Osler's Razor

Here is what I said at yesterday's service in Waco for Mary Katherine Baird Darmer:

In my office, there is a small shelf of my most precious possessions. It is a line of battered old books, treasured like diamonds. There is a taped-up, scribbled-over Bible, and Randall O’Brien’s necessary book on forgiveness, Buddy Shurden’s “Four Fragile Freedoms,” and then one book that I keep because it contains a single sentence; a sentence fragment, really.

That sentence fragment was written by Bob Baird, as he described his ambition for Baylor. It is this: “A confident engagement with God’s diverse world.”

“A confident engagement with God’s diverse world.”

That—a confident engagement with God’s diverse world—is exactly what Bob and Alice Baird, this church, this town, Princeton University, Columbia Law School, and the harrowing years of judgment as a prosecutor gave the world in the person of Mary Katherine Baird Darmer. It was a life that was singular, significant, memorable, genuine, striking, and bold. Above all else, it mattered.

In the legal academy, everyone is smart, and many people went to places like Princeton and Columbia. Yet, in that world, my world, Mary Katherine Baird Darmer stood out. I will describe three traits among many that made her different.

First, she listened. If you caught her in the kitchen, after a meal, and told her an idea as she leaned against a counter, she would be quiet and still. She might cross her arms and look down, doing nothing other than hearing you. Sometimes, she would nod, and her hair would bounce, and then, when you were done, she would move. Her hand would come out, palm forward, and she would start to speak, and she would bring that fierce intelligence to bear on what you had said, and she would make your idea better. There is a selflessness, a patience, in that kind of listening that is too rare.

Second, she had that combination of intellect and faith that comes from from a family like hers, from an academic community of faith like this. It was an intellect that could, at times, challenge or affirm those on the right or the left, because there was an internal compass of truth that did not always lead her to what was expected or typical or even towards what was familiar.

Finally, and you all know this, she was unfussy and bold in a field that too often is mucky and opaque. She spoke with clear-eyed passion and conviction that rose from a heart for justice, a heart nurtured in this place, by so many of you who are here today. It was with that heart, that voice, that she challenged those who would tell gay men and lesbians that there is no love for them, on Earth or in heaven. Nor was her clear, strong voice limited to any one area. When our nation took up torture, she began an essay by saying this: “…Waterboarding is torture, and torture is illegal and wrong.”

She was unafraid to use a prophetic voice; that is because you, many of you here today, were not afraid of a prophetic voice when she was a girl. She was a listener, and she no doubt heard prophetic voices among her family and friends as you sat after dinner, talking about what matters. That voice of hers came from someplace, and this community of people, of old friends, is that place.

When will I miss her?

I will miss her when I have an idea that is almost right, when I need that “confident engagement with God’s diverse world.” That will be often, and always, and that hole will remain, and she will be remembered; she will be remembered.