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Hi everyone, welcome to Thanks for Being

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Here, a short weekly pod to remind

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us of the many essential and beautiful

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ways we affect one another. Every

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Sunday, I'll read a submission from a

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listener, Kelly Corrigan-Wenders, could be wedding

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vows or a bat mitzvah toast, a

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eulogy, or a retirement speech. We

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believe this is probably the loveliest way

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to tap into our better selves and

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remember our highest values. We

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encourage you to share this podcast each

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week with one person you love, maybe

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someone you miss and need to bring

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closer, someone you want to feel your

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appreciation or admiration or both.

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This is Thanks for Being Here. This

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show is sponsored by Better Help. A

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BetterHelp, help.com/Kelly.

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This week's Thanks for Being Here is from a

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friend of mine. Her name is Tamara Gendler. We

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did an episode with her in the fall of 2020

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where she knit together

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brilliantly the relationship

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between ancient wisdom

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and modern happiness. It's

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one of my favorite conversations, if

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for no other reason, than Tamara

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is hyper articulate. Like, she's

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in the top one one-hundredth of

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one percent in terms of her life. of personalized

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intelligence. And

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so when she sent me the eulogy she

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wrote for her father, I was

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eager to share it. So this

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is Tamara Gendler's eulogy for her

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father, Everett. Everett

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was always ahead of his time. Nearly

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75 years ago in 1948 he became a vegetarian. Some

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seven years later in 1955 he

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spent a summer at a folk

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school receiving civil rights training alongside

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a young Rosa Parks.

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He was an environmentalist by the

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time of Eisenhower. In 67 he

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gave a sermon on the immorality

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of factory farming. By the

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early 70s he and Mary had a large

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organic garden filled with chard and

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kale complete with a compost heap. In

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1978 he installed photovoltaic

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solar panels on the roof

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of his synagogue. He

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has used gender-neutral pronouns to

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refer to God for half

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a century. In

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the early 60s at his congregation

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in Princeton, New Jersey, Everett began

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a tradition of conducting Shabbat services

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outside. On bright

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days he writes in Judaism for

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Universalists, temperature permitting we

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would leave the sanctuary and

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head outdoors. There under

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the skies and in the face of the

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sun we would chant together that part

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of the service which celebrates the gift

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of life and the radiance of the

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luminaries. He viewed

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nature as being along with scripture

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a divine text revelatory of

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the giver of life and guidance. As

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he said both nature and scripture

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are the garb of the mud.

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And just as he was ahead on the

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environment so too was he ahead in other

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domains. Quote, our age is

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a time of tremendous upheavals he

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wrote in 1957. We

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have seen a nearly complete overturning of

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the political order which once seemed

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so firmly established. The

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earth has shifted on its axis, eastward

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toward Africa and Asia. 4,

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1971, feminine and female and woman are

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not necessarily equivalent terms. Feminine

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is a quality found in females, but

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it is found in males as well.

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Preter naturally sensitive to the

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world's moral order, Harvard was always

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out in front, sometimes lonely

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and isolated in his profound awareness

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of the earth's simultaneous beauty and

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injustice, sometimes accompanied by

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or leading others who came to

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share his insight and commitment. But

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in other ways, Everett was slow.

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Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of

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eating a meal with Everett knows that he

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took the advice to chew

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before you swallow with a

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literalness that exceeded even its

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promised interpretation. Breakfast

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alongside Everett lasted almost until

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lunchtime and dinner before an

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8pm concert at Tanglewood needed

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to start before 5. He

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bought his first house in 1971 at the age of 43. His first grandchild

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was born in 1997 when he was almost

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70. His first book,

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Judaism for Universalists, was published

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when he was 86. His

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second, a translation of the

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writings of Samuel Tamars when

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he was 91. Those are

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hardly the time stamps of someone in

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a rush. Nor was

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he in a rush to adopt new technologies

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until well beyond the moment that they went out

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of style. Indeed, all the

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way through the time that they

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came back in, he held firm

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to his typewriter, his vinyl records,

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his loose leaf tea. He used

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old fashioned paper maps, carried

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a pocket calendar, which he called, in

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a reference to modernity that was itself

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outdated, and

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he knew hundreds of phone numbers, including those

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of most of you here in this room.

