The following is a summary of the late David Clark's life, delivered at his funeral by close friend The Revd Dr Allan Davidson, whom Clark had asked to prepare and present it. It has been edited to publication length by GayNZ.com. [Editor's note: In her funeral address David Clark's sister Marylyn recalled her younger brother as being a premature baby who was a frail child. After the loss of their mother and when he was still little more than a toddler David was one day taken to a Catholic church service and was transfixed by the candles, bells and the other ritual objects and pageantry. He subsequently set up an altar-style space at home. As a youth he mastered a marked stutter and became an accomplished public speaker. ] Rev. David Clark David John Clark was born on the 20th of July 1947 in Wellington. He attended Ngaio Primary School [where, his sister recalled, he learned to swear], Onslow College and studied at Victoria University, graduating B.A. with a major in history. He was a student at the Presbyterian Theological Hall, Knox College, Dunedin, from 1970 to 1972, completing a Licentiate in Theology. In 1973 he was ordained at Knox Church, Dannevirke, as Associate Minister. He was inducted into the Waverely Cooperating Parish in 1976; became minister of St Albans Parish in Christchurch in 1982; and moved to Auckland and became the minister of St Luke’s, Remuera, in 1988. David completed a Master of Theology degree through Westminster College, University of Oxford in 1994. Those bare details give the very basic facts about David’s study and ministry but tell little of David the man, who so many of us loved and admired. David, with his fondness for micro management and attention to detail, was quite clear in what he wanted for this service: “Simple casket please. No casket wreath or spray. Place my rainbow stole on top of the casket”; and then a typical David detail: “probably need to blu-tac it down! If there is Jasmine available," he continued, "a simple bunch of Jasmine would be nice. Jasmine was all Jenny had in her bouquet when we got married).” David married Jenny in 1972. Photos from that day record a slim, long-haired, bearded man, not unlike a romanticised portrait of a Victorian Jesus. Their marriage ended ten years later but David always spoke very affectionately about Jenny. He valued their ongoing friendship and the support that she gave him. David also requested: "As many candles burning in the church as possible." There was a romantic, medieval, Catholic quality in David’s appreciation for the symbolic use of candles. In this he was unashamedly, very un-Presbyterian. There was a Catholic quality to David’s churchmanship, in the broad, universal sense of the word “Catholic”. David drew on the richness of the Catholic tradition to enhance the worship experience. David was a superb liturgist with a wonderful feel for the use of language. He typically specified for one hymn today, the “inclusified version”. He felt the pain of exclusiveness. There was always a rich personal quality to David’s funeral and wedding services. He was both preacher and celebrant. He followed the discipline of using the lectionary. Weekly communion with the Wednesday group and monthly Sunday Communion were essential to his life. In the instructions for his funeral David continues: “Could the casket be placed with feet facing the congregation, please, (It’s an old custom for funerals for clergy. This is the traditionalist in me coming out!)" David wanted to face his congregation and those who gathered with him for one last time. “Let the organ blow!” David instructed, noting also, “But also, if there is time, two CD tracks.” David loved the organ and good quality music. His radio was permanently stuck on Concert FM. One of the very last CDs he played was a recently released organ recording by Martin Setchell. During Professor Lloyd Geering’s trial for heresy in Christchurch in 1967, a photo was taken which shows Lloyd addressing the General Assembly, with his accusers seated in the front pew. On the table between them is a bouquet of flowers. David Clark, a young university student then in Wellington, along with two other students, was responsible for sending those flowers to Lloyd. Faith for David was to be explored critically with an open mind. There was a deeply mystical spiritual side to David. But while David could be solitary he also desired companionship. He was unsuccessful in establishing the permanent relationship he so much desired. He felt the loneliness of going home to an empty house. David was deeply grateful in the last couple of months for those who slept over at his house and kept him company when it was not wise for him to be alone. Sadly, he died alone. This church and its people became his wider family. David helped make this Centre, through which some 70,000 people pass during the year, a place of hospitality and welcome. David frequently loitered with intent. He was often available in the Common Room, having endless cups of coffee – and in earlier days a cigarette – and more importantly conversations with whoever turned up. He was accessible to those who needed him. When there was an urgent pastoral problem David responded with sensitivity, compassion and deep empathy. There was also something very special for David about the communities beyond St Luke’s to which he belonged. Over the last few days as messages have flooded into St Luke’s we’ve become even more aware of the way in which David had a big reach. The Auckland Community Church and the gay community, the Interfaith AIDS Ministry Network and the New Zealand Association of Counsellors are just a few of the groups where David’s contributions were valued. David’s ministry reached both those in the church and those alienated by it. David could be irreverent, and earthy; he could be humorous and delight in pricking the bubble of pomposity, while retaining a little pomposity himself. To see David laugh was to see his whole face light up and his eyes twinkle. He enjoyed a good whisky and fine food. He loved being fussed over and taken care