William Sloane Coffin, Famed Peace Activist, Dead at 81

[LiberalHeart]

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a former Yale University chaplain known for his peace activism during the Vietnam War and his continuing work for social justice, died Wednesday at his home in rural Strafford. He was 81.

More:
http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=4762993

[flamingyouth]

1. RIP, Rev. Coffin

[OKNancy]

2. A great man

and a lesson for all: Don't stereotype ( he was Skull and Bones)

[flamingyouth]

5. I've always admired him.

I just finished his last book, "Letters to a Young Doubter."

[nashville_brook]

17. ...

[IChing]

3. RIP....a true patriot... a little background

Coffin gained prominence in the 1960s as an outspoken advocate for civil rights and against the Vietnam War.
He joined a group of civil rights activists known as the freedom riders
and was arrested several times at demonstrations against segregation.

He became a leader of the group Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam,
which engaged in civil disobedience including offering sanctuary in churches and synagogues to draft resisters.

He often spoke of having a lifelong "lover's quarrel" with America.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Rest in the peace that was your life's work, WSC. nt

[Mist]

6. His work in the peace movement in the 60's was enormous. RIP Rev. Coffin

[LiberalHeart]

7. Remember his red muffler?

I'm thinking of his Christmas visit to the hostages in Iran. He was a friend -- one I'll miss a lot.

[Rose Siding]

8. He was a blessing

Welcome home, dear man.

[Sisaruus]

9. I am saddened by this news

I knew he was on borrowed time and I should be prepared for this news - but I am still saddened. In the 60s, he was a mentor to my mentor and as a result I got to spend time with him. He helped build the foundation of my personal and professional commitment to peace, justice and equality. The world is a lesser place without him.

[CTyankee]

10. Actually, it's Stratford

I remember Bill Coffin when I worked for Clergy and Laity for Vietnam. He was such a dynamic voice for the anti war movement in the early 70s.

Lately, I know he had been using a wheelchair as he had had a stroke. I thought at the time that this was not a good thing, but I hoped for the best.

What a great guy. I remember him bellowing out opera melodies and playing the musical chords on the piano, when we went on retreats. What a great guy!

[wicket]

12. No, it's Strafford, Strafford, Vermont

Where I was born.

[CTyankee]

13. Self correct. It is Strafford. Vermont, not Stratford CT

Sorry for my misread. I have had recent eye surgery and I really shouldn't try to correct anybody while I recover!

[wicket]

15. No need to be sorry!

Hope you heal quickly :hug:

[CTyankee]

16. Thanks! Did you know him?

My knowledge of him was in the early 70s antiwar movement with CALC. We had an office in a warehouse building in Harlem owned by the National Council of Churches. What a great time that was!

Coffin was a very large figure in his day. He was charismatic. Very handsome. He had his following of women. When I knew him he was in a very unhappy marriage with his 2nd wife, Harriet. It was a sad situation.

Since I moved to New Haven in 1985, I had seen him at various Yale reunions and was surprised to see him in a wheelchair. He had been so vigorous when I had known him.

Godspeed, Bill. You made a difference.

[wicket]

18. I sure did

Such a kind, wise man. He was really suffering at the end so may he finally beat peace.

Sounds like you had some very cool times :thumbsup:

[CTyankee]

19. I am sorry to hear that

He was so energetic and full of energy when I knew him. It's hard to hear that he was so depleted at the end.

Was he married still at the time he died? I know he and Harriet got divorced and I thought he married again, sometime when he went to New York.

[wicket]

21. He had a stroke a few years back

He had a stroke a few years back that was incredibly debilitating (he could barely speak) but he didn't let that douse his spirit at all. He had remarried- Randy, such a sweet woman. I'm going to send her a card.

[CTyankee]

24. If you could only have heard him sing opera while playing the piano

What an experience! It is so hard for me to imagine him as debilitated, altho I saw an interview with him a couple of years back when he was in a wheelchair. It must have been before his really debilitating stroke.

I loved that he quoted Emily Dickinson at the funeral of his son. How very typical of him. She is an American classic, as he is (even tho Emily was not religious).

