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Eulogy at Anna Woodiwiss Memorial Service
Steven
Harsono
April 19, 2008
St. Mark’s, Glen Ellyn, IL
My name is Steven Harsono. I first became friends with Anna
Woodiwiss in 2004 while working together at the International
Centre for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. I had heard
much about Anna through her father, Ashley, who was my most
cherished professor and mentor at Wheaton College, where I graduated
in 2005. Anna was the apple of her father’s eye, and long
before I had even met her, I had heard so much about her character,
verve, and love of life, much of which has been recounted in
these past few weeks.
Over the years, Ashley and Mary have found ways to weave me
into the loving fabric of their family, which is saying a lot
for a family of seven children. It’s actually eight children
if you count Ashley. I often think Mary should tell people she
is the chief executive of a burgeoning not for profit organization.
Anna’s youngest brother Gabriel is my godson and I pay
close attention to what is happening in the lives of Ariel,
Noah, Catherine, Camille, Daniel, and Gabriel. In the last few
years, whenever Anna I got together, one of our standing topics
of conversation was about “the kids.”
I took all my cues on how to interact with the Woodiwiss children
from Anna. While I lived in Chicago and Anna in D.C. and later
Kabul, I felt like I could in a very small way work on her behalf
to convey the loving responsibility she felt for all her siblings
from a distance, particularly Camille, Daniel, and Gabriel who
were still living at home.
When I last saw Anna this past January, we were having dinner
in my apartment in downtown Chicago. She specifically told me
of her concern for Daniel’s growth at this particular
stage of his adolescence. I know that Anna would have been proud
to see the quiet yet courageous servant leader that has emerged
in Daniel since Anna’s death. I witnessed this last weekend
as I saw Daniel read the list of candles that had been lit around
the world in Anna’s memory, which he compiled on his own,
and as I watched him through my own tears as he shoveled dirt
into Anna’s grave, the only Woodiwiss child to do so.
As Noah told me last Sunday, when Daniel cries, the whole family
cries.
I have received so much by basking in the joy of the Woodiwiss
household. As many of you know, St. Mark’s, the church
in which we now honor Anna’s life, has been through some
tough times over the years. Many here today have been hurt by
what has happened within these walls, and many have hurt each
other. Yet Anna, even in her death, has been able to catalyze
the difficult work of forgiveness and reconciliation here in
our midst today. May that work continue with fervor and enthusiasm
in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
I have attended St. Mark’s since 2002, after Ashley
channeled my mother’s Catholic faith to lure me onto the
Canterbury trail. At the times when I found it most difficult
to stay at St. Mark’s, there were three things that kept
me in the pews each week: the Holy Eucharist, the Nicene Creed,
and the promise of an invitation to brunch at the Woodiwiss
house. There’s nothing quite like a little Around the
World basketball, grits casserole, long walks and talks with
Mary, and yes, even a game of LIFE with Gabriel to motivate
me to come to church.
I have personally experienced and understood why Anna loved
her family so much. The love that Anna so extravagantly lavished
on her multitude of friends across the globe was an overflow
of the love she experienced in her own family.
Like Anna, I am the oldest child in my family. Growing up, I
never had an older sibling to look up to. Anna was the closest
thing I had to a big sister. I have heard Anna described to
me this way by several people many times since the news of her
death.
As someone who was a few years ahead of me in life who had similar
passions and aspirations, her wisdom and counsel were invaluable
to me. Our mutual affection for all things politics and religion,
our insatiable craving to see the entire world, and our ambitious
belief that we could change the world to the glory of God made
it so that our conversations were never quite sufficient and
our time together always seemed to be abruptly cut short.
As I plan to take up a post with the William J. Clinton Foundation
in Jakarta, Indonesia two weeks from now, I wish Anna were around
to help me navigate through these uncharted waters in my life.
Working cross-culturally in an emerging context, finding time
to balance work and life, and dealing with the idiosyncrasies
of non-profits, are all things I wish I could talk through with
Anna right now.
In her last message to me on the day before she died, just
after I had told her about my new job, she wrote: “Amazing!
Congratulations! Would love to talk soon—this is a big
deal, and a big change. Very excited for you. I have already
started dreaming of a vacation trip to Indonesia, but will let
you get settled first…”
Now that’s what I call a big sister.
I am sad that Anna will not be able to come visit me in Jakarta,
and am even more sad that I never made it to Kabul like I had
intended to do. But at the suggestion of Rory Stewart, the fastidious
and tireless chief executive of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation,
I will soon go to Kabul and see the many things that Anna accomplished
there. When the time is right, I hope that at least some of
the Woodiwi will accompany me on this journey.
Anna well understood the uncertainties she was inviting into
her life as a young American woman moving to Afghanistan. She
at times talked about the security risks cavalierly, and perhaps
downplayed them a bit for the sake of her family and friends.
However, she did possess a fierce courage, not one born out
of raw human will, but rather, a deep and abiding knowledge
of her Lord and Savior. Anna was not afraid to die.
As such, I have often been left to wonder at the banal and
utterly accidental way in which she died. Of all the unspeakable
things that could have happened to her in Afghanistan, being
thrown off the horse she rode every morning should remind all
of us that we should not be afraid die. That doesn’t mean
we all have to pack up and move to Kabul or Baghdad, but the
risks that Anna took were undoubtedly immense, and if others
are being called to follow in similar footsteps, her death should
not give us any reason for hesitation. To the contrary, may
we have the selfless, Gospel-centered courage to be more like
Anna in our life and work, whatever that may be.
I have no doubt that Anna passed into the arms of God at the
moment in her earthly life when she most deeply grasped what
she had been created to do. In that sense, I can think of no
better time for Anna to be called home to worship God in His
mansions of glory.
Yet we ought not to proceed as if we are without grief or
sadness. The loss of life is tragic and if Anna were here she
would tell us not to mince words about the sorrows we are experiencing.
In the immediate aftermath of Anna’s death, one of the
places that I requested that candles be lit in Anna’s
memory was the Chapel of Dominus Flevit in Jerusalem. Latin
for the Lord wept, this tear-shaped chapel tucked away on the
Mount of Olives prominently features a broad, panoramic window
overlooking the Old City. It is here that we remember where
Jesus weeps over Jerusalem in the moments leading up to his
crucifixion, as is written in the 19th chapter of Luke.
The proclamation of the incarnation confronts us with the reality
that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully human. As we mourn,
may we remember that God in Christ weeps with us. We are not
alone. Our tears are his tears, our cries are his cries, our
shouts are his shouts.
So, let us cry with passion and live, as Anna did, in the
face of the abyss of death with audacious courage, and in so
doing, walk along that same, well-trodden path from Good Friday
to the dawn of the resurrection, in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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