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Homily by Gutherie Speers at the 60th Reunion Memorial Service

IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS

We are here to remember and to honor classmates who have gone before us into that house of many mansions. Imagine such a house, a house huge enough to include many mansions, each with its own rooms, grand drawing rooms, wonderfully cluttered attics, fascinating spots to explore on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

In preparation for this moment, I’ve spent time browsing through the In Memoriam list in our new Class Directory. Three of my roommates are there: George Harkins, Hugh Noyes, Reilly Nail. And two of the ushers at our wedding: Charlie Garside and Phil Zabriskie. They’ll all be there in that house of many mansions. My best man, Tom Stewart, graduated in 1951; he’ll be there rummaging around in one of those stuffed full attics.
My Union Seminary roommate, Frank Reid, was Class of 1950 at Harvard, very bright, winsome, beguiling. Frank was gay, which I didn’t know until he took his life, jumping from the tower of Riverside Church, in April, 1953. We straight folk had assumed he was one of us and never sensed the agony he was going through, living a lie, until he was able to do so no longer. The afternoon Frank died, Reinhold Niebuhr came to our dormitory room and said, “You don’t belong here any more. Come over and stay with Ursula and me in our apartment.” So I did, and it was one of the most special times in my life. Night after night we would struggle with what had happened to Frank, what we might have done, how we might have helped. Finally one night Reinhold looked up and, quoting from the prayer at Holy Communion, said, “There is only One unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, and that One is God. We cannot play God. We can only entrust Frank to God’s everlasting love.” I pray for him every day, and ask forgiveness for myself. He will be there in that house of many mansions.

Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr will be there too. I presided at Reinhold’s funeral in Stockbridge in June, 1971. His dear friend and close colleague from across the street at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, spoke movingly of “my beloved Reinhold.” Years later, the night before Ursula Niebuhr’s service, I had dinner with her children and with her dear friend, Mrs. Heschel, the widow of the rabbi. I sat next to her and we had a spirited conversation. As we were getting up to leave, she said to me, “You know, I almost called you Rabbi Speers.” I said that I would have been deeply honored. She and Rabbi Heschel will surely be in that house of many mansions. We Christians have no special rights there. This is God’s house with room for all God’s children.

Three and a third years ago, on the eve of my 80th birthday, I finally admitted I was powerless over alcohol and joined a 12 step program in which I have become deeply involved and which has literally changed my life. Four or five times a week I meet with other alcoholics, a marvelously diverse bunch, all of us simply bozos on the bus together, bozos broken and hurting but able to help each other. We keep asking for help from our Higher Power who reaches us through our fellow bozos. They try to help us. We try to help them. It really is a wonderful life.

One of our most beautiful bozos died recently. We gathered outside at her place by the water, to celebrate her life, all that she has meant to so many of us. She would always introduce herself at meetings as we all do: “I’m Karen and I’m an alcoholic.” Then she would add: “But that’s not all that I am.” At the end when we all join hands in a circle to say the Lord’s Prayer, she would say, “Let this circle remind us that we can do together what we could never do alone.” Karen will definitely be in that house of many mansions, brightening every corner from drawing room to attic.
But we don’t have to wait for Heaven. Heaven can meet us in the here and now, and surely did in Karen. She was always lifting us up, leading us on, convincing us of our worth, even if a bozo, especially if a bozo. We all mattered. We all matter still. That’s heaven, all mattering together, all helping each other matter.

We honor today those who have gone before us into that house of many mansions. They are smiling out upon us. We are smiling back, and beginning to taste even now the glory which shall be.

And when these walls in dust are laid,
With reverence and with awe,
Another throng shall breathe our song
In praise of Old Nassau.

Til then with joy our songs we’ll bring,
And while a breath we draw,
We’ll all unite to shout and sing:
Long life to Old Nassau.”

sela