Post-divorce and pre-Japan was a wandering time (as mentioned in my post about Robert Urich). And the wandering place that meant the most was the Four Corners area, especially New Mexico.

The LAND itself was healing; the PEOPLE and the SOLITUDE. The picture above shows me with some Taoseno Indians on the front porch of their home in Taos Pueblo; they and many others accepted me with a kindness that was inexplicable.

Once I took a group of students to the Pueblos, and at one of them we attended a "rain dance" (they called it a "corn dance," as the rain leads to corn). One of our boys bought smoke bombs at a booth and proceeded to go around setting them off.

I was livid. This is these people's HOMES, I said. How would you like it of someone did this in YOUR yard?

As I rode my high-horse, a big--and I mean BIG--dancer (on a break from the heat) came over, sat down in the midst of our group, and asked where we were from. I told him, and then hastily apologized for my charge's behavior.

"No problem," he said. "We dance for the whole world. We're really glad you're here."

Wow.

Categories: Bio, Compassion, Gratitude, Peace, Spirituality, The West

It's been 10 years since my friend Robert Urich died, and I'm just now beginning to feel I can write about him.

Calling Robert and Heather "friends" sounds so lame: in Hollywood, someone once said, a friend is "someone you've heard of."

These two have been so much more than that.

At the lowest time in my life, they took me into their home in Utah. They gave me a space to live in, time to heal, honorable work to do (in tutoring their son Ryan), and their time, friendship, and love.

They took me on family outings, to church, to their house in Canada. I probably spent more time with Heather--sightseeing, discussing books and movies, helping her with the kids, just hanging around the house. It was her idea to reach out to me, and she is every bit the friend he was, but today I'd like to talk about Bob.

Robert Urich was a doer. He had a go-getter attitude that was summed up in his delightful misquote of an Indian saying. They said, "You must seek enlightenment like a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond." Robert's version was more appropriate for his way of living: "Face every day like your hair was on fire."

Many was the (late) morning when Bob would bang on my bedroom door and call in: "Baquet, are you alive in there? Let's go do something."

Despite his great success, Robert was still a blue-collar boy, as am I. He was immune to  the trappings of fame and stardom, and despite the difference in our worldly status, when we were together we were just "Bob and Jim." He was no snob.

We'd talk about everything, from movies to family to philosophy to history to reminiscences of childhood. He was a voracious reader, and not a quick, but a deep thinker.

One of my favorite things about him was how I'd toss an idea out there (as teachers do), and he'd say, "Aw, that's horsesh*t!" (though he rarely swore), and then we'd talk and talk and talk. Sometimes he'd end up agreeing with me, sometimes I with him, sometimes there was no resolution, but it was always the camaraderie, the being together, that was important, not the conclusion.

Once at the dinner table he said, "Hey, Heather. Maybe we ought to keep Baquet around after the kids go off to school, and he can teach us all the stuff we should have learned in high school." He even told a reporter later that I was the family's "resident academic adviser." I loved him for his attitude toward personal growth.

That was January through June, 1995, and I stayed on in the house when they went to Canada for the summer.

Back in L.A. at Christmas, I called to greet the family and Bob asked what I was doing, which wasn't much. "Come up for New Years," he said, "then come to Santa Fe and run lines with me." He was then shooting "The Lazarus Man."

It wasn't long before we discovered that an old pro like him didn't NEED help in learning his lines. But he kept me on as an on-set assistant, which largely meant hanging around with him, recommending books, talking about what we were reading--and occasionally taking a phone call or reminding him of an appointment.

From our time back in Utah, we had become close enough that we could  be "real" with each other. And as Robert was the only weekly character on "Lazarus," he carried much of the stress that made the show go. This sometimes manifested itself in--shall we say--a bit of pique? But he never turned it on me.

One day, he had a radio interview to do, and... I forgot. And we missed it. (Can you imagine the radio host building up to the interview, and then receiving no call?)

Knowing I had no choice, I prepared to face The Wrath. I went to him and said, "Hey, Chief. I screwed up. We missed the blah-blah-blah interview."

He looked down for a minute--as I stood there waiting for it--then looked up, and said: "We should probably be more careful about these things."

Whew!

Here's where it gets hard.

Shortly after the season was over and we'd gone back to our respective homes, I called to say hi, and he told me he'd been diagnosed with cancer. They moved to L.A., and over the next few months I went by the house whenever I could. The philosophical discussions we'd had in Utah and New Mexico now took on some depth, some urgency, and I learned a lot from him.

In February of 1997, with things looking better all around, I left for Japan to teach for a year, but my one year became nearly five.

On one of my summer visits home, I flew up to Canada to see Bob and Heather. One night when Robert and I had washed, dried, and put away the dishes, he set down his towel, wrapped those giant arms around me, and said quietly, "I love you, Jim."

It won't surprise you, then, that one of the primary reasons I moved back to the U.S. in late 2001 was to be near the Urichs.

