By Chaplain Bruce Fowlkes, Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois
“Mayor Lind, hello! This is Chaplain Bruce at the college. Gotta question I’d like to ask you….” Hearing my voice, the mayor was immediately concerned about my wrecked front yard. A water main had burst on Christmas Eve, threatening to flood my basement. The crisis had been averted, thanks to the city workers who pumped and dug for over four hours in the 14◦F darkness.
A dozen years ago, out my front window, I saw a lone boy raking my yard – coincidentally where the frozen, muddy hole is today. It was Eric, a youth from Eureka Christian Church. A nice kid, like so many of our church youth, here and everywhere. Blessed to have our youth, yes indeed, I thought that day.
Honestly, the young people I serve give more to me than I can ever give back to them. Deep purpose. I’m constantly searching for the right moment- to say the right thing, to offer the right assistance- in hopes of earning a bit of my calling, all with the faith that today I know enough to serve well, those I’m called to serve.
Alas, at least for this 60-year-old, the world’s current rate of change has out-paced my ability to make sense of it. The wealth gap, entrenched racism, mass violence in sacred spaces of learning and worship, toxic nationalism, politics without character, soul-less intelligence, monetized attention, polarization for profit – I would stop there, except then the pandemic’s global upheaval entered the scene.
Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, my sense of purpose and call has gained new clarity. The most urgent needs facing students and their families are no longer the complexities of the elite and privileged. Rather, food insecurity, crushing debt, mental health, suicide, care for extended family members, etc., are re-aligning the work of higher education, in and out of the classroom. Students, just like the rest of us, have a deep need to feel safe enough to belong.
Somewhere. Somewhere safe, then welcomed, then included, then valued, then loved, then missed when they’re gone. Home. Church. School.
That’s why I called Mayor Eric Lind to ask him to bring the address for Eureka College’s annual Founders’ Day Convocation, to tell his Eureka story. Not because he’s a Eureka College alumnus – he’s not. But the story Eric told on Founders’ Day was of deep belonging, and the sense of generosity, service and leadership engendered by his congregation at Eureka Christian Church, his hometown, and its little college, Eureka.
Eric continues the great Eureka call and story of joining faith, learning, leadership, and service – cut from the same cloth of the abolitionist Christians from Kentucky who settled here so long ago. At 25 years old, Eric has already given more to the community’s common good than most ever will.
(And, if you happen to read this, Mr. Mayor, don’t worry about my yard. It’ll get done soon enough!)