Not Chicago

In a couple of hours it will be wheels down and time to say goodbye to my hometown. It’s been a nice visit. We’ll say goodbye to our host. He is a lovely friend. He doesn’t deserve a mere mention, he deserves a book. He divides his busy life between a couple of homes in Florida, a place in Kentucky, and a couple here in Illinois. He has business concerns strung out between the three. While here, we chauffeured him about in his Mercedes because he just wanted us to. It sure beat the economy rental we had from Alamo. He’s always on the go, always on the phone, always working deals. He is the guy with the great Florida tan, the gold chain, the stylish clothes, the unbuttoned shirt, the money clip holding the big bills – gregarious and hilarious  – and…he is my friend. He walked about his spacious home, where we stayed, in his gym shorts, carrying on, making sure we had everything we needed, showing off his brown skin and yakking at us in his short clipped way like we were one of his sub-contractors. We see through all his fuss, cuss and bluster to a very kind and generous heart – a softie even. He would curse me to reveal that last bit about him, but there you have it. It is pretty much public record.

After lunch it is south to St Louis where we’ll catch a ride from United Airlines and wing it back to Durango. As soon as we begin to head south, it will feel like home for I am a “downstater” in Illinois parlance. I root for the St. Louis Cardinals, not for the Chicago Cubs – those aberrant World Champions of 2016. To put it bluntly, to be a downstater means “Not Chicago.”  A downstater used to be defined as anyone south of Joliet, a city just past the southside of Chicago. A few years ago the Chicago encroachment had made its way to Champaign~Urbana. Now it has broken through to the entire state with only pockets of resistance left standing. The dysfunction of the state has been noted and even decried by the normally friendly Chicago press. The powerful boss of the super majority party machine is Mike Madigan, the Speaker of the House. Even those newspapers occasionally refer to Illinois as “Madiganistan.” Clever. They’ve come to realize, only lately, that not everyone in Illinois can work for the government and have cushy, defined benefit pensions. You actually need a robust business community to supply the necessary fuel for the tax furnace. Yet the political powerbrokers continue to flog and fleece with abandon. Many have fled the state for such reasons – about 100 a day in 2016 – the most in the country.  I am fleeing in a few hours.
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I know the last few days have been more autobiographical in nature than manifestly spiritual. No apologies. I’m not one to make or see a great distinction between the sacred and the secular. The whole Christian enterprise seems to me hinged upon the constant churning and tension between the two. If the faith doesn’t mix it up and work in the real world, it is not a faith worth having or promoting. You now know a bit more of where I came from. That may not be important to you, but it has been important to me. We all come from somewhere. The past can help define us, but it need not confine us. I hope you’ve seen that much in our time together in the Land of Lincoln. Blessings…CJ