11 minute read
Opinion
OUR VIEW
What’s next in Proviso?
It is good news that a strike date for teachers and other professional staff in the Proviso Township High Schools has been pushed back.
Last minute headway in difficult negotiations led the teachers union to delay a strike that had been scheduled for last Friday, Feb. 18. More than in most such negotiations, the various bargaining positions have been put forward in news stories and on social media. And it suggests progress, if not a certain path forward.
Original and, for a time, hardened positions on salary and length of contract have now closed and moved into a rational range on both sides. There are other issues still to be dealt with, including class size.
The underlying distrust and anger between the school board and its administration and the union are a reflection of the upset percolating throughout this district. That hundreds of students across the three schools walked out of classes last week in solidarity with their teachers is reflective of sides being taken. That a veteran member of the school board gleefully gave the finger to a constituent during a board meeting is both appalling and unsurprising given how divided this district has become in recent years.
Maybe a contract gets signed. Maybe a strike is inevitable. Sooner, though, adults need to lead — through listening and compromise and respect.
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We see our reporting as being the glue that holds our towns close, the fact-based reporting that holds our leaders accountable, and the forum for civil debate that affirms our democratic ways.
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OPINION
Giving up comfort for Lent
Self-mortification — i.e. self-denial — during Lent has lost favor big time in our culture.
When I was growing up, lots of people talked about what they were giving up for Lent. Chocolate, as I remember, was the number one choice. Maybe the choice these days should be screen time. The website eMarketer reports the average American adult spends 3 hours and 43 minutes a day on their mobile device.
But I have another proposal: How about giving up comfort for the 40 days following next Wednesday? I don’t mean living in constant misery until Easter, but enough discomfort to make progress in your spiritual rehab.
Lent, when you think about it, is meant to be like the rehab we have to do after our surgeries. You know the drill. After a knee replacement, you have to go to PT where they push you to do things that are outside your comfort zone.
“I know that hurts,” says the 25-year-old therapist who is bending my knee at angles not meant for human beings.
What I think to myself but never say out loud is, “Sweetheart, you are one-third my age and you do not know how badly what you’re doing hurts!”
One reason I don’t say anything is because I know if I want to recover, three times a week I need to bend my body in ways that hurt. And I trust that the therapist is not doing what she’s doing to my body in order to cause me pain. I trust that the pain she’s causing is part of my rehabilitation.
So here we are at the end of Black History Month — in which we’ve heard the diagnosis — and Ash Wednesday, a day at the beginning of a spiritual season devoted to repentance. And by repentance, I mean going through a process of spiritual rehab in which I let go of what is unhealthy and exercise spiritual muscles that have become flabby.
And that goes for my Black and Brown neighbors as well as those who are white. People of color might be less guilty of racism than whites, but I’ve learned from my Black friends that they have their own issues.
Jesse Jackson, for example, used to open the program at his Operation Breadbasket 50 years ago with a call and response that went: “I am; I am; Somebody; Somebody.” Call it self-loathing or low self-esteem or whatever you want, but most of my Black friends have gone through and are still going through a process of “repenting,” i.e. letting go of one direction in life, turning around and heading in another.
Relapses will happen, and then they reconnect with the process and continue the journey.
One of my Black neighbors used to run a youth mentoring program in which one of his main goals was to get kids to not think of themselves as victims. You see the distinction? They were victims, but to mature they had to get out of the bondage of thinking of themselves in that way. So if we’ve been paying attention at all during this Black History Month, we are aware of the diagnosis. We’re aware that we are suffering from a disease with symptoms like racism and polarization, and that the way to health is to do spiritual rehab in which we do uncomfortable exercises for the sake healing. For liberals — and that’s what most of us in this town are — getting out of our com-
TOM fort zones might mean reading something by a conservative. I don’t mean the crazies HOLMES on the extreme right but thoughtful conservatives like George Will, Bret Stephens and Charles Krauthammer, all of whom have won Pulitzer prizes. For white folks, and that’s what most of us are, it might mean going to a restaurant in the Austin neighborhood like MacArthur’s or Ruby’s Soul Food or Splyt/N/Half Kitchen. It might mean going to church one Sunday at Hope Tabernacle or Mount Moriah or Engage or Living Word. As many of you know, I belong to a Thai church. In that culture I’m never completely comfortable or “at home,” but I keep going because the discomfort I feel sometimes is spiritually analogous to the physical discomfort I feel working out at the Roos Center. It’s not comfortable per se, but it’s good for me. To be clear, discomfort is not in itself a sign that an activity is healthy. That’s why I don’t live at the Roos. I work out maybe three times a week. So I’m not talking about going off screen 100%. But really, three and a half hours a day?! What I’m suggesting is more like leaving comfort zones maybe three times a week — just during the 40 days of Lent for starters — leaving the phone at home for two hours when you go shopping. You can always check your messages when you get home. There’s a certain comfort in playing the victim. But you may remain stuck, and you don’t have to take the responsibility for changing. There’s a certain comfort in wearing the mantle of white superiority. Whenever you feel a twinge of conscience, you can respond by saying to yourself and to the population cohort in which you self-segregate, “It’s not my fault that their ancestors were slaves. That was then, and this is now. I’m not responsible for what those people suffer today and certainly not for millions in Afghanistan who are in danger of starving.” One perhaps unintended consequence of Black History Month is a pull of conscience, i.e. to leave our comfort zones and engage in the messy struggles of people less privileged than we are. One of the intended consequences of Ash Wednesday and Lent is to force us into the uncomfortable pursuit of honest self-reflection and taking some responsibly for our neighbors, no matter where they happen to live.
Love’s triumph over grief
Ihave a personal connection to the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed all 259 passengers and 11 residents of the tiny village of Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988. One-hundredninety Americans perished, many of them college students returning home for Christmas.
As a private detective, I was hired by attorneys representing the families of victims to locate and serve a subpoena to the former head of security at Frankfurt Airport. After I found him, he became a key witness in a case that awarded millions to the families.
This is one reason I was drawn to see The Women of Lockerbie, at Concordia University. My niece, Bridget, accompanied me because she’s studying Lockerbie in her International Law class. Investigating Lockerbie, or studying it, didn’t prepare us for the powerful immediacy of the play. It’s based on true events and shows how the women of Lockerbie heal themselves and the grieving families, by washing the victims’ clothes and returning them to their loved ones.
The play is performed in the intimate surroundings of Concordia’s Bergmann Theater. The seven cast members are in close proximity to the audience. They portray four women from the village, a grieving couple from New Jersey, and an American State Department official. The simple set evokes a Scottish hillside with a brook flowing down it. Fog and soft lighting add even more to the play’s mournful atmosphere. The play was written in the form of a Greek tragedy, but the dialogue is modern. Director Brian Fruits noted it contains elements of female empowerment, spirituality and forgiveness. Brian is a longtime friend of Andrew Pederson, who heads Concordia’s Theater Department. Andrew’s thesis adviser, Deborah Brevoort, wrote the play. It has been widely popular and there have been 850 productions to date.
It’s a gut-wrenching mix of anger, grief and frustration, sprinkled with some moments of light humor. It’s tragic and uplifting at the same time. The cast members rehearsed 3-4 times a week for a month. The heavy material left them emotionally spent after each rehearsal.
Amazingly enough, four of the cast members are freshmen who had never performed on stage before. To add to the difficulty, they delivered their lines using a Scottish dialect. But they acted like seasoned pros, performing the 80-minute play without a flub, while expressing the rawest of emotions.
They play fictional characters but succeed in bringing them to life. The grieving parents from New Jersey are searching for any trace of their son, who had perished seven years earlier. The women of Lockerbie try to comfort them but have their own grief to overcome. Grief often turns to anger and the play contains scenes of conflict and despair. If all this sounds like a downer, it’s not. It’s ultimately about redemption.
The explosion at 30,000 feet rained fire on Lockerbie. It also rained debris over an 845-square-mile area, the largest crime scene in the world. Some of this wreckage destroyed houses in the village and killed
innocent people going about their business. The villagers were also traumatized by the carnage they saw. Investigators determined the suitcase containing the bomb had passed undetected through Frankfurt Airport. The unaccompanied suitcase was loaded onto Pan Am 103 at Heathrow Airport. A Libyan terrorist named Ali al-Megrahi was convicted of the crime. JOHN The play shows how we can respond to unspeakable tragedy with forgiveness and RICE simple acts of kindness. The cast and crew at Concordia show how love can triumph over grief. The three remaining performances are Feb. 25 and 26 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. Admission is free and masks are required. PROVIDED ‘ e Women of Lockerbie’ dress rehersal at Concordia University
A L OOK BA CK IN TIME
A look back in time
Twenty years ago Frederick Bryant opened Accents by Fred at 7519 W. Madison St. in Forest Park. Bryant opened the shop with his wife, Ann Hanson, after he retired from American Eagle as director of Maintenance/Safety and Environmental Officer. A self-proclaimed walking advertisement adorned with knitted hats, beaded jewelry and colorful clothing, Fred has become a fixture on Madison Street. A multifaceted expressive artist, he has a reputation for experimenting and learning as he goes. He learned to knit by watching his mother and grandmother, has taught beadmaking, crafts jewelry from metals and other materials, and is always creating.
Jill Wagner
Photo credit THIS IS THE WAY: Fred Bryant helps his grandson Jordan during an origami class at Bryant’s Madison Street store. Forest Park Review archives photo by Josh Hawkins, Aug. 13, 2008.
OB ITU ARIES Edwin Volakos, 91
Worked with youth through Junior Achievement
Edwin S. Volakos, 91, of Forest Park, died peacefully at home on Feb. 14, 2022. A hard-working man who also worked with youth at Junior Achievement, a global nonprofit, he also enjoyed bowling and fishing.
Edwin was the father of Karen D’Agostino and Brian Volakos; the father-in-law of Amy Laleman and the grandfather of Dana M. Dussias.
In lieu of flowers donations to the American Cancer Society are appreciated.
Arrangements were handled by Zimmerman-Harnett Funeral Home.
