Homily for Ian Roberts’ Memorial Service

Saturday, June 16,  3pm

St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia

Any number of possibilities present themselves as ways to go about preaching Ian’s service this afternoon. Calling Ian Roberts a multi-faceted human being would be an understatement. Probably the easiest way to proceed would be to simply have as us all look at the picture on the cover of the bulletin. Take a look.

From here we all could wander off into memories of Ian’s welcoming expression, his approach to the world, to the greeting we expect from his smiling face. Ian was husband, friend, parent, counselor…we all have stories.

Or I could talk about all the things Ian shared with those around him. About his desire to invite others into higher purpose, to give, to make the world a better place. A few years ago when he took over the CROP walk to alleviate hunger, he was a force to be reckoned with. I still see him in his yellow CROP Walk tee shirt.

What stands out for me today though, is the most recent experience of being with Ian in his final days and watching a side of him I had known but not experienced to the extent that I did in Scotland a few weeks ago. I had on our recent trip the great joy of experiencing Ian closer to his home setting—geography I had heard him talk about for years. Mary and I had gone to Scotland for the first time two years ago, and in the run-up to that trip it seemed like Ian was in my office every week with a map, or a book, or a new list of parks, mountains, and lochs we had to see. We ended up making a detour at one point to see what Ian swore was a dinosaur’s footprint on a beach on the isle of sky.  

Ian was persuasive. 

With that understanding of his love of the country and it’s marvels, I sat with him on the ferry as we made our way from Oban to Mull. He was totally captured by what he was seeing out the window.  He was fully alive. Then I watched him on the bus as we crossed Mull. I was near the back and he in the front. I watched him pointing and commenting and laughing and delighting in seeing others experience what had always brought him so much joy.  In his last days Ian was as alive and happy as I had ever seen him.

He appreciated the beauty of the world, of his homeland in a way that suggested he was seeing more than just mountains and streams and beaches.  His face and his expressions and his reaction to the beauty around him conveyed a truth offered in the fourth century by Gregory of Nyssa who said the beauty we see fills us and draws us further toward the beauty yet to be seen. 

In Ian’s descriptions of what he loved and was fascinated with one always had the feeling that he was seeing more, and trying to share that something more….that he’d already had a glimpse of what lay beyond and wanted others to catch that vision too.  

As I was thinking this week about Ian and about what I would say today, I ran across these words, written by Walter Pater in his conclusion to a book of poems by William Morris.  Pater says: 

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.  Every moment some new form grows perfect in land or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood or passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us—for that moment only.  Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end…How should we pass most swiftly from point to point and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?  To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.  

Ian showed us all what it looks like to live a successful life.  

And here’s the thing.  With Ian, that fascination, that observation wasn’t reserved for just the beautiful, but for, and maybe especially for, hidden beauty—the beauty in the mundane, the mystery and glory in what is easily overlooked.  He looked for that hidden wonder in each of us and in everyone he met and we knew it.  One of the books of photographs he published and shared with friends was titled, “Hidden in Plain Sight” because that is where he looked for the amazing, the worthwhile, the more than worthwhile.  

When Ian fell ill and was taken to the hospital in Oban, Kathy went with him and the rest of us made the short crossing to Iona. Kathy stayed in touch by phone and email, and at some point she mentioned Ian’s propensity for searching among the neglected and unnoticed for what was truly remarkable.  We all recognized what Kathy was talking about and that way of Ian’s became a part of our week.  Though he never made it across that last mile of water to the island, Ian was with us the whole time.  More than once at the end of the day’s hiking and wandering in the beauty of nature someone would report having spent the day looking at the world “the way Ian does,” searching out what might be missed because of its humble setting or seeming insignificance in the presence of so much beauty.  On that tiny island, as prayers were offered for Ian at every service in the abbey and as the story spread, our little band became known as “Ian’s group.”  His presence and influence were palpable for people who had never met him.  We would expect nothing less from Ian Roberts.  Ian himself is still hidden in plain sight on Iona. Even in death, Ian was shaping and guiding and creating community.

My understanding of church and salvation has to do with being made whole in the community that gathers around the Jesus stories.  It is about becoming aware of that “something more” which we all intuit and of which we are all a part.  We learn from each other and are shaped by each other’s stories, by sharing the experience of living, its joys and its challenges.  We learn, grow, and discover in community in ways we never could on our own.  Community is where we become what we might become, and hopefully, in the process, discover that part of the divine life that is ours to reveal through our living and acting to others in the community.  Ian found his calling.

Jesus was always encouraging those around him to go farther, ‘think about what lies behind your tradition’s words, throw a wider net when you imagine community, include those you didn’t think belonged, expand your thinking…….your awareness of others and their lives. Expand your belief in your own worth….develop a fascination for everything around you until this life becomes the kingdom of the divine and you begin to worry less about your own life and begin to long for that “something more” you have always hoped for.  

I believe Ian’s gift, his bit of the divine revelation, had to do with that part of what Jesus tried to communicate.  Ian who was “roused and startled to life” very early on, never stopped inviting others into that grander way of being in the world.  He did that with and for and to every one of us.  That is why we are here today.  We give thanks to God this afternoon for the gift of Ian Roberts.  And, we give thanks to Ian for the God we know a little better because of Ian’s call to look for the best things “hidden in plain sight. “

JB