September 24, 1935 – November 7, 1974
OBITUARY
Richard was a husband, father, son and brother. He was the husband of Elaine, the father of John and Kurt, the son of Dorothy Dahlke Nelson and the late Gustave Dahlke, the brother of Charles and Ronald Dahlke and Mrs. Merle Wiegman. All except his father and brother Ronald survive him.
Richard was a citizen of Chicago and a member of the Order: Ecumenical. He was currently assigned to the Chicago Nexus of the Global Management Centrum, where he served the Order in the area of international program liaison, playing a unique role in enabling the global assignments of Order members.
In 1951 Richard enlisted in the United States Air Force and served his country during and after the Korean War in the field of radar installations. Discharged as a staff sergeant in 1955, he returned to the United States and continued his education in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois and in computer programming at the Automation Institute. He pursued his career as a computer technician with IBM in Chicago, marrying Elaine Goff in 1962.
Richard was bapitzed as a Lutheran. In 1966 he symbolized his life vocation to be the church by moving his family to 5th City and becoming part of the Order: Ecumenical. He served in the Continental Office, scheduling courses and arranging for faculty travel. In 1968, he pioneered in the young of the Order’s first religious houses, being assigned as a prior in the Los Angeles house. Returning to Chicago in 1970, Richard employed his considerable literary skill to the Order’s research efforts, first in the area of historical religious orders and later in the task of mapping the topography of the Other World. In 1971 he participated in Global Odyssey III as a sign of his care and responsibility for the globe.
An abrupt and massive heart attack in the fall of 1971 put severe limits on his physical activity which had marked Richard’s work to this point. An almost irresistibly active man, Richard was now called to care for himself through sharply reduced levels of physical expenditure. Subsequent attaccks left him under no illusion concerning the approaching completion of his life. Before the Order had a common language to describe the experience, Richard knew what it was to find himself in the Dark Nigh of the Soul. He was not a man who took disability easily, and he struggled to the end to maintain his full engagement in the community. His faithfulness in living the life of global servanthood in the midst of his own pain has resulted in the opening of doors across the globe through which the Order cares for a suffering world.