Death of a Teacher

It is the one week anniversary of the death of a great man. I'm not talking about the pope. I'm talking about a Quaker theologian who was deeply loved by most who knew him. He also happened to be the father of one of my best friends.

In this rush-rush world that thinks normal is the television or radio droning on in the background, this man had a quiet home with a place to pause. He was the "Yoda" of my youth - the wise one. He taught at a Quaker boarding school, where the students affectionately referred to him as "the monk." Indeed, yearly he would retreat to a monestary for at least a week to worship almost as a peer with some monks he knew. I think the monestary was in Pennsylvania. He taught religion and whatever else needed a teacher at the school - English, American Government, and odd classes like "Kinship With All Life." He taught teenagers mostly, but also adults, the Quaker way of being still and waiting on God. And they listened. Most of the people who took classes from him say he was the best teacher they ever had.

Quakers in eastern Ohio have a tradition of asking a rare few of those who have notable gifts of ministry to become recorded ministers in their meeting. It is not something a person can aspire to, and those who aspire to it mostly don't even get asked. There is no formal training. The spiritual community takes ministers under their wing and nurtures their gifts of ministry. My mother was asked to be a minister when I was about 8 years old. She set out to visit every member of our meeting to get a sense of the spirit among us. She visited members and other people in hospitals, nursing homes and psychiatric wards, usually taking me with her. In meeting, she often spoke out of the silence, and spoke to the condition of someone present. That was her gift.
She also began being put on numerous committees, often being made convener of them. Our home was a hubbub of activity. At many of those committee meetings was this great teacher - and his daughters whom I played with.

We grew up under the wings of our elders. We faced the idea of walking in their footsteps. We rebelled like teenagers do, trying to find our own wings, never feeling quite like they'd be anything like those of our elders.

Bill Taber taught people how to listen to God. He didn't tell them what God said. He simply taught them how to be still, in a gentle, nonjudgemental, understanding way. He knew world religions as thoroughly as anyone I've ever met, and he respected them all. He was criticized by some of his peers, and doubted for not proclaiming his own Christianity superior; for not insisting it be adhered to. He simply taught people how to find that on their own, more thoroughly and effectively than any schooled minister I have ever heard of. Teenagers respected him, and thanked him for this gift. He gave it to my own two sons.
And although he was the quietest, meekest teacher I have ever known, living behind his goatee and thick-lensed glasses, he was the most regarded Quaker minister; the most esteemed leader in the religious community I was reared in.