A kind and gentle spirit rekindled

IN memory of Canon Rowan Smith, today the St George’s Cathedral choir will sing, in the patois of our city, “Ek slaan my oe op na die berge.”

This arrangement by Stephen Carletti of the familiar words of Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”, was a favourite of yours.

And in the singing of it the sense of your kind and gentle spirit will be rekindled in the hearts of all those gathered from the parishes of Grassy Park, Bonteheuwel, Elsies River and beyond where you were known and valued as a priest and as a friend.

You left us on a quiet Wednesday in the season between the Feast of Pentecost – the founding moment of the Church wherein you lived out the calling to serve God and people as a priest – and Trinity Sunday, a time of specific focus on how we express our understanding of God; the words we speak and how what we say informs our lives.

We have grown in our understanding of how the love of God we experience is always favoured in our interest.

This is a view underscored by Martin Niemoller, who in his life learnt “that not only did God not hate my enemies, he didn’t even hate his enemies”.

These days, instead of speaking of God not as “Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit”, we use more inclusive terminology to describe God; words like: “our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer”.

Here again, though, we come unstuck in our emphasis on God’s function rather than on the dancing, interactive relationship between God, our creator and ourselves as part of all created beings.

James Weldon Johnson suggests in his poem, The Creation, that the act of creation is an expression of desire by a God who, after looking around, said: “I’m lonely – I’ll make me a world”.

My sense is that the yearning and relational nature – the interactive dance of the divine – is experienced in the lives of all those with whom we share this world.

When you accepted my invitation to re-join the cathedral, your presence provided a comforting familiarity. This was especially so for our cathedral members of long standing.

You told me during Lent of this year that you would step down at the end of March. Your tiredness was evident.

But in the days before Holy Week, when you learnt that I would be without any assisting priests – as it seemed then – for still a while, you decided to remain, “until the end of May”.

I thought of you on the day after your passing as I heard a young voice singing with some gusto, “He’s got the whole world in his hand”.

I imagined some wry comment flitting across your handsome face, with a smile. You knew what it meant to be held in the hands of God.

Your life was relational. You were a father to many and in relationship with many. I am thinking today in particular of Bianca, your niece, and all that you were and always will be to Debbie, your sister.

The hyper-masculine disposition of being a man and a senior priest within the Church – a most patriarchal institution, benevolent as it might seem – was tempered in you.

Your sexuality was not fully embraced by the very Church whose mandate to hold the flame of the gospel aloft you had fulfilled so wonderfully.

You held this close to your heart and yet, so graciously, the essence of who you were flourished in the spirituality that characterised your priestly life.

Your last comment on social media was filled with hope and gratitude: “Back home, surrounded by loving, caring family and friends, I can attest to the generous love of God mediated to me in so many and gracious ways… Praise the Lord, o my soul…”.

I see you now, in my mind’s eye, as you enter through the cathedral entrance from the bell-tower side.

You’ve just said a prayer with the bell-ringers and you pause, and slowly genuflect and reverence the altar in the Chapel of our lady.

And I know that you are home and that it is well with your soul.