Osler's Razor

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to speak at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. Despite the name (what happened to churches one through three?) it is a cathedral-style church on Michigan Avenue, across from Water Tower Place. It was a wonderful crowd, and I got some great questions after finishing my talk. I shouldn't have been surprised.

Out to dinner the night before, amidst laughter and wisdom, I had a memory come back to me full force, from twenty-two years ago.

It was the summer of 1988, the interregnum between my first and second years of law school. I worked at the US Attorney's office in Chicago; it was the summer that I found my vocation.

I lived that summer in the Northwestern Law School dormitory, Abbott Hall, down in Streeterville between the lake and Michigan Avenue. It was an unusual July. Every day was extraordinarily hot, and it was over 100 every day for over a week. People died of the heat. The dorm did not have air conditioning, and we residents would just go over and stand in the lake. We were like a herd of Brontosauruses, just standing there in the water up to our hips with dazed and dumb expressions.

It was also a lonely summer. I didn't know anyone in Chicago. Lonely, though, often goes with self-discovery. That summer I came up with the plan for my career that I have pretty much followed. It was also the summer I decided that my work could not be divorced from my faith.

Part of that came from a walk I took many Sunday mornings. I would head west on Chestnut Street, which would be preternaturally still at that time-- there would be no cars, and if I chose I could walk in the middle of that street. Where I was walking was to the Fourth Presbyterian Church. The church didn't have air conditioning, either, so it was stifling. It was hot, but also warm; the people there had an air of genuine kindness to them. The spirit of it was defined by the minister, John Buchanan, who had arrived three years before that summer.

One morning, I walked into the church and was seated next to an older woman and her daughter, who was about twelve. When the sermon began, I saw the woman pull out a piece of paper, which was divided into sections by date, and covered with hash marks. This was the focus of some kind of game between the mother and daughter, and I shamelessly eavesdropped until I figured out that game.

It was a simple and wonderful task: They simply marked a slash every time that John Buchanan used the word "love" in the sermon. That week, it was eleven or twelve, which was about average from what I could see from my half-shaded and eager eyes.

That is as good a measure as I can think of to value the message of a church.

It was a privilege and a pleasure to return to that place where I grew up a bit a long time ago. I have changed, but it has not, at least in that fundamental way. It is still a place of love, was that for me this week, and will be for you if you wander in through those heavy wooden doors swung open to the City of Broad Shoulders.