For Richard Osing,
priest, 30 January
2007
Mark 13: 33-37
On Sunday afternoon,
on my way home from
a visitation, I
stopped by at the
Osing home. Jo had
graciously gathered
the family, and they
gave me their time
and attention to
help us all visit
with Dick one more
time.
I entered a room
quiet with that
collective sense of
not knowing what to
do with oneself. For
this is such a
moment. We all
don’t know what to
do with ourselves,
and so we gather
here to gain some
closure, hopefully
perspective and
hope, or at least to
give each other
permission to grieve
together, and to see
the vast horizon of
Dick’s life in the
kaleidoscope of
people who have come
to honor him and
thank God for him.
We are also here to
invite God to enjoy
the ongoing
conversation with
one of God’s
children who never
let his Creator off
the hook.
Donna and I were
just getting to
engage that side of
him through his
books – what he
called his fifteen
minutes of fame –
not as priest but as
a man of wisdom
honed in his years
as a Marriage and
Family counselor,
centering on that
illusive but
essential topic of
love at mid-life.
He certainly was
arriving in our life
at a good, opportune
time, and wil live
on through his
shared counsel. That
may be Dick’s unseen
cloud of witnesses
here – looking on or
not knowing to look
on – we represent
today.
May be however, that
is not the real
focus of our minds
and hearts today –
though I have to ask
since when have we
not had time for
conversation about
intimacy in the
Episcopal Church.
Dick found the right
people with which to
be Church at the
end. His witness is
the absolute epitome
of our burial rite
in which we declare
that life is
changed, not ended,
in death. Change –
not for change’s
sake but for truth’s
sake – was a
hallmark of his
life. His children
said on Sunday that
it was proving
difficult to capture
him in one story.
He was always
growing and
changing. Whether
it was reflected in
his theology de jour
– Teilhard du
Chardin and Buber,
to Hans King and
Jurgen Moltmann, and
eventually to the
Jesus Seminar
scholars, and most
recently the work he
was looking forward
to in Christian
origins. Or, whether
it was in the more
rudimentary art of
cooking fads – from
guda to bread-baking
to stir fry – scone,
soups and apparently
a phase his family
hoped we would move
on from quickly –
health foods,
especially cookies
including brownies
made without
chocolate! He was
always sure others
would share his new
discoveries or
delights – whether
intellectual or
culinary. He even
wanted you to know
that the brownies
were without
chocolate – thinking
you would share the
enthusiasm for the
healthiness of it
all.
Always growing and
changing – he was a
man who would take
the perspective of
everyone who
encountered him to
provide an adequate
picture. No one –
not even those
closest to him would
feel that they were
done knowing him.
A father who
traveled through the
temptations of
becoming isolated as
work took him over
to learn to be
present to those
around him, becoming
the grandfather who
found time to swim
and bake bread with
the grandchildren,
and just to be
around often as that
fount of reason or
go to person who
would give advice
not as one who would
fix things for you
and make you feel
that you had now
been told so go do
it, but as one who
offered a working
perspective that
left you in charge.
Eventually blending
his families so that
they were there last
Sunday to receive
this stranger and
introduce me to the
one they were
mourning in their
love.
I learned some
interesting facts.
Did you know that
Dick couldn’t climb
telegraph poles –
kept falling off
them as he worked
for the telephone
company? So they
made him the crew
cook and hence the
food imagery in his
life.
Did you know that he
sold plasma to buy
books for his
theology studies?
How’s that for a
Bohemian theologian
image?
And did you know
that he would switch
labels on the Del
Monte and Hy-Vee
peas cans once he
realized how
arbitrary the
quality control was
at the supply end of
the vegetable
cannery business?
Hearing this and
believing as I do
that nothing is lost
on God in our
earlier experiences
in life, but that
our ultimate calling
tends to come from
such experiences I
was not sure what
that last experience
might have
foreshadowed – but
then I thought what
better precedent
than for a heresy
trial for are we not
all the same to God
whatever the label
our Churches may
want to put on us?
In fact that trial,
painful and shameful
as it was, became a
notoriety Dick was
to share with the
Bishop who ordained
him into the
Episcopal
priesthood, Bishop
Walter Righter. As
they say, one
person’s heretic is
another’s saint!,
and the Episcopal
Church was not only
proud to have
befriended him at
that time, but
remains so to this
day to be the
community of faith
which commends Dick
to the One upon whom
our honest friend
would never presume
too much.
Two days before his
death, Dick was
asked if he felt
recovered to
consider teaching
again at the
Ministries Retreat
this July. He felt
he would be able.
His body, however,
had other ideas. I
say his body rather
than his God for I
think Dick highly
respected our
incarnated faith.
And so he finds
himself at the heart
of Christian Origins
in a search that has
taken him in an
unanticipated
direction. For I
believe he is in the
presence of the
Living God – beyond
the Jesus of history
and the Christ of
faith – but the
Living Word – the
way God knows we can
understand and
respond to the
Divine – the One in
whose presence we
get to know as we
are known.
And that it all
happened so suddenly
– disappointingly
sudden were Jo’s
first words to me
because there had
been glimmers of
hope revived – that
it all happened so
sudden ought not to
shock us too much ,
though it makes our
mourning that more
difficult.
For Dick’s favorite
Gospel was Mark, was
it not? The
suddenness of Mark
delivers Christ to
us in a simple but
rapid pace.
Everything happens
immediately.
So was he awake in
that sense of our
Gospel passage
today? Perhaps not
to say a sufficient
goodbye – but I
believe there was a
sense in which he
was always ready to
greet the God of his
creation, curiosity
and commitment of
faith.
It is now to that
God we give thanks
for such a man who
refused to stop
growing and being
amazed before our
eyes, who was a
great counselor and
pastor to so many,
and who found his
flourishing days as
a teacher and
prophet after his
professional days
had retired.
One final family
story – I cannot
completely match the
details given – but
I finding it another
parable. The family
was going to a Cubs
game. Parking was
difficult, the
family was rushed
and so Dick found
what appeared to be
an arbitrary parking
spot. In the rush he
decided that they
should park now and
pay later – a notion
the children called
the “Iowa concept of
parking”. Certainly
assuming
neighborliness on
the part of the
Chicago police
department, which it
seemed they did not
share. They returned
to an empty spot
where the car had
been, and were sent
to a towing yard
that was described
as a scene out of
the old Mad Max
movies.
When you think about
it – the Church
always expects us to
pay now – be sure
now – presume now –
and Dick simply
refused to sell
himself or his
people or his God
that short. For he
knew that whatever
he could grasp today
would be inadequate
for the true glory
that is our God.
“Now we see in a
glass darkly, but
then we will see
face to face”. It is
to that open faced
glory that we
commend him now, and
to that same glory
we are invited by
his life and example
and boundless energy
to set our own faces
of faith.
Amen
