On this snowy Sunday in mid-November, Rev. Martin Marty, still wearing his collar from preaching that morning on the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther, is busy scraping snow and ice from the walks and stairs of the century-old Riverside Victorian he and his family have inhabited for the past 35 years. Marty and Harriet, his wife of 15 years, are entertaining this afternoon. Larry Hobgood, the jazz pianist who accompanies vocalist Kurt Elling, has agreed to play if the Martys provide the place and the audience. An intimate gathering of 45 is expected.
But Marty still finds time to talk about one of his favorite spiritual metaphors. He quotes theologian Karl Rahner who was reacting to the “happy, jump up and down stuff” of the New Age. “He said he wasn’t interested in summery, sunny spirituality,” Marty recalls, preferring instead “a wintry sort of spirituality,” in a world where God often feels distant or altogether absent.
Marty’s personal winter came after the death of his first wife, Elsa, in 1981. In the aftermath, he wrote a book titled, A Cry of Absence – Reflections for the Winter of the Heart. The title comes from a poem by John Crowe Ransom:
Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going;
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
In the book, Marty doesn’t directly mention his loss, but “I get letters from people who say, ‘We could tell there was a death involved’.” Many tell him about the deaths in their own lives, husbands or wives who have walked out on them, children they are alienated from.
Is it his most personal book? “It was the first personal book I ever wrote,” he replies, which is saying something since the highly regarded theologian and scholar wrote 25 books before that, and currently has 45 to his credit, including the most recent, a collaboration with his photographer son, Micah, titled, The Promise of Winter: Quickening the spirit on ordinary days and in fallow seasons. Marty writes the accompanying meditations in which he returns to his wintry theme.
Does “winter” best characterize his current stage of spirituality? Nah, too simple.
“I believe very much that every human lives with several modes of experience,” Marty explains. “Experience is a sum total. If I thought about it, I would experience the pressure of my collar, but I don’t. I could be thinking about the horrors of Saddam Hussein, but that was maybe an hour ago. I call these “arrests in experience.” This morning the choir sang “Steal Away” (Psalm 16), and I’m on a high. But if I internalize the disappointments and griefs that I don’t have [but] somebody else close to me has, I might think, why is life’s package so problematic?
Sometimes in life, he notes, “You have two choices: a winter spirituality or no spirituality. You either get mad at God and run away or you say, in the face of it, how can we affirm? What I was interested in is so many people who think that only the [summer] kind is what counts. You go over to Barnes & Noble, you’ll find a huge section of books [under] “Spirituality”: Holistic, Self-Help, Inspiration, New Age, Ancient, Occult, Metaphysical and the like. Virtually every one of them suggest that if you follow their discipline, everything will turn out all right. When my wife was dying of cancer, someone would pick up the phone and say, ‘Just cheer up and praise the Lord.’ It just made her sicker.
“A lot of people have the feeling that God should be immediately manifest to them, whereas all the great [spiritual figures] that I would read or write about, talked about the dark night of the soul or some metaphor of that — the absence of God, the eclipse of God, the silence of God.”
First and foremost, a teacher
If Martin Emil Marty experiences any voids these days, it isn’t showing. His remains a full and busy life, topped by some pretty high-octane recognition.
“If I were to define myself, it’s teaching,” he says. “I’m playfully fanatic. I’ve missed 13 or 14 classes in 35 years.”
Marty is also a writer, editor (Christian Century Magazine), board member, project director and frequent public speaker, but teaching, he says, is his vocation. Actually, it runs in the family.
“My father was a teacher, my brother, my sister. Harriet’s a music teacher.” Everything else evolved from that. “In graduate school,” he notes, “every course you teach leads to books, research, so the two fit together.” Officially, he is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago.
Only he never intended to be an academic. In fact, it happened partly as a result of his mischievous streak. At the Lutheran seminary [then located in Maywood], he “co-invented” a theologian, who ministered to displaced Baltic citizens in London, as a prank on the faculty. Some didn’t find it so funny, and recommended that he be assigned to “a seasoned pastor” who might help him mature. That happened to be at Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, which stipulated that associates assigned there do graduate study in theology. A former prof recruited him to attend the University of Chicago, where he eventually earned his doctorate.
He served a seven-year stint as pastor of a Lutheran Church in Elk Grove Village, but “complexity was setting in.” He and his wife had four children and two foster children, and though he loved pastoral work, “it was a killing schedule.” Finally, he gave in to pressure from the U of C and joined the faculty, where he has been ever since.
