Episode 5 - Bold Move to a New World
Richard is about to embark on his final journey. He recounts an earlier voyage by train, boat, and plane with his young family to their new home in the Philippines. On a stopover in Japan, Richard attends a conference about his new vocation: the urban-industrial mission of the church.
After Richard retired from the United Presbyterian Church USA in 1990, he continued doing what he had been doing his entire career: writing about his work. But this time he penned a more personal history of his vocation. He produced two memoirs of his early years and he published articles in the Journal of Presbyterian History about the men in the Presbyterian Church who had paved the way for his vocation in urban industrial mission: Charles Stelzle, Cameron Hall, Marshal Logan Scott, Henry Jones, and others.
In this episode, Richard reads the last chapter of his personal memoir, about the voyage he and Eunice and their first three children, Scott, Kerry, and Johanna, took in 1957 across the United States and the Pacific Ocean, to Japan (where Richard met up with Henry Jones and Marshal Scott), and then to the Philippines, where the family lived for 15 years.
Links
- Richard Poethig’s website where you can find most of his writings: richardpoethig.com
- Journal of Presbyterian History
“Welcome to a New World,” Chapter 10 of The Autobiography of Richard Poethig, Book II. Beyond New York: Into the World
Music Credits
- Balti, Crumbtown, Noe Noe, Delamine, Borough, and Hakodate Line by Blue Dot Sessions
- Haleiwa Hula performed by Keola Kaeo and friends
- Sounds from various contributors to https://freesound.org/
Conversations between a dad and his children capture the sheer joy of talking, singing, and laughing with Richard, a man of simple pleasures, expansive intelligence, historical perspective, and progressive politics. In Season 1, Richard is living under lockdown in his senior living residence during the coronavirus pandemic. It tells the story of Richard’s resilience and of the family’s efforts to ease the psychic impact of his isolation. In Season 2, Margaret asks Richard why he talked so much about vocation when she was growing up. Richard offers the wide arc of his theological understanding—from the need to care for working people to the cosmic Spirit that holds the universe together. They decided to devote an entire podcast season to vocation.