Richard Bieber, The Pastor Who Saved My Faith and My Father’s Life — In Memoriam
“Glen, wake up. You’re loved.”
It was June, 1972 and my father lay comatose in the Intensive Care Unit of Sinai hospital in Detroit, several days after ingesting a massive overdose of barbiturates. His kidneys had shut down and he was unresponsive to pain.
Richard (Dick) Bieber was two years younger than my dad, pastoring an eclectic congregation near downtown Detroit — drawing neighborhood people, young hippie Jesus-freaks from around the city, alcoholics from the fabled Cass Corridor, and professors from Wayne State University. They flocked to hear his short but captivating sermons at Messiah, what was once a sleepy Lutheran church.
In the weeks before the overdose, my father, a skeptic, distrusting of authority, of institutions, of groups, had been talking to Dick about faith, searching for some light in the throes of another depressive episode — symptom of his undiagnosed PTSD from combat in France as a young G.I. So Dick visited my dad in the ICU, spoke to him and prayed for him.
The nurse in the ICU said,