of in a motherly way by his older female parishioners. He related superbly with young people. Thailand and Cambodia had a special place in David’s heart. He gave so much to the Pakpingjai Project and sponsored Sarun to come from Cambodia to New Zealand to learn English and he continued to support Sarun and his young family. David wrote in his instructions for today: "I have never considered myself particularly remarkable or brave, although for some reason some other people seem to have, especially in my stand for gay Christians in the first part of the 1990s and latterly, apparently, through ‘pushing boundaries’ of faith." At some levels David was quite a retiring, reflective person. Yet while he didn’t consider himself brave, many of us who have known David would disagree. Coming out as a gay man at the Invercargill Presbyterian General Assembly in 1991 was an act of great courage. David was unwilling to back down and to compromise. He stood at that Assembly before the Moderator confronting the Assembly with the reality they were debating. David was deeply wounded by the church. He felt acutely the rejection that not only he but other gay and lesbian Christians experienced. Hurtful things were said about him and sent to him. Yet David by his courage helped give gay Christians a place to stand in the church. The ecumenical national Gay Christian Conference he hosted here at St Lukes in 1991 told the church that gay Christians were not going to go away. A hymn which David and Witi Ihimaera wrote for that conference includes the lines: God who made us is here among us, we stand together in God's grace. Now let us sing to God who loves us and accepts us as we are. Go out from here and live that message, proclaim our oneness near and far. For a time David withdrew from the courts of the church – hurt, angry, sad at the way in which he and others were being treated. This community however loved and embraced him and became even more his family. He sometimes wondered what it was that he had done to deserve this without realising that he was the reason for this. What he gave so selflessly to others – his love and friendship – was returned to him in abundance. He also taught me a lesson in forgiveness as he came to a position where he let go of any bitterness and recrimination he felt towards those who had hurt him. He realised that to be truly inclusive he had to accept and work with those who were hostile to what he stood for. David eventually became the Convenor of the Auckland Presbytery Executive. His super management skills came to the fore. Although some people he now worked with disagreed with David theologically on attitudes of inclusiveness and the recognition of gay people in ordained leadership they recognised David’s integrity, his considerable gifts and his love, albeit a critical love, for the church. If the Presbyterian Church wants to honour David, then it will revisit its attitude towards gay Christians in ordained leadership and promote the inclusive church which David himself embodied. Life for David over these last fourteen months has not been easy. He wrote a month ago about “Having nearly died twice last February, having come through open heart surgery in November only to experience heart failure in December and again in January”. During these months one of his closest longstanding friends was diagnosed with incurable leukaemia. Two deeply respected friends and colleagues died of cancer late last year. “I don’t need anyone or anything,” he wrote, “to remind me of the fragility and uncertainty of life”. David often struggled with his black dog, melancholia and pessimism, which at times threatened to overwhelm him but he faced life courageously and death realistically. In probably the last reflection he wrote, David described how: "A month or so ago after I went back to hospital with heart failure after an apparently successful heart valve replacement, on a lonely night when nobody could tell me what was wrong with me and everything felt very bleak, I picked up a notebook and a pen and started randomly writing: I have seen Margot Fonteyn dance I have watched the sun rise and set over Angkor Wat I climbed the Great Wall I have loved and I have been loved I have heard Monteverdi’s Vespers I have broken bread beside the Sea of Galilee I have canoed around Queen Charlotte Sound I have heard the dawn chorus in the Taurarua Ranges I have drunk and talked late into the night and laughed and cried with some incomparable men and women who are part of me forever I have seen the crown of the Holy Roman Empire I have earned a Masters from Oxford I have been the minister of St Lukes Using the traditional words for the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, David concluded: "The point is, Remember O mortal, you are dust, and to dust you shall return is as much, if not more so, a call to remember and to be grateful and to celebrate and to praise as it is to sombre reflection and penitence." Out of his own illness, David was countering his melancholia with his remembrance of the ways in which he was blessed. The words of Psalm 139 verse fourteen were being lived out: "I thank you: for the wonder of myself, for the wonder of your works." *** David, I have been for most of my ministry a lecturer and not a preacher and you asked me to speak, not preach. But you have preached today through your life and your words, through the readings, music and hymns you have chosen, through the people who have gathered to honour you. Last Wednesday when I went to your house I feared that the outcome would not be the happy one we wished for. You have died. But you have given a great gift to all of us, yourself. We enfold you in the memories which we can record in our list like you did on that lonely night in hospital and write for ourselves: I have known David Clark Thanks be to God for David’s life and faith and the ways in which he has touched our lives. - The Reverend Dr Allan Davidson ONZM GayNZ.com Daily News staff - 22nd March 2012
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 22nd March 2012 - 11:17pm