Episode 6 – Mr. Richard

Richard and Eunice left behind a 100 boxes’ worth of personal papers and family records. Margaret and her sister Kerry must dispose of it all. The sisters sequestered themselves for several weeks near the storage unit in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as they sorted the papers. To get through it, they first dealt with the anger and frustration of being saddled with this burden, and then found ways to lighten the mood. In the end, “We deconstructed the family,” says Kerry. And they delivered their parent’s intellectual work to its final resting place. The music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Richard imagines life after death on an undiscovered planet in a far-flung galaxy where he can recreate his life with his beloved wife Eunice. Margaret has a message for listeners. Richard Poethig’s Obituary: https://legcy.co/3FqQCxY “Remembering Richard Poethig,” The Presbyterian Outlook, December 7, 2021, by Presbyterian Historical Society: https://pres-outlook.org/.../12/remembering-richard-poethig/ Recording of Richard Poethig’s Memorial Service at Lakeview Presbyterian Church in Chicago: https://fb.watch/a4N4Yl20UA/ The music in this episode is the piece “Urge” by the composer and performer Chris Brown. Used with permission. https://cbmuse.com/

Richard is in hospice and needs caregivers 24-hours-a-day. He marvels at all the attention. For his caregivers, it’s a vocation in the deepest sense of the word. Richard makes a case for more public support for caregiving.

Richard is about to embark on his final journey. He recounts an earlier voyage by train, boat, and plane with his young family to their new home in the Philippines. On a stopover in Japan, Richard attends a conference about his new vocation: the urban-industrial mission of the church.

What does vocation mean to someone in a hellish job? The Ministers in-Industry-Program put seminarians to work in steel mills to teach them what the industrial system does to people. Richard applies what he knows about Calvin and labor organizing to the circumstances workers find themselves in today. Music Credits: “Last Light” by Xylo-Ziko https://nultielrecords.blogspot.com/

Richard, the son of a working class father and a mother with higher aspirations, found a way to honor them both through his vocation. Richard’s sister Erna helps memorialize their resilient lives. Music Credits: “Phase 3” by Xylo-Ziko https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/ and "The Fred Waring Show," September 23, 1947.

People popped up in Richard’s life along the way and gave him direction. Call this vocation, good will, or “breaking the spell”—it altered the course of his life. When Mrs. Masek, a neighbor in the tenement building where Richard lived, recommended Good Will Sunday School, little did Richard or his mother Henrietta know it would open up the world to him. Music Credit: “Savanna” by Xylo-Ziko https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/

At the start of Season 2, Margaret asks "why do you talk so much about vocation?” Richard’s surprising answer spans time and space—from Luther’s understanding of Beruf that launched the Protestant Reformation to Richard’s current theological ideas about what holds the universe together. For Richard, vocation asks, “What you can see that you gave your life to?” He reflects on his life’s calling to bring justice to working people, in the context of the history of the Presbyterian Church’s Social Gospel movement and his own working class roots. He offers a midrash on the theme of class conflict. And he gives us the wide arc of his theology—from the human spirit to a cosmic Spirit that envelopes us in love. Music Credit: “Phase 2” by Xylo-Ziko https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/

Richard talked a lot about vocation when his kids were young. The word stuck with Margaret. When she asked her dad about it, his answer took them is so in many different directions, they decided to devote the entire podcast season to it.

Richard’s been clocking his progress through the coronavirus pandemic by the seasons, hoping he would make it to this point. Now that he’s made it to Spring, it’s time to end Season 1 of this podcast and pause for reflection.