One hundred years later it is difficult to grasp the sacrificial commitment and deep sense of family that pervaded Frank Buchman’s work starting late in the 1920’s.
The devastating world depression, following the First World War had left deep scars. The world wars showed that people of all kinds of different backgrounds, could and would, work and sacrifice for a common goal. Great ideas were born at that time, which caught the imagination of multitudes of people who had known hunger and hardship and suffering. Communism and Fascism with its offspring Nazism took hold. But another idea had taken hold in the West. Materialism had become the ideology and was the underlying factor in western thinking. Scientific progress, industrial progress and material progress became goals in themselves and were embraced by all the main western nations. While hatred, revenge on dictatorship were the underlying motives in Communism and Fascism and had the effect of stirring passions into action. Materialism’s motive was mainly based on the desire for progress for the sake of comfort and ease for the masses but had no such effect on the passions. And so it was that no great idea was in operation to resist and successfully replace Communism or Fascism which had gripped the world.
In the spring of 1938 Frank Buchman was invited to Norway by the president of the League of Nations, also the president of the Norwegian parliament at that time. He had invited Buchman to meet a selection of people who represented all walks of Norwegian life: church, industry, culture, journalism, labour, bosses and ordinary families. A tourist hotel had been booked for a ’house-party’ but although the Prime Minister only invited a hundred people, over one thousand came. They ended up sleeping in their cars, in neighbouring cottages and at nearby farms in order to take part in the daytime conference!
Buchman spoke there about the need for change in the world. His idea was that if you want to see the world different you’ve got to start with yourself and put right what is wrong in your own life. People saw the point and committed themselves to putting things right in their own lives. Many became brutally honest about tax evasion and sent money to the tax authorities that they had evaded paying. Millions of kronor were returned, which was a lot of money in those days. The authorities had no way of accounting for it so a special department and system for receiving it was created. In the press they said that in the 3 months since that meeting in the tourist hotel, the Oxford Group, as they called Buchman’s group, had changed life in Norway. This was news everywhere and even spoken of in London.
Signe’s parents were at that meeting and were captivated by Buchman’s ideas. They put things right in their own lives. Signe never knew what they did, but they sent her a book called For Sinners Only, written by a well-known English journalist which commanded her attention. ‘I read it from cover to cover in one go. It felt as though this was what I had been looking for all my life and I wanted to meet that man Buchman!’ She heard that he was to speak on the island of Visby in Sweden.
The conference was for people from the Baltic countries and was an attempt to avert another war from breaking out. Both between the smaller nations, who had much hatred and past hurts, that could be ignited. And between the major powers where an armament race gave the sense that something was still not right in Germany or England, at least under the surface. It was at Visby that Buchman planned to launch the idea that what the world really needed wasn’t military re-armament but rather a moral and spiritual re-armament.
Signe got an invitation to Visby and booked a single room – just to be sure she didn’t get too involved in something that she would regret! But this visit was to become a turning point in her life. The conference was held within the ancient ruins of Visby. She heard people tell of the changes that had taken place in their lives or in their situations. People had come from many other parts of the world and she heard about the changes that resulted from personal steps in change. She began to see that here was something that could bring about change without violence, without war, without hatred and without organization. She could see how this could happen spontaneously through contact between people and give results whenever the simple guiding principles that Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group spoke about, were put into action in people’s private and even public lives.
A young Finnish soldier spoke at Visby about how he had suffered under Sweden’s occupation of Finland and how he had sworn never to speak Swedish again. This was at the time when Sweden had taken over the administration of Finland, when school had to taught in both Swedish and Finnish. Everything including street signs and notices had to be written in both languages. He felt the loss of their national integrity and pride very keenly. But when he came to Visby and heard how change in people’s lives had created miracles of unity, he decided to give up his hatred of Sweden and demonstrated it by telling his story in Swedish.
