A Tribute to Norma Koester Bork (1930-2024)
David R. Larson
Loma Linda University Church
September 15, 2024
Doctor Bork noticed me.
Being noticed is something special. It is more than being seen but it is less than being observed. The ancient word from which our word descends means “to be known.” To be noticed, then, is “to be known.” It is to be recognized and, to some extent, to be understood.
I know what it feels like not to be noticed. On one of the last Sabbaths of my three years as the youth minister at the Azure Hills Church, the Sabbath morning greeter welcomed me with, “Thank you for visiting our church. We hope that you will come again!” After three years!
Doctor Bork noticed me at Pacific Union College. According to my best reconstruction of the dates, the 1967-1968 school year was her first year there as a professor and my last year there as a student. I took no courses or seminars from her and had no other formal relationship with her other than to have taken some courses from the Speech department that she had joined.
My informal encounters with Doctor Bork were few but memorable. She would rush up to me, ask a question and speedily move on with a crisp but friendly “thanks!” I would feel as honored as I would feel surprised. Why should she care about what I thought? I didn’t know then and I don’t know now.
After I graduated, I didn’t see Doctor Bork again for thirty years and this was when she and her husband, PUC religion professor Doctor Paul Bork, returned to Loma Linda. In addition to going to school, during that time I had three jobs: Youth Pastor at Azure Hills churches, pastor at Lake Elsinore and Lake Perris chuches and religion professor here. These turned out to be the only three jobs I would ever have!
We have heard something about what she did during those three decades. She had been a loving wife and mother, accomplished academic, skilled politician, successful business woman, novelist and retiree with her husband for almost a decade, first at Napa and then at Oceanside.
She had been a guest of the President of the United States several times. She was a colleague of several prominent politicians. She had received the support of Hollywood celebrities. In other words, she had no reason to remember me!
But she did! Our encounters at Loma Linda were like the ones that we had at PUC. Without a word about the intervening thirty years, she would ask me a question or make a comment, we would discuss it for a few moments and then she would speed on her way with the same “thanks.”
I especially enjoyed watching her interactions with Roy Branson at his Sabbath School before he died. I gathered that, when decades before they had both been living in New York city, they were among the very SDAs who tried to take full advantage of its cultural opportunities.
Doctor Bork could be a conversational humming bird and we are all the better for it!
One of the best things we can do to honor Doctor Bork is to notice others like she noticed us. Many in our community long to feel noticed. They feel seen. They feel observed or even scrutinized. But they don’t feel noticed. These include students, faculty, clinicians, staff and administrators alike. We might notice our administrators least of all. Yet their children die of AIDS too. Their spouses suffer from cancer as well.
Doctor Bork taught us to notice people. Let us learn her lesson well!