Category Archives: People

I dreamed a dream…

24 Tuesday Nov 2015

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The other night I dreamed a dream about a huge and elaborate wedding, so fantastic and so immense in the imagination of the couple, that only a giant could officiate. I did not know the couple, but still I was invited; they were inviting everyone. Not wanting to be a spoilsport or left out of the biggest social event of the year, I went. The caterers prepared huge hampers of food and barrels of beverages and loaded them onto decorated trucks. A troop of acrobats led the wedding procession in front of the drum major and a marching band, followed by the dozens of handsomely costumed people in the wedding party in open carriages, drawn by teams of Belgian and Clydesdale horses, until the bride and groom came in the grandest gold carriage of all, then the parents, and the decorated food trucks, collecting the cars and buses of the guests as they went, winding through the streets of the city into the countryside. We all arrived at the edge of the forest where the giant emerged from the trees and, to a hundred trumpet fanfare, the couple and members of the wedding party ascended the great platform, specially built and decorated with banners and bunting, to stand on a pedestal in front of the giant. The music stopped, and the crowd hushed, waiting for the giant to speak.

“Food first!” said the giant. “We eat first, then we have wedding ceremony.” By “we” the giant meant “I,” and the couple looked at each other, then stood aside and gestured to the Master of the Caterers, and they brought forth, immediately, as if by magic, plates full of food, to offer to the giant. The plates looked so pitifully small in the hands of the giant, like pennies or dimes in his hands, that he tossed them aside, and yelled “Real plates! Real food!” The servers scurried away and came back with huge caskets filled with sides of beef and ham and whole turkeys, troughs full of mashed potatoes and vegetables, each carried by teams of four to eight servers, up to the top of the platform , while the giant scooped up the food in his huge hands, all the time calling for “More! More!” until it was obvious that the giant was eating everything that had been prepared, and there would be nothing left for anyone else.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it was a dream, of course, and everyone looked in amazement and wonder as the giant ate the wedding banquet all by himself, and, when he had finished, he turned and walked grandly back into the forest, leaving the bride and groom, and the wedding party, and all of the guests, looking at his back, as he disappeared into the trees, leaving no one to lead the ceremony. I turned and said to the person next to me, “Didn’t the giant look a lot like Donald Trump?” but before he answered, I woke up or at least I think I did.

I’m Not Done Yet!

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

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dock at sunset

When I came to Burlington, Ann Parks was a member of the Zion Church Consistory and a member of the Burlington City Council. Ann had built a reputation for community service and interest in progressive causes; chief among them was her campaign to open a refuge for the victims of domestic violence, which came to fruition as the Battered Women’s Shelter. She and a woman of similar energy, Marcia Walker, also on both Consistory and Council, and several other church members active in community life formed a powerful team for public good, the likes of which I had seldom seen.

Within a few months Ann received the troubling news that she had cancer, and she entered into treatment with the same determination that she exercised in other matters. She had a family—a husband, two sons who were nearing adulthood, and a daughter who was nearing adolescence. She had public responsibilities and goals that were notable, and she had a strong desire to overcome the disease that was threatening her life.

Months of treatment passed with signs of hopefulness. Then came the finding that the treatment had ceased to be effective, and something else would be needed. I met Ann in the hospital shortly after that discouraging news. I don’t remember exactly what I said, probably something to the effect that I was sorry to hear that the cancer was spreading again. I do remember her immediate response, “I’m not done yet!”

She definitely put me in my place. She was not ready to accept bad news and yield to it. Plenty of people needed her, and she had plenty of things to motivate her to keep going.

Unfortunately the cancer overcame her within a few weeks in spite of her determination. Her memorial service was held at the large central United Methodist Church, which had more space than Zion for the crowd that would attend, and its pastor was a better-known public figure to host the service. He did invite me to speak a few words as her pastor, and Ann herself had provided the theme.

Ann had been right, after all, to say, “I’m not done yet!” She knew that many things remained to be done in the agendas she had chosen to serve, or that had chosen her. Even though she was no longer there to do the work, anyone who counted themselves among her family, her friends and her associates, knew that they needed to carry on with the same heart and determination that Ann had shown.

