The pastor who stoked the embers of hope

For 13 years, I’ve carried in every notebook I was jotting in at the time an email Tom Heger sent to me while he was pastor of Beacon Hill Presbyterian Church.

I met Tom and Lois, his wife and love of his life, in 2005 shortly after he took over Beacon Hill’s pastoral reins. I was invited to speak there.

The email, sent on May 17, 2011, was one of dozens I received from him over the years. Like all his emails and sermons, it was written in free verse because he liked the background of white space instead of paragraph after paragraph of cluttered print.

Tom’s writing was lyrical. You couldn’t read his words without hearing his voice, which was cheerful, musical and always, it seemed, about to lift into song or wander into a story.

To share what he generously wrote would be self-indulgent, but I keep it near me to reread when I find hope is fading, self-doubt is growing and I can’t find a way out of “no way.”

That was Tom’s ministry and life. To all he encountered, he rekindled dying embers of hope and tried to help those who had lost their way.

His ministry was inspired by his participation in a 1966 march led by Martin Luther King Jr. in Tom’s hometown of Chicago. He was scared and surprised by the violence directed at King and the other marchers. But it changed his life.

“It made me realize what an unjust world we lived in,” he told me. “It got me good and scared and motivated to work and advocate and work to prepare a better world and find the next opportunities to take on the next pattern of injustice.”

He used his pulpit and the church space at Beacon Hill to take on those injustices.

When he retired in 2014, the San Antonio City Council held a reception for him. ThenMayor Julián Castro said,

“Tom, you’ve got a heart for the city.”

The city lost a bit of its heart when Tom died Jan. 31 at the age of 80. The cancer he’d been fighting for a few years returned in September.

“Tom welcomed all of God’s children regardless of race, ethnicity, social status, sexual orientation, education level or bank account. He touched countless lives,” said Bob Comeaux, his longtime fellow hell-raiser. “I met him at a political event where he gave his patented all-inclusive,

‘Don’t bow your head; look around, and see the face of God in your neighbor’ invocation, and we were instant friends.”

A few years ago, Tom gave me a copy of Walter Brueggemann’s book, “The Prophetic Imagination.”

In it, Brueggemann writes, “Prophetic ministry seeks to penetrate despair so that new futures can be believed in and embraced by us.”

Tom’s life and work was about freeing us from despair so we could hope, imagine and work our way toward better futures.

Tom, his family and some friends knew, in these last few months, that he was dying. He knew we’d mourn, but I believe one of his last missions was to ensure we did not despair.

One of the things Tom and Lois reaffirmed for me in these months is that it’s a gift to be able to say goodbye to someone who is dying, even if you don’t use the word goodbye. The alternative is the unexpected death and aching haunts of time not fully appreciated — and appreciation not fully expressed.

On New Year’s Eve afternoon, I sat for two hours with Tom and Lois on their front porch. We talked about what was coming, but mostly about happy things, like pictures and stories of their grandchildren.

Toward the end of the visit, Lois said, “Oh, Tom, look!” pointing as the late afternoon sun rolled westward.

Tom looked, and what I saw in his face was a joyful serenity.

In a Dec. 28 email sent to friends, Tom wrote:

“So, the end of words for now.

Thank You!

All!

Love You!

All!

Keep on Giving your original, generous, version of God’s gifts!

That’s exactly what the world most needs — right now! — and what You most easily have … to give!”

Heger