The Funeral of Roy E. Parker, OHC - Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
The Funeral of Roy E. Parker, OHC - Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

Click here to watch the full funeral service on our Facebook page.

Last Wednesday I received an email with the intriguing subject line: “Hello 30 Years later, and condolences for the passing of Br. Roy Parker.” It was from Eric Seddon, and it had indeed been 30 years since we were last in contact. Eric's mother was the guesthouse director here at Holy Cross Monastery in those years, and...well, let me let Eric tell the tale as he posted it in his blog “The Jazz Clarinet.”

“I learned just yesterday, via the NY Times obituary that one of the greatest of all clarinetists, William O. Smith (better know to jazz audiences as Bill Smith) passed away last February 29th. He was 93 years old, and lived a life wherein he contributed not only some of the finest jazz of the past century, but expanded our understanding of the clarinet, continuously, for decades.... I can't help but share one little story, of how I first heard Smith's music.

I was a teenager in the 1980s, immersed in clarinet playing and specifically jazz, when I happened to meet a monk from Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY. My brother and I used to spend time volunteering there--we'd clean the guesthouse before retreats. One of the monks was named Br Roy Parker, and though a soft spoken man, known for the masterful calligraphy he drew, he was in fact a huge fan of jazz, and while working in his shop would often listen to Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, and the like. He soon learned of my love of Goodman, Shaw, and others, and we'd talk jazz regularly. One Sunday afternoon when I was there to clean, Br. Roy announced that he was switching over his whole collection of cassette tapes to the newly introduced CD format -- and he gave me first pick of anything in his shop that I wanted. I don't remember all the tapes I took home that day -- but I remember the most important: Near-Myth/Brubeck-Smith.

I had never heard of Bill Smith before, but that album opened new vistas for me as a clarinetist.... For me personally, his art remains the most fascinating and satisfying of modern jazz clarinet.

The day Bill Smith died, I'd actually been messaging a friend about his music, how much it continued to inspire me. And when I learned just yesterday of Smith's death, I tried to find contact information for my old friend, Br. Roy Parker, who I hadn't spoken to in over thirty years. I wanted to let him know about Smith's passing if he hadn't already heard, and to thank him for introducing this music to me. But it turns out Br. Roy passed away just nine days before Bill Smith. Br. Roy was a great artist in his own right, and appreciated all the technical nuances jazz musicians navigated - he would ask me all about those things with great interest. He was a great listener, and learned from what he heard. I hope and pray that he and William O are swapping notes in heaven right now.

The greatest music is so powerful that it impresses itself right onto one's life story. Br. Roy's kindness and Bill Smith's celebratory brilliance will forever be connected in my mind.”

Great music, great art, great people do impress themselves onto one's life story. And today we remember and give thanks for Br. Roy who impressed himself so indelibly onto Eric's life story, onto our life story and, I'd venture to say, on the life stories of countless others. He was, as his memorial card says, “Priest – Monk - Artist” all of which came together in a remarkable synergy characterized by gentleness, humility, kindness, creativity, passion, discipline and devotion.

There are many ways to speak of a life, many ports of entry, if you will. I want this morning to remember Roy through his art, which is to say, through his calligraphy. Though his artistry came out in so many ways. Who can forget the many years he devoted himself to baking bread, wonderful whole wheat bread and sourdough bread? Yes, sometimes it came out a little heavy, but it was always nourishing and delicious and was made with patient, loving care. Roy delighted in feeding others, whether through his bread, or through his presiding at the Holy Eucharist, which he did with Zen-like grace and recollection. Or through his preaching, which was always carefully researched and prepared. I would see him in the library for hours on end studying biblical texts, often in the original Hebrew or Greek, and consulting countless commentaries, and then, as like as not, have him appear with an outrageous prop to illustrate his point.

Br. Roy and the "Markan Sandwich"

I remember once when during his sermon he pulled out two pieces of bread surrounding bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise...an apt (and yummy) illustration of the Markan “sandwich” that he was expounding. And for those of you not in the know, a Markan sandwich is a stylistic device used in the Gospel of St. Mark and characterized by the insertion of one narrative episode between two parts of another one. Got it?

