In memoriam

So, a few years ago I found myself on a panel about faith and work for a class of doctor of ministry students who were focusing on faith in the workplace.

After too many horrifying conversations along the lines of "Gosh wouldn't it be great to have a Bible study group meeting at the office" (ummm ... no ... that would in fact suck rocks. Sorry.) I broke in with a story about my parents taking a class on family life while they were dating, taught by a sweet, gentle, grace-filled man, Rabbi Folkman. And every now and then he'd mention his son who was off doing medical research.

About a decade ago, all the news outlets were hopping about a potential imminent cure for cancer within the next few years. The reporters' jobs were made more difficult by the fact that the researcher had no interest in talking to them. Yes, they'd had some hopeful looking results but this was at way too early a stage for all the hype. "Mouse studies do not belong on the front page of the New York Times." (And ten years later cancer is still around, although some very helpful new treatments are now on the market as a result of that research.) They couldn't even scrounge up a recent photo, because he doesn't do that sort of thing. But the reporters had to do SOMETHING when everybody was all excited. And a portrait started to emerge of a brilliant, brilliant man who was very interested in curing cancer but not at all interested in building up his own ego. In a lot of labs, it is just routine that the head guy gets senior authorship credit on every article that comes out of the lab. He didn't do that. He took authorship credit on the articles he actually contributed to and had other people get the credit when that was appropriate. He was always very careful to make sure that his assistants got credit for everything they had worked on. This is not normal behavior in academic research.

That was Judah Folkman, Rabbi Folkman's son. And, my parents said, that made sense. Knowing Rabbi Folkman, of course that's the way his son would be.

THAT, said I, is how a Christian should be known in the workplace. People should see us and say "Of course. It makes sense that she'd act that way. That is how a child of God would be."

(Of course, unless Judah also grew up to break his father's heart, I'm guessing that Rabbi Folkman's son wasn't Christian. And he was my paradigm example for how a Christian should act in the workplace. That's OK. Let's shake up the Gordon-Conwellites a little.)

Judah Folkman died this week from a sudden heart attack. He had absolutely no reason to know I exist, but in some strange way I considered him a friend. I almost feel like I should go to the memorial service this weekend. Rest in peace.