Returning to the gang members who jumped the off-duty cop on Lincoln Ave. after a 4 a.m. bar closing, not identified ethnically by Sun-Times and erroneously presumed in this space to be Puerto Rican, they’re white non-Latino, as is clear from their names — Vincent Munday, David Podgorski and brothers Anthony Borias, Nicholas Borias and Joseph Borias (maybe Latin) — and headshots. 

The gang is Insane Deuces (alleged, allegedly and other kind of disclaimer for all this; it’s how newspapers protect selves, why not members of the Insane Bloggers gang?), one of whose members recently shot and killed a Marine home on leave.  One of the Lincoln Avenue Five is an Elmwood Park High School graduate — that town is kitty-corner from Oak Park at Harlem & North.

This town has its toughies.  I wandered into it now and then on walks from our northeast River Forest rental a few years back.  One quiet Sunday about 8 a.m., I sauntered down the strip mall near Harlem & North, west of the bank on the corner across the street from a Sears store on the Chicago corner (NE).  Noticing that the Great American Bagels was closed for redecorating, etc. — it’s when they absorbed an ice cream operation from next door — I stopped to look inside. 

I was immediately accosted by a tough young man whose accomplice stood at my rear.  We remained jocular with each other as I, blessedly unaware, wondered out loud what was up with the Bagels place.  The two and another were standing outside (guarding?) a late-model auto parked across a small parking lot in which sat (huddled?) an elderly couple.  Taking the couple at first to be mob-related, I was the more cautious. 

But my happy-go-luckiness worked in dealing with the two bully boys, who stood aside as I continued my stroll.  Confused, I guessed the two oldsters were being held, say until ransom was paid?  Lively imagination I had, you say.  But regaining the River Forest side of North Avenue, I looked back.  The wise guys and the oldsters remained in place.  I considered calling 911 but didn’t, feeling uncertain of my ground in Elmwood Park matters.  It’s culturally another world over there.  I turned and continued back to our Bonnie Brae quarters.

Jeremiah faced clever enemies, who resolved, “Let us destroy him by his own tongue;
let us carefully note his every word.”  They would pick apart what he said, using it against him.  He turned to God for help:

Remember that I stood before you
to speak in their behalf,
to turn away your wrath from them.

This is what prophets did, of course: they addressed God on behalf of his people.  When they prophesied, told the future, it was when going back to the people to tell them what would happen if they did not obey God.

The Psalmist turned to God all the time, of course, as with:

You will free me from the snare they set for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.

That’s how Christ talked on the cross, we will recall.  Meanwhile, Jesus (the Christ, anointed, messiah) had to deal in Matthew 20 with a pushy mother.  She wanted her two sons to be given places of honor in his kingdom.  Not mine to give, he told her, but his father’s.

The other 10 apostles got bent out of shape by this motherly advance, and Jesus told them to forget it:

Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. 

Quite radical stuff, honored in the breach by every ecclesiastical climber who claims advancement was not his idea.  So it went then, so now.  It’s up to us to get over it, and on with faith, hope, and charity.