A Eulogy for Fr. E. Perren Hayes
Gospel John 14:1-6
The Rev Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton
“How can we know the way?” 'Doubting' Thomas asked Jesus.
You know, as I think of it, Perren could have subbed in for Thomas as one of
the disciples. That’s not because Thomas is “doubting”. No, Thomas wasn’t
doubting. Thomas was curious. And E. Perren Hays was nothing if not curious.
Indeed, he was one of the most intellectually curious Episcopal priests I’ve
known. And, he would never deny you the opportunity – God forbid it! – to learn all about the things his curiosity had just discovered or uncovered.
Perren was curious about curious things. Things that have captured the
curiosity of artists from the time cave-dwellers tried to capture a moment in
time and draw that in pictures on the inside of caves or trace them on pieces
of stretched, dried animal hide.
He was curious about the light. I remember spending an extra 30 minutes with
him one afternoon, because he wanted me to see how the sun shifted on the lawn
and the trees from his window in his room at Atlantic Shores.
Now, Perren was also highly skilled at convincing people that they had more
time to spend with him than they thought they had – indeed, he could be
maddening in that way – but that’s another story for another time. The fact of
the matter is that he was right: It was, indeed, fascinating to watch the
shadow move slowly across the lawn, and to watch the leaves of the trees take
on a variety of the shade of green. And we ought to “make time” to watch it.
Perren was very, very curious about time. He understood that linear time was
the invention and preoccupation of the human mind but he often quoted to me the
line from the psalmist which has been captured in one of our hymns: "A thousand
ages in thy sight are like and evening gone".
Perren’s mind was intensely curious about the mind of God – how God might
conceive of time and light and how, in the human mind, at least, one informed
the other. There would be no understanding of evening without the absence of
light and no morning without its presence.
When speaking of Steven Hawking, Perren once pondered aloud that as the human
mind of Hawking was so incredibly brilliant, and if humans are made in the
likeness and image of God, how glorious must be the mind of God! “In some ways,”
he said, “I can’t wait to find out.”
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| Hubble Star Nursery |
If we are right when we say, “dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and the mind of the scientist is one path on the way to God, and if they are right when they tell us that dust and ash from earth rejoin the cosmos and find their way, eventually, to the “Star Nurseries” where we have seen pictures of moments, centuries old, when stars were being formed from dust and ash, then it is true that just as Jesus is “Light from Light,” so, we, too – over the centuries but, to God, an evening gone – become light from that Light.
Perren, rest in peace, my friend. The time for your curiosity has reached its fulfillment. You now stand before The One who is Time itself – who is, all at once and at the same time – The One who is and The One who was and The One who will be.
You stand before The One who is Light from Light, who does not cast a shadow on others but draws everyone into The Light to become light from Light.
Rest well, Perren. Eternal Light is now yours.
Amen.
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