When I (we) was prior of Madison '70-71ish, Charles was our Regional Prior at South House Chicago - with Troxels in Milwaukee, Davis's in Peoria, with the Shanklands etc. It was a momentous year, focusing on the Local Church Experiment and RS1. Charles once said of himself "I am RS1" and indeed there were extended periods of time when he was, challenging us to be RS1 also. I am most grateful for that period of time, being around and included in the warmth of his care.
The last memorable time was in Bruxelles in the fall (?) of '82 when a bunch of us from the House and from Centrum went to see the movie 'Gandhi' for the first time. He led the movie conversation on an outdoor patio near the theatre. It was very, very good.
'The Last Picture Show', a movie depicting a group of 1950s high schoolers coming of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied West Texas town that is slowly dying, was shot in a few different West Texas towns, one of which was Charle's home town. He was he excited about that.
In awe of his death and his life,
Ken
On 2014-07-03, at 9:49 AM, Terry Bergdall via Dialogue wrote:
Charles was a complex and insightful man. His short "new world spin" telling the story of being seated next to an fragile elderly black gentlemen on an airplane, and then being asked to assist his on a trip to the toilet, remains one of the most powerful statements that I've heard heard about the spirit journey of responding to issues of social justice. It was all there, consistent with my experience once he called attention to it: abstract passion, occasional resentment, the ultimate joy of engagement (which at times, if one stops to think too much about it, reveals an absurdity within it all). Charles was not a man to forget then, nor now.
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