Roy fed in other ways as well, especially when he served as an AIDS chaplain at Manhattan Plaza, a residence for artists in New York City, at the height of the AIDS crisis. I think it was precisely Roy's reticence and inner stillness that made him effective in this ministry. And of course having himself the soul of an artist. Cor ad cor loquitur, says the psalm: “Heart speaks to heart.” That speaking went well beyond words. It went straight from Roy's heart to that of the other.

So in the spirit of Roy, I produce my own props, works of calligraphy that Roy executed over the years. There were many, including private commissions. There were greeting cards and posters. There were names on our doors and texts both sacred and profane. And these are a few which, at least to me, capture Roy and his way of being a man of God and a man for others.

The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.

The first is the quotation from Irenaeus of Lyon, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” Roy, like all of us, struggled to be fully alive, but his struggle was not his own, it was I think, also for the glory of God. From his early days at MIT and its jazz band—Roy was a drummer—to his years in the Society of St. John the Evangelist and then in the Order of the Holy Cross, Roy struggled to grow and become ever more alive. And as is true of us all, this was a journey of fits and starts, of peaks and valleys. But Roy did become more alive and transparent as the years went on, more his own man and therefore more available to others. More fully alive. It is no wonder that this simple and I might add, best-selling piece of art went through several iterations over the years as did he. What is true of art is so often true of us all as well.

The second work is simply a recipe...it is Roy's recipe for whole grain bread, beautifully penned and illustrated. It begins with the words “In your favorite breadmixing bowl whisk honey into ½ cup lukewarm water & add yeast.” In your favorite breadmixing bowl...which presumes we have one. Maybe we do. All of us. It is the container that holds the ingredients of a rising and nourishing life.

A recipe for whole grain bread.

Third there is the Buddhist gatha:

“Let me respectfully remind you: Life & Death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to Awaken. Awaken. Awaken. Take heed. Do not squander your life."

I feel a certain personal connection with this piece as I first saw the text through the Maitri Hospice in San Francisco in 1991 and some years later shared it with Roy and the Mount Calvary community. It speaks so honestly and directly to our mortal human condition, of which we are now perhaps more aware than ever before—and gives us our marching orders and our deepest aspiration: “Do not squander your life.” Roy did not. And with God's help, neither shall we.

When life sucks...

Finally, there is this piece of calligraphy that I found in Roy's studio. I don't believe I had ever seen it before. It says, somewhat enigmatically: “When life sucks & hands you lemons...I say beat the crap out of it and demand some California oranges as well.”

Well, as we know, life handed Roy lemons in the last year of his life, when disease took away first his ability to sing, then to speak clearly, then to speak at all, then to swallow. But through it all, Roy beat the crap out of it and demanded California oranges. He demanded and succeeded in retaining his dignity and self-direction even as he became more and more dependent on others. And he did so with unfailing courtesy and patience. This nobility marked even his passing. For on the afternoon of his last day he wrote on his note pad to Br. Bernard and me: “I want to lie down and die.” And so he did, within hours. Lemons, yes, but California oranges as well, as befits someone descended of Yankee stock but born in sunny southern California.

When we planned Roy's funeral for today, we did so because we thought our guesthouse would be open and going at full tilt throughout Lent. Tuesday, March 31 looked to be a quiet day, and all the brothers planned to be home. We had not realized however that in the Episcopal Church calendar, today is also the commemoration of another great artist, the 17th century poet John Donne. Donne was, like Roy, a priest. He was also a notable preacher to British royalty, perhaps the greatest English preacher of his day. But he is most remembered for his poems. And none more than his famous “No Man is an Island”

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

The bell does toll for Roy today and for all of us. But through and beyond that mournful tolling there is also a hope and a promise lying within Donne's other emblematic poem “Death be not proud.” As he puts it:

One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne, the Christian priest and poet, knew just as our Br. Roy knew and, I trust, as we too know: that in Christ Jesus, death is overcome. And so today we proclaim with the church throughout the ages that:

“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tomb bestowing life.”

Oh death, be not proud. Oh death, thou too shalt die.

And you, dear Br. Roy, may you go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in the heavenly kingdom prepared for us all from the foundation of the world through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Br. Roy Parker, OHC  1933-2020