![\"Gomes.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.spiritual-politics.org\/Gomes.jpg\")
To
\nsay that Peter Gomes was one of a kind hardly conveys his uniqueness.
\nHis mother came from Boston’s African-American aristocracy, a type once
\nknown to blacks, not unpejoratively, as “dicty.” That she ran off and
\nmarried an immigrant from the Cape Verdean Island of Brava, a foreman in
\nthe cranberry bogs of Plymouth and a Catholic to boot, was the most
\ndaring of moves.<\/p>\n
Peter dared to leave Massachusetts for Bates
\nCollege, then a modest Baptist place, and only after graduating made his
\nway to Harvard. He became a great student of the Puritans, and knew the
\nlittle biographies of early Harvard men backwards and forwards. That he
\ndid his turn at Tuskegee testified at once to his curiosity about the
\nAfrican-American world and his consciousness of what was required of
\nhim. Though his accent seemed to the untutored ear Anglophiliac, it
\naimed to be the purest Boston Brahmin. He was a New<\/i> Englander, and proud of it.<\/p>\n
He was also a shrewd judge of character, a great gossip, and, so far as I
\ncould tell, a tough inside player. When there was pressure to expand
\nthe Harvard chaplaincy into something more ecumenical, he did what it
\ntook to maintain his position as primus<\/i>. The Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church would never be inter<\/i> pares<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I recall a dinner at Sparks House, the turn-of-the-19th-century
\nclapboard domicile he occupied along with his antiques and his
\nleather-bound volumes. The guests were all young men. Only later did
\nPeter come out to the world, and his strong moral and intellectual
\nwitness for gay equality became his redeeming feature for those who
\nfound him insufferable.<\/p>\n
I last spoke with Peter back in 2000,
\nwhen he came to Trinity to give the Baccalaureate speech and do the
\ninvocating and benedicting at Commencement. I don’t know how much of
\nthis stuff he’d done over the years en route to yet another honorary
\ndegree, but he had it down to an art form. I’ve never seen a graduation
\ncrowd more thoroughly charmed, amused, and edified.<\/p>\n
It had been a
\ncouple of decades since I’d seen him and he did look like a send-up of
\nhimself: stout and gouty, toting a velvet bag stuffed with his Harvard
\nrobe, and not one of those latter-day polyester ones either. He’d
\nwritten a letter for a candidate to be Trinity’s
\nnew chaplain that included the commendation, “He says his
\nprayers.” No wonder people didn’t know what to make of him. <\/p>\n
I
\nsaw him last two years ago on stage at the Bushnell, appearing at a
\nConnecticut Forum evening to chat about religion with Rabbi Harold
\nKushner and Christopher Hitchens. I’m afraid Kushner was way out of his
\nleague as a repartee artist, but Peter more than held his own against
\nHitchens’ well-wrought atheist pieties. <\/p>\n
A YouTube clip from the occasion ends with him delivering a bon mot that
\nperfectly conveys his talent for making his own pieties go down easy.
\n“I can’t conceive of a world without God,” said he, “and I’d like to
\nthink that God can’t conceive of a world without me.” It’s sad indeed to
\nhave to conceive what he hoped was unthinkable for God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To say that Peter Gomes was one of a kind hardly conveys his uniqueness. His mother came from Boston’s African-American aristocracy, a type once known to blacks, not unpejoratively, as “dicty.” That she ran off and married an immigrant from the Cape Verdean Island of Brava, a foreman in the cranberry bogs of Plymouth and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n