| 
| | 
|
| | December 8, 2008 | | Rev. Paul Fairley | | | | |
| | | |  Following an extended illness, Rev. Paul Fairley died on Saturday evening, December 6, surrounded by his friends and family members.
Paul was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He was a graduate of the University of Toronto (B.A., Literary Studies, 1992) and Pacific School of Religion (M.Div., 2003). Paul served on the staff of MCC churches since 1998, including MCC San Francisco and, most recently, as MCC Toronto's director of worship and engagement. He served as MCC's director of conference planning for MCC's General Conference in Calgary. Paul was a member of MCC's 2006 delegation to the World Council of Churches' General Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Rev. Paul Fairley brought enthusiasm, passion and creativity to his ministry, and his work with MCC's General Conferences reflected his commitment to excellence. An online tribute to Paul's life and ministry, including numerous photos, has been developed by Metropolitan Community Churches and will be unveiled today (December 8, 2008). Information on funeral services is pending. | | | | Reflections by Rev. Elder Jim Mitulski Why is the measure of love loss?" is the opening line of Jeanette Wintersons novel "Written on the Body" Since learning of Rev. Paul Fairley's death a day ago, I have found myself struggling with a pervasive sense of loss. Today, we know just how deeply we loved Paul by the depth of loss we are feeling. Paul was a rare person: exceptionally intelligent, talented at any endeavor to which he was devoted, funny, fun, enormously creative, and possessing both a wicked sense of humor and a sharp tongue, the latter of which he could wield to build up or destroy. Brent Hawkes had introduced Paul to me as highly promising new staff hire, and I would discover that Paul was just as impressive over time as he had been on first meeting him . While attending Orientation at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, where he had transferred to complete his seminary education, Paul and his fellow students were assigned to craft a worship service that reflected their having read a Bible passage and the New York Times newspaper from cover to cover. When I walked into the PSR Chapel and saw an open laptop computer on the altar flanked by two candlesticks, as if it were an open Bible, I knew it was a quick glance into his mind. It was a multi-layered: display: humorous, sarcastic, edgy, oddly attractive – and deeply spiritual. Over the years, I worked with him on several career moves: to Pacific School of Religion, to MCC San Francisco, to his service on the MCC denominational staff as director of conference planning, to his return to Toronto, and obtaining his dual clergy credentials in the United Church of Candia, a significant historic breakthrough for us. Paul and I traveled together companionably to numerous MCC venues literally around the world, and I was experienced firsthand his fine mind and his deep spirituality. I met his family, his childhood friends, and his parents, who are as smart and as complicated as he is. To a person, they insist his charisma showed from an early age, along with his many talents. A year ago, a large group of MCCers traveled to Toronto and conducted a healing service for him there. I believe that played a role in giving him an extra year – an unexpected year of grace – time to grow into a certain degree of acceptance about the course his illness was taking. I listened to him process the many losses of what was dear to him, and also witnessed the enormous love he evoked form those around him. I watched as he released his dream of someday perhaps being the pastor of MCC Toronto. Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes was his most significant male mentor, just as Brent had been for me when I started out in ministry 25 years ago. Four people besides me especially are mourning the loss of a beloved protégé right now: Brent Hawkes, Cindi Love, Kerry Lobel, and Penny Nixon. Many of our finest clergy, including Chris Dodd, Tessie Mandeville and Lea Brown, are feeling the loss of an esteemed peer. I mention this because he did not have a lover at the time he died, nor is he survived by children – but he was and is revered deeply by many, many people. I have been wondering why this is so hard. I knew he was going to die. Clearly his life and vocation would have unfolded continuously, so there is a sense of his dying well before his time. In this regard, it is reminiscent of the AIDS losses, though he did not have HIV/AIDS. For me, this final piece is the hardest. Those of us involved in mentoring future leaders for our movement have noticed acutely that far fewer men have survived to take the place their gifts and talent merited, because they simply haven't lived as long. Today I am sad, and, in almost greater measure, angry at this painful loss of potential. Here are some things Paul loved: liturgy, theology, his family and their distinguished non-conformist Communist heritage, his mentors, his pastor, UFMCC, MCC Toronto, MCC San Francisco, the people he worked with, especially Jennifer and Carlos, and he loved anything and everything gay. He loved being a liberal evangelical Christian. And he derived great comfort as he lay dying in the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life that awaited him. I saw Paul just a few weeks before he died. As I prepared to say goodbye for the last time, he awoke from a deep sleep and tuned in to say farewell to me. I had been sitting by his bedside praying the rosary while he slept. I had wondered f we would have a truly lucid exchange again. He took me by the hand and said, "Look at me. I want you to hear this. I know you are uncomfortable expressing affection and I want you to hear this from me. I love you, I have always loved you and my life was different because of you." And then he repeated it so I would be sure to understand him. Then he said, " I am going ahead to heaven and it's your job to meet me there"– and then he imitated my distinctive method of holding a steering wheel while driving. He comforted me and teased me simultaneously. And then we said good-bye. This memory of that experience has been a source of comfort to me in the days since. I am so glad we got to say good-bye. But I am still sad. And I am still angry. I know I will see Paul again . I have found comfort in these words by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and I hope you will, too: Dirge without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.. | | | | | A Reflection by Rev. Dr. Cindi Love Rev. Paul Fairley was my friend and partner in ministry at the very beginning of my tenure as MCC's Executive Director. When we lost our General Conference director in early 2005, Paul stepped in to help us. He commuted from San Francisco to Los Angeles and built an extraordinary team full of young people and energy and passion.
