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Dave Jorth

'What are you Going Through?'

“When God wants to speak and deal with us,” wrote Martin Luther long ago, God doesn’t send an angel but “parents, or the pastor, or our neighbor.”

Dave Jorth knows about neighbors. Again and again, God comes Dave’s way in the guise of the neighbor. Parents, pastors, family, friends, even relative strangers — all neighbors who come with a common question, “What are you going through?”

Who have been Dave’s neighbors?

  • His parents, who gave him his start on a Milford farm in northwest Iowa.
  • Church friends in a Cedar Falls church who surrounded Dave and his wife Mary at the stillborn death of their first child.
  • Across-the-street neighbors Kent and Donna Naae, who came bearing a chocolate cake when the Jorths moved to Davenport nearly three decades ago — and then gave them a tip too: You’ll love St. Paul Lutheran Church.
  • Men who Dave names — Roger Fisk and Richard Miller — who “planted the seeds,” sharing and modeling their faith in Bible studies.
  • The closest neighbor of all, his wife Mary, “a rock.”
  • A pastor who told Dave and Mary about acceptance and openness when son Alex said, “I’m gay.”
  • A physician who came to the house during a painful crisis just days before their daughter Trina gave birth to their first grandchild.

“You can’t do it on your own,” says Dave. When people show up on the Jorth doorstep with cake or concern — they walk into Dave and Mary’s life. Each one of these neighbors has asked, “What are you going through?” — and, says Dave, they’re part of who he is today.

For all the big “learning curves,” the “Holy Spirit has given us the power to talk about those tough things, to express our feelings and concerns.” Dave has risked vulnerability and found a community of prayer and love.

After 32 years in Deere materials management, and seven years as a math teacher before that, Dave is now retired. That opens new vistas for time with three adult children: Trina, a science teacher in Northfield, Minnesota, and mother of Dave and Mary’s two grandkids; Mack, a Grinnell football coach and science teacher; and Alex, based in New York City in musical theatre.

“I’ve been blessed with good teachers and mentors,” people who have been “kind and understanding. Open. Faithful. Strong.” says Dave. He has been surrounded by people who woke him up from a workaholic life. Others helped unpack the conservative theology of his upbringing, giving him eyes to see that God created Alex and each one of us good, gay or straight.

All this inspires Dave to be a neighbor to anybody who might need him, “to be an example like they have been for me. It all has made us a lot less selfish, and more willing to help talk about things.”

Twenty-three years have passed since Dave last served on the Congregation Council. Now he’s back, serving in a new day. “We all need to share the leadership,” he says. He’s doing his homework, “studying the website, the structure, the finances. It’s amazing how much we give as a church to benevolences. How much of the debt is paid down. It shows tremendous people. Tremendous concern for people who need help.”

It all comes down, says Dave, to “being a good neighbor.” In this cloud of neighbors who surround Dave, there is God. “Always there. Understands everything. Loving. Forgiving.”

God comes to us through a community of neighbors who ask, “What are you going through?”

Love of neighbor

“The love of neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, ‘What are you going through?’” — Simone Weil

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"God does not ask us to give ourselves to others. God asks us to give Christ - who transforms us, dwells within us and fills us with his self-giving love." ~Kenda Creasy Dean