His name was Harlan. He always wore Birkenstock sandals over thick socks, year-round. He always carried two things around with him: his laptop, and a pillow to sit against because of his back that still bothered him from the time he fell off of his roof. He told me that on the first Sunday that he came back to church, after that accident, he walked down the center aisle carrying a very long chain of all the get-well cards and letters that people had sent him, all taped together and trailing behind him like a streamer.
When Harlan sat down, no matter where he was, he would open his laptop and begin typing, during church sermons, book discussions, even during the lights-out time at spiritual retreats when you could see his face glowing blue from the light of his screen.
Once I saw Harlan sitting alone at a table in a small coffee shop called Katie’s Cup. On the table in front of him was an index card fashioned into a tent on which he had written in large black letters “Community Listening Circle”. No one came to join him, but there he stayed, typing away at his laptop, the w whirr of the coffee machines in the background, the workers calling out orders to be picked up at the counter.
Another time Harlan launched a one-man crusade to get a woman released from jail, where she had been sent as punishment for refusing to take her medication. Harlan made up flyers and spoke about the woman’s plight at places all around the city. He even wrote an opinion piece about her that was published in the local newspaper. Soon after, the woman was released from jail and the charge against her was dismissed.
Harlan would talk to anyone within hearing distance about ideas important to him, especially the process of Nonviolent Communication advocated by Marshall Rosenberg. And Harlan would speak out fiercely against injustice and inequities, which made some people mad, or irritated, but he would not be deterred. He would be smiling, his head dipped to one side, his laptop under his arm, and the person who was mad at him would walk away wondering how anyone could be so tenacious.
It was one Sunday morning when we learned, at the end of the church service, that Harlan had left us. We were all standing together in a prayer circle in the sanctuary of the church where Harlan had attended since he was a small boy. The pastor said that he had something to tell us, that Harlan’s wife had called that morning to say that Harlan had died as he was getting ready to come to church. There were gasps and cries, and one young man, who later said that Harlan had literally saved his life, fell back as if struck.
Harlan once told me that he lived according to a quote from Horace Mann which appears above an entrance door at Rockford East High School, Harlan’s alma mater: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” By the time he died, Harlan Johnson had won many victories for humanity. And about those victories for humanity which remain to be won today, or tomorrow? Harlan left those for us to win.
Susan Goldberg is a writer, audiobook narrator, and lawyer. Susan had the good fortune to know Harlan Johnson through Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Rockford where she and her husband Dan are members. Susan first read her piece about Harlan at Katie's Cup, the coffee shop mentioned in her story. Susan enjoys writing narrative poems about her childhood in rural Indiana and also about interesting people. Susan is the mother of three adult children, all of whom are creative and kind souls.