If I may be allowed a bit of self-indulgence, this is a wicked blow.
I don't know how it is for others, but for me there are very few people with whom I have had no personal relationship, which have great significance in my life. The Reverend Forrest Church of All Souls Unitarian Church of New York City is one of three I can think of.
He was making the NPR talk show circuit in 1996 when I first heard him speak about his beliefs and his life. The occasion, I believe, was the paperback release of "God and Other Famous Liberals". One comment he made has really stuck with me: "Tell me about the God you don't believe in. Odds are, I don't believe in that God either."
Up to that point, I wasn't sure the existence of God was even an interesting question. Additionally, he and what he had to say had two independent personal connections for me.
Though I grew up in a Congregational household, Unitarians were regarded with high esteem by my parents. When I told my father (now deceased) I was joining the First Unitarian Church of South Bend (in no small part due to Rev. Church) he was remarkably pleased.
The other connection has to do with Forrest Church being the son of the late Senator Frank Church (D-ID). Frank Church was the first (and only one of two) Presidential candidates I have ever been enthusiastic about. If you're not familiar with Senator Church's contributions, look into it. You'll see what progressive patriotism is all about.
Anyway, Forrest Church's cancer has returned - and the prognosis is bleak. From the Summer edition of UU World:
After enjoying a year of fine health, in late January 2008 I learned that my cancer had recurred, having spread to my lungs and liver. There is no way to sugarcoat this news. I must face the certainty that my cancer is terminal and the great likelihood that my future will be measured in months, not years.
The only church service I have ever designed and led was based on "God and Other Famous Liberals". Here's how Rev. Church starts the first chapter entitled "The Most Famous Liberal of All".
Who is the most famous liberal of all time? It simply has to be God. No one is more generous, bounteous, or misunderstood, Not to mention profligate, Take a look at the creation. God is a lavish and indiscriminate host. There is too much of everything: creatures, cultures, languages, stars; more galaxies than we can count, more asteroids in the heavens than grains of sand on earth. Talk about self-indulgence, in the ark itself, if you take the story literally, there must have been a million pairs of insects. We may not like it, but that's the way it is.
Every word I can conjure for God is a synonym for liberal. God is munificent and openhanded. The creation is exuberant, lavish, even prodigal. As the ground of our being, God is ample and plenteous. As healer and comforter, God is charitable and benevolent. As our redeemer, God is generous and forgiving. And, as I said, God has a bleeding heart that simply never stops. Liberal images such as these spring from every page of creation's text. They also characterize the spirit, if not always the letter, of the Bible, which teaches us that God is love.
It's not hard to see how someone could "get religion" behind ideas like these.
We will be losing Rev. Church much sooner than we'd like. He has prepared many of us for loss, he has comforted many of us in our losses. I think he'll understand that I don't want to wait until he's gone to honor him.
Here are some excerpts from the essay when he broke the news. The link to the complete article is here.
I’ve said I didn’t become a minister until I performed my first funeral. When dying comes calling at the door, like a bracing wind it clears our being of pettiness. It connects us to others. More alert to life’s fragility, we reawaken to life’s preciousness. To be fully human is to care, and attending to death prompts the most eloquent form of caring imaginable.
When those we love die, a part of us dies with them. When those we love are sick, we too feel the pain. Yet all of this is worth it. Especially the pain. Grief and death are sacraments, or can be. A sacrament symbolizes communion, the act of bringing us together. To comfort another is to bring her our strength. To console is to be with him in his aloneness. To commiserate is to share her pain.
and
For us to be here in the first place, for us to earn the privilege of dying, more than a billion billion accidents took place. Even the one in a million sperm’s connection with the equally unique egg is nothing compared to everything else that happened from the beginning of time until now to make it possible for us to be here.
What a luxury we enjoy, wondering what will happen after we die, even what will happen before we die. Having spent billions of years in gestation, present in all that preceded us—fully admitting the pain and difficulty involved in actually being alive, able to feel and suffer, grieve and die—we can only respond in one way: with awe and gratitude.
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