by Kat Silverglate Copyright 2023
The phrase mid-life is curious, isn’t it? As if we can know where the middle of life will be for us. Yet, it’s a thing – the division of our projected 100-year lifetime into halves and quarters. In their song 100 Years, the band Five for Fighting absolutely captures this tendency in poetically memorable lyrics. One hundred years feels like forever when you’re 15 because “there’s still time for you.” But looking back in the rearview mirror at 30, 40, 50… we’re shocked by how entire decades seem like mere moments. The lyrics project the listener of any vintage to 99 years of age where we’ll likely be asking for “just another moment.”
That’s the way it was for Christopher Berdy in 2018 as his half-time show was fast approaching -- his 50th trip around the sun.
“Fifty was a big deal for me. The magnitude of how fast my life was passing hit. I decided to take a year to examine where I was. What had I done with my 50 years? What had I left undone? Where was I going?”
Chris, a highly accomplished civil defense attorney from Alabama, spoke these words like a penitent would to his priest. In quiet unassuming tones, he shared parts of this story more as a confession than an editorial. The interview was an invitation to holy ground where some of his revelations seemed to be unfolding in real time.
“When a legal organization I’d been active in for years asked me to do a TED-style talk about my family of origin, I knew one thing about those talks – the best ones were delivered by people who were completely vulnerable, authentic and real. The problem for me was that I’d become somewhat of a stereotype; a stereotype I’d chosen for myself to gain a sense of identity… of belonging. What was most honest about me was hidden somewhere behind that persona. The massive amount of work I did to get ready for that talk was the catalyst that helped me look behind all that and face some of the questions coming up as I got closer to 50.”
The truth for Chris was that he came from a deeply loving family who taught him grit and resilience and modeled hard work and stewardship. He knew the broad strokes about his family history, but his elders didn’t talk much about the details. His grandparents had thick accents, lived in distant cities, and he didn’t see them much growing up. His father immigrated to the U.S. at six years old and was bullied because he didn’t speak English. After putting himself through dental and periodontal school, his dad joined the Navy, served his country and then settled in Jacksonville Florida where he and his Chicago-born mother, a nurse, raised Chris.
“My parents worked really hard to make every opportunity available to me and my brother. Growing up, the neighborhood surrounding mine was full of blue blazers, khaki pants, country clubs, private schools and church-going families. When I saw how people were admired and respected as part of that community, I wanted to be like them. I wanted to fit in. To belong. I was so young. I’m not sure I even knew I was making choices to try to fit then. It just kinda happened.”
Three months in to his 50th year, dressed in khaki pants, a white oxford shirt, blue blazer, and burgundy loafers, Chris opened his talk to a room full of lawyers with this confession: “It turns out that I may have become somewhat of a stereotype… If I were sitting in the audience with ya’ll listening to me… it would not be hard to convince me that I’m listening to just another WASPY southerner.” He goes on to list the supporting evidence: white male graduate of a private southern college, member of the high school and college tennis teams, a fraternity brother, a member of the Episcopal Church and the Downtown Rotary Club, an assistant Scout Master, married 20+ years with an endless mortgage, lover of sweet tea, BBQ and Blue Grass, etc. “Like any stereotype,” he continues in the most gentle tone, “it doesn’t explain why I made those choices or the kind of person I am.”
Here’s the rest of the story. When the Nazi’s annexed Austria in March 1938, forcing some 200,000 Jews into other parts of Europe, Chris’ paternal grandparents were amongst them. His great grandfather was arrested and was transported to and imprisoned in Dachau, one of the earliest concentration camps. His grandparents fled to Lyon, France where they met and married. By March of ‘42, Jews in France were being rounded up to be sent to Auschwitz. Their apartment had a false wall where they could hide when the Gestapo searched the building. But delivering a baby in the winter of 1942 with the last name Berditschevsky made it difficult to hide in Nazi-occupied France. So, they named their son Christian. On Christmas day 1942, they had him baptized in the Catholic Church. Berditschevsky was shortened to Berdy when they arrived on Ellis Island in 1949.