This brought Signe to think of her friend Hans, the German SS officer. She wrote him a letter, telling about what she had learnt in Visby. She said that she thought he would find something here that would satisfy him. By return post she got a 19-page letter explaining why she was wrong and he was right. He sent her a copy of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s manifesto of what he was really out to do. Signe was completely shocked. She had realized that something really bad was happening in Germany and this was why she had left, but as she read what Hans wrote she realized what was happening in Germany was very different from what she had thought when she was there. It was massive. She realized in Visby, that at a time when war and peace was so important, each individual had the responsibility to live in such a way as to make peace possible. She felt she needed to ask forgiveness of people that she had wronged. Afterwards it felt as if she had touched an electric current and she was walking on air!
”I felt lit up inside. I realized that power comes from operating according to the natural laws that exist both in the spiritual and natural world. If you go against these laws or principles, you create trouble and this leads to chaos in the end.”
Arthur Strong had been invited by Buchman to cover the conference in Visby and during this visit he met Signe by chance when he was setting up a photo in the ruins of Visby. He was struck by Signe’s beauty and wanted to place her first in line of a long line of young people – but figured that someone might suspect and question his motives and so he placed her as a safe number three!Arthur’s photos of Frank Buchman and the work of the Oxford Group were being distributed by Associated Press (AP) and Camera Press and eventually published all over the world. In 1937, one of his pictures depicting Buchman’s work to Turn the Tide with the caption Vänd Strömmen became picture of the year in Britain and was sent on tour round Britain.
After the Visby conference was over, Signe joined other young people in Stockholm and Uppsala who were discovering these ideas. During the winter of 1938-39 they began to find something important that they felt was worth living for. But the elation and new discovery soon led Signe to overdo it and she saw the old pattern of sleep deprivation and exhaustion repeating itself. In the spring Signe’s parents Kjell and Aagot suggested that she come home to Norway. They rented a room for her at a farm in the country where she could rest up. She also spent time together with her family at Thomasheftyes gate in Oslo. She had spent very little of her life in Norway and this was a special time, particularly with her youngest sister Lillan who was now 12 and in high school. Neither Signe or her family understood what her health issues were caused by but her parents were always caring and thoughtfully met her needs.
In hindsight this was the last time she spent with her family for a very long time as she soon received an invitation to join a group of 100 other young Scandinavians for three months in America in the summer of 1939. They were to be part of an international team who would share the idea that moral and spiritual re-armament was needed – instead of focusing on the military re-armament which was going on at the time. Buchman thought that the idea of moral re-armament could be America’s way to meet the crisis and assert a positive influence in the world, instead of concentrating solely on USA’s own welfare, as had been the case.
Signe’s parents had of course met Frank Buchman in Norway and were understanding, though she had interrupted a career as a commercial artist which they had made possible by providing an extensive and expensive education. But the family were there in Oslo on May of 1939 to send her off with the rest of the group. It took 8 days to get from Oslo to New York. In those days it was quite an experience to travel on a steamship. There was a real restaurant where you were served and if you needed to rest you could stay in bed and order a tray of food. Signe was horribly seasick and one day when she and her bunkmate were recovering, she ordered a breakfast tray. “When the waitress came, she tipped the whole tray into my bunk – coffee, porridge and all! The poor girl was probably feeling sick herself!” Those 8 days were a very good way for these 100 Scandinavians to get to know each other and arrive as a team. This was also the start of life-long friendships. When they arrived in New York a very large meeting was being planned at Madison Square Gardens.
Buchman was to launch his vision for the need of moral and spiritual re-armament in America. Arthur had been invited to come from England to support this event and help the US team to reach the Press. Signe was asked to go and meet Arthur at the boat as he had some lettering for her to do immediately. It was for the panels on billboards to announce the event at Madison Square Gardens that he had brought with him. Signe engaged in making the posters and big billboards for the meeting to be held at Madison Square Gardens.
As the summer passed things looked worse regarding war in Europe. In America materialism was rampant and isolationism firmly part of American politics with no involvement in Europe’s troubles. USA was rapidly becoming aware of its power as a world leader in the car and aeroplane production and the agricultural export market. Frank’s vision was that America could give Europe, and the world the idea of a God inspired democracy. Communism and Nazism were already capturing the minds of the youth and the leadership of the country. Frank saw that dictatorship with materialism at its heart would mean the end of civilisation. We could already see devastating industrial strikes, and how bad land management had led to great dustbowls where rich green fields had previously existed. Enormous pressure was put on those who dared to challenge the ruthless drive for wealth and power which prevailed but Frank’s vision and boldness captivated people of great calibre.
