PARADISE LOST
- Dec 28, 2025
- 2 min read
by David G. Duggan ©
December 28, 2025
In my 35 plus years of being a landlord I’ve never had to evict someone–until now. After more than a year of non-payment, and eight months of legal proceedings, the sheriff finally escorted this tenant, and her young child from the apartment they had shared for three years. Welcome to C[r]ook County, IL.
Undeterred and defiant, this tenant somehow made her way back to the apartment, dismantling a lock and ripping off the “No Trespassing” sign the sheriff had pasted to the door. On Thanksgiving and two days before Christmas I caught her in the apartment and ushered her out. On Christmas Eve the locks were changed.
The Bethlehem story of Mary and Jesus and Jesus’ parable about the vineyard owner and the murderous tenants (Matt. 21: 33-43) loom over this saga. But there is no Jesus here and I haven’t been killed (yet) for seeking my due. The courts awarded custody of the child to the absentee–and estranged–father who has been jobless for more than two years, not paying support for his children and their mother. Meanwhile the apartment’s furnishings haven’t been removed. I can’t bring myself to call a scavenger to haul away this fractured family’s memories of happier times.
Though now somewhat faded, What Would Jesus Do has become a sort of guidepost to those facing moral dilemmas. Whether I needed the rent more than the tenant needs free housing seems a pointless exercise. Why should I bear the brunt of others’ irresponsibility? Jesus didn’t quite endorse the “wretched end” which the crowd hearing His parable thought the tenants deserved. But He said that the kingdom will be taken away from them and given to those who will produce fruit.
On the cross, Jesus offered paradise to the repentant thief. I have no paradise to offer this tenant and the Chicago climate may not be conducive to raising wine grapes. But I can pray that this tenant can come to her salvation by realizing that the grace earlier shown her has limits. Eternity showed no mercy to the other thief who died waiting for a miracle rather than accept Jesus’ reward for taking the just punishment for his sins.
David Duggan is an attorney. He lives in Chicago and is a frequent contributor to to VOL.
Mình có lần lướt đọc mấy trao đổi trên mạng thì thấy nhắc tới TG88, nên cũng tò mò mở ra xem thử cho biết. Mình không tìm hiểu sâu, chỉ xem qua trong thời gian ngắn để nhìn bố cục và cách sắp xếp nội dung tổng thể, cảm giác khá gọn và dễ theo dõi nên mình đọc lướt rồi quay lại đọc các bình luận khác.
Perhaps I should have written that the eviction took place last July: the tenant has been a trespasser for five months.
.... Is this a joke? Or parody?
After 3 years, you chose to evict an essentially single month on Christmas Eve?
I too am a landlord. I too understand the dilemmas you face. But you're not going to get anyone in for repairs and cleaning until after Christmas, and I would be surprised if you have a tenant lined up if you can't clean up her place.
Try again sir. Pray for her while you in at least a small way are the hands and feet of Christ.... There was no loss to you for enforcing this on Christmas Eve. You could have simply showed up the 26th. I hope you are well this Christmastide, Scrooge, because the fact that…