And while his talk focused on the false assumptions we sometimes make about people, his research into his own background opened a door to some deeper revelations about identity.
Chris began to examine some of the major touch points in his life.
In high school, dating a girl whose family attended church, he went regularly and his heart was stirred. When the relationship ended, the Lord continued to reveal Himself to Chris. His heart was forever changed but his search for identity continued.
Chris eventually married. As newlyweds, he and his wife did a backpacking trip on the Continental Divide Trail. Early in the trip, he was nervous because they couldn’t see where the trail over a major pass was leading. There were no traditional markers, so they went from cairn to cairn [rock pile markers] until they found themselves at the top of the Divide.
“We turned around and looked back over the vista. It was like God pulled back the veil between heaven and earth and we got a glimpse of the beauty, and the stress of not knowing where the trail led on the other side of the pass simply vanished. The best analogy I have is a pair of jeans with worn out knees. When you run your hand over that part you feel something in the thin place that you don’t feel on the rest of your legs. The presence of the Lord was overwhelming.”
Christopher Berdy
He started to bawl like a child. At a pass crossing over the Continental Divide, they fell to their knees and prayed on the spot. The selfie they took that day [before selfies were even a thing] sits in a frame in their bedroom as a forever reminder of God’s hand on their lives.
When his son was born, he and his wife had ten minutes together alone with the baby before they named him.“I distinctly remember thinking; this child came through us but not because of us. We had nothing to do with this.” The sense of the Lord’s hand on their child’s creation and delivery was overwhelming to both of them.
They named him Christian.
Chris explains his revelation this way: “When I look at my whole history, I can draw a direct line to God’s saving hand on my life and on my family’s life in surviving the Holocaust.” At every step along this journey, God was reinforcing holes in his adopted identity and filling them with His presence.
Frederick Buechner in his book The Magnificent Defeat speaks of two battles all humans face. The first is more of an undeclared battle. Not one we announce publicly but one we find ourselves in – the battle to find our place in the sun.
“We fight to be visible, to move into a place in the sun, a place in family, the community, in whatever profession we choose, a place where we can belong, where there is light enough to be recognized as a person and to keep the shadows at bay.”
Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
When Chris opened his talk with the suspicion that he’d become “somewhat of a stereotype,” he acknowledged one of the bunkers in the first battle – conforming to an identity to satisfy our need for belonging.
But, as Buechner explains, no matter how much we attempt to reinforce our place in the sun, the hole is never filled.
“…[E]ven if we do not find our place in the sun, or not quite the place we want, or a place where the sun is not as bright as we always dreamed that it would be, this is not the end because this is not really the decisive war even though we spend so much of our lives assuming that it is.”
Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
The decisive war is discovering what it means to be complete apart from a righteousness of our own making. Discovering the Lord’s hand in and on us. Taking it and walking with Him all the days of our lives. In the righteousness of God, in Christ, we find identity. This is the essence of Philippians 3:9.
Our August Mission:
In your Mobile Mission Pack, you’ll find eight hole reinforcement stickers and two identity cards, one with a hole and one with the hole filled in. Use the first identity card to meditate on your first battle – the battle for a place in the sun. Are there holes in your peace? Are there areas of your life where you continue to double down and press harder only to find the hole in your peace reinforced? Is this a hole that only God can fill? Has your identity become attached to something you do? Where are you looking for peace, purpose and value? Ask the Lord to show you if you are trying to find ultimate peace in a place where it can’t be found. Only He can give ultimate peace. The decisive war…
Use the second ID card, the one with the hole filled in, to begin a list of your identity in the Lord. When you are hidden in His righteousness -- not anything of your own making -- you are Found, Redeemed, Set Free… Can you fill up the card? Carry it around as a reminder of who you are in Christ?
