Erika Ellwanger Guidance counselor celebrates individual differences

THE GOOD

Theology teacher Paul Kramschuster forms his outlook on the world from the many values taught to him throughout his life.

BY MARY B. FREEMAN MANAGING EDITOR

In the United States there were 45.3 million people living below the poverty line in 2013, according to the United States Census Bureau. Seventy percent of people with mental disabilities are currently unemployed, according to the American Psychological Association. About 50,000 youth in the United

States sleep on the streets for six months or more, according to the National

Alliance to End Homelessness. These are the exact statistics that Theology teacher Paul Kramschuster works to combat, and his many life experiences have given him the tools to do so.

Growing up in the small town of Mora, Minnesota in an old farmhouse,

Kramschuster, son of a cattle buyer and seller, was very involved. From football to hockey to jazz band to class president of student council, Kramschuster’s vast opportunity to fully experience life has been present his entire life. Raised with strong values and an even stronger Catholic faith,

Kramschuster has long lived a life of adventure and exploration. Whether it be in the midst of his peers in his hometown, at college with his nose in a book, in his early twenties spending four years at Holy Family House or at Sion, the search to live out the values he has been taught has never ended.

It began with his parents. Both were Catholic and Kramschuster was firmly raised in this faith. However, it was not only the faith that his family instilled in him, but also the strong values they taught him growing up and the belief that he was going to be well-educated that strongly influenced Kramschuster’s life.

“My father never taught me the [cattle] trade,” Kramschuster said. “I remember when people would come up to me and say ‘so are you going to follow in your fathers footsteps’ and before I could answer my father would always say ‘no, no he’s going to college.”

Further than Kramschuster’s parents’ beliefs in a higher education, however, were their beliefs in doing good in the world, a value that has been passed down to Kramschuster through example. One such example was of the infamously teased “Art the Fart,” an older man in Mora living with Tourette syndrome. Kids in Mora would tease “Art the Fart”, messing with him to get him riled up. But one day, Kramschuster came home from school to find Art in his kitchen, sipping a glass of lemonade, about to mow his lawn.

“I guess I saw that here is someone that a lot of people think is unsafe and crazy and my father would give him opportunities to earn money,”

Kramschuster said. “He treated him as a real human being, someone who was worthy of paying attention to and having conversations with. That was a huge lesson that [I saw] as a kid.”

Graduating from high school with only reading the bare bones of the assigned books in English class, Kramschuster then went on to St. John’s

University in Minnesota. It took until his junior year of college for Kramschuster 20LE JOURNAL FEBRUARY

to establish his major in the Humanities, master’s degree in the Bible and the way he would live his life.

After spending a year in Salzburg, Austria studying abroad his junior year of college, Kramschuster came to the realization that he had many unanswered questions about life, and he was upset to realize that he had not read any more than what had been assigned to him in class.

“It was The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne,” Kramschuster said. “I remember going to the bookstore and buying that book and then reading it. I realized that I hadn’t read anything yet. So I just started reading.”

He has not stopped since. Whether it be German, Russian, French, political or Biblical literature, Kramschuster has read and been influenced by them all. The themes that lay interwoven in the many novels he has devoured have played an important part in shaping him into who he is today, someone who is aware of the issues in the world.

However, it wasn’t until after college that he saw them come to life when he worked at Holy Family House, a soup kitchen and homeless shelter in Kansas City, Missouri. According to Kramschuster, this is where he saw the gospel and all that he had learned come alive.

“I understood [the gospel] in a much more profound and experiential way [at Holy Family House], what [I studied} in the intellectual sense,” Kramschuster said. “The gospels became more alive and real in that context.”

Holy Family House is where Kramschuster met his wife, a woman who was volunteering at the same time as him. It is also where he met Frank. One day Frank knocked on the door of Holy Family House and said that he was being kicked out of his apartment because his building was closing down. Frank had known it was closing for a long time and had done nothing. So, Kramschuster helped him move some of his things out.

Eventually Frank came to Holy Family House and told Kramschuster he had nowhere to put his belongings. He had nowhere to live, but Frank told Kramschuster he would go find a place to stay, and he did.

“The place [he found] was covered in cockroaches and it was a shock for me to walk through that building

and see how some people lived. I had never experienced anything like it,” Kramschuster said. Kramschuster then found Frank a better place for to live and became his payee, meaning that a check from the government for Frank came to Kramschuster for his rent, utilities and groceries and Kramschuster would ensure that they were all paid Kramschuster moved Frank into different buildings for years. Because of Frank’s hoarding tendencies, it was difficult for him to find a permanent residence. Over time, Kramschuster and Frank developed a strong friendship. Kramschuster truly cared for Frank. He was childish in many ways because of his developmental disability, but Kramschuster never stopped helping him, not until the day Frank died. “I do remember very clearly that right before he died he wrote me this little note [about] how happy he was that we could become friends and that I helped him out and that he cared for me,” Kramschuster said. “I don’t know if I changed his life, but perhaps more so that he changed my life and my understanding of what it is like to struggle in poverty and how difficult the world was for him.”

Now, Kramschuster strives to pass on the values he has learned throughout his life. Whether to his children or to his students at Sion, he strives to live a mission of influencing others through his unique understanding of the world. He is committed to promoting peace, justice and love. “It is important that [I take] my past experiences, the way my mom and dad raised me, the values that I have learned through reading, experiences I had of being with and living with people that are on the underside of that system and pass on that type of information,” Kramschuster said.

This value system is seen by Kramschuster’s students. Junior Emmie Gragg said she enjoys the controversial conversation that often rules Kramschuster’s classroom. Gragg believes that this kind of discussion causes classes to thrive.

“He has definitely influenced me. He helps me to not conform,” Gragg said. “I feel like I learn something every day [in his class], whether it is something funny or something about the Bible or something about myself.”

Although his students see the greatness of Kramschuster, he sees his life as what he is supposed to do. For all his works towards justice and striving to be good in this world, Kramschuster finds no pride.

“I don’t know what I am most proud of. I don’t think I have a lot of pride,” Kramschuster said. “More so [I have] a sense of paying attention to where I feel I am called to be and [who I am] supposed to be and then the difficulty of trying to live up to expectations and it’s hard.”

Through the many journies of life that Kramschuster has experienced, each has been a lesson that he will continue to pass on to others. Kramschuster looks forward to the day when justice, peace and equality run rampant, but until then he will continue to work for the cause.

“To me, the most important thing, which I think is at the heart of scripture and at the heart of who Jesus was, is of being aware of suffering in this world and allow the suffering of innocent people to form your way of being in the world,” Kramschuster said. “If you want to speak about truth at all, you have to be able to see and give witness to suffering in the world.”

4.

Fun facts most students do not know about Kramschuster

1. Worked as a garbage man in high school 2. Logged in Alaska for two summers in college 3. Has been arrested for trespassing while protesting 4. Slept next to his first motorcycle the first couple of nights he owned it 5. Was not a participant in any Apartheid rallies, but would have been

1.

2. 3.

1. Kramschuster participates in a protest with Holy Family House. (Photo submitted by Paul Kramschuster)

2. Kramschuster poses for his high school picture. (Photo submitted by Paul Kramschuster)

3. Kramschuster poses for his high school football team picture. (Photo submitted by Paul Kramschuster)

4. Kramschuster holds the note that his friend Frank gave to him. Kramschuster considers this note one of his highest honors. (Photo by Mary B. Freeman)

21LE JOURNAL FEBRUARY