To Mourn and Celebrate

It was late in the year of 1952 when I first encountered the diminutive person of William Stringfellow. He had taken up residence in a Harlem tenement building to be a "layperson in the church." Lay theologians and prophets in the Episcopal Church were few and far between and were for the most part suspect or lightly regarded because they were not properly trained in the priesthood of the church. For many of us who knew and loved him, Bill Stringfellow changed all that and literally turned the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church upside-down.

One of the chief joys in Bill's life took place when he served as my lawyer when I was presented for trial because my parish, St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D.C., permitted the Rev. Allison Cheek, then irregularly ordained, to celebrate the Eucharist. During the trial, Bill called the Rt. Rev. John Allin, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, to be a witness. The bishop, ignoring the summons, did not respond, and Bill moved that the bishop be held in contempt of the court. His motion was upheld by the trial judges. Except for affirmation from the two lay judges, that was our single victory during the trial. I will never forget Bill's sense of vindication in this moment as he triumphed over the institutional injustice of the church.

All of his writings expressed his righteous anger toward the church, which he felt strongly had been enculturated by secular society and had ignored the Bible as the mediator of the Word of God. In this perspective no theologian in my time has ever been able to translate into the life of this world a more meaningful interpretation of the book of Revelation, which was the seed bed for his life and thought. He often used this quote in his writings: "Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, everyone who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen" (Revelation 1:7).

For the handful of clergy and lay people in the Episcopal Church and other denominations who were working for racial justice and attempting to alleviate poverty during the '60s, William Stringfellow was our mentor, our prophet. He was our source on how God's Word was revealed in the Bible through the person who loved the downtrodden and the poor the most—Jesus Christ our Lord.

I sat with Bill on some church steps in Providence, Rhode Island, approximately two months before he died. I had asked him to give a presentation during a workshop on death and dying. Despite his illness, he came. I became convinced at that moment that as a visionary he actually had experienced in his life what Christ's Second Coming would reveal to all the peoples of the earth. I will always remember his words uttered to me on the steps: "Bill, we must pray for the Apocalypse every day." He did, and I am sure he still does.

Bill suffered agonizing pains of the physical body. Often wracked with pain, isolated socially by the need for a great deal of rest, he always responded with great compassion to the many who called on him to come and speak. Few realized what physical difficulties he endured during those pilgrimages. Standing at the podium in his ill-fitting gray suit, he could always manage a smile, crack a joke, and in a small still voice patiently answer every question.

The separation through death from his dearest friend, Anthony Towne, was a terrible blow to Bill in his last years. He sorely grieved but learned to mourn, and his definition of the mourning which follows grief is most meaningful: "To mourn is to celebrate the life of the dead person through reintegrating that life back into one's own life and into the life of the world confident that they have realized the Glory and will never be forgotten."

William Stringfellow had a realized life and a strong sense of immortality. He lived and died well. He is grievously missed, and many like me are trying to learn how not to grieve over his death but to understand how to mourn.

Thank you, Bill Stringfellow, for your witness, life, and love. Alleluia! Amen!

William Wendt was an Episcopal priest and executive director of St. Francis Center in Washington, D.C., when this article appeared.