In Memoriam: Rev. David W. Good

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…
And all shall be well,
And all manner of things shall be well.
— T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” from Four Quartets

April 3, 2024

Dear Friends,

It is with great sadness that I share news of the death of Rev. David W. Good. Many had seen this reality approaching for a long time, but even so, the news comes as something of a shock, for it always seemed that the day would arrive at some undetermined point in the future. That undetermined point, it turns out, came on Tuesday morning, April 2nd, 2024. After a long and valiant struggle with complications from leukemia, David moved, we trust, deeper into the mystery of God, the One in whom we live and move and have our being.

David served as the senior minister of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme for 37 years, having arrived in Old Lyme shortly after graduating from Divinity School in 1974. The breadth of his ministry is astonishing, both for its prescience and for its imaginative sweep. Prescient in that David anticipated many of the justice issues that we are still contending with today. Imaginative in that he used the symbols of the Christian tradition to connect with those of other peoples and cultures, demonstrating that as human beings, we all belong to the same common family. David never tired of citing the Hebrew prophets, the ministry of Jesus, the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, and the wisdom of the many poets that he read and loved. All of it pointed toward the precious humanity shared by all peoples across the globe, a humanity endangered by thoughtlessness, cruelty, and indifference. David’s ministry at FCCOL, but really, his entire life, was dedicated to countering that indifference.

In 1985, David led the first visit to Green Grass, South Dakota, initiating a partnership with the Lakota people of the Cheyenne River Reservation that continues to exist some 40 years later. A few years after that, prompted by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, David journeyed to that country in order to foster another set of relationships with those in the Township of Soweto, and with the Methodist Churches of Southern Africa. Later still, he forged a bond with the Koinonia community outside of Americus, Georgia, an anti-racist experiment in communal living that helped to birth Habitat for Humanity. Moved by the struggles for dignity and freedom taking place in all those locations, David saw the world “feelingly,” as Gloucester put it in King Lear, and he invited members of FCCOL to do the same.

One of David’s greatest contributions, however, emerged in the days and months following the 9/11 attacks. Almost immediately, he reached out to the Muslim community, doing whatever he could to counter the fear and paranoia generated by that event, while also helping everyone within his orbit to both appreciate and celebrate the vast wisdom of the Islamic tradition. Soon, that outreach led to the formation of the Tree of Life ministry, dedicated to the pursuit of human rights in Palestine and in Israel. For more than twenty years, groups of travelers from FCCOL, the Berlin Mosque, and many other places of origin, have journeyed together to the Middle East to learn about the profound human rights challenges facing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, in East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and in Israel proper, while also learning from many Israeli voices of conscience who are seeking to build just and humane alternatives in that region. Even as US based travelers journeyed to the Middle East, David organized groups of Palestinian and Israeli justice advocates to visit the United States every year, in an effort to educate US audiences on the realities faced by Palestinians every day. The importance of that work becomes more evident with each passing day. It is a legacy that will continue to grow, as we find new ways to support the work of that Tree, “whose branches shall be for the healing of the nations.”

David’s global outreach scarcely touches all the ways that he gave of himself to individuals within the FCCOL community, and to Old Lyme and the Connecticut Shoreline more broadly. Week after week, he delivered learned, impassioned, and inspiring sermons. He accompanied many people through their final days, and helped family members to come to terms with their own losses. He steered committees and task forces. Through his leadership, the Fellowship Hall and Sunday School wing was added to FCCOL. We have a Food Pantry housed at FCCOL because of David’s vision, and in his later years, he organized PARJE (Public Art for Racial Justice and Equality). He married countless people, counseled countless people, and helped everyone, each in their own way, to trust that there was a gracious and loving Presence in the world on whom they – we – could depend.

I’ll end on a personal note. I came to FCCOL because I was inspired by the tracks David had set down throughout his ministry. It was, and is, an honor to follow in those footsteps. Upon my arrival, it quickly became apparent that David and I shared a common affinity not only in our theology, but in the cultural artists we most admired. And so we became friends. I loved and cherished the visits we made together to Palestine and Israel, to the Berlin and New London mosques, and to New York and Providence for multiple Bob Dylan concerts. As his health declined, we had numerous conversations about poetry – about Yeats and Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. T.S. Eliot was a major part of those conversations.

After honoring David’s life and death yesterday using both Christian and Muslim rituals (his final wish) I journeyed up to the Berlin Mosque last night to join in their evening prayers for Ramadan. They offered prayers of thanksgiving and supplication for David. And then we stood in silent awareness of the great sacred reality enfolding and enveloping us, as words from the Koran were recited, and as we all joