Presidential Ponderings

My parents began attending First Presbyterian of Glen Ellyn because El Gordo’s parents were coming to visit the new house and expected to attend Sunday services as a family.

My mom reports that they were happy enough in their first year but El Gordo started talking about finding a different church because no one had asked him to volunteer for anything yet.

Volunteering was that essential an activity for El Gordo. In fact, Cheryl told him he couldn’t retire because he would still be just as busy volunteering with all that extra time so he might as well keep getting paid.

He rousted up a group of guys once a  month for years to take the early morning shift at the homeless center. He taught Sunday School and was a church camp counselor when we were kids. Once he had grandkids, he worked with the Wednesday evening kids club plus VBS in the summers. 

For 15 years, he was the assistant coach, bus driver, and chief bucket-sitter for the Elmhurst College baseball team. For the last 10 years of his life, he also delighted in assisting adults with disabilities to play bocce ball. There were quite a few years where we, as his family, drove the golf cart in shifts so he could play 100 holes of golf for his friend’s charity.

He snuck down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina by himself to let nuns tell him how to be useful for a week. And during the pandemic, he delivered meals from Blackberry Market to the local motel where vulnerable folks were sheltering in place.

So when I was finding a location for the pop-up art gallery in November, I really loved a space at Yorktown Mall but hesitated because the manager there made it very clear that I had to be open during mall hours. I do not have the budget to pay someone for the hours that I could not be on-site.

But most acts of creation and growth require leaps of faith. And eventually, I took the risk that folks might be willing to be like El Gordo and volunteer to cover at least some of the shifts so that i can have the flexibility to pick up my kids from theater practice and drive my mom to doctor appointments.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that asking people to help me is the most El Gordo thing I could do.  The entire goal of the GoMurphCenter is to encourage folks who want to re-generate the kind of spiritual energy El Gordo used to put out!

I invite you to be a part of this project to shape El Gordo’s legacy by signing up for a volunteer shift during the month of November at this link. You can coordinate to be there at the same time as a friend OR be brave and meet someone new by signing up solo. All instructions will be simple enough to fit on a clipboard that will be easy to find when you arrive.

I’m so excited to spend the time with you. Thank you for considering it.

Sincerely,

Rebecca