By Brian Doyle
In tribute to the donor for the Bell Tower, Allen Lund, the following is an excerpt that appeared in the Portland Magazine, prior to its construction, which documents his motives.
Allen Lund, age 68, chairman of the board of regents at one of the finest Catholic universities in the West. Quiet creative benefactor to Catholic grade schools, high schools, colleges, universities, parishes, hospitals, charities, scholarships all over the West.
Recently gently persuaded the University of Portland to build a soaring vaulting bell tower next to its extraordinary wooden chapel so that the University will for centuries to come have a leaping stone prayer as a sweet statement of wild faith in the glory of God that the University has embodied for more than a century.
Allen Lund, renowned businessman, emperor of trucks and shipping in the American West used to be the son of a jack Mormon dad and a Lutheran mom, and he remembers the first step on his road to spiritual epiphany very well indeed; he was 18 years old, running a ride at an amusement park in rural Utah ("The Hammer!"), staring at the lovely girl who sold tickets for the ride ("thirty-five cents, those tickets"), and they get to talking, and Kathie's a devout Catholic, and Allen, for the first time in his life, ponders religion seriously.
"Ah, I was such a dope then," he says. "I only got interested in Catholicism because I couldn't take my eyes off Kathie. The Mormons never appealed to me, even though we were deep in total Mormon country, and now I think maybe that was the Holy Spirit working on me, pointing me in a direction...so I got interested in Catholicism, for every wrong reason, but your faith comes when and as it comes, don't you think?
And I finally sought instruction from a priest, but the pastor at the Catholic church, we didn't get along, and it was the assistant there, at Saint Mary's Church, who brought me along - I well remember my first prayers, said on the steps of that church, I would pray that the pastor wasn't the one who opened the door when I knocked...
"On the road to faith, you just keep walking. You walk deeper into the mystery.
You keep finding doors opening in the Church. You get overwhelmed by God's gifts. I was no one, then, you know - never went to college, only good at trucks, working twelve hours a day, six days a week, but God has a plan for me, God deluged me with gifts, with Kathie's love, and six sweet holy children, success in business like I never could have dreamed, amazing and wonderful people to walk with me every step of the way.
And that way became so wonderfully and thoroughly Catholic for me, all my life - our children all went to Catholic schools from beginning to end, and their spouses all converted to Catholicism, and all six couples sent all our 21 grandchildren to Catholic schools...we are sort of repopulating Catholic schools in the West as a clan, I guess.
And over the years I found that I have winnowed down my own interests and commitments to only Catholic education.
It seems like the secret to the future to me, the key to everything, and what energies and resources I have, I pour into Catholic schools, either directly, like being a regent and benefactor at the University of Portland, where I feel energized and engaged with something truly momentous, or through our Catholic education foundation here in California, which gives millions to inner-city Catholic schools.
I mean, who am I not to give back as many gifts as I can? Who am I?
What kind of man wouldn't seek to express his gratitude every way he can imagine?
Who am I not to try my very best to elevate life and celebrate holiness?
"Die broke, that's my plan. Die having given back the gifts I was given. I was no one, just a kid running a ride at the amusement park, but the Holy Spirit took my life in hand, and the road opened up, and I just kept walking"
Brian Doyle is the editor of
Portland Magazine
