Holy Friend: A Tribute to William McNeil Crawford
Feb 29, 1936 – March 19, 2008
From the day that he was born, William McNeil Crawford lived a storied life. To begin with the day itself: he was born on February 29th 1936. Since February 29th is one of those days that do not strictly exist, Bill was able to play fast and loose with time. While everyone else born in 1936 celebrated their 72nd birthday this year, Bill Crawford chose to celebrate his 18th. As we all know, eighteen is a very important birthday. It is the year of coming of age. Therefore, and I can practically hear Bill whispering this in my ear, according to the logic of birthdays, we have come together today not so much to mourn a death or even to remember a life as we are here to celebrate a rite of passage. Bill Crawford has come of age and this is his service. He cared deeply and well for all the people God gave him to love, did the work his was called to do, and now, in this Easter season, he has come of age. It is said that people choose the times of their going. By choosing to leave us during Holy Week, Bill Crawford’s life and death will be forever bound with the mysteries of Jesus’ own death and resurrection and Bill was nothing if not Christian. In passing during the most holy season of our faith, Bill is teaching us something about the very nature of life and death.
I believe that Bill derived his endless zest and capacity for joy, not because he knew only the good side of life, but because knowing both good and evil, he knew to choose the good. From his own experience Bill learned that love is stronger than fear, peace is stronger than conflict and faith is stronger than despair. When his idyllic, Pacific Island childhood was rudely interrupted by the Japanese who interned him and his family at Santo Thomas University in Manila, Bill not only survived the experience, he grew from it.
In today’s fractured and frightened world we would say that such an experience as being interned by an enemy nation would scar a child for life, but Bill wasn’t worried about being scarred. Bill made a friends in the camp and became a champion “paper weight” boxer. His friend Ric Lawrence, who won second prize in the meet, still has the bamboo cup to prove it. It is not very often that one emerges from an internment experience with a treasure, but such was the nature of Bill’s friendship that even in a prisoner of war camp he would make a friend for life.
As a result of both his internment and his rescue by American troops, Bill became a military historian. A general’s daughter once told me that a person can only work for peace if they understand the costs of war and know when to thank the warriors. To embrace peace is not for the faint of heart, and Bill understood so well what it meant to be brave. Fourteen years ago, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, and he brought all of his strength and all of his faith to staying alive long enough to see his children wed and his grandchildren born. Few of us have the chance to know as vividly as Bill knew what a gift is this life.
Bill was a man of extraordinary faith. Like Jesus, he understood that faith is not some airy, otherworldly experience, but something deeply rooted here, now, in the body, on earth. Which is to say that like Jesus himself, Bill was a party animal. He appreciated good food, good drink and good company. Reading the tributes that others paid him on his 18th /72nd birthday is like being in the midst of the loaves and the fishes: ribs, tacos, strawberry daiquiris, feeding thousands of people, giving comfort to his children’s college roommates when they were far from home, nourishing endless guests at holiday times, at the rummage sale at St. Paul’s, people from all walks of life. Just as Jesus came to show us that even under the terrible conditions his own people were forced to endure, life is a celebration, so did Bill never forget to rejoice. This is the fierce peace that Bill waged: we can forget everything on heaven and earth, but we cannot forget to party.
Much of my own relationship with Bill, when it did not concern God, E. Clampus Vitus, or the Seafarers’ ministry, (where he was reported to occasionally walk on water), centered around dogs. I’ll never forget when I was first at St. Paul’s back in 2000, Bill came down the hall after the Food Coop, to check out the new chaplain. In those days, my office was papered with photographs of dog mushers and he immediately engaged me in a conversation about dog sled racing. This was the beginning of the kind of friendship that can only exist between people who are crazy for canines, and soon, every Thursday, I would listen for the jingle of dog tags in the back hall and know that Bill was on his way. I knew Mally from the time she was a pup and I blessed her.
Now dogs, like food, have great spiritual significance. The Muslims tell a story that Jesus of Nazareth was such a healer and a lover of souls, that he even raised a dog left for dead in a ditch. And the mother of St. Dominic, when she was pregnant with the future saint, had a dream that she gave birth to a little dog with a torch in its mouth that set fire to the entire world. St. Dominic – his Latin name Dominicanis, even means God’s dog – became the patron saint of preachers, scientists and teachers. Bill was the special friend, husband and father of teachers. And we all know that he set fire to the world.
Bill brought life and warmth to the Thursday food coop. As long as he was able, he helped our low income and senior neighbors to have fresh, affordable fruits, vegetables, eggs and cheese by himself bringing these fruits, vegetables, eggs and cheese from the wholesaler. He also turned even the food coop into a party by recruiting his friends Ken and Babs to provide live music and song.
Four years ago, sickness returned to Bill’s life. We none of us can keep it at bay forever and one of the great challenges that a loving person faces is how to end his life on earth without breaking the hearts of all who love him. I am sure that this was what Bill wanted to talk about when he left a voice mail on my phone telling me he was not well and that we had to have a theological heart to heart. As it happened, the message arrived while I was on break and by the time I called him back, the crisis had passed. We tried to find another time to meet, but in the way of these things, it never happened. Either Bill was too sick or was too well. So we had our theological heart to heart in the silent airwaves of prayer. Finally, on the last day of Bill’s life, we came face to face. It felt like just the right time to do our work.
Everybody leaves this world in their own special way. No sooner had I started to pray with Bill than the spirit world grew bright with dogs. In many of the world’s faith traditions, it is a dog who comes to guide us into the next world. The dogsled had arrived, but no hurry. It was clear they were waiting for someone. And then he came. I knew at once who he was, because his heart was all aglow. The one come to meet Bill Crawford was none other than Jesus himself, come to embrace a good friend, come to bless a life well led, come to celebrate with one who had celebrated him so well, to end the pain and the struggle.
But Jesus never comes just to proclaim a death. My own grief was so great I did not know at first what all that had been about, or what Jesus was trying so say. Like Mary Magdalene, at first I could only cry. But I knew Bill wanted to share something with me and I wondered. What was the spiritual gift Bill wanted me to help him find? It didn’t dawn all at once, of course, and it wasn’t until the family sent me word about the service that I knew what it was all about. It was all about Easter. Bill wanted us to reflect on all those things that marked both his last days and the last days of the Jesus he so loved: the Maundy Thursday party, the washing of feet for the journey, the pain of endings, the emptiness, the grief, the return at dawn on Easter Sunday.
Today is Easter Monday, or, as my Orthodox friends call it, Bright Monday. In the Western tradition, this is the day when we are supposed to party. Sunday is still too raw, so Monday used to be the traditional day for eggs and chocolates, and raising our glasses to new life. In the Orthodox church, the doors of heaven which normally hide the altar are left open on Bright Monday. This is the day when everyone can look the sacred mysteries straight in the eye. That’s what Bill wanted us to do. He wanted us all to see where he was, to know that he lives, and that he is not gone, merely changed, and that he will never leave the hearts of all of us who were privileged to know him and be his friend.
Bill Crawford, you were truly a saint. AMEN.