That same year (1963) the family moved to Riverside. During his doctoral work, he preached once a month at Ascension Lutheran Church, where he got to know the people and found Riverside to be “a wonderful town.” When the kids got to be school age, the Martys wanted to move from Hyde Park to the western suburbs, and Riverside made sense. “I have three bases,” Marty says, “the Loop for the editing, O’Hare for the travel, and the university for the teaching.” Connect the dots and Riverside fits right inside.
A blend of city and soil
He likes the village’s “beauty and tradition. I’m a fan of Frederick Olmsted who designed the town.” Riverside, he says, attracts a lot of writers and scholars because “they like to be in a place where there’s heritage.”
Their home was the only one they looked at. “It’s a great house to grow up in,” he observes, and the family’s experience with the public school system was extremely positive. In fact, “virtually every teacher the boys had, had dinner here.”
When they sit on their wraparound porch on a summer night with friends, listening to the cicadas, he hears comments like, “We could be in Mason City, Iowa.” Marty says Riverside is an ideal mix. “I love the urban world, and I love roots and soil.” And while he wishes there were more of a racial mix here, there is plenty of ethnic diversity — especially residents of Czech and Slovak descent, who migrated from Cicero and Berwyn to diversify what was “a WASP stronghold.”
“I love middle Europe,” he says. “If I couldn’t live here, I’d live in Prague or Budapest. I like that culture — and the restaurants that go with it.”
Riverside is also denominationally diverse, and he finds a strong ecumenical spirit active here.
But he admits his schedule keeps him more removed from local affairs than he was in the past. “At that time I didn’t travel as much,” he recalls. “When your kids are young, you better be around.” His wife Harriet is the local presence now, Marty notes. “She’s very active in town, always doing something with music,” including a Lyric Opera support group.
Marty meanwhile, racks up the frequent flyer miles. He teaches at the beginning of the week, travels at the end. A recent three-week stretch took him to New York, San Francisco, Minnesota, Philadelphia, New York again, Raleigh, Newark and San Diego. His favorite trips involve his work as chairman of the board of St. Olaf’s College in Minnesota.
People ask him how he gets his reading done with all that traveling. “That’s how I get it done,” he says. “When you’re here, you’re webbed in.” Except for his public duties, he spends his road time reading in his hotel room.
Marty heaps praise on Harriet for helping him “get things done,” marveling at the way she took over the family and the house.
“She’s a good hostess, but an intellectually alert one. Riversiders probably know her better than they know me.”
Other commitments include serving on the board of an organization that is working, with some success, to bring down the number of teenage pregnancies, co-directing the Public Religion Project, and working with the Park Ridge Center for Health, Faith and Ethics.
Book writing usually happens in the summer, when he tucks away in a third floor nook with computer, music, and a window from which he can watch the joggers lope by.
As he prepares to turn 70 this February, Marty still has plenty of energy, though he confesses to “crashing” for a day every five or six weeks where he just can’t get out of bed. He plans to retire from teaching this winter.
“I’d love to teach till I’m 90, but I don’t believe in it,” he says. “I think you have to make room for the new generations.”
A farm kid at the White House
Marty was recently honored at the White House, where he was one of 20 people who received the National Medal of the Humanities, the first time an individual in the field of religion has been so honored.
The certificate bestowed upon him by President Clinton cites him “for his distinguished and prolific career as religious historian, professor, writer and editor. His brilliant and lively mind, together with his incisive, playful and comprehensive inquiries, have broadened our perspective on the critical relationship between faith and society.”
Marty says it was fun to have the family along. “You’re allowed seven, so I brought eight.” He admits feeling “a sense of wonder.” Down deep, he admits, “I’m still a Nebraska farm kid. Whatever anybody thinks of any current holders of the White House, there’s a wonderful national symbolism still.” The Clintons he found “very informed,” and Marty was particularly impressed with Hillary. He sat at her left during the formal dinner that night, and they talked about foster care and adoption, vocations, and even spiritual readings with former Eagles rock star Don Henley. “Protocol notes say you don’t leave the dance floor until the Clintons do,” Marty recalls, “but given their reputation for hanging in there, at a quarter to 12, we slipped away.”
Slipping away is not what he has planned for “retirement,” however. There are still two years left on the grant period for the Public Religion Project, which he admits is “consuming.” The main goal, he says, is “to bring to life and interpret the role of the forces of faith in a pluralist society.” The project hopes to get opposing points of view talking to one another, and “where possible, bring forth the healing instead of only the killing side of religion.” Once that project ends, he’ll be “hungry” to write more books.
He’s had offers to teach for a year in both Germany and Australia, but “I don’t want to leave Riverside.”
Especially in winter.