  Gov. DeSantis should have been in Minneapolis that summer to learn the meaning of the word. 

The GOP's Other Tactic

 We enjoy BLUE BLOODS on TV.  I wondered why NewsNation plays it many hours of the day.

I found I could not stand watching its news programming because they were Fox wanna-bes.  I knew that because they lead with crime news and feature many conservative "reporters."

NPR reported today that the rash of home owners shooting strangers accidently at their doors is based on the fear they have of strangers generated by the constant emphasis on murder and mayhem they have seen on the Fox and their wanna-bes' broadcasting.  

This emphasis on crime sells guns too, it was noted.  Right down the GOP alley.

I wish those channels would pay more attention to the humanity shown every episode and not just focus on the anger and violence of one of the characters.  If the managements did, they'd take BLUE BLOODS off.

Six things that really happened and I think are funny

 My first Sunday at my first appointment was exciting, of course.  I wasn't sure how I would be received but things had gone well at the rural church.  So we shared worship together at my other church in town and I preached well, I thought.  So I was only a little surprised when one gentlemen took my hand as he was leaving the church and said, "That was a great sermon, Pastor, a great sermon!"  

"Thank you," I responded.  "Why, may I ask, did you like it so much?" 

"It was only seventeen minutes."

-----

The rural church on a two point circuit I served when I became a minister in Wisconsin was physically too small for a wedding involving two large families.  So the couple chose to be married in the small town church, the larger of the two on that circuit.  It is a good thing because even that church was filled to capacity with the large number of family and friends.

Both churches has been founded with German families by German circuit riders in that part of the state.  Both had been conducting English-speaking services for only two or so decades.  You can imagine that even the young people were inured with the seriousness of church.

Seated in the second row on the bride's side were the bride's girl friends.  I had gone over what my sermon was to include with the bride and groom.  Both of them had been okay with my material.  Both, by the way, were headed back to his farm near the rural church after the honeymoon.  As part of my homily, I included an old joke which the couple had enjoyed.  To that phrase in the wedding ceremony where part of the vows I point out that the wife is to obey the husband, I addressed the bride with tongue-in-cheek saying, "When he says jump, you say 'How high?'"  I presented the line with no unusual inflection, as straight as I could say it.

I paused just long enough to see that the older folks in the congregation accepted the line with no realization that I had laid out a joke.  The bride's girl friends, however, faced a huge dilemma.  They got the joke and wanted to laugh out loud (it was new to them).  But they didn't dare laugh in church, which is the very dilemma I think was what the bride and groom hoped for.

Fortunately, the girl friends did not explode from keeping their laughter inside. I found out later they went from laughter to anger at the bride.  Who says there isn't conversion in wedding ceremonies? 

-----

My second appointment was as associate pastor at a large church.  My job during worship was as liturgist, which meant I was the reader of the Scriptures, offered the pastoral prayer, and took care of the offering and its prayer.

During my third month there, the Holy Spirit struck me and inspired me to give the following prayer.

"Dear Lord, we know you love a cheerful giver.  Receive our gifts and love us anyway.  Amen."

 Not even a titter.  The service concluded and no one commented except my wife.  I explained my inspiration and her response was, "Next time, have the Spirit check with me first,"

Two weeks later, at a couples' fellowship, one young bank manager sidled up to me and said, "Did you really say that?"

-----

In a small church up north, the warmth of the day required that we open the windows and a door to the outside for cross ventilation.  

As worshippers gathered, one older couple showed me their tiny pet dog which lay quietly in an oversize bag.  They apologized but could not leave him home.  This was forty years ago, long before such a thing became so popular.  They promised to leave if the dog made a fuss so I accepted their bringing him in.

I was in the middle of my sermon, not having heard a sound from that tiny dog, when I caught a bit of movement out of the former of my eye.  The door to the outside was to my right and in walked a cat.  It came into the worship area in the general direction of where I knew the little dog to be.  

The cat paused, looked around at the people, turned around, and sauntered back to the door and out the way it came in.

The whole congregation, not knowing about the dog but seeing this cat enter the sanctuary, was almost as relieved as I and the dog were.  I had to comment.

"I don't think it was a Methodist.  I think it left when it realized we were not cat'olic."  

-----

My wife and I were celebrating our 25th anniversary on a Sunday afternoon after church so my brother, sister, and their families all came to church.  None of them have ever held me in awe and there was always that implicit threat that they would conspire to crack me up during the service at some point that would catch me by surprise.

The service went smoothly.  There was no incident during the sermon when I was most vulnerable.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I announced the closing hymn.  It happened to have six verses but not long ones.  As the hymn began, I looked down at my brother-in-law and his straight-laced conservative Lutheran son-in-law seated right in front of me.  

They were both wearing "Groucho" glasses, fake mustache and all.  

It look me till the middle of the last verse to stop laughing so I could catch my breath and close the service with the benediction.

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A month ago, I wrenched my back.  Since then, I have had a bout with lower back pain, something I've been able to minimize because of previous bouts.  When I first started having problems when I was in my thirties, I was fortunate to have a chiropractor who was of immense help.  Along with his usual routine meant to get all the vertebrae in the right place, he had a good way to realign my neck bones using a technique involving Thompson table counter-pressure.  Since lower back pain was associated with a misalignment of certain neck bones, he set my head on a small platform and pressed my head until the platform structured to spring back upon a particular level of pressure had been applied.  He set the thing so that by pushing down with, say, 2.8 pounds of pressure, the small platform would pop back with 2.8 pounds of counter pressure, thus putting my head back to its proper position at the top of the spinal column.

This recent period of painful back spasms reminded me of one such bout many years ago when I was allowed to be a weekly resource at the youth shelter in our county.  It had been built to house kids who were run-aways, got involved with drugs, and other activities that had landed them in jail previously.   

One of those afternoons, before I met with the youth, I was discussing some important matter with the administrator.  As I carefully stood, tending my sore back, he held out his hand and said, "Jerry, you know what I most appreciate about you?  You are one of the few people I know who really has his head on straight."

I thanked him for his gracious comment and replied, "That's so nice of you to say.  My chiropractor thinks my head is on crooked."

Maybe you had to be there . . . .

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When we were in college, we belonged to the Wesley Foundation.  Everything year, it held a retreat at one of our church camps.  Among the tasks facilitating the retreat was getting everyone to the campsite a hundred miles away.  The guy who coordinated that task, mainly lining up students and staff who could take attendees in their cars, was an engineering grad student named Bob Sparks.  Quiet, unassuming, and  responsible, he did that task very well.

During supper that night, Bob rose, tapped his coffee cup with a spoon to get us to look his way, and intoned, "May I have your attention?"  We all quieted our table conversations.  When all was silent in the room, he said, "Thank you, I just love attention."  And he sat down.

If you had been there, you would have laughed too.