Paul J. Parks

Paul J. Parks, middle

In 1975, my first job after college was in Houston, and by chance, I ended up living in one of the gray houses across from the Rothko Chapel – an edifice both alluring and somewhat unsettling. I would sit contemplating Rothko's dark, obscure paintings or read on that wooden bench by the Broken Obelisk. Over time I got to know Mrs. De Menil and the gifted people who worked with her and witnessed their determined efforts on causes ranging from racism and human rights to bringing whirling dervishes to Houston. I saw how such commitments can be part of a lived life. And in those scared years after the Vietnam War, the spirit of that place was not one of anguish or recrimination, but of a desire to under-stand and contemplate. How amazing that such an avowed liberal space could be in such an unlikely place as Texas. I left America decades ago and yet sometimes in medieval chapels in Europe, the Fondation Maeght in France, mosques in the Middle East; I touch that same spirit.

COVID came, and I needed to update my will. Most of my working career has been on hard issues – peace in Pales-tine, HIV/AIDS in the Balkans, climate change in Africa. I have seen too many people scrape by with so little, suffer under corruption, and flee from misery; and my intent was to gift organizations that work directly in those fields. The Chapel didn't quite fit that box, but in this crazy world we all need a place to contemplate life, deal with sorrow, and just step back from the ric-rac of the everyday.

When I was a confused kid setting out, the Rothko Chapel helped me imagine a better world. The neighborhood itself had this frisson of a daring pioneer settlement on the frontier of a cultural and social wilderness. Barbarians lurking beyond the freeways. A place that gave spiritual and physical shelter to artists and queers and other alien souls who had ended up in Texas by happenstance or a misbegotten moon. I want it always to be free and open to anyone who seeks it out or chances upon it. That's why I make a bequest to the Chapel.

Paul J. Parks is a 5th generation Texan, who now lives in a village in Italy. He has been cited by the US Department of State for his contribution on HIV/AIDS in the Balkans and the Government of Norway for his work on the Oslo Peace Accords.