From
the
Executive Director
Executive Director Musings By Fred L. Potter
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” McCartney wrote and sang the lead vocals on this song which asks if a woman will still be with him when he got older, when he was 64 years old. On May 17, 2006, Paul and his then wife, Heather Mills, separated, finalizing the divorce in 2008. McCartney turned 64 on June 18, 2006, so the answer to his musical question with regards to Mills, would be no. http://www.songfacts.com/detail. php?id=126
Back in 1966, during the fall of my freshman year at Harvard and just before my 18th birthday, the Beatles began recording sessions for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That album marked their accelerating movement into pop culture leadership. The first track recorded that December was this whimsical and quite distinctive ditty about end-of-life care. Ironically, as noted on songfacts.com, the answer to the title question for writer/lead singer Paul McCartney was simply “no”. Age 64 seemed a distant time when I was a college freshman in 1966, but as this edition of The Christian Lawyer first reaches our members, I will be entering my 64th year. Accordingly, just as for Paul McCartney in 2006, the personal reality of this milestone now is upon me. Thankfully, over the years, I have benefited from CLS role models who, like the Apostle Paul, showed a more excellent way. CLS just completed our 50th anniversary celebration. At that time, attendees shared the joy of honoring a number of individuals instrumental in shaping the Society in its early years to form the contours of our current ministries. Among those are three individuals whom I personally interviewed in preparation for the celebration. For each, the answer to the age 64
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question has been decidedly different than Paul McCartney’s. Henry Brinks, one of CLS founders and an attorney who still spends time regularly in his intellectual property practice in downtown Chicago, steadfastly stood beside his wife as she went through failing health and diminished clarity in her later years. Recalling decades through which he lifted his conductor’s baton high
“Be
he is nearby contributed to John’s decision to stay home even as he was honored this fall. As we visited with John from the conference briefly Sunday morning via Skype connection, his beloved Peggy was at his side. Time constraints simply did not allow me to share with conference attendees when we were together that these three men are my heroes for reasons quite unrelated to their professional contributions to CLS which we celebrated together. They exemplified the work and ministry of Christian lawyers not only in the workaday world, but also, and more importantly in my view, as they worked out their faithfulness in marriage. Their deep and practical personal ministries to their spouses marked the kind of faithfulness that truly is a hallmark of the well-integrated Christian lawyer. They demonstrated that for a Christian truly to be a great lawyer, she or he must first of all be a great person. Henry, George, and John, in my eyes, are just that. They have walked in the more excellent way the Apostle Paul urges us to follow.
imitators of me, as I am of I Cor. 11:1
Christ.”
“. . . I
will show you a still more excellent way.” I Cor. 12:31 The Apostle Paul at CLS national conferences, George Newitt, with his still-strong and resonant voice, capped our 50th anniversary celebration banquet late Saturday night by leading the traditional CLS hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” George, too, dedicated an extended period of time in caring for his beloved Virginia. He had missed fellowship for many years at CLS as he faithfully served, at times providing nourishment even as she barely remembered his name but would only accept George as a caregiver. John Robb’s deep devotion to Peggy and the fact that her days simply “go better” when
Clearly the greatest hallmark of our faithfulness is the Lord Jesus Christ showing through us. That increasingly is emphasized by singer/songwriter Steve Green whose recording “Find us Faithful” challenges us to carry evidence in our own lives of the faithfulness demonstrated by Henry, George, and John through these many years. May our spouses and others looking over our footprints find us faithful in marriage, to our Lord, and in service to one another through our profession.
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