Two more good-byes...

While most of the US headlines are filled with memories and farewells to George Steinbrenner, owner of the NY Yankees, I was saddened to hear that two old rebels that I loved in very different ways also crossed over: the Beat poet and trouble-maker, Tuli Kupferberg, and heart and soul of the post WWII Protestant urban ministry movement, Bill Weber.

+ Tuli became notorious not only for being one of Ginsberg's inspiration for HOWL - he did jump off a NYC bridge and lived to walk away unknown - but also for his anti-war work with the Greenwich Village folk-rock band he shared with Ed Sanders, The Fugs. Their song, "Kill for Peace," his partnership with Abbie Hoffman and others in 1967as they attempted to "exorcise" the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and his relentless satires on the status quo made him a true Bohemian. In fact, as the NY Times obituary noted, "the craziest students living in Paris once came from Bohemia" - and he loved keeping the craziness alive.

I remember listening to his album in an East Village apartment late in the summer of 1967 before going to see the Mothers of Invention play the Garrick Theatre. Were they musical? Hardly! Were they challenging? To be sure! Were they a prototype for punk? Probably - and their Beat humor and dedication to poetry and freedom never died. They were not every one's cup of tea, but they kept the Beat spirit alive and well in the Village. Rest in peace you strange and wonderful soul. For the brave among us, check them out at: www.thefugs.com/

+ An equally rebellious man with a very different impact was the Reverend Dr. George "Bill" Weber who died yesterday at 90. I knew Bill during my New York days - and his reputation preceded him in spades. Born of privilege with a great mind - he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in history before WWII where he served in the Navy and then went on to get his bachelor of divinity from Union in NYC and his Ph. D. in philosophy of religion from Columbia - Bill sensed a call into ministry. The result was not upwardly mobile but rather the beginning of the Inner City Protestant Parish in East Harlem along with Don Benedict and Archie Hargraves.

He served for a season as the dean of students at Union but left to make the East Harlen Inner City Protestant Parish real - moving his young family into project housing. Later, as the new dean of New York Theological Seminary, he took the lessons of liberation theology seriously and extended graduate education to those without an under-graduate degree. Or working pastors in non-mainstream traditions who had lots of life experience but little formal training. Or those who were incarcerated. He changed the face of theological education in New York City and welcome into the fold many who had been left wounded by the roadside.

He also wrote three books which shaped and changed my life: God's Colony in Man's (sic) World - about the Inner City Protestant Parish of East Harlem - and A Congregation in Mission and Today's Church - about living into the calling of urban ministry. He was gentle and strong, clear-headed and demanding, a vibrant white preacher who spent most of his time committed race and class suicide.

As a very middle class white guy from the NY suburbs, Bill's witness touched me - and still does. I remember hearing him talk about a retreat that once took place in the late 50s with men from his East Harlen church and folks from the wealthy suburbs of Connecticut. An executive leader of the men's retreat began the gathering saying, "Let's introduce ourselves by saying what we do and where we live..." only to be interrupted by one of the urban men who said, "No, no, no! Let's NOT start by defining ourselves by the work we do or the place we live because THAT is of the world - and let's be clear - some of us don't DO anything and we aren't FROM anywhere! No, let's talk about who we are in the love of God made real to us in Jesus Christ." Which caused a huge gasp... and then a REAL sharing of hearts, souls and minds.

I am still with Bill in insisting that we start with how God has touched us - regardless of how we understand that touching - and build on connecting from that place. Rest in peace, dear man, rest in peace.