He Made A Difference

I learned yesterday that Robert Willis, former Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, died October 22 of this year. I didn’t know the quiet, gentle man; never met him and he did not know me. I was, though, a member of his Garden Congregation, a creative response to the terror called Covid. When the terrible illness struck, churches, among other public gathering places, shut their doors. Crowds of potentially infected people posed great problems. So, Fr. Robert thought: If they can’t come to the church, the church will come to them electronically. So, he created morning prayer each day in the lovely Cathedral garden where his onsite congregation consisted of thousands of online viewers and local congregants: chickens, pigs, cats, rabbits, birds, ducks…any and every living thing was invited to The Garden Congregation. It was not at all unusual for Fr. Robert to speak of the Love of God will holding a cat in his lap, balancing his Bible in one hand while scratching a pig’s ear with the other hand. He was authentic. He was a kind man who cared for his “flock.”

I offer the following as a tribute to the man who pulled many, many of us through the dark days of Covid.

The Garden Congregation

They had a meeting in the garden today,
a sad meeting, a weeping meeting.
“Is it true?” a large white duck asked a piglet.
“Tell me it’s not true.”

“It is so sadly true,” piglet replied.
“But,” said duck, “who will cast grain for us
across the lawn? Who will pour milk for Leo
and Lilly and Tiger?” Piglet sprawled on the
ground: “But who will scratch behind my
ears anymore?”

A choir of circling birds looked down
on the empty lawn chair and began
singing a dirge of despair. There is
no lap I can jump into, thought the cat.
Chickens wandered aimlessly through
the trees and along the old wall.
And there on the simple little table that
held his tea set was a single pitcher,
the small one that held milk for
kitten’s paw, now turned on its side.

At the hour of his usual appearing,
black cassock dragging through the wet
grass, prayerbook cradled under his arm,
tea set rattling with each step,
at that moment the Cathedral bells
clanged into a harmony that swept
through the streets and the halls and
the homes of Canterbury, causing all the
aimless animals to look up into the sky.

“Did you see him? I saw him,” the
gray cat exclaimed. “There. Just
above the pointy steeple.” But when
they all looked, the gentle puff of
cloud had disappeared into soft
droplets of rain that fell over the
garden. Some said later that it
didn’t rain anywhere else that morning,
only on the garden and the animals
awaiting his appearing.

Only on the Garden Congregation of his
tending where his gentle voice is silent
until the roses bloom another day.

“Come to me all who labor…and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28