Charlie, my dear friend,
I’ve been listening to your old voicemails since you died. My heart is raw from your passing, but it’s a balm to hear your gentle voice again, to hear you say “I love you” one more time. I’m finding it hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I’ll never again feel your reassuring hand on my shoulder. Even when your hand started to shake softly with Parkinson’s, you always steadied me, bringing me back to myself in the midst of work that was both grueling and humbling. The weight we feel in your absence is heavy. Nothing can replace the gift of your presence, your boundless generosity, your centeredness that made us all feel at peace. To know you was to know grace and to believe in the healing power of love. You had such a knack for loving us all so well, for making us feel like we belonged and like we could trust that we were all part of something bigger than ourselves.
Did I tell you enough over the years that it was you who helped me find my voice when I was a college student? Did you understand just how much you encouraged me to hear and heed my calling out of the clamor of religious men who told me to stay silent? You came into my life in a season of uncertainty and vocational upheaval, like you did for so many. You welcomed me into this work when I was an eager, naive student, taking me under your wings and inspiring me to live as if my deepest convictions were really true. Charlie, you continue to awaken a desire in all of us to be better people and to participate in the building of a better world — a world you dedicated your life to creating.
Sister Elaine Roulet, who also committed her life to others, was once asked, “how do you work with the poor?” “You don’t,” she responded. “You share your life with the poor.” This is the wisdom you embodied with your life. You knew that there was no turning back after the very first time you opened your parish doors to God’s beloved, freezing on your doorstep. The people you met who were experiencing poverty and homelessness were never just “the poor” to you. They were friends and siblings, instilled with sacred worth and dignity. You saw the best in all of us and met us where we were, no matter where that was — in the halls of power, on a college campus, beneath a bridge. You didn’t buy into the missionary model of “bringing God to the margins.” You knew that God was already there and you met Christ in those you befriended over the years.
I remember one of our first conversations sixteen long years ago. You told me and a handful of students that housing was a human right. To live without housing in our country meant to live in subhuman conditions. You reminded us that anytime the life of one person is devalued, all our lives are devalued. This wisdom has become an integral part of our work at Open Table Nashville. I was always drawn toward your commitment to not just share in the suffering of others, but to struggle alongside them for a better world. It would be too easy to domesticate your legacy — to remember the beautiful ways you served others without also remembering the less comfortable ways you spoke truth to power and worked for justice. I remember when you were arrested on the lawn of City Hall in 2007 as you demonstrated for more affordable housing. You were friends with politicians, but never hesitated to speak out when they failed to treat others with dignity or live up to their promises.
During one of our coffee dates, you told me that you went to seminary during the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. Instead of sitting in your room with your books, you went out to protest. Your advocacy and activism were deeply rooted in your faith. You were a student of Catholic social teachings, the lives of the saints, and the Catholic Worker movement. You were drawn to those schools of thought and ways of living because they recognized, as James 2:26 says, that “faith without works is dead.” Saint Francis, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi — these were some of the people you looked up to and modeled your ministry after. And now, friend, you’ve joined the great cloud of witnesses that continues to guide us all.
In one of your last voicemails, you quoted “the Romero prayer” that we would read often together. “We are prophets of a future not our own,” you said. I’m now holding tightly to this truth as I make sense of life without you. You helped us understand that every time we choose compassion over judgment and reconciliation over retribution, we create the Beloved Community. Every time we disrupt cycles of violence, oppression, injustice, retribution, and poverty, we prophesy a better future.
It is tempting to believe that your passing has left us in the dark. But you always used your light to awaken the light within us all. I’m trying to remember, dear friend, that your light hasn’t gone out. It’s everywhere, and it spreads everytime we fan the flames of love, justice, and hope in others. Charlie, you illuminated the way for so many of us. I pray that you’re resting now in the company of God and all those you loved and lost. I can still hear your laughter and the corny jokes you used to tell. I can still feel your love and I know that your light continues to shine from the great beyond. We love and miss you so much, and we promise to honor your legacy by carrying on the work you started. May it be so, until we meet again.
with gratitude and love,
Lindsey