Homily
A genuine counselor who hit the right notes

Thursday, February 12, 2004 -- copyright Austin American-Statesman

Excerpts from remarks delivered Saturday by the Rev. Charles James Cook, professor at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, on the occasion of Will Spong's funeral. Spong, professor emeritus at the seminary, died Feb. 4. He was 70.

He arrived in Austin in the late summer of 1972, family in tow, having driven halfway across the country in one of those larger-than-life station wagons, loaded down with luggage, potted plants, and a bevy of basset hounds . . .

He was a bit of a surprise. Tall, somewhat lanky, long hair, even for those times, a facial structure that lacked much of a chin -- the beard would come gracefully much later -- and he immediately told everyone, before they asked, how he had lost an eye in an unfortunate accident. He occasionally wore white shoes.

He had a remarkable voice -- one that could make reading the dictionary sound like sacred text -- and after just a few sermons and class lectures, we were, in every respect, one of his own. By Christmas of that first year, we would have followed William Conwell Spong anywhere. He had that power of human engagement, given only rarely and to only a few, and you knew that you could trust it, because it was a power and charisma grounded in authenticity. He never tried to be someone else.

In a conversation or encounter with Will, you always got Will. In the pastoral life and vocation, there is simply no greater compliment than authenticity. That is why so many trusted him with their deeply held secrets, successes and conflicted stories of their lives -- especially in those moments of extreme crisis, moments where life and death seem to hang in the balance. He was simply the best crisis counselor in this city . . .

As the official written obituary stated, Will was fond of quoting the great novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis -- especially from his novel Zorba the Greek. "Life is what you do when you're waiting to die." It was a statement so important to him that for a number of years, it occupied a prominent place on his office wall -- written across a banner. That statement encompasses a two-fold perspective that characterizes Will Spong's theology -- namely, the need to come to terms with the reality of one's own existence, and then knowing that out of that reality emerges genuine hope.

Reality for him meant giving up denial and facing the truth. On the reality side, he had a rather disarming way of getting us to let down our guard, our defenses, in order to look at what we often do to ourselves, one another and the world we share. He did this with music and song. As we sang along with the tunes of Broadway or listened to some carefully selected dramatic reading, we suddenly knew that this was more than entertainment; more than a ride on a carousel. It was all about the realities of life -- our life -- and it is a life to be celebrated, to be sure, but it also includes racism, sexism, discrimination, injustice and fear.

The music drew us in -- allowed us for a moment to be a little less defensive -- and then, if you listened closely to his commentary, softly but firmly spoken between the lines, you suddenly knew that you were also being invited to become something more; someone changed for the better. At the end of each performance, the line never spoken, yet heard loud and clear, was always "What do we do now when the music stops?"