My dad was in town this week, visiting here for the first time. He brought his wife, Barbara. My mom died eighteen years ago from cancer, and dad's been married to Barbara for sixteen of those years. The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, and Dad and Barbara and I had a weekend of talking and eating and laughing and telling stories.
My dad was born in 1915 in Stuttgart, to a German Army officer who was off in the war and his American-born wife. After the war my grandmother reclaimed American citizenship and brought my father and his great grandfather to the United States. That took three years.
They settled on Long Island. The malnutrition in post World War I Germany was so bad that all of my father's teeth rotted. At five they were all pulled in a single sitting.
Then my grandmother got stomach cancer. She sneaked away to New York City for some of the first radium treatments. They worked for a while, but she died in 1930, leaving my father an orphan at 15.
He worked through high school and afterward at a number of things--making beer and sausage and ice cream and crewing on a fishing boat. A couple of years out of high school he was penniless and down and out in Depression New York. He promised God that if God would help him get through, why, he'd become a Lutheran Pastor.
Years later, when folks would ask him why he chose preaching as his life's work, he'd laugh (he does that a lot) and say, "I made a bargain with God and the son of a gun held me to it."
That road took him through Wagner College and then to Seminary. It was during Seminary that he met my mom. She thought his New York accent was funny. When they married soon as he finished seminary and the church sent them off to a small, rural parish and an interesting life.
My father's accomplished a lot in his life. Right after the war, he put together concerts in Carnegie Hall to raise money to feed folks in post-war Germany. He's started innovative ministries like ones to the communities of folks who played in the nightclubs of New York and needed a service at 3 AM when they got off work. He brought healing prayer services into his midtown New York, buttoned down congregation.
Through it all he maintained that wonderful sense of humor. Behind his desk in the study was a large picture of Jesus, a very masculine Jesus, with his head thrown back, laughing. Some church council folks didn't like, but dad thought it was great.
In 1965 he became the Lutheran Church's representative in Berlin.
Those were Evil Empire Days and he and the East Germans had contest after contest as he tried to support the Church in the East and they tried to stop him. He couldn't ship Bibles in from the US or West Germany, so he had them sent from Finland, who had a treaty with the East Germans. They fumed.
1967 was the 450th anniversary of the Reformation and dad arranged for westerners to visit many of the Reformation sites in the East. The East Germans got even with dad by revoking his entry permit the day before he was going to cross the border to visit those sites himself. He laughs about that one, too. "Basically," he says, "I traded a look at the Wartburg for getting a thousand Bibles into the East. It was good trade."
After that he worked at a college where he touched the lives of hundreds of kids. He led choir tours and raised money for the college and organized the Steuben Day Parade in New York every year.
He took early retirement so that he and my mom could travel together before she died. He supported and cared for her for the twelve years it took the cancer to beat her. They told stories about those trips. They laughed a lot.
Now he and Barbara are traveling. There are many stories and much laughter. He has grandchildren and great grandchildren. This weekend he blessed the house and he met the Most Beautiful Woman in the World's children. There's always a new idea to share and new friends to make. He uses email to help stay in touch.
On the morning he left here, we had breakfast together. I told him about the foundation I'm setting up, named after him and mom. It's going to help find ways for people and organizations to improve the quality of life. He liked the idea. So did Barbara. I asked if he had any questions. He said, "How can we help."
As I watched him and Barbara drive away, heading on to Washington DC, so he could show her the city, I thought about what I learned from dad.
I learned the value of organization, and planning and hard work. I learned the value of innovation. Those were obvious. What was the real lesson?
It's about people. It's illustrated by two things.
Some years back, the Church, as part of a plan to "professionalize" the clergy changed the basic Bachelor of Ministry that my dad got when he graduated from seminary to a Master of Divinity. Seminaries offered graduates the opportunity to trade in their old BD diploma for an Mdiv. Dad wouldn't hear of it.
"I'd have to give up all those signatures of the men who taught me," he said. The old BD diploma stayed.
Then there are the things on his wall, in the apartment he shares with Barbara. He's had lots of honors in his time. The German government has given him two medals for his work in German-American relations. He's a Knight of St. John. He's gotten awards for all manner of things, but you won't see the medals and awards.
Instead what you see are pictures of people. Some of them are famous folks, like John Glenn and Willy Brandt. But their pictures are right alongside other pictures, pictures of relatives, friends, parishioners, just people.
What I've learned from my dad is that you can accomplish great things, but you do it with people and for people. I've learned that, at the end of the day, it's the people, the relationships, the service that matter most.
Often folks who know us both will tell me that I remind them of my father. It's a high compliment. I always laugh then. It's appropriate. And share a story about my dad.
Then I say: "You know, I could do a lot worse than to turn out like my father."
This feature appeared on 23 October 2000
