In the morning, we drove into Chicago. First stop at noon was Pockets - it wasn't the same location I'd frequented in the past (since we only had 1 day there there wasn't really time), but it was the same chain and the food was just as good as I remember. Got a half calzone and a salad for the road.Then we loaded in at the Stark residence. Wen Yi Ko Stark was a friend in college also - who I haven't
kept in touch with almost at all, other than a little bit of Facebook stalkery, so I was very happy that she agreed at the last minute for us to come stay with her family. Her husband Jeromy was busy at work when we came in (he runs all the technical stuff for Moody Church), but the kids were home - there were 4: Ethan, Sierra, Megan and Wesley, although only Sierra is pictured here. As we settled in and caught up, Sierra eagerly served Jamie and I small cups of imaginary tea and plates of toy pie. Quite the little hostess! :)
Right about then, I received a phone call that my grandpa was dying. I suppose some people will think it heartless that I continued my trip until I could manage to fly home, but Grandpa would have wanted me to, I think, and I forged on, though at times it was with rather wet cheeks, particularly in moments of interim, like trips on the El. I couldn't have made it home in time to make any difference anyhow, it was just a matter of waiting.
I had a 3 pm appointment to meet Dr. de Rosset, one of my favorite profs in school. I had her for 'Images of Christ in the Novel', 'Violence and Grace in the Novel' and 'Homiletics'. Many favorite books and authors were discovered in those classes. We had a sweet little visit and talked about the school and friends in common and books. For those who will want to know, I asked for some book recommendations and she gave me the following:
- Mad Men by Tracy Groot
- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- Christ-centered Preaching by Brian Chapell (we read this in homiletics class)
- Men and Women in Ministry by Sara Sumner
She is always good for these. I will have to check them out when I have time.
One of my favorite moments of our visit was when I told her how my old poet friend/student of hers David Huckfelt is now living in Minneapolis, and in a band called The Pines which is doing quite well. She looked them up online right then, and liked the music so much she intends to purchase a CD. That must be the greatest thing about teaching. Watching and seeing who all your young persons grow up to be. We are all such curious mysteries.
During my visit, I received the call that my grandpa had died. When our visit ended, I took some time by myself in The Commons (a new cafe they have on campus) to sit and require nothing of myself. Tommy checked in to make sure I was ok, but otherwise I let myself sit and be alone for awhile, for the first time since I heard it was coming. I was very tempted to go back to Wen Yi's and bury myself in bed for the rest of the day, but somehow when Jamie and I met up again about an hour later I felt ready to go explore this home of my past a bit more. It had been at least 10 years since my last visit.
The next stop in the order of events was to return to Wicker Park - where I helped start my first 'church plant' in a coffeehouse, and was in the poetry and arts scenes, probably for the first time in my life. Jamie and I met back up and took the El over. We first went to the Flat Iron building to peruse all thestudios (where artists live and work). It was lovely, but my old friends no longer resided there. I even crashed a private art reception (while Jamie waited outside, feeling under-dressed) and no one batted an eye. :)
We then did some shopping, and stopped by the space that used to be The Salvage House (coffeehouse where Urban Chapel Ministries had our church, and where I lived in summer 98). It had become a spa, and I was told, had been a shoe store before that. The whole area was gentrified and not very likely to be sporting the prostitutes etc. that we were helping back in the 90s, nor perhaps as many of the artists as once could afford to call that area their home.
At the top of the actual park in Wicker Park, we ran into a man who was standing by a sign which offered "Free Prayer/Prayers for Encouragement". We availed ourselves of this and received prayer for our trip. Well, actually we just stopped to tell him about my old church there and how we'd used to have street prayer ministers (of which I was one), standing on the street corners in the evenings, wearing clerical collars with our street clothes (plaid shirts, jeans & big earrings for me in those days). But we got some prayer all the same. He was with a new church there called 'Church in the City' which is pastored by South Africans - which I only later thought of as interesting as our worship leader had been South African and the other female student minister, Lisa DePalma, had received her training in working w/prostitutes in Cape Town, and now lives there and does that full time. Strange coincidi.
The last project of the evening was to read at the Heartland Cafe open mic - In One Ear - which was formerly the No Exit Cafe open mic which I read at in '97-'98 some time I believe. Though we were only in Chicago for one night, it was imperative that I find somewhere to perform a poem I wrote that was inspired by Vickie Williams, who I'd never met in person, but who runs the Happy Rhodes fansite and who is friends with my friend Paul Huesman (who used to play w/Happy, and who I met while he was playing w/Michael Sweet of Stryper while I was working 'crew'). Whew, that took a long time to explain. I'd written a poem - 'The Arc of Beauty' while at work in NY about 5 yrs. ago when a co-worker challenged me to write a poem ending with the words: "welcome from afar". Since Vickie and I'd been corresponding around that time, it became about her, and since I wrote it I'd always dreamed that someday I would go to Chicago and she would be in the audience when I read it for her. Finally happened! End of a perfect day. (Photo courtesy of Jamie)
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