Regrettably, I only saw them a few times before the news came.

I was staying at my parents' house in April 2002, having just started a new job. My parents were away, and when the phone rang one morning it was my aunt saying, "I'm sorry to tell you, but your friend died." "What friend?" I asked stupidly. That's how much this took me (and most of us) by surprise.

I called Robert and Heather's house immediately, and their daughter Emily answered. She told me something that pains me to this day: They had called me the night before to come to the bedside for Bob's last moments. But because it was my parents' phone, not mine, I never got the message.

No chance to say goodbye. I'm crying again (still) as I write this, ten years later.

Heather and I are still friends, though I've been in China over eight of the past ten years. I'll always be grateful to her and Robert for their great kindness, their great generosity, their great love.

I'm sure that everyone who knew him will agree: no one has ever taken his place.

I miss you, Chief.

Robert's fighting spirit lives on in the work of the Robert Urich Foundation's efforts to fund cancer research and patient care. Please consider a gift.

For more about the Urich family today, including details on the newly-released The Sound of Music Family Scrapbook, visit Heather's website.

Categories: Bio, Compassion, Gratitude, The West

In December of 2001 I returned to the U.S. after nearly five years of living in Japan. Having delved deeply into Buddhism there, I was surprised and delighted to learn that there was a Buddhist university in my hometown, on the very street where my father and his brothers had built a house for my grandparents in the late '40s.

Hsi Lai University (as it was then called, now University of the West) seemed like the perfect place for me to study.

Perfect it was not. As with any institution, and especially one that was very new and very small, it had its flaws.

But from the very first, there were a couple of people there who smoothed the way for me, one of the few non-Asian (and non-monastic) students in the graduate program.

One of these was Dr. Kenneth Locke. (The other was Dr. Bruce Long.)

While I was still in the application process, I received a call from the Admissions Office. Would I come in for an interview? There was some small problem...

The person who interviewed me was Dr. Locke. My application, he said, gave no indication of my ability to do graduate work in religion--this despite undergrad study in philosophy, a masters (in education), and two years of part-time Anglican seminary.

Seminary? Really? Somehow the admissions people had missed that. Within 5 minutes, "Doc Locke" had signed me off and I was admitted. But then something unusual happened: Why didn't I stay and chat for a while? he asked. Not for admissions, but for the sheer pleasure of conversation.

That's the kind of man he was: doing a thankless administrative job with grace, humor, intelligence, and deep, deep humanity.

I had lots of experiences with him, but two more stand out.

He was the prof for my "Mysticism" class, and for the class presentation, I chose to talk about William Blake. Dr. Locke was scribbling madly throughout, and it made me nervous: how could I be bombing this badly? But after class, when I asked what was up, he said: "No, this is fascinating! I knew Blake as a poet, but I had no idea he was so deeply mystical! I have to look into this some more. Can you recommend anything?"

You have to admire a teacher who's willing to learn from a student.

The second story still touches me deeply. I had a girlfriend in China, and had planned to go see her in May of 2003, which turned out to be at the height of the great SARS Epidemic.

I was working at Hsi Lai Temple at the time, and was told in no uncertain terms that I was NOT to come to the temple for at least two weeks after my return. (This despite the fact that Taiwanese nuns were coming in regularly, even though the epidemic had struck there, too.)

But no one said I couldn't go to class. So I did. As I walked into Dr. Locke's class, a nun jumped up and literally ran to the far side of the room shouting, "You're not supposed to be here! You've been in China!" While she was carrying on, Dr. Locke got up from his chair, walked back to where I was standing, and shook my hand, with his left hand on my shoulder in a sort of "man hug," and asked, "How was your trip? How's the girl?"

Later, he told me that he wasn't JUST being friendly. He was also modeling humane behavior--for the nun!

Today, via Facebook, I learned that Dr. Locke had passed away in a hospital, with family members around. I knew that he had had major health issues for many years, though I was never quite sure what they were; and I don't know what he died of.

But I am so, so sorry he's gone. My sincere condolences to his family, his friends, and the UWest community.

Here is Dr. Locke's vita from the UWest website:

Dr. Kenneth A. Locke is the Dean of Administration and served as the former Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. His specialties are Christianity, Western Philosophy and Hermeneutics. Prior to being appointed Assistant Chair, he worked as an adjunct professor in the Religious Studies program in UWest. He earned a B. A. in Theology and Biblical Studies and a Ph. D. in Theology from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. While at that institution he won numerous academic awards, including the prestigious Trinity College Foundation Scholarship.

He has taught undergraduate courses in Theology at Trinity College and has published a number of articles on the Anglican Church. In addition, he has published his book The Church in Anglican Theology: A Historical, Theological and Ecumenical Exploration.

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The last time I saw him, in his office, he told me about his book with "humble pride."

I will miss him.
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Pictures of Dr. Locke on the UWest FaceBook page
UWest Students Association tribute on FaceBook
Categories: Bio, Gratitude