IN MEMORIAM: ROBERT L. CAREY

by the Rt. Rev. Alan M. Gates, Bridge Pastor

September 12, 2026

In my Father’s house are many dwelling places, we heard in our reading this afternoon from John’s Gospel.  Or, in other translations, In my Father’s house are many rooms.  I go there to prepare a place for you, says Jesus, that where I am you may also be.  [Jn 14:2-3]

            There is no one heavenly image which can communicate to us the fullness of the nearer life with God which is promised to us.  But this image of many dwelling places, many rooms, is vivid and rich.  Many rooms, each with a different ambience, a different reality.  In this new reality has Robert Carey dwelt since July.  Who knows what this looks like, for Robert, or what it will look like for us, in our own day.  But a place is prepared for us.

            Perhaps, for Robert, the image is that of a school room.  After all, he spent virtually his entire adult life working at an academy. 

            “In my Father’s house are many rooms.”  Perhaps, for Robert, it is a music room.  For many years a part of the parish choir in this place, he was drawn to music.  Betty thinks it was a way for him to stay connected to the memory of his mother, with whom he shared that musical joy.

            “In my Father’s house are many rooms.”  Perhaps, for Robert, that room is actually more akin to a barn or a garden. Did you know that during his brief time at Greenfield Community College, Robert studied environmental science?  The young man rented a room on a farm; he milked the goats.  His love for plants and gardening was lifelong.  After fifteen years or so living close to his work in Easthampton, Bob persuaded Betty to buy their home in Hatfield, with three acres of spacious land and gardens and orchards.  Perhaps some days he had bitten off more than he could chew, but no matter: he loved it.

            This passion also became a primary point of connection here at the church.  After Betty found St. Philip’s, she talked Bob into coming with her to a fundraising Steak Dinner.  She says, “He came for the steak; he stayed for the garden!”  While Betty did most of the digging, Bob advised her on soils, and sent many plants from his own garden for her use in landscaping the church.

             In my Father’s house are many rooms, Jesus said to the disciple Thomas.  And Jesus says the same to Bob, and to me and to you. It’s a figurative image, of course, but one that points to a new life in the nearer presence of God, where we will be at home, where we will dwell in peace.

            We heard it in our reading today from Lamentations:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, …  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

            We have heard it elsewhere from the visionary John [Revelation 7:16], who told us that in those many rooms, the people “shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; … they will be guided to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

As one acquainted with disappointment, Robert Carey is an heir to this promise. And so are you and I. The Lord will wipe away every tear from every eye, there in that place where there is no suffering, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

            Perhaps, given his love of the natural world, we hear God’s promise for Bob most keenly in our reading today from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians:  “We do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. … [F]or what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”

For one who lived so closely connected to his gardens and plants, the cycle of God’s world around us was a perpetual, living sermon for Bob – as it is for us.  In these autumn months we do, indeed, see signs of an “outer nature wasting away.”  Plants wither.  Foliage falls to the ground, detached from its lifegiving branches.  The seemingly lifeless acorn is squirreled into the ground.  Yet we know that all this is part of a larger, unseen process which will lead to renewal and rebirth, as certain as tomorrow’s sunrise.  “We do not lose heart, … for our inner nature is being renewed day by day,” says St. Paul. 

            A quiet man can be easily unnoticed, but Betty says that in his quiet, Bob had deep insights into other people, and he “thought big thoughts about life.”  Bob witnessed renewal in the natural world week after week, year after year, his whole life.  And he loved it.  And he loved being an agent of that growth and renewal in his own gardening.  That he would find his own ultimate renewal in God’s realm is the promise we claim.

Here is a verse from one of Betty’s favorite poets, Mary Oliver:    

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches –

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead –

if it’s all you can do

to keep on trudging –

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted –

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not you have ever dared to pray.[i]

“Every morning the world is created,” says the poet.

            Here then is the foundational assertion of Christianity, the affirmation which we make this day.  Christ is risen from the dead.  We are risen with him.

            If Robert has known sorrow and shared with Christ in the way of suffering, how much more will he share with Christ in his resurrection.

            If a Robert loved to sing in harmony with others and found joy there, how much more has God delivered to him the gift of everlasting harmony and peace.

            If Robert loved the beauty and renewal of God’s created world, how much more will God grant him growth and blossom beyond our comprehension, a divine renewal from strength to strength.

            Thank God this day for all the best that you have known and received from the life of Robert Carey.  Hear the words we claim for him this day:  “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the household of God.”

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[i] Mary Oliver, “Morning Poem,” in Dream Work  (NYC: Grove Atlantic, 1986; reprint, Grove Press UK, 2025), p. 6.