Many of their European colleagues planned to return home. Signe’s father sent her money for her fare home, and one day, Signe told Buchman that she felt it was time for her to go home too. He looked out into the distance for a while and then he looked at her and suggested that she stay a little longer. He didn’t say much but he had touched something in her heart that was big and beyond her and deep inside she responded positively. Already in Visby he had inspired her to take a decision to start this uncertain journey of getting to know herself, of being honest, and to begin the practice of listening to her inner guiding voice.
Signe longed to go home to her family and spend time in her home country Norway now that her family was living there again. Growing up as she had in Sweden, she had never had the opportunity to really get to know Norway apart from brief family visits to Sulitjelma and Horten. After that time with Buchman Signe went home to her lodgings and cried. They were tears of relief in one way because she felt in her heart that she should stay, but they were also tears of pain because she was afraid that she might not see her family or country ever again or at least not for long time. It was one of the biggest decisions she had ever made. This was right after the initial three months, before war broke out in Europe, when all the other Scandinavians were leaving for home and Signe stayed in America. The money for the fare was used on dentist bills instead.
Frank’s arrival in America with a multinational force made it clear that a mobile, integrated team of that size was a formidable instrument in the implementing of the vision that God had given Frank earlier that he would be instrumental in remaking the world. The young men and women he had enlisted and worked with in Oxford, Cambridge, Holland, Switzerland and Scandinavia were now ready to tackle the big and bold programme which developed teams within the press, labour, industry, stage and art and spread out over the country in close coordination with Frank and the central overall plan.
There developed, a persecution from powerful quarters to try to silence this voice for change and moral redirection. Yet meeting halls drew people to overflowing presentations, indicating a hunger for a deeper meaning in life. 14 000 people came to Madison Square Gardens, New York; 4 000 to Constitution Hall, near the White House; and 30 000 people to the Hollywood Bowl, where 15 000 were turned away! The advance was great. Everyone was expected and invited to contribute ideas and insights. Every morning they met as a team to compare notes, make plans and iron out any difficulties or personal differences which naturally appeared at times. These were no saints! They were normal human beings!
Those who remained in America felt that their work, though not in time to avert World War II, could become the basis for reconstruction where an inspired ideology of democracy could later spread from America to the world. They learnt to work together without getting emotionally involved in each other and were expected to keep relationships free of sexual contact.
“It cannot be overestimated what this meant in release of creative power. The writing, the music, the mounting of plays and arranging of occasions that inspired solution to social conflicts. There was a tremendous outpouring of hidden talent in action that affected life in the country in smaller or greater ways.” Signe found this to be “A satisfying, thrilling experience that turned many heartaches into insight and caring for others.”
The work they were engaged in had become such a challenge to negative forces in the US and a campaign to split their force was started to minimize its effect. The men had been asked by their governments to stay out of military service in order to pursue the morale-building work inspired by Frank Buchman. Pressure was now put on various enlistment boards to force these men into military service by ridiculing them, personal threats and even making false claims in the public eye through the press. Arthur had an encounter with such a person thinking he was interested in MRA but who afterwards used the information he gleaned to denounce Arthur in the British press as a traitor. These men had to go about incognito. They could never answer phones as they were at risk for spies and agents whose task it was to infiltrate and destroy the work of MRA.
This situation shook the team deeply. They had no idea that such destructiveness existed in ordinary daily life. It was of course also a measure of the effectiveness of the work they were engaged in on all levels of society: labour, management, government, military and culture. They were shocked to experience these measures in all areas of life. They had to learn how to do their work people and manage situations without leaving themselves or their work open to those who were out to hurt not only their team, but also those who were requesting their help. Many of these people were in high positions and had seen MRA as a way to reverse the decline of civilization.
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