[LiberalHeart]

20. I wonder if Harriet is the wife I heard about...

A friend of Bill's (the late Richard Sewall) told me he attended one of Bill's weddings, and was beside Bill's ex-wife at the ceremony. She looked at her ex, then leaned over to Richard and whispered, "Bill Coffin is the best mistake I ever made."

[CTyankee]

26. You knew Richard Sewall?

I am so impressed! What was he like? He is one of my heroes. I used his bio of Emily Dickinson in a major paper I did on Emily Dickinson in grad school. What a wonderful writer and man!

Harriet might have been that woman. She and Coffin were married in the early 1970s. He was divorced from his first wife. It was a very rocky time for both of them, for different reasons. Harriet had her own private devils at that time.

I dedicated the section I wrote about Emily Dickinson to Sewall "in memoriam" in my Master's final project. I loved his book (altho it was long it was quite a read!).

[LiberalHeart]

29. Yes, Richard was a long-time friend, dearly loved, greatly missed.

I'm glad you enjoyed his Dickinson book because I was a research assistant on that project. It was the greatest experience of my life. I didn't start working with him until he was nearing the end of the nearly two-decades long project. I got involved in the final three or four years.

One day Richard handed me a book that had been in Emily's own library. It had her penciled notes in the margins. He gave it to me to take away with me for a week because he wanted me to look for "borrowings" in the book (it had been one of Emily's favorites; Richard wondered if it had prompted any of her writing). Holding that book was akin to going to church. Or would have been, if I'd been religious.

He also sent me to Harvard to work with the Dickinson family papers housed there. None of Austin's letters had ever been deciphered because his handwriting was like chicken scratch. It took me a while, but I finally figured it out and transcribed the letters. When going through the boxes of papers, I found one piece of paper that was folded and held together with a straight pin. When I opened it, I was astonished to see that that it was a poem in Emly's hand. She had written it to Susan. Again, a wonderful experience -- and Richard is who made it possible.

What was he like? Witty, brilliant, loving, generous -- a man who looked for the very best in people, and wouldn't give up until he found it. When I complained to him once about all the words I can't spell, he told me to celebrate the ones I can spell. That was his attitude: look for the positive.

It was through him that I met Bill Coffin. We also had a mutual friend in Richard Selzer.

[CTyankee]

37. I wish I had known him when he was alive

but he was quite elderly when I was doing my project. It's too bad, he was right there in Bethany, not far from Westville in New Haven where I live.

Wow, just getting so close to ED to hold a piece of paper she wrote a poem on gives me a shiver! My copy of Johnson's variorum is on a shelf near my bed, right next to a complete works of Shakespeare. I posted her "We like March. His shoes are purple" in General Discussion at the beginning of March!

Sewall's book was one of the best biographies I've ever read. It was so distinctively compassionate, intelligent and respectful of her.

I always like to ask any reader of Dickinson which poem of hers they like the best, altho it is so difficult to choose. "I dwell in possibility" is a favorite of mine. "AFter great pain" is another, but so dark that it is sometimes painful to read. What are your favorites?

Are you in Connecticut?

[LiberalHeart]

40. I don't have a favorite....

"After great pain" is one that stays with me, and it goes through my mind at random moments. But that happens with many of her poems. When I'm out driving and see the sun shining through a cloud on an angle, I automatically think, "There's a certain slant of light" -- and "worries one like a wasp that will not state its sting" goes through my mind whenever I see the critters flying about. It's little things like that telling me I see her work as a whole, not an individual poem. It's all woven into some level of my thinking.

I spent some time at the Bethany house. That's not where he was at the end; he had gone to live with one of his sons. That house was wonderful: a fireplace so huge, one could stand up in it. Walls filled iwth book shelves, except for a wall that was mostly glass -- and outside a significant waterfall. Richard's wife Til was a sculptor and much of her work was displayed. He also had a son who's a painter, and that work was there, too.

Richard was quite a walker. When I went to dinner at his place the first time, he told me he liked to take strolls before eating and wanted to know if I wanted to come early enough to join him. We set out on what was a five-mile "stroll" at a very brisk pace, up and down some mighty hills. I certainly worked up an appetite.

