“Mousey, today let us just be happy!” my husband would say from time to time. “Mousey” was our nickname. “Forget everything, take my hand, let’s run to the woods. Look up the sky that is true blue! Look down, the earth is fresh from the rain with multi colored flowers.”
Sometimes Dietrich would come up with a sentence that had deep meaning for the day and more. He was studying complicated things in theology and could condense the whole thing into one sentence, “Let us just be happy” (the purpose of life is joy).
When he was writing his Ph.D. dissertation, he chose the topic “Marriage and family in the Christian tradition.” The German theologian and philosopher, Friedrich Schleiermacher, was his interest. He was one of the first to break through about revolutionary ideas for marriage and family after the Protestant Reformation.
So, Dietrich wrote his dissertation on this subject. Then, years later, one day during a big clean up a copy of his dissertation went to the dumpster. Our daughter Diesa, who was then a college student, said she wanted it. Dietrich went back to the dumpster and retrieved this precious book, which then went back on a shelf.
A few years later I gave it to our editor, Dr. Tanabe. During the summer of 2024 she edited it and later surprised us by publishing it as a book to honor both Friedrich Schleiermacher and Dietrich Seidel.
The Christian foundation has been the bedrock for a happy marriage! Let us all be happy today!
Dietrich F. Seidel 