Portraits

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a distinguished Canadian whose life was celebrated in an historical cathedral. He was a former primate of the Anglican Church of Canada (in the US called a Presiding Bishop in the American Episcopal Church). Among those attending were two of his successors in that role, the national indigenous bishop, other archbishops, bishops and clergy, and a great many family and friends. I knew Michael when I was an undergraduate student studying English literature and he was finishing a degree in theology at the University of Toronto in the late 1950s. Some years later I was a guest at his wedding in Ottawa. Earlier he had trained as a translator and decades later as primate, he was able to address a Russian Orthodox assembly in Moscow, delighting them by speaking to them in their own language.

His family members spoke of a loving father; one of his associates remembers a wise and thoughtful leader and one of his successors, a man who befriended a small and isolated national church in Cuba. Beneath the record of achievements, not the least of which was an early public apology to Canada’s First Nations of our treatment of their people in residential schools - was the underlying sadness of the last five years of Michael’s life with Alzeheime’s disease and the strength of the daily and loving support of his wife, family members and friends.

On the service leaflet is a picture of Michael in his prime. He once joked about a letter confusing primates of the human kind with those of animal kin - but you would never confuse this image with an intelligent, thoughtful and welcoming gaze, as he poses dressed in the robes of his office. I guess it is a form of mugshot. Later in the day we saw another. It’s one that the poser - pun intended this time - is said to be trying to look powerful and menacingly toughly and defiant. It’s an image of the grade school bully that masks other feelings and realities, not the least of which is fear. How will his followers interpret it? So many currently see and fear power that they see behind it and bow or kowtow to that. How scared are Americans when they are are told he is a stand-in for them as victims? A couple of supporters outside the jail expressed how much they love him? But is this a face that loves back? Will it be the one on a funeral leaflet some day?