After his wife died, he fell in love with a very young woman. VERY young. But he broke off the relationship because of the age difference. I'll never forget his explanation: "I listened to the wisdom of my cells."

No, I'm not in CT. I'm in Ohio. I had been writing to David Porter at the U. of Mass. about Dickinson, and he told me thought Richard Sewall at Yale was someone I needed to know. Soooo, I sent off a letter to Sewall and he shot back a letter saying, "I'm doing a Dickinson biography. If you want to help, come to New Haven." So I packed up and headed East. It was a most unexpected invitation and I don't know if he ever expected me to take him up on it. But he didn't seem at all surprised when I called him and told him I was coming.

[CTyankee]

45. I have the same reaction to "a certain slant of light"

but strangely never in winter. The "heft of cathedral tunes" has got to be one of the most marvelous poetic images ever written.

What do you think of the bio of ED by Alfred Habegger? Helen Vendler tore it apart with her review, when it came out. I read it but it certainly did not have the "heart" of Sewall's.

During the time I was doing my study, I was redoing a powder room in my house and came up with the gradiose idea of doing a mural of ED's garden in "Within my garden rides a bird," one of her two hummingbird poems. I thought I would hang the poem in a frame on the opposite wall. Mercifully, I abandoned the project for something more level headed, but I still think about how really lovely that scene could be!

[wicket]

11. I used to trick or treat at his house

He lived only a few miles from my parents, just an all around kind, good man.

This is the eulogy he gave at his son's funeral, it's so incredibly moving.

http://www.pbs.org/now/society/eulogy.html

or some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn't go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fists around knives, his hands on steering wheels. God is dead set against all unnatural deaths. And Christ spent an inordinate amount of time delivering people from paralysis, insanity, leprosy, and muteness. Which is not to say that there are no nature-caused deaths — I can think of many right here in this parish in the five years I've been here — deaths that are untimely and slow and pain-ridden, which for that reason raise unanswerable questions, and even the specter of a Cosmic Sadist — yes, even an Eternal Vivisector. But violent deaths, such as the one Alex died — to understand those is a piece of cake. As his younger brother put it simply, standing at the head of the casket at the Boston funeral, "You blew it, buddy. You blew it." The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is "It is the will of God." Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break.

I mentioned the healing flood of letters. Some of the very best, and easily the worst, knew their Bibles better than the human condition. I know all the "right" biblical passages, including "Blessed are those who mourn," and my faith is no house of rest, came from fellow reverends, a few of whom proved they knew their cards; these passages are true, I know. But the point is this. While the words of the Bible are true, grief renders them unreal. The reality of grief is the absence of God — "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The reality of grief is the solitude of pain, the feeling that your heart is in pieces, your mind's a blank, that "there is no joy the world can give like that it takes away." (Lord Byron).

That's why immediately after such a tragedy people must come to your rescue, people who only want to hold your hand, not to quote anybody or even say anything, people who simply bring food and flowers — the basics of beauty and life — people who sign letters simply, "Your brokenhearted sister." In other words, in my intense grief I felt some of my fellow reverends — not many, and none of you, thank God — were using comforting words of Scripture for self-protection, to pretty up a situation whose bleakness they simply couldn't face. But like God herself, Scripture is not around for anyone's protection, just for everyone's unending support.

And that's what hundreds of you understood so beautifully. You gave me what God gives all of us — minimum protection, maximum support. I swear to you, I wouldn't be standing here were I not upheld.

Rest in Peace, Rev. :patriot:

:cry:

[WiseButAngrySara]

33. Thanks so much for posting this. I had never read it. ....n/t

[Mnemosyne]

14. Who says only the good die young. Rest in peace sweet man. n/t

[pinto]

22. I'll be...Rest in Peace Rev. Coffin. and Thanks!...

[struggle4progress]

23. "None of Us Have the Right to Avert Our Gaze"

October 19, 2005
An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin

... Sacrifice in and of itself confers no sanctity. Even though thousands of Americans and Iraqis are killed and wounded, the blood shed doesn't make the cause one wit more or less sacred. Yet that truth is so difficult to accept when sons and daughters, husbands, friends, when so many of our fellow-citizens are among the sacrificed.