If we have a calling at all, it is a calling to do something larger than we are by ourselves, and it is often a calling to be engaged in something that is larger than one lifetime can accomplish. It was Ann’s, and it is ours.

Jan identifies with her mother so much that…

01 Thursday Oct 2015

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dock at sunset

Three and a half weeks after her mother fell and broke her neck, nose, and three other compression fractures in her back, as well as badly bruised her face, her mother continues in therapy and in the care of staff in a nursing home. Jan spent twelve nights in all with her mother, attempting to work out the challenges of pain-relief and sleeping medications, staff responses, and keeping her neck brace in position without her mother removing it. Finally, a tentative stability achieved, Jan returned to her own life and got some rest.

One night her mother had spent several hours preparing for her first grade class of school children, identifying their individual needs, and strategizing how to meet those needs. Of course she retired nearly twenty-five years ago, but she had taught for more years than that, and it is easy for her mind to return to those years, even as she also slips back into the early years of motherhood, or childhood with her own mother. Jan could easily identify with each stage of her mother’s concerns.

Jan was nearly caught up with her rest, as we travelled to Lincoln, Nebraska, for an enjoyable day with Granddaughter Willow, a trip that we had postponed because of Mother’s needs. On the way back, we stopped at one of Missouri’s remaining rest areas. Gary took the Nguy family beagle, Odette, into the pet walking area. Odette had stayed with Willow for six weeks but worn out her welcome with her persistent demand to be outside when Willow needed to study. We volunteered to take Odette back to O’Fallon. Jan sat in the car, finishing a phone conversation.

When Jan got out to walk to the rest station, her toe caught on a parking barrier, and she fell face-first onto a concrete curb. Her face was bloodied, scraped, and bruised, but her glasses somehow escaped with just a bend in an earpiece. Gary came running when he saw Jan lying flat, put Odette in the car, and checked Jan out. She was bleeding profusely, but the two small facial cuts were closing quickly with pressure. Her nose was pouring, so we used Jan’s tried and true method of a small compress under her upper lip, and it began to slow, and finally stopped after five minutes.

A rest area worker came quickly when she saw us on the ground. She was so focused on Jan’s visible injuries that she stepped on the glasses, but she was so eager to be helpful that we could not fault her. A pediatrician and his wife were next to help. The doctor admitted that Jan was older than his usual patients, but the injuries looked familiar. He checked her over, said that one stitch or a butterfly bandage might be useful, made sure that she was not feeling pain anywhere else that might indicate a break, and discussed what to watch for in concussion symptoms, which were not appearing—no headache, vision or dilation effects, or confusion. The rest area worker helped Jan into the restroom to get cleaned up.

We made stops at Walgreens and CVS forty minutes later to get bandages, antibiotic cream, and antiseptics. We passed four hospital signs during the rest of the trip, checking with each other about the advisability of stopping, but we arrived at O’Fallon six hours later.

Jan had copied her mother’s accident, in facial injuries, but not in broken bones, fortunately. She had two seriously black eyes and a nasty abrasion on her forehead to alarm and impress Alicia, Au, and Symphony. Alicia had fallen down her stairway a few years ago and seriously damaged her knee. Jan could easily identify with her mother and her daughter in an even more intimate respect.

Waste of a good mind

28 Monday Sep 2015

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3 Owls

A new teacher but already a middle-aged man, Mr. Vickers introduced himself to his first chemistry class at Paxton Community High School, “My first name is Mister.” He was always quite formal, organized, and meticulous, and he proved to be an excellent instructor in chemistry and physics. His instructions were orderly and systematic. If we did our part, we had no excuse not to learn in his classes. I was pleased when he offered me an opportunity to take part in a special summer class for prospective science majors at Northwestern University after my junior year in high school. That was the summer I also took advantage of an opportunity to acquire a Methodist License to Preach though the Illinois Wesleyan University licensing school.

Mr. Vickers did not have much use for religion. He did not reveal this through disparaging words, and we as students never heard him say what experiences had led him away from the involvements in religious organizations that typified many of his teaching colleagues in that community. He did not know that my thoughts about the future were divided between pursuing studies in science or religion. At the end of that summer someone must have told him of my divided interests.

Not long after the beginning of school that fall, Mr. Vickers interrupted class to invite me into the hallway. I was apprehensive that I had done something wrong. His manner was usually sober and severe, so there were no clues that his interest was paternal. He explained that he had been disappointed to learn that I was thinking about a career in Christian ministry. “That would be a waste of a good mind,” he said. He had several other things to say about it that I have forgotten, but that sentence stuck in my thoughts.

My pastor at the time, Glen Sims, was a learned and compassionate man. Without his example of an intelligent person serving courageously and usefully in that community, Mr. Vickers might have been more persuasive. As it was, I knew that Mr. Vickers sincerely cared about me and my future, and he gave me a preview of challenges to come.

Mr. Jones, the speech teacher, soon added another viewpoint. Public speaking was a much more uncomfortable subject for me than chemistry or physics. You have to be able to cry on cue, if you’re going to be a preacher, Mr. Jones said in words to that effect. Preachers appeal to the emotions, not to the intelligence, according to Mr. Jones. Mr. Barth, the English teacher, also added his advice. His brother was a Lutheran minister, he said, and it’s not an easy life. You have too rosy a picture of it as a career. You have to be prepared to be lonely. People have many unrealistic expectations of the clergy.

The advice began to accumulate. Most other career choices were not subject to such interest. Just about everyone had an opinion about religious vocations. Mr. Vicker’s advice stood out among the rest. I heard him say to me that I had a good mind. That was a source of pride. I also heard him issue the challenge, “Do not waste such a gift. It would be easy to waste it, going in the direction that he thought I was going.”

Living in an Ecumenical Family

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Bridge in Autumn

Many years ago, when I learned that my first cousin had become a Muslim, I was surprised. Central Illinois is not the environment in which I expected Muslim conversion to occur. My cousin, however, met her husband at the University of Illinois, where many students and teachers represent the wider world. He was from Iraq, and they fell in love. She found enough affirmation of her Christian beliefs within Islam to convert, which was easier for her than for him, considering his strong Muslim family ties. Their marriage occurred in the years in which Saddam Hussein and the United States’ administration were on friendly terms, and she went with him to live in Iraq for several years, while his work in agriculture—teaching and government administration—proved rewarding. Then life began to change for everyone concerned, and they found their way back to Illinois and the university. Meanwhile their family grew, and soon I had many Muslim cousins. We were an ecumenical family, with Jews, Christians—both Catholic and Protestant, Muslims, and Buddhists, all related to one another by close family ties.

By the time I had learned of her conversion, I had read a few books on Islam and its practices and history, as well as other faiths. That was an interest of mine, which I pursued in college as well, majoring in philosophy and religion at Illinois Wesleyan University. My instructors were not advocates of Islam; most of them were professing Christians, but they were for the most part fair in their presentations of other faiths, and they encouraged our open-minded communication and visits to the worship and study centers of other faiths, which I did enthusiastically.

Although I was secure in my own faith traditions, aspects of Judaism and of Islam were still attractive enough for me to develop both sympathy and admiration for the faithful people I met from those backgrounds. Clearly a spectrum of beliefs, from hardline and literalistic to permeable and metaphoric, existed in the three branches of the children of Abraham. We were cousins, both in fact and in faith, not always friendly and loving cousins, but potentially so.

A biography of Moses ben Maimon—Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher—fascinated me. Like many of our ancestors of all three faiths he had to flee Spain at one of the historic points of intolerance and expulsion. His refugee journey ended in Egypt under Islamic rule, and he soon found his way into the medical service for the ruling family. His dilemma was whether he could declare himself a Muslim. It would ease his entrance into Egyptian society. Was there a sense in which he could accept the faith of Islam?

As far as the meaning of the word ‘Islam’ was concerned, there was no problem. Being subservient or obedient to the One God was what their faith was about, and so was his faith. That they called him Allah presented no problem, for he understood that ‘Allah” was an Arabic word for God, much as the English people had adopted the old English word ‘God.’ Hebrew had adopted many Semitic words from their cultural environment as names for ‘YHWH’ as well. The practices of Islam—profession of faith, daily prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Medina and Mecca—presented no insurmountable obstacles; those practices were familiar and admirable.

The main question for Maimonides was whether he could affirm that Mohammed was a prophet of God. He didn’t have to declare that Mohammed was the only prophet, since their writings affirmed the prophetic gifts in Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and even Jesus and his mother Mary. Certainly in practice Islamic attention was fixed on Mohammed, but they accepted the prophetic roles of the others as well. Finally, after much thought, Maimonides decided that Mohammed had at least as much prophetic spirit as some of the earlier prophets of Israel. Mohammed had repudiated and replaced the idolatry and polytheism of Arabia with a clear monotheism, he had accepted the validity of the faith of other People of the Book (Jews and Christians), and he had stressed the many attributes of God that Maimonides praised as well—mercy, justice, wisdom, compassion, and patience, among others. Therefore he could affirm the name of Muslim as long as he could continue to practice his Jewish faith as well. That seemed to me a fair and understandable position for a wise man to take.

If I were to live in a world where we were required to affirm a single faith in order to be accepted, I wondered and still wonder what I would do. If the required faith was a form of literalistic and fundamentalist Christianity, I would be as hard-pressed to affirm it as I would be to affirm the same kind of Islam, or Mormonism, or Lutheranism for that matter. As long as our attention is fixed on God and human need, whether I try to live under the title of Jew, Christian, or Muslim, I still have a long way to go to learn how to do it well.

“I know you believe in some kind of god.”

17 Thursday Sep 2015

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Monkeys see, hear, speak no evil, Bangra.com

The boyfriend, about to become an ex-boyfriend, said it. He had not broached the topic before. It was clear that he did not want to now. His own faith was complete, as his minister told him so. He belonged to a true church, unlike so many around us in the world today. He liked his girlfriend, but she belonged to one of those other pseudo-churches, and one that was so liberal that it no longer preached The Bible, or at least that is what his church said.

He doesn’t know what made him say it. Maybe he could begin to change her step by step until finally she would be completely acceptable. Maybe he could win her over. You can do that sometimes, his minister had said. You can pave the way for an unbeliever by showing them the right way, but you must beware of being yoked to one who will draw you away.

The words clarified the situation for her. She had thought long and hard about her faith, and she knew she was not done thinking or believing. The God she would trust was not just “some kind of God” but one who encouraged such pondering and wondering, one who did not provide just a set of simple answers, and one who did not reside in a few authoritarian leaders or absolute positions.

He didn’t know how much he had blown it until he saw her face. She was hurt and disappointed that he thought so little of her, that she might be satisfied with just “some kind of god,” as if she were as pagan as the polytheists in the ancient world. As if she would settle for something less than he would, and he had to take her by the hand and lead her. As if he thought he knew something special but could not trust himself to share it. She would never be his equal, and she would defend herself and “her kind of god” against him. Her resistance showed in her stubborn, hardening expression.

He wished he hadn’t said it. He could have let things go on as they had been, going their own way, each to the church of their choice. They wouldn’t have to talk about it for a long time. He could have been comfortable with that, because they enjoyed each other when they were together, which was not all of the time.

Meeting the Seventh Sister

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Milky Way over natural rock arch

I was a little boy when I met my Great Aunt Junia. She had travelled to Illinois from far away Texas to visit her relatives. Past eighty years, her angular features and voice of ancient authority made a lasting impression. She spoke to me about her love of creation, especially the beauty and mystery of the heavens, so that, whenever I read Psalm 8, I think of her.

She knew the constellations and their legends, and on that early winter evening, she spun stories about the Big and Little Bear, the Dragon, Orion the Hunter, the Great Dog, Sagittarius the Archer, and the Seven Sisters. I wondered if she was one of the seven sisters incarnate, and when I learned of her death a few years later, I imagined that she simply ascended to reclaim her position among that cluster of stars.