I will always cherish the unplanned moments of my friendship with Paul...he was a night owl and I was an early bird so we would gather at the end of his schedule and the beginning of mine and I believe some of our best work happened in those moments. It was in one of those moments that we brainstormed the new theme for MCC that became "Tearing Down Walls. Building Up Hope." He then created the imagery for the first fund raiser that we did for Eastern Europe with that theme. Paul was tireless in his ministry. He invoked the radical love and mystery of Jesus in ways that stirred my faith deeply. If you were at MCC's General Conference in Calgary and had the privilege of that experience, then you also knew Paul even if you did not meet him, because the Conference was such a pure expression of his brilliance and commitment to our movement and ministry. I loved him and I will miss him in this life and count on him amongst the angels who are in care of us. | | | | A Reflection by Rev. Jim Birkitt Paul Fairley and I served together as members of MCC's denominational staff, but it was as members of MCC's 2006 delegation to the World Council of Churches' Assembly in Brazil that we really got to know each other. He brought such passion to his work, and he leavened it with a great sense of humor. It was during our time in Brazil that I learned Paul was never content with the what of a situation – he also wanted the why. I don't think I had ever encountered so many why questions as I did from Paul on that trip to Brazil. "Why did you write that?" "Why do you believe that?" "Why did you say it that way?" "Why did you do that?" One night, almost in exasperation, I said to him, "I've got a question for you: Why do you ask why so much?" I don't know if the following story ever has been fully told, but it's appropriate to remember that Paul Fairley was instrumental in birthing MCC's tag line of "Tearing down walls. Building up hope." MCC's motto was born on the afternoon of March 21, 2006. The MCC Board of Elders and the Board of Administration were meeting in downtown Los Angeles, and the denominational staff was scheduled to join them that afternoon. I arrived early and went to the staff work room, a hotel conference room filled with boxes and Xeroxed papers and materials for the week's meetings. And there was Paul, sitting at a folding table on the right side of the room, his eyes focused intently on his laptop screen. In fact, Paul was so focused on whatever was on his computer screen, I don't think he even said hi. When he finally did look up, he simply said, "Come here." I walked over and sat beside him, and was instantly intrigued by the images on his computer. This is what I saw: Paul had created a dark gray wall – the walls were thick and solid; they looked impenetrable. But in the center of the wall was a gaping open space, as though someone had torn down part of the wall. And through the hole in the wall you could see a single vibrant tree filled with green foliage; it was full of life and health, and it was standing stark against a bright blue sky. Through the hole in the wall, and to the left of the tree were the words, "Tearing down walls." "What do you think?" Paul asked me. "Well...what is it supposed to be?" I responded. I wasn't sure what I was looking at. "It's going to be a postcard. We'll use it to promote the 2006 Easter Offering for Eastern Europe. Cindi and I brainstormed and came up with the line, "Tearing down walls," and I've just created these images to go with it," Paul said. "But something doesn't feel quite right. I think something is missing. What do you think?" He had taken the concepts he had brainstormed with Cindi and created powerful imagery to convey those ideas. I studied the images for a while. "It's not the images; it's the text. It's missing balance in the text," I said. "Why do you say that?" (There was that why question again.) "I think the tag line is only half a tag line. That's only half of what MCC does." "In what way?" he asked. I was trying to find the words for what I was feeling. "I think tearing down walls is only half of what MCC does. We tear down walls of oppression, fear, prejudice, and ignorance. But there are other things we do, as well." Paul was adjusting the images on the screen. "Keep going," he said. "You're the writer." "We need something that's a counterbalance to 'tearing down.'" I was struggling for the words and finally started testing some lines out loud. "Well, we lift up people. We hold up a true image of God for people to see. We raise up faith. We build up hope. We..." "Hold it," Paul said. Beneath the words "Tearing down walls" I watched as he typed the words "Building up hope." He stared at the images and words for a minute or so, then hit the print button. "That's it." So MCC's tag line, "Tearing down walls. Building up hope," was born on the afternoon of March 21, 2006, in a hotel conference room in downtown Los Angeles. And in the birthing of MCC's motto, Rev. Paul Fairley served as both parent and midwife. | | | | | Metropolitan Community Churches
PO Box 1374
Abilene, Texas 79604
Phone: 310-360-8640
Fax: 325-690-6328 | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment