Chicago In My Heart

I’ve been back in Chicago for the first time in awhile. I’m attending a conference tomorrow that supports my Louisville Institute project and is addressing some concerns about issues that are important to me. And so I built in some time to see old friends and enjoy this old haunt of ours. Chicago is a city of significance for me. I went to College here, I went to Seminary here, I did my internship at a Covenant Church close to the University, and I was the University Chaplain for the 5 years prior to our moving to Sweden. Chicago has the been the birthplace of some of the most deep and abiding friendships I’ve ever known. It’s a gift to return, to feel the nostalgia of this place we called home, and to remember many, many wonderful times.

 Doug and I met in Seminary, got engaged at the Swedish restaurant that is across the street from the University (perhaps a fore-shadowing of what our life would be?!),  and were married in the campus chapel, newly built during my first year as chaplain and the first couple to celebrate our nuptials there.  The corner of Foster and Kedzie on the north side of Chicago has shaped my career and my family and I am grateful.

Big changes have occurred during the years we have been away, most significantly, a big, beautiful building went up. The Nancy and G. Timothy Johnson center for science and community life has transformed the center of campus and it was a thrill to see it up close.  My parents had both died when the campaign for this building was happening and my mother happened to know the G. Timothy who the building is named for and so in the midst of our grief and sorting through all that went along with dealing with their deaths, Doug and I decided that we wanted to make a gift to the campaign in memory of my parents. They both studied sciences, and valued education so it seemed a fitting memorial.   We had not seen the building nor the donor wall so it was pretty neat to get to see it on this trip. In addition to our own connections to this campus community, my mom also went to this school and taught there for awhile and Doug’s folks also attended this university so it is really a place of significance for us. I loved walking around the campus, seeing the spring flowers finally in bloom, remembering so many deep conversations I had with students, the countless chapels that we executed and the theological studies that helped shape and form me into the pastor I am today. I used the library for a couple of days as well to get some work done on this book project I’m forging ahead with and it was such a gift to have that made available to me. I spent some time with the current President of the University who was the CFO while I was chaplain and an ardent supporter of me and it was so good to get caught up on his life as he prepares to finally retire after 29 years of faithfully serving this place so many of us love. The University Ministries offices are in a completely different place than when I was there and I loved seeing the prayer chapel, open to students, to drop in for a quiet moment, to share a request, to meet with God in a still, small place. This cross was fashioned out of a mulberry tree that had to come down in order to build the building. 

I have enjoyed connecting with a variety of people, including a student I met as a freshman who I hired to work with me in University ministries after he graduated, a woman who was part of the student life team and is now the dean of student life, a couple whose kids I had in my first youth group and who I roped into going on a mission trip with us one year, a woman who I worked with at the church during my internship who has graciously opened up her home to me to let me come and go as I please, another woman who was a student when I was chaplain who now works at the University who has shown me immeasurable support through the years. It’s nice to have fans who affirm and encourage you. I have been able to spend time with dear friends from the church that Doug served before we moved to Sweden, one family who were our next door neighbors, another who have just suffered a great tragedy, having to bury their beloved and wonderful 28 year old son due to an unexpected medical condition. Hard, heartfelt, loving, connected conversations with friends I hardly see but with whom I enter right back to a place of closeness and understanding. I spent an evening with my best friend from University days, a woman I met as a freshman almost 40 years ago! Went to church at a place where countless other relationships from this amazing community were present to reminisce and reconnect with me. It has been a joyous love fest of celebrating deeply woven relationships for which neither time nor distance have torn down. And of course, I ate pizza!

 I don’t know if I could live in Chicago again...it did snow just last week! And the traffic is epic for sure. I did enjoy re-tracing my commute, roads that I drove on zillions of times in all kinds of weather. The muscle memory was there for sure! So who knows what will bring us back this way. But no matter what, I will always welcome with an eager heart the opportunity to stop by the Windy City and feel the deep resonance with this city of my heart filled with friends of my heart. -

04/04 for the 4th time

     So it’s been 4 years now since my dad died. The past week has been kind of rough as Facebook reminded me of the journey through his final days on earth. It’s still touches a tender spot in my heart. Tears come easily. Grief returns. I still miss him most days. 

     Today is also the 50th anniversary of the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Until this year, I had no idea that my dad’s death corresponded with this significant event in history.  Of course, the assassination of King is a much more significant event in history than the death of my father but my own personal history is much more deeply affected by the untimely passing of my father. 

     So what can I say today, 4 years down the road? I still miss him. I feel very thankful for the gifts that he and my mom left to me and Doug, gifts that have allowed us to build the life that we have here in California. He would’ve loved that we lived in both London and Paris since leaving Stockholm. He would’ve loved seeing Maddie and watching her grow. He would be all over every renovation we’ve done to the house and to the yard. He would’ve loved this year’s March Madness with all the upsets and the fact that Loyola Chicago got to the final four. He would’ve loved that I’ve learned to make pie crust from scratch and he’d be up for eating pie whenever I felt like making it. He would be up here with us all week watching the Masters. He would be thrilled that the Angels acquired Shohei Ohtani and would be excited to watch almost every game of the 160 game season! And he would’ve reflected deeply on the death of Martin Luther King, acknowledging his amazing legacy, one that helped him to love the underdogs in our society, most notably the young Hispanics that he took under his wing and helped them build their businesses and establish their lives in the US under somewhat hostile circumstances.

     I wish he was still with us but I also must admit that I wish he was alive as the younger, healthier man that he was. Admittedly, it would not have been easy to watch the aging process continue to take its toll, but I wanted him around for at least a few more years. I wish we were getting together regularly to play cribbage. I wish we were watching sports on TV, yelling at the refs, cheering for our favorites. I wish we could’ve gone on an Alaska cruise together. I wish we lived in the desert full-time while my parents were still living. Yeah, I wish for many things.

     But even in the midst of the grief that I feel, I feel grateful that we shared the relationship that we did. We understood one another pretty well. We thought a like on many things although not all things. I inherited his intensity in all things and while at times I wish I were more mellow in my reactions to things, I’m also happy for the deep feelings that he taught me to exhibit. 

     I am grateful that his impact was deep in my life, but also in so many others. I still hear from former players, in fact, got a great note from one of them today, who acknowledge the role he played in shaping their lives. I still wonder if I will ever attempt to tell the story of Coach Moon and his championship teams through the eyes of his players but that’s a project for another day, probably another year. 

     So, for me, the 4th of April will always be mostly about my dad and his passing and not the other very significant event that rocked the US 50 years ago. I will always journey through this time of year, especially when his death date lands so close to Easter as it did this year, with sadness and gratitude. His final days were so awful for me, so unexpected, so hard to believe that in many ways it’s taken me 4 years to even understand how deep the wounds went. Both of my parents have their fingerprints all over our house in obvious ways, like the 52” TV that hangs in our house that came from theirs, like the lovely 2012 Honda SUV we drive, like the ways in which the sale of their home helped to pay for the renovation of ours. But even beyond these physical gifts, their fingerprints are all over our lives as we seek to be generous and loving to all we meet, as we reach out to those less fortunate than we, as we try to leave a positive imprint on others in the way that they so deeply and effortlessly did in so many other people.  

     I had great parents. And for all who knew them, I’m confident that they thought the same. Incidentally, the 5 year anniversary of my mom’s passing is in just 3 short weeks so April is pretty much a month of remembering my loss while acknowledging how much I gained through their very beings. Peace to their memories. And wow, do I have a treasure trove of them.