On countless evenings since then, in every season, I have looked at the stars and studied their patterns and thought of her and her wisdom and her stories. How can one chance meeting make such an impact? Matching an impressionable child with an octagenarian makes part of the answer. The rest of the answer lies in the mystery of meeting and the amazing possibilities of the moment.

Sometimes we become discouraged that our weekly hours in work, study, and worship seem to mean so little and make so little impact. Months of confirmation classes can leave some young adults seemingly unaffected. Then again, even one brief moment can bring to life an insight and a relationship that will make all the difference between faith and despair. Treasure the moment and its possibilities.

Wait for me, Mary Alice.

10 Thursday Sep 2015

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farm windmill

Of the stories Mary Alice (our Mother) loves to tell, some of her most familiar tell of moving to the farm northeast of New Salem, Illinois. Glen Hillmann moved his family from Quincy, Illinois, to New Salem in 1935, leaving his job as a life insurance salesman, when life insurance was a lower priority than putting food on the table for most people, to become a farmer, with help from his father-in-law, Ezra Doane. Ezra was preparing to move into town, leaving his farms and houses to his daughters’ husbands.

The Hillmanns, Glenn and Dollie Leigh and their four daughters, moved in January, to be ready to do the field work when spring came. Mary Alice had just completed sixth grade in a program that made it possible for students to work at their own accelerated pace. That meant that seventh grade in nearby Tennariff School had already been in session for four months. She came into that grade mid-year in a one-room school, and she faced major changes from the separately graded city schools in Quincy. She wondered whether she could make it in such a strange setting, starting months behind her classmates, with all the grades in one room, and a one-eyed man named Hugh Kerr as her teacher, the first male teacher that she had. She didn’t have to worry. She excelled in her work and fit right in. When Hugh Kerr sent her out with a pail to fetch water, after she had also used the girls’ fancy outhouse, and she returned to the classroom without the pail, then was embarrassed to remember and she slipped out to return with the full pail a few minutes later, and the teacher didn’t say a word to her about it, no punishment or anything, she decided it was going to turn out all right.

Tennariff School sat just around the corner of the section from their farmhouse, an easy quarter mile walk for her and little sister Rosalyn except on the coldest of days. Barbara was still at home, too young for school. In another year Mary Alice joined her older sister Aileen in New Salem High School. That was a long two mile walk up and down the steep Rutman and Quinney Hills. Aileen was taller and her stride longer, but Mary Alice was faster, and she liked to run up the hills, much to the consternation of her less athletic sister. Aileen would whine from behind, “Wait for me, Mary Alice! Wait for me!”

Mary Alice had little patience for her older sister, who didn’t like the farm and didn’t adjust to farm life. Having no boys to help, Mary Alice was happy to become her father’s helping hand around the farm. She did chores with the animals and hitched the horse to the plow, and learned to work in the field. It wasn’t long before a tractor replaced the horses, but she didn’t mind working with either one. Aileen, on the other hand, had no interest and missed the city life.

The old memories and the feelings that came with them persist long into the dementia of aging. Aileen died nearly twenty years ago, and Rosalyn was too young to do field work until after Mary Alice had moved on to study and work at Western Illinois College and obtain her teaching certificate there, which she used for years to teach in a one room country school. Now, when she can neither farm nor teach nor run, she often tells us of the times when she could. She pictures that sister yelling “Wait for me,” every time she has to get up out of bed, use that walker, and head down the hall.

I’m trying to do my best.

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

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dock at sunset

“Use your hands!” . . . “Use your hands!” . . . “Use your hands!” . . . the therapist said. (He wanted her to stretch out behind her and grab the arms of the chair before sitting down, but he did not say that.)

I am using my hands. I’m holding onto my walker to steady myself. What do you mean? What are you telling me to do? See my hands. Let me show them to you. You can see I’m used to using my hands. See how the fingers are misshapen. The ends of my fingers go every which way. I played the piano and organ for years and years. I took care of children, hundreds of children in the country school, and then first grade at South Grade, then North Grade School. Do you think I’m stupid? I’m using my hands, a lot longer than you’ve used yours.