Because her son was killed Cindy Sheehan is not called unpatriotic. What the rest of us have to remember is that dissent in a democracy is not unpatriotic, what is unpatriotic is subservience to a bad policy ...

I am very much in favor of well thought out non-violent civil disobedience, of occupying congressional offices, telling lawmakers, "You have to stop the slaughter, to admit mistakes and to right the wrong."

Unfortunately, to get media attention, you have to sensationalize the valuable. But town meetings, letters to the editor, flooding Washington with protest letters and marches ­ all that is still very important if the protest continues and gains momentum ...

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader10192005.html

[IndianaGreen]

25. and he was a member of Skull and Bones

which sort of debunks the widely-held belief that any Bonesman is by definition a wicked person.

[karynnj]

39. I t makes you wonder what connection if any he had with Kerry

seeing that they shared that and roles in the anti-war movement.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

27. The old greats of the Peace Movement are moving on ..........

My old pal (and client) Dan Berrigan isn't doing well.

But, didn't they do a wonderful job, and don't you know that DU is part of their wonderful legacy?

[Critters2]

28. I had lunch with him at the UCC Rural Pastors Institute

We just happened to sit across from each other. Had a long talk about writing sermons. He told me I work too hard at it, and worry too much. But what I really remember is his thunderous laugh!

[Theres-a]

30. Well done

Rest in peace.

[OneBlueSky]

31. we lost one of the good ones . . . RIP, Rev. Coffin . . . n/t

.

[Jack Rabbit]

32. A great conscience passes

[DerekG]

34. How appropriate that he die on Holy Week

God bless, man of peace.

[Rainscents]

35. God bless and rest in peace.

[wicket]

36. Kick for Bill

:kick:

[CTyankee]

38. I had a note from him from 1974

I had written to him after I left CALC and went to work at the ACLU in New York. I was Aryeh Neier's assistant. Bill admired Aryeh and wrote "He is so good. And you are good too." I treasure that little note so much!

[AnneD]

41. Wasn't the Reverend...

in Doonsebury patterned after him. I seem to remember reading that at one time. Another sad passing...

[LiberalHeart]

42. Yes, there's mention of that in the article. (n/t)

[AnneD]

43. Thanks..

I scanned it in between kids comming in an must have missed it. I remember the red muffler though.

[CTyankee]

46. I was hoping that Trudeau would do something

on Rev. Sloane. Maybe he will. He does a lot of "passages" with his characters, one of the things I like so much about Trudeau.

[DinahMoeHum]

44. "The best patriots....carry on... a lover's quarrel with their country."

From The Nation (July 15,1991)"What Is Patriotism?"

Link:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:sjAJz_0AF3sJ:www.thenation.com/doc/19910715/forum/2+patriot%2Blover%27s%2Bquarrel&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5

(snip)
William Sloane Coffin
Minister, president, SANE/FREEZE advisory board

"The worst patriots are those who hold certainty dearer than truth, who, in order to spare themselves the pain of thought, are willing to inflict untold sufferings on others. Adolf Eichmann comes to mind.

But if uncritical lovers of their country are the most dangerous of patriots, loveless critics are hardly the best. If you love the good you have to hate evil, else you're sentimental; but if you hate evil more than you love the good, you're a good hater.

Surely the best patriots are those who carry on not a grudge fight but a lover's quarrel with their country. And the main burden of their quarrel in today's and tomorrow's world must be to persuade their fellow citizens that the planet itself is now at risk, and in an order of magnitude never previously even imagined. Hence, everyone's security depends on everyone else's. No one is safe until all are safe.

The ancient Roman Tacitus defined patriotism as entering into praiseworthy competition with our ancestors. I think we should enter into praiseworthy competition with Washington and Jefferson. As they declared their independence from England, let us declare our interdependence with all countries. Beyond saluting the flag, let us pledge allegiance "to the earth, and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports; one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water, liberty, justice and peace for all."

Today our most relevant American patriot might well be Thoreau, who, a hundred years ago, said, "I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour.""
(snip)

:patriot::patriot::patriot: