Peter Gomes RIP

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2011/03/01/rev_gomes_harvard_minister_and_author_dies_at_68/

I don't care if no one else cares; this dude was one of the coolest people I've met in my life. Pretty much everything about him was bona fide awesome and he left an indelible mark on everyone who had the privilege of getting to know him.

RIP: more of us, especially reverends/ministers/pastors, should be half the person you were

Read that whole obit and was moved & inspired by his character and his life. This is the one good thing about people dying, that the people who were moved and inspired by him have occasion to share their character & example -- I know that this is corny stuff but in this way the good that people have done lives on, the spark is passed along. RIP guy I didn't know about until my friend shared his death, you sound like you were a man of great qualities.

The New Yorker profile mentioned in that article is for subscribers only on the NYer site but I found it elsewhere for people who are interested: http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=35

The more I read about him the more amazing he is to me. Talk about leading by example.

Andrew Sullivan:

...I listened to his sermons (he was born to preach!) and read his books (which are as profound as they are effortless to read). But you had to be with Peter to get him. It was an endless series of anecdotes and jokes and more sherry and references to the Queen Mother and more sherry. I thought I had left Oxford behind only to find it thriving in Peter's cheerful Anglophile chatter. When you saw him coming, you knew that you too had to perform, joust, joke, pun, if you wanted even to hope to keep up with him. There were times when I contemplated going to his weekly socials at Sparks House and realized I wasn't quite up to the repartee that day.

i read the profile of him when it came out. he seemed like an amazing guy.

dude threw some legendary Xmas parties

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:

...I found myself, as much to my surprise as to his, sitting in the Reverend Gomes’s office, for my final interview to become Nathan Huggins’s successor. Gomes—who had never been known as a “race man”—had, against his better judgment, agreed to serve as interim director of the Du Bois Institute until a new director could be found. And this interview, apparently, was the last obstacle between me and that job offer. All the night before, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face when this Gomes fellow opened his mouth and came out with the orotund polysyllables of some brown escapee from the hold of the Mayflower. I was petrified. The interview started quite awkwardly; we both were a bit wary. Gomes mentioned some concerns about me that he’d heard voiced. I replied by quoting the TV show that was my childhood favorite: “Well, as one wise man once said, ‘Yo’ honor, I not only resents the allegation, I resents the alligator!’ ” “George ‘Kingfish’ Stevens,” the Reverend responded, identifying the trickster character in the “Amos ’n’ Andy” show. He heartily approved.

...In an era of sometimes confining identity politics, Gomes continued to insist on his own freedom. Cape Verdean and Jewish; Virginia and Massachusetts; gay and Baptist; slave and free; a counselor to the powerful and to the powerless: Peter Gomes smoothly navigated his own Mayflower through this sea of identities, because he anchored himself to none.

In the past twenty years, Peter, the least self-serious of men, became a spiritual guide for me, someone I turned to for advice and for company—always grateful for the suppleness of his mind, the shrewdness of his judgment, and, yes, the timbre of his voice. We could discuss anything, from Jesus the fisherman to George Stevens the Kingfish. I gave Peter the complete DVD set of “Amos ’n’ Andy” for Christmas two years ago. He assured me that I had chosen well.

(fun fact: I met my wife at one of said Xmas parties)

Damn. Well that would do it, wouldn't it.

1992, in the NYT, on the religious right and homophobia

Dan that is so awesome that that's your wife where you met your wife.

I checked out two Gomes books from the library today.

Sullivan's got some anecdotes up from readers:

That voice! My son told me that Gomes was once asked why he spoke like that, having been raised in Plymouth. The response was, as only Gomes could pronounce it, with a wry smile "Puuuure affectation." And this: a common quote of his to students at commencement that I can't seem to find the original source of: "Upon concluding four years of study at this fine institution, most of you have surely learned that here at Harvard, it's not who you know that matters. It's whom."

...

I regret not attending Mem Church much when I attended Harvard, and blame my youth – typically recovering Sunday mornings from some late Saturday binge (whether academic or alcoholic). A good friend sang in the University Choir, however, so I made it to Easter services a couple of times. He had a powerful way with words. When I returned for my 25th reunion in 2005, Rev. Gomes was recuperating on the Cape, and sent a letter to be read to the class in his absence. I’ll never forget his intro – “I am now the age you thought I was when you were undergraduates.”

Memorial Service for The Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes

Wednesday, April 6, 11:00 AM
The Memorial Church

A memorial service celebrating the life and ministry of The Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes will be held in The Memorial Church on Wednesday, April 6th, at 11:00 a.m. All are welcome to attend.

The service will be webcast live as video and can be viewed online worldwide. The webcast link will be posted here. The video will also be archived and available for viewing after the event.

The campus overflow location is Science Center Hall A and the Sperry Room in Andover Hall, Harvard Divinity School, where the webcast of the service will also be projected live.

The service will also be broadcast live on Harvard's radio station, WHRB 95.3 FM. For those outside the Cambridge area, WHRB provides live internet streaming from its web site.

Parking for the Service
Parking for the memorial service will be available at no charge in the Everett Street Garage, off of Oxford Street. The Garage is fully accessible and shuttle service will also be available to carry all who request transport from the Garage to the Yard.