Forrest Church, Senior Minister at All Souls from 1978 - 2006

"How are you, Dan?" he would ask the moment I stepped into his apartment for another interview. I was writing his biography, and Forrest Church was dying of cancer, but invariably he wanted to know how I was doing.

Likewise, from the pulpit, he demonstrated that the dangerous passage to death could be negotiated with grace and dignity. He smiled that enormous smile and joked that "after two or three poignant farewell sermons, I'm almost embarrassed to be seen in public upright."

He was the Reverend Doctor

Frank Forrester Church IV resplendent in the crimson robes of a Harvard PhD, author of 25 books -- but everyone called him Forrest. That's how he wanted it.  In his final two years, this leading voice of Unitarian Universalism remained a man of effervescent warmth. Enthusiasm was his calling card. He spent most of those days in bed or on his living-room couch immersed in what he loved most -- listening to Mahler's symphonies, reading fantasy novels recommended by his son, and daring to write yet another book that would comfort others.

Forrest called himself a "serial enthusiast." As a young man, this meant that he flitted from whim to whim. As he matured, it meant that his mind was as capacious as it was curious, ever widening in its interests. He became the most eloquent of speakers and writers. He wrote memoir, theology, history, spiritual meditations. He was pastor, author, public intellectual, husband, father, and mentor to the young. 

The legendary enthusiasm was contagious. It made us want to squeeze as much life out of every day as we possibly could. For we were, he reminded us, the religious animal; we alone possessed the awareness that we are alive but will someday die.

This spirit also made us want to serve. Forrest presided over the Unitarian Church of All Souls in Manhattan, with its heritage of social service going back to the origins of the American Red Cross in the 19th Century.

Following in that tradition, he spurred the creation of an AIDS Task Force in the 1980s, when fear of the unknown too often trumped compassion; feeding programs for the homeless; tutoring for East Harlem youth, and more. The anti-Jerry Falwell, Forrest fostered a religion of tolerance and inclusion. In the face of Boy Scouts of America's discrimination against gays, he supported All Souls' decision to break with the organization and form its own alternative, the Navigators, which is now establishing chapters across the nation. In the larger arena, he battled the evils of nuclear war, racism, sexism and homophobia. He championed the separation of church and state as an American innovation that, rather than stifling religion, guaranteed that it would flourish.

"Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are."

This was the mantra Forrest gave us. Just a few words, seemingly trite, but surprisingly profound. They pull us away from the abyss of perpetually wanting something we don't have and don't need. They urge us to action, for ourselves and others, without expectation of perfection. They counsel self-knowledge and integrity.

Some of us post these words on their refrigerators, others paste them into every e-mail. The words, and their author, live on in our hearts.