|
|
|
In a speech to the city of Athens, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates once likened himself to a ‘gadfly’ and the city to a ‘well-bred horse.’ By pestering the horse, the gadfly keeps it awake and alert.
I have always considered Wilford Winholtz – activist, troublemaker, family man, urban planner and lay minister – to be Independence’s gadfly. In personal conversations, community meetings, public demonstrations and letters to the editor of The Examiner, Wilford constantly challenged people to think more clearly, care for the vulnerable and forgo easy answers. In his passing last Sunday, Independence lost one of its most vocal prophetic voices for social justice.
“Wilford’s purpose was to call us to our better/higher selves, to hold before us a mirror, as it were, and to ask us to look at the difference between what we say and what we do,” his wife Pat Heady Winholtz told me.
Wilford was primarily a community builder. As a lay minister in the Community of Christ, he believed that the gospel required creating practical expressions of ‘the kingdom’ on earth. He helped found Harvest Hills, an intentional Christian community in Independence, where my parents moved when we arrived in Independence in 1998. Wilford showed us around, welcomed us and helped us find a home.
An MIT-educated urban planner, he believed that cities too, should be planned and managed in a way that would foster community, care for the vulnerable and allow all people, no matter their class or race, to live dignified lives.
Wilford was a political activist, who strongly believed, as his wife Pat told me, that we have “a duty as citizens to engage in the political process, because that is the heart of democracy and any kind of successful community development.”
He doggedly stood for issues of civil rights and peace long before such views were popular. He ran for a US Senate seat in 1964 on a peace platform, counseled Vietnam War draftees on the option of conscientious objection and submitted numerous resolutions on pacifism, race relations and organ donation to the Community of Christ World Conference. He was an avid Examiner reader and wrote many letters to the editor, including two this month.
When I was preparing to start at Graceland University, Wilford took me aside with a twinkle in his eye and told me that I should pick an issue to protest about and try to shut down the college for a day. He felt the experience of successful political action was a far more useful life lesson than anything I would learn in classes.
In a speech to the city of Athens, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates once likened himself to a ‘gadfly’ and the city to a ‘well-bred horse.’ By pestering the horse, the gadfly keeps it awake and alert.
I have always considered Wilford Winholtz – activist, troublemaker, family man, urban planner and lay minister – to be Independence’s gadfly. In personal conversations, community meetings, public demonstrations and letters to the editor of The Examiner, Wilford constantly challenged people to think more clearly, care for the vulnerable and forgo easy answers. In his passing last Sunday, Independence lost one of its most vocal prophetic voices for social justice.
“Wilford’s purpose was to call us to our better/higher selves, to hold before us a mirror, as it were, and to ask us to look at the difference between what we say and what we do,” his wife Pat Heady Winholtz told me.
Wilford was primarily a community builder. As a lay minister in the Community of Christ, he believed that the gospel required creating practical expressions of ‘the kingdom’ on earth. He helped found Harvest Hills, an intentional Christian community in Independence, where my parents moved when we arrived in Independence in 1998. Wilford showed us around, welcomed us and helped us find a home.
An MIT-educated urban planner, he believed that cities too, should be planned and managed in a way that would foster community, care for the vulnerable and allow all people, no matter their class or race, to live dignified lives.
Wilford was a political activist, who strongly believed, as his wife Pat told me, that we have “a duty as citizens to engage in the political process, because that is the heart of democracy and any kind of successful community development.”
He doggedly stood for issues of civil rights and peace long before such views were popular. He ran for a US Senate seat in 1964 on a peace platform, counseled Vietnam War draftees on the option of conscientious objection and submitted numerous resolutions on pacifism, race relations and organ donation to the Community of Christ World Conference. He was an avid Examiner reader and wrote many letters to the editor, including two this month.
When I was preparing to start at Graceland University, Wilford took me aside with a twinkle in his eye and told me that I should pick an issue to protest about and try to shut down the college for a day. He felt the experience of successful political action was a far more useful life lesson than anything I would learn in classes.
However, despite his very public personality, Wilford was a loyal friend and a family man, who was more open and loving than his challenging persona initially suggested. Despite sometimes coming across as a very partisan Democratic, his wife Pat was a Republican and he was able to reach across divisions of ideology to work with and love others in a way that affirmed them as people, while still vehemently disagreeing.
And despite his ferociously intelligent mind, Wilford was never above the mundane tasks that constitute every day family and community life.
“Wilford was a servant of the best kind. He regarded no task as too menial. Among his self appointed job; he did the dishes, took out the trash, made the bed, bought the groceries, put the house to bed at night and regularly offered me the sweet gesture of fresh flowers from the garden,” said Pat. “He just stepped up and took responsibility.”
One of Wilford’s greatest talents was coining pithy one-liners intended to challenge and provoke.
Like Socrates, Wilford was a master of the aphorism. I feel it is appropriate to end this piece with a few examples of his unconventional wisdom:
- “Are you a Christian? Yes? … Oh good! I never met one before.”
- [While holding a blank sign] “Only the righteous can read this.”
- “No one has the right to misunderstand what I am stumbling around trying to say.”
- “I don’t know about you, but me and Jesus, we’re pacifists.”
- “When you consider that every word in the English language has five or six definitions, and there are more than 500,000 words, it is no wonder that people cannot communicate.”
- “The Republicans are no good and the Democrats are no good either because they are just like the Republicans.”
- “You can’t just be good – you have to be good for something.”
- “I’m a peacemaker, no matter how much trouble I cause.”
