Homily preached by The Reverend Dr. Harold T. Lewis

HOMILY PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA AT THE FUNERAL OF ISABEL DOROTHY TAYLOR SATURDAY 19 APRIL 2008


"Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5)

In 1910, George V was on the British throne, and William Howard Taft was in the White House. The Mexican Revolution began, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated, and the Union of South Africa was established. On the local level, the University of Pittsburgh football team had a perfect season, clinching an NCAA championship, and Calvary Church had been in business at its new location at Shady and Walnut for three years. One event that did not make the headlines that year was that on the fifth of December, Isabel Dorothy Taylor was born to Minnie Davis and John Stanley Taylor, a professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology who would later enter the priesthood of the Episcopal Church.

Those of us who knew Dorothy are not surprised that upon completing her formal education, first at Carnegie Mellon and then at the University of Chicago, she broke new ground, something which would characterize her personality throughout her long life. Dorothy was a pioneer. Until she and her peers began to ply their trade, there was no such thing as a medical social worker. It would appear that it was not until the 1940s that the medical profession, doubtless affected by the ravages of war, figured out that there was more to patient care than surgical procedures, medication and convalescence. Sickness and disease affected the patient's self-perception and family relations. Physical and mental disability could have an ineradicable effect on the patient's future. The patient's psyche, the patient's soul would have to be taken into consideration, as well as the body.

For those of us who knew Dorothy, it is not at all surprising that her chosen career was one of the caring professions. Long after she took down her shingle, well into her retirement, and even as a frail nonagenarian, she continued to minister to those who purported to minister to her. I certainly felt blessed, encouraged, and comforted on those occasions that I took the Blessed Sacrament to Dorothy Taylor. First, it became readily apparent that she was a person grounded in prayer, not merely one who perfunctorily recites them. Among her papers (Dorothy never threw out anything!) was a sermon preached by her father in 1932. Canon Taylor's message is timeless: It is a symptom of our age that we do not have time to indulge in a prayer schedule. We should like to take time, but every second counts. Oh, if we could only be still for a second or so in the morning before starting the day. 'Be still and know that I am God.' A life that is founded on prayer and faith is the life that brooks no defeat. As Christian men and women we know that we can live more fully by acquiring day by day a new conception of prayer.

Dorothy must have heard that sermon. It provided a basis of her spirituality for her entire life. But it could never be said of Dorothy that she was so spiritual to be of no earthly good. During our visits, her interest in what was going on at Calvary, her concern for how I was holding up under the strain of the "recent unpleasantness," were uplifting experiences for me. Her reminiscences about the challenges her father experienced in his ministry, and the insights gained through more than nine decades of life were balm for my soul.

And if I experienced such a blessing, I can only imagine what a blessing Dorothy was to Judie and Keen Compher. They looked after Miss Dorothy's daily needs, not just consulting with doctors and nurses, but arriving daily, without fanfare, to feed Dorothy her lunch, and to chat with her and keep her company. It is no exaggeration to say that the quality of Dorothy's life in her latter years was a direct consequence of the unstinting and faithful care of the Comphers.

Most mornings on NBC, Willard Scott regales us with the stories of those who have lived to a ripe old age, often adding information about what has kept them going. We are told that they have relied on such things as church attendance, weekly bridge games, or even a nightly brandy. I never asked Dorothy to share the secret of her longevity, but had I done so, I think she would have said that she embraced the theology expressed in the words of Jesus found in the Book of Revelation, "Behold, I make all things new." You see, one of the great mistakes we make when we try to figure out those "of riper years" is the assumption that they are averse to change, that they are stuck in their ruts, that they are wary of the new and worship the past. Au contraire! It has been my experience that people of Dorothy's vintage understand that change is in fact the only constant. Often they have flourished for as long as they have precisely because they can roll with the punches, precisely because they have experienced so much newness along the way.

In a famous sermon on the text "Behold, I make all things new," Martin Luther King, Jr. tells the story of Rip Van Winkle, who slept through the American Revolution. When he went to sleep, he could see in every public place a portrait of George III, but when he woke up twenty years later, he found that the king's picture had been replaced by a picture of George Washington. Rip didn't get it! Dr. King warns us of the danger of sleeping through a revolution. He says: "All too many people find themselves living among a great period of social change, and they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution."

Not so Dorothy Taylor! Before spending her final years at Canterbury Place, Dorothy resided at Cathedral Mansions, an elegant old apartment house on Ellsworth Avenue. Not long before she moved, it had become a student residence, but long-term occupants like Dorothy had squatters' rights, and were allowed to remain in their apartments. In walking through the corridors, my nose detected an unmistakable and pungent odor which, shall we say, is often associated with the youth culture. When I arrived at Dorothy's flat, she asked if I had smelled the marijuana in the hallway, and added that she was often the beneficiary of a free high!

Dorothy Taylor was a methodical and organized person, who left behind all the instructions for her funeral. She could not have willed, of course, when she would die, but could she have, she probably would have chosen Eastertide, that season in which all things are made new. It is the season of transformation to new life, the season of passing from sorrow into joy. The joy of Easter is the joy of faith, which sees beyond circumstances, beyond the natural and inevitable. This joy sees beyond the grave, and rejoices in hope and love and makes all things new. It is the season in which as the hymn reminds us, "sin and pain can vex no more." That is the joy which Dorothy Taylor, in the nearer presence of God, can now enjoy forever.

Among Dorothy's instructions was that we should sing a hymn from the 1940 Hymnal, a hymn even unknown to the rector! Listen to the words that we shall soon sing: Rest comes at length, though life be long and dreary, The day must dawn, and darksome night be past; Faith's journeys end in welcome to the weary, And heaven, the heart's true home, will come at last. Angels of Jesus, angels of light, Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.

And now it is our great privilege to commit Dorothy, a woman of faith, a woman of prayer, a dedicated, if weary pilgrim, to the unfailing providence of Almighty God. May angels welcome her into Abraham's bosom, and may her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace and rise in glory. AMEN.