Legacy

Leaving a legacy to build upon

By Jenna Cho

Publication: The Day

Published 02/04/2012 12:00 AM

Updated 02/04/2012 12:12 AM

Old Lyme - On any given Sunday, David W. Good might summon the words of T.S. Eliot. And Emily Dickinson, Theodore Roethke and Robert Frost.

If he weren't also referencing the Bible, you might mistake Good, with that gravelly voice of his, for a college professor rather than the longtime senior minister of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme.

This lover of poetry finds as much meaning in the words of great poets as he does in the interpretations of the words of God.

"We don't need to rely exclusively on the literature of the Bible for inspiration," says Good, whose philosophical interest in religion led him to where he is today.

After 37 years challenging all sorts of stereotypes about religious institutions, Good, 62, will retire in June, leaving behind a legacy of powerful, thought-provoking sermons and an insatiable desire to tackle current and long-standing social justice issues head on. Senior Associate Minister Carleen R. Gerber will serve as the interim senior minister until the church chooses a permanent replacement.

Both Gerber and Associate Minister Rebecca T. Crosby said they are not interested in taking Good's place.

"The fact that he's courageously stood for human rights over these 37 years is extraordinarily valuable," Gerber said of Good. "He sort of brought the gospel down to the level that we all live at, as well as asking us to stretch ourselves to live the gospel beyond what we see here locally."

Where many churches support mission work by donating money, Good and his 900-member congregation took the work upon themselves.

"(He) was a leader in getting us to a new way of doing mission work," church administrator Robert McCracken said. "It put us ... on an equal basis with the partners that we were dealing with, and the goal was for us to learn as much about them and their culture as for them to learn about us."

The first partnership, established in 1985 and continuing today, was with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. The church also established a partnership with a Methodist church in South Africa in the 1980s, at the height of apartheid.

Crosby said mission work was a way to stay current with the world today instead of "building barriers up so the church is protected from the world out there as a sacred institution."

"We are a living, breathing church in the troubled world. And I think that's been a huge part of his ministry," Crosby said of Good. "I don't think that you can be a church that's relevant in the world today if you don't make a stand and act on it. Otherwise, we're just pretty buildings in the town."

Interfaith efforts

Perhaps most visible - and controversial - of the mission work is the series of interfaith dialogues Good helped establish with Muslim, Jewish and Palestinian communities after 9/11. Locally, the dialogues have involved leaders such as Imran Ahmed, former president of the Islamic Center of New London, and Jerry Fischer, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut.

The church developed the annual Tree of Life conference, which brings in speakers from across the country and world and organizes annual trips to Israel and Palestine in an effort to build bridges and forge understanding. Both Ahmed and Fischer have been on those trips with Good.

"It is one of the most successful things that has been done anywhere in the U.S., really paying a very balanced view on this very inflammatory and difficult situation in the Middle East," Ahmed said.

Fischer said he hasn't always agreed with Good, who he said "has great sympathy for the Palestinian side of the conflict." But his friendship and relationship with Good and the First Congregational Church have endured because of the desire on both sides to break down racial and religious stereotypes. Together, Fischer and Good recently officiated an interfaith wedding between a Jewish man and Christian woman.

The two also led an "interfaith build" for Habitat for Humanity a few years back, bringing to the build site Muslims, Jews and Christians - people who may not otherwise have ever met, Fischer said.

"You can't demonize somebody once you really know them," Fischer said of the importance of bringing people together. "When you don't know them, it's very easy to demonize."

Good has raised eyebrows for what some have seen as the distasteful combination of religion and politics. But to members of the church, mission work isn't so much about politics as it is about tackling social injustices.

"People say you can't be political," said Crosby. "We don't think of ourselves as political, but we do think we're a social-justice church. To be a social-justice church, you have to work in the same arena as politicians."

The work isn't over, but Good realizes solving the world's problems is an impossible task for one man.

"If we think we can accomplish them on our own," he said, "we're arrogant and foolish."

Inspiration from Frost

While his church has been his life for 37 years, the Indianapolis native has a wife with whom he wants to spend more time and an ailing mother to whom he must attend.

And so he references Frost's poem "After Apple Picking" while talking about retiring when there's "more to be done":

"My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still.

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now."

Though those who have worked with Good say they are saddened by his imminent departure, they add that he's built such a strong foundation that the church will carry on the mission work he helped start.

"The way we're looking at it, of course we'll miss him," McCracken said. "We'll miss him terribly. That just absolutely goes without saying. … But when we look at how far the church has come under his leadership and the kinds of things that we're doing and the kind of momentum that we have, we're also looking at this as an opportunity to continue this legacy and build on it."

j.cho@theday.com