“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement early Sunday.
When I read the news about Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid leader and voice of justice, dead at the age of 90, I thought back to his visit to Honolulu in 2012.
I even wrote a blog post about his visit on August 6, 2012: “Music, food, and Desmond Tutu“
The biggest story in the local media this weekend has been the Hawaii visit of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu who is here at the invitation of The Very Rev. Walter Brownridge of St. Andrew’s Cathedral. The airwaves and print media have been flooded with stories about this special visitor and it seems everyone has a Desmond Tutu story.
There were four public events, including two church services at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, an interview with public television’s Leslie Wilcox and a lecture. But there were several other non-public events to which we have been involved.
For me, it was on Friday when Archbishop Tutu was the homilist at Morning Prayer at Iolani School where I am the Chapel Organist. I had heard that one of his favorite pieces was Bach’s Jesu, joy of man’s desiring, so that was what I played as the prelude. In addition to the prelude, I also played three hymns: Surely it is God who saves me (Thomas Merton); Tell out my soul (Birmingham) and All things bright and beautiful (Royal Oak). I played Dale Wood’s joyful setting of All things bright and beautiful as the postlude. Everything in the service went like clockwork and there were no glitches except for the fact that the Tutus came in about ten minutes due to traffic. Archbishop Tutu talked about today’s youth and how they are God’s gift to us as our future.
Today Carl Crosier is conducting a small faculty choir in a special service at St. Andrew’s Priory. And wherever Carl is, there is bound to be food, so he is helping to fix a special luncheon today for the Tutus and about thirty other people. Last night he stuffed nearly 80 lychees and this morning he was up early, cutting up pineapple, papaya and melons.
Unfortunately we weren’t invited to the luncheon, even though we prepared the food!
Seeing those food trays again are something which reminds me of my husband and which I haven’t brought out in years—the trays, that is!
Also I went back and reread some of the emails which were flying back and forth about Desmond Tutu. (Yes, you’re right that I still have emails from that far back since I never, ever delete important email messages!) It seems I had to ask special permission of my then-boss, The Rev. David Gierlach, to take time off work to play the service for Desmond Tutu. Apparently he must have said “Yes!” when I replied:
Fr. David Gierlach said he will be happy to come to the service —
which means that I will be playing the organ! Let me know what the
hymns will be, etc. I will also bring a prelude and a postlude.
Another quote about Desmond Tutu happened in the eulogy for John McCreary, former organist/director of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, when John Alexander wrote:
I’d like to close with something Archbishop Desmond Tutu said when he visited here for the first time years ago. We used John’s immortal Tu Es Sacerdos as the processional. When Archbishop Tutu finally got up to speak later in the service, the first thing he said was, “My goodness! That Tu Es Sacerdos by John McCreary is a HUMDINGER!!!” And that’s really the best way to describe John: He was a HUMDINGER!
Bishop Tutu well may have been speaking about himself … Bishop Desmond Tutu was a HUMDINGER!