If I could stretch out my hands and grab your neck, I’d do it! Don’t think I wouldn’t.

Last night I went to see Mama and Daddy. They said things had changed, just as a matter of fact. They didn’t say how they felt about it. Things have changed. I can’t figure out why. What has happened to me? I don’t like it. I saw the baby you would have had if he had lived. He had to grow up there when he couldn’t live here. He said he liked it there. (I think—Jan did have a miscarriage at three months, but Mother can’t be talking about that.)

My souls have tried to fly away. One is staying there with Mama. She died when I was 33, just when I needed her most, trying to raise four children; my husband not staying by my side. Daddy knew what I needed. His mama died when he was four, but then he had his grandma. I never got to know my grandma. Then she died when he was seven, but he had his older sister, then she died of typhoid. Daddy had to stay with neighbors, Bill and Bess Wireman, who were good people. His daddy had to work the mail route around New Salem, and he couldn’t watch the two little ones all day. Then he married Mary Jane Seaborn, and they all got to live together. My happy soul is there with him, my stubborn soul stays in my body, and my cranky soul goes wandering around this place, wherever this is.

You’re supposed know about these things. Who are you? Why don’t you do something? (I’m your son-in-law. You know me. I’m Gary. You’ve known me for 48 years, over half your life.)

I’m not where I’m supposed to be. You can do something. Take care of it. Or are you still a turtle? Slow to move. (I am a turtle. You are a wolf, and we’re both a little crazy.)

Our souls are flying all over the place.

Driving Robert Mann

29 Saturday Aug 2015

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Chicago skyline 1970

Returning to Chicago in the fall of 1970, after a year-long internship in Danville, Illinois, I concentrated my attention on my studies, my fellowship (which involved organizing the church-related archives of the seminary), and the immediate neighborhood of the south side. State Representative Robert Mann shocked the democratic machine by declaring his political independence and refusing machine support. They promptly selected a black candidate from the largely black district, but one who promised to be more amenable to party direction. Mann’s record was irreproachable from a liberal reformer perspective, and I decided to spend some of my “free” time volunteering for this new Independent.

We had replaced our 1960 Ford Falcon with a brand new Plymouth Valiant during my internship. When Mann’s campaign team asked for volunteer drivers, who could also provide a car, I volunteered. By that time I knew the south side streets well. I cleared a week of evenings and signed up to drive Representative Mann.

On our first evening Mann noted that their wasn’t quite as much room in the back seat of a Valiant as there was in a Checker Marathon, a first taste of his droll sense of humor. We paid a visit to a meeting of the United Steelworkers on the far south side, and Mann let me listen to a private conversation with Edward `Sadlowski (“oil can Eddie”). Sadlowski eventually led the union to a more active advocacy role during the massive layoffs and transition to overseas manufacturing during the 1980’s and 90’s. Mann, himself an attorney, reminded me that ministers must learn how to keep confidences and I should do that here. I was impressed that they were talking about a future ten to twenty years ahead of events, and how unions should try to prepare for the transition that was coming as major corporations were making plans for replacing and avoiding union contracts.

Small group gatherings in churches, civic organizations, and homes filled the next few nights. Sometimes I had to double park on the street waiting for Mann to finish and move on to the next location. When I found a convenient close parking place, I got to observe Mann’s careful handling of the issues, including facing an opponent whose racial identity matched the majority of the district, but whose political positions did not necessarily match their interests.

On Thursday evening we were driving through a Woodlawn neighborhood, not more than a mile from my apartment when a loud bang and hit to the rear of the car alarmed us both. I just kept driving. When we reached a lighted area a few blocks away, we checked and found a bullet dent in the rear panel. That evening Mann thanked me for the week of transportation, but thought he might need a heavier vehicle in the future, maybe with some bullet-proof glass.

I didn’t drive for him again, but I did vote for him, and he did win the election. Eventually he yielded his position to another independent and African-American candidate.