Mondays with Mike: Here’s to my favorite Christian, Charlie Sweitzer

After Gus was born back in 1986, Beth was at sea. (I was hanging onto a life preserver.) Barely a year after learning her sight loss was permanent, she was faced with helping to raise a newborn with an extremely rare genetic condition. Gus was a complete enigma, with little data about life expectancy or developmental advances. What data existed was not optimistic.

One of Charlie’s loves was woodworking. And he was good.

Beth did what she has always done: That is, do something. That’s when we met Charlie Sweitzer. We had received advice from another parent of a developmentally disabled child: find a church. The advice did not come from one’s own social and spiritual needs: The mother just told Beth that through regular attendance other churchgoers would pick up on Gus’ incremental developmental advances that we might not recognize on a day-to-day basis.

Beth remembered reading and hearing about the McKinley Presbyterian Church when she was still in College. McKinley is in Champaign in the heart of the University of Illinois Campus. The Church was known (and in some circles, reviled) for taking  stands on some very controversial issues and for taking action to help those who need it. One of the pastors, Charlie Sweitzer, was the force behind it all.

And what a force. He helped found the Men’s Emergency Shelter (a refuge for the homeless men housed in the McKinley Church/Foundation basemen)t. McKinley hosted space for the Gay Community AIDS Project, a health support system started during the beginning of the AIDS crisis. He was actively involved with the local PFLAG — Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Charlie performed same-sex marriages (civil unions back then) long before Illinois state law recognized the unions, and many of the couples were of faiths where their union was not sanctioned.

He and McKinley embodied true Christian values: Acceptance and support. That’s what Beth and we needed. And we got it. Beth started attending regularly, and even I, a lifetime eschewer of churches, attended semi-regularly. Charlie challenged all of us to help people in the ways we can. To put our efforts and our money where our mouths and sanctimony were. He also provided a space where we could think idealistically without apology.

Charlie taught Beth to bake bread. Good bread. He and she improvised techniques that enable her, to this day, to bake a nice baguette and a great Challah. He eventually hired her as a volunteer coordinator, her first paid employment after she lost her sight. He encouraged her to come on a work project and Mexico—helping to add on to a Downs Syndrome institute.

It was not saccharine. It was not condescending. It was, “You can do this.” And it was also, “You better do your best.”

You all know Beth. She’s intrepid. She’s courageous. She’s resourceful. But after a double body blow, she was none of those things.

I’d say that Charlie’s care helped her become her old self. But helping her succeed at doing things she had not done before she lost her sight—it’s not an exaggeration to say that that his good faith helped lead her to her new self. The one you and I know today.

I told that to his son when we attended a gathering for Charlie and his wife Phyllis at their home in Champaign. Charlie died about a month ago, exactly 13 months after Phyllis passed away. In the middle of the Covid shutdown, Phyllis’ passing couldn’t be a public observation.

On Saturday, we celebrated them both. I could go on about them, but you best read Charlie’s obituary. It closes this way:

Charlie was a rebel and a legend, and to all of those in his wide circle of family, friends, colleagues and casual acquaintances, 86 years were not nearly enough.