Category Archives: Remembering

The Rat Race

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When Nate came out of law school in 1972, he was hired by the trust department of American National Bank in Chicago’s Loop. I was glad to be moving back to the Chicago area, and he was thankful to be starting his career in a big city.

I remember the day we bought his first briefcase, a plain black leather model with expandable pockets and niches for pens.  We waited while the shopkeeper embossed Nate’s initials near the handle, and from there we went and picked out a new suit.

After he began working, I loved walking from our second-floor apartment to meet him at the train each evening. Picking him out from a sea of suit-clad, briefcase-carrying commuters never failed to make my heart flutter. “Oh, there’s mine!”

He loved going to work and made friendships during those first years that were still current when he died 37 years later. But as the decades passed, Nate began to label his work routine a “rat race.” Career goals, once met, had been withdrawn, and his enthusiasm had waned.

Work was a means to an end, and he lived to come home. The luster had gone from boarding the commuter train and parading across the Loop with others running the same race. Yet he never wavered in his commitment to go. Even after the tumultuous collapse of his real estate company, he didn’t stay home even one day but rented a single-room office downtown, arranged for a phone, packed his briefcase and went to work.

When we moved to Michigan, his commute time doubled. But ever an advocate of riding trains, he daily boarded the South Shore Line for a journey from Michigan to the Loop. Amazingly, he didn’t mind, despite low energy and serious back pain. He took the 6:20 AM train to work the day we received his cancer diagnosis, and the next morning, against all logic, he climbed on the train again.

Jesus never experienced the pressure of a fast-paced commute with masses of people, but he definitely knew stress. His response was to decompress with the Father, separating himself from others and pulling close to his Sustainer. Amazingly, that same stress-reducer is available to us today with the identical benefit. Jesus successfully dealt with the burdens of his life by sharing them with God, and we can do the same. The invitation still stands. If we choose to go-it-alone, we step away from our most valuable resource.

Today I traced Nate’s commuter footsteps back into the rat race, riding the South Shore train to the Loop. Realizing the enormity of his commitment to continue commuting and working, I was emotionally moved while bumping along the rails.

What I did today took effort (finding the schedule, watching the clock, driving 19 miles to the station, waiting for a parking spot, hassling with the ticket machine), but he did this daily. I was making the journey for recreational reasons, but he did it to meet the demands of a pressure-cooker job.

My admiration for Nate’s willingness to run the rat race for his family knows no bounds. And it’s nice to know he has finally decompressed 100%.

“Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.” (Luke 6:12)

Look and See

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Many of us learned to read by way of the “Dick and Jane” readers, starring Mother, Father, Dick, Jane and Sally. Spot the dog and Puff the cat also featured into the plots.

Each page was three-fourths picture and one-fourth text. “See Spot. See Spot run. Run, run run.” I grew to love this family that was similar to ours, a boy and two girls, a dog that looked like Spot, and a cat named (yes) Puff. Virtually all American children in public grade schools learned to read with Dick and Jane, from the 1930’s to the 1970’s.

When I remember these books, the words “look” and “see” come to mind. The author hoped children would look at the world around them and observe all there was to see, learning life lessons while learning to read. But there were problems.

For one thing, all the characters were white, and their looking and seeing was all from that one perspective. Ethnic children didn’t relate to Dick, Jane and Sally. Their viewpoint was different and needed to factor into the stories. In the 1960’s, the books were finally expanded to include families of other races, which brought a richer depth to plot lines for all children.

Sometimes I wonder how differently I would see life had I been raised in a different country or been born to another race or faith. But this is an imponderable. We are who we are and have a limited perspective based on what we’ve looked at and seen.

Wise people expand their vision outside their experience with a desire to see beyond their own worlds. This can be really difficult, but there is a looking and seeing that’s easy to practice.

This picture of Nate and me was snapped before digitals (1985) by an eager little boy who had begged to take charge of the camera. We posed, and he centered the shot perfectly. Had he turned the camera or taken one step back, the result would have been different.

I decided to keep it, though. Even without any heads, the picture tells a story. The arms and hands say something, as well as the clothes, the plaque on the rock, the summer day, the long shadows. Had faces been visible, the other parts of the story might not have been noticed. It’s simply a picture from a fresh perspective.

God’s desire is that we look and see from his fresh perspective. This includes the way we look at circumstances and people, and especially the way we see him. In order to change our perspective, we have to look at how Jesus viewed circumstances, people and his Father, then copy him. None of that comes easily and takes years of practice, but as we try, we’ll see with new eyes.

The demise of Dick and Jane came in the 1970’s as phonics became the standard for teaching reading. But when we hear someone say, “See Spot run!” we know exactly what they mean.

“Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.” (Colossians 3:2 The Message)

Mother of Others

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Mary, Tom and I were blessed with a mom who turned life into a party, not always using the sound reasoning of an adult but making perfect sense to children.

For example, in the fifties when we’d go to the dentist, each of us would have multiple cavities not having had the benefit of fluoride. But after each dental appointment, because we were “so brave,” she’d walk us across the street to the candy store.

Mom made life good. She allowed as many pets as we wanted and gave us the freedom to roam the neighborhood. She let us strike matches, use the sharpest knives on our Halloween pumpkins and climb onto the roof “just to see what birds see.” She invited each of our grade school classes to our house for lunch every school year, let us set our own bedtimes, and if we asked her to read a story, she’d read and read until we finally said, “Ok, that’s enough.”

But having the funnest mother in the neighborhood had a down side to it: we had to share her.

I remember bristling as a grade school child when other kids flocked to Mom. Mary and I even talked about how it felt to be ranked with the masses, responding with childish self-focus to the dilemma of having a popular mom. But once we became mothers, we realized we’d been observing a woman using her gifts just as God intended. Jesus said, “Let the kids come.” Mom was just following his example.

Every child was priceless to her, and she experienced deep pleasure in loving them. The apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Not Mom.

Even as an adult, she thought like a child, and truth be told, she never put away childish things. That’s why she was a kid magnet. She was “old” and yet “one of them.” They trusted her as a BFF (Best Friend Forever), and she never let them down.

Isn’t that parallel to why we’re drawn to Jesus Christ? He became “one of us,” experiencing life as we know it. Though he’s actually far superior, he lowered himself into our way of life, willing to endure hardship and fight temptation exactly as we do. And best of all, he can be completely trusted. He’ll never let us down.

Mom was the best-of-all-possible-worlds for a kid. She had the power of an adult (a driver’s license, a house with a kid-friendly basement, money in her purse). Yet she retained the heart of a child.

Jesus is the best-of-all-possible Saviors. He has the power of divinity (the ability to forgive sins, victory over death, the key to heaven). Yet he retained a heart as “one of us.”

Mom gave fully of herself, which made for many happy childhoods. But Jesus gave fully of himself, which makes for eternal happiness!

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

[Below, Mom-style good times in just several months. And where is she? Behind the camera.]