The Passing of a beloved priest

The Passing of a Priest

Thoughts on Father Andrew Doran McDonald Graham

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            Father Drew is how we knew him. He was a priest. He had been in World War II, a Scots born soldier in the British Army, a medic who was shot twice but survived the war. He was a husband to his wife for sixty-six years; a father, grandfather, and a great grandfather; a Christian laborer, a lover of all sorts of sports, and a much beloved man in every circle of life he entered. He was once young and I saw pictures when he was young but the ones available to me in writing this piece, were of him in his older age. The photograph below is the face of this man I knew. His eyes often flashed with a sense of earnestness and playfulness, seriousness but also a bit of the mischievous.

 

            Today I went to his funeral. It was a privilege for me to attend the services of a man treasured by those who knew him. He had lived a full life. He had celebrated his ninetieth birthday on July 4 of this year. He worked in journalism early in his life. He went to a Billy Graham crusade in London in 1954. He went as an observer, confident that he could observe the phenomenon of the crusade. He returned from the crusade a believer in Christ and spent most of the rest of his life involved in some sort of Christian labors.

            Father Drew was a unique man. I don’t like the idea of writing about him in the past tense. I don’t like the idea partly because I don’t like that he will not walk into our sanctuary or into one of our church dinners, or be at the center of a Celtic evening-song ever again, at least on this side of eternity. I also don’t like writing of him in the past tense because he was a man who shared his life with others until his life became part of our lives and his life shaped our lives until every-one who knew Father Drew probably carried a little bit of the life of Father Drew within them. So even if it is proper to speak about him in the past, it is somehow if taken too literally a lie. Father Drew has become a part of who we are, especially for his dear family including children, grand-children, and the great grand-child who was there as an infant upon this day. He is also part of who we are, for those of us who were parishioners at St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

            Father Drew’s early service in Christian ministries had been within Charismatic Evangelical circles. Eventually he fell in love with the Anglican Book of Prayer and felt that it would be important for him to place himself under the ministry of a godly Bishop whose work it would be to watch over those who served Christ in the ministry. He was brought into the Charismatic Episcopal Church and then later was received into the clergy at St. Michael’s within the Reformed Episcopal Church.

            Father Drew was a unique man among the clergymen I have known. Our rector at St. Michael’s, Father Jack Bradberry, enjoys telling the story of how he met Father Drew. Father Bradberry was at an ordination service when Father Drew walked in. His vestments were different from most of the vestments of other priests that day. He looked more like a monk than an Anglican priest. So Father Bradberry asked him which order he belonged to. Father Drew responded by saying, “I am a prophet.” Our rector imagined he had met a crazy and backed away. He was unique. But if you had reason to suspect his sanity when he said he was a prophet, it was perhaps because you had never had the experience of Father Drew praying over you. For a number of years at St. Michael’s when the services were closing or already over there was a place where Father Drew would pray over those requesting prayer. He would begin praying for you according to your request and you would begin to feel the presence of the Divine in the encounter. More than once someone rose up from being prayed over by Father Drew with astonishment about how he seemed to pray not just over you but from within your inner being. It was in this way that this man of prayer seemed to be a prophet. He didn’t foretell the future, but he prayed for those he knew as if we were in the Divine presence. One of his grandchildren described a similar experience of feeling as if he were in the presence of God when Father Drew prayed over him.

            Anglicanism, depending upon the wing of Anglicanism one is in can be an expression of traditionalism. Our Anglicanism at St. Michael’s can be described as traditionalist. But Father Drew was as I say unique. Within Anglicanism on a Sunday morning worship service there are readings known as the Propers. These are the preferred texts upon which one is to preach. I heard Father Drew preach several times. I even heard him preach from the Proper texts once. He was unashamed that his preaching style was allegorical. It was also deeply personal, warm, inviting and always instructive regarding the human condition and life in Jesus Christ.

            Father Drew could hold his viewpoints strongly and there were times when he said things that rubbed people the wrong way. But generally speaking his unquestionable love for people, his graciousness towards anyone he ever met, the flash of his kind eyes, and the beauty of his spirit enabled most of those who disagreed with a point he may have expressed to still find the man endearing. It seems to me a reminder of how grace is brought into this world in human jars of clay. The jars of clay are not usually ornate. Most of us are the sort of pottery sold in Dollar stores not Ming vases. But the value of a clay jar is when there is living water capable of becoming in a moment of blessing either the water of life or fine wine according to the Master’s blessing. I believe that those who knew him whether his family members or his companions in the Christian life knew him to be such a vessel of blessing.

            I looked especially at the great grandchild, an infant during today’s service. What does an infant know of what is taking place at a funeral. At first glance the infant and the funeral service were contradictions. But the reality, I believe especially in this instance, is that Father Drew’s life was invested in his love for others into the lives of others. His life has been in ways we do not know imparted and shared and active in our own lives. It is a mistake to imagine that we begin to learn about Christianity or the life of Christ only when we make our own personal decisions to follow Christ. For that great grandchild does not know that Father Drew's influence felt upon virtually every one of his sons and daughters, and grandchildren, is already shaping that great grandchild within the life of the ongoing Christian tradition.

            I am grateful to have known Father Drew; that is Father Andrew Doran McDonald Graham. I am nearing the crossroads of life when I transition from middle aged man to an older man. As I move in and towards that transition I feel like I have had few men to better show me the way to be an older man than I have known in Father Drew. I can almost imagine him now among the spirits of just men made perfect; joining in the prayers of the heavenly city where the Lamb sitting enthroned makes intercession for the people of God struggling upon the earth. It is not hard to imagine that Father Drew feels at home joining the intercessory prayers of our High Priest expressing the prayers of God’s people around the globe upon the throne of grace as they ascend to our Father which art in heaven.