30th Reunion Photo with names

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If you want to see this picture with names attached to each lovely face, just click on the picture or go to this link [and then scroll over image to see names appear]:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57702539@N00/3447336599/

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Greg Pierce

But then again, too few to mention.

I've been putting off writing because I was hoping to make it for the reunion, but it is just not going to be possible. Had it been in Chicago...(smile).

My absence is due primarily to a lack of planning twenty or so years ago, when my wife, Kathy, and I had three children in twenty months, two of them on my fortieth birthday. Had I realized that we would be having a fortieth reunion this summer, I would have refused sex during those years. Instead, we went ahead and made love and look what happens: we have three kids in college in the midst of a major recession. So I'll be thinking of you all. Maybe it's better that I remember you and you remember me the way we were. (No, I just did that and I got depressed. So instead I'll imagine that we all became handsome and successful.)

So here is the short version (highly cleaned up) of MY LIFE SINCE MARYKNOLL:

I went off to graduate school to get a Ph.d. in political sociology, but there was some war going on and I thought I should do something about it. So I became a conscientious objector and began training as a community organizer with Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. I did that through my twenties and early thirties, during which time I got married and divorced twice. This led me to think that maybe I should try some other kind of work.

Eventually, I met a beautiful, tall, Catholic school teacher named Lathy Augustine from the south side of Chicago, and we married in 1985. I moved to Chicago, where I took a job as an editor for ACTA Publications. I eventually bought half the company, and that is what I continue to do for a living. We publish books on religion, baseball and community organizing. (Hmmm, I wonder why?) I also got involved in community organizing again, but this time as a leader and volunteer, and I am still involved in a group called United Power for Action and Justice that works on issues such as health care for the uninsured, affordable housing, education reform, and other issues. I also served for five years as president of the National Center for the Laity, an organization that promotes the "vocation of the laity in and to the world."

Along the way, I also started writing (building off my career as a foreign correspondent from Hawaii for the Glen Ellyn newspaper in my junior year. I have written six books and numerous articles of my own and put together several compilations of essays by others. My latest book is The Mass Is Never Ended: Rediscovering Our Mission to Transform the World (Ave Maria Press 2007). I have a new book titled The World As It Should Be: Living Authentically in the Here-and-Now Kingdom of God that will come out from Loyola Press next January. So you can see that I have managed to keep alive and write about the sense of mission I learned from Maryknoll.

I have remained a faithful, liberal Catholic (yes, Matt and Steve, it is possible). I am disgusted by some of the things our church has done, but I still believe in the mission of Jesus of Nazareth and I feel that it is partly my job to make sure that the church itself remains true to that mission. (See, I haven't lost one bit of my arrogance.) But I am hopeful that I can continue to do my part to make the world a little better place, a little bit more like the kingdom of God that Jesus envision would come "on earth as it is in heaven."

The aforementioned kids are now 21, 21, and 19. Abby is at Loyola Marymount University studying acting, which she hopes to pursue as a career. Her twin brother Nate is at Grinnell College in Iowa, where he is and English major and plays on the baseball team. He hopes to be a writer and/or a teacher and coach. The younger son, Zack, is also at LMU, where he is in the business school and majoring in economics.

It has been great hearing from everyone. The only ones I am still in contact with are Jim Sullivan (I am his daughter Colleen's godfather) and Tim Regan (whom I will see this summer). I don't know if you all remember Pete Freyne, who was a year behind us. He died recently in Vermont, where he was a freelance journalist.

I have many fond memories of my years at Glen Ellyn and all of you. If you are in Chicago, give me a call and maybe we can get together for lunch. My office is right in Skokie, just off Interstate 94. I'd love to see you.

Have a great reunion, and if there is anyone who is still drinking, please hoist one for me.

Greg Pierce

6760 N. Jean Avenue

Chicago, IL 60646

work: 800-397-2282

gfapierce@aol.com