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with a salt, who cooked

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with cast iron pans, who

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treasured his multi-volume Oxford English

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Dictionary. And in the

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words of the inimitable Reverend Philip

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Zader, his co-choplin at Philip's

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Andover, when he moved from place

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to place, he quote, carried

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books of all sorts in a

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cardboard box masquerading as of

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Blee's first. Everett

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was not only ahead and behind.

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He was also fully. His

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life was filled with radical astonishment

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at the beauty of the world that surrounded him

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and those who inhabited it alongside

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him. His ability

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to connect was extraordinary. He

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would engender true and real love

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in other people, even in a

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brief encounter, writes our dear

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friend, Trudy Snackenberg. For

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Everett, the realms of the secular and

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the sacred were in

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powerful proximity. Ever

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a lover of the celestial bodies and

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their cycles, Everett met each

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phase of the sun and the moon with

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great care. He turned

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chores into ceremonies, changing

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the filter on his well at

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solstice and equinox, accompanied by

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selections from traditional Hebrew liturgy,

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and modern poets and musical

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offerings from Handel to

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Mahler. His

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garden fences bore a ratio

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of 42 to 72.

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Why? Because, as he notes, quote,

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Jewish tradition has a number of names

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designating the divine. Two of

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those I have found valuable in reminding me each

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time I step into my garden, that

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the living sale with which

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I cooperate in helping food grow is

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itself a gift of the author of

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the works of creation. One

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of these names has 42 letters, another

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has 72. Always

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ahead, always behind, always fully

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present. How is this possible? Everett's

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teacher at seminary, the great

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Abraham Joshua Heschel, gives us

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some insight in his 1951 book, The Sabbath. There,

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Heschel distinguishes between the realm of space

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and the realm of time. The

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realm of space is our ordinary human

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domain, the realm of the transient.

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The realm of time is

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the domain of the everlasting and the

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divine. As Heschel writes,

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to gain control of the world of space

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is certainly one of our pulks. The

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danger begins when in gaining power

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in the realm of hosts, we

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forfeit all aspirations in the realm

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of time. Sabbath

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provides us with the opportunity to

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turn our attention away from the

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space to connect with the eternal

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through time. To the

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realm of time, Everett was exquisitely a will.

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He followed all earthly rhythms,

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natural, musical, spiritual, with

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uncanny attention. He

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was superlatively sensitive to the phases

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of the moon, the pacing

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of notes in a musical performance, the

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rhythm of prayer. It is

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no surprise that he held on to

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life, to earthly time, until

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a moment of profound sanctity.

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Even as his oxygen dwindled,

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even as his breathing flowed, Everett

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remained in his earthly body until the

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sun went down on Friday. Simultaneously

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ushering in the new moon, the

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new Hebrew month, the renewal of

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spring, and the Sabbath. The

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Sabbath, Heschel writes, is a

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realm of time where the goal is

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not to have, not to be, not

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to own, but to give, not

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to control, but to share,

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not to subdue, but to be in accord. Everett,

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you spent your life being, giving,

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sharing, and being in accord. Though

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you are no longer with us in earthly

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spools, no longer with us

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in earthly time, you remain with

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us, always leading us

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toward your vision for the future, always

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holding on to the wisdom of the

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past, always focusing our eyes on

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the miracle of the present. May

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your memory be a blessing to us

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all. Thank

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you, wonderful. Tomorrow I love knowing you. And

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here's to you. Sounds like a praying

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leader. We'll be

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back on Tuesday with another Kelly Corrigan wonders

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and then on Friday with another go-to.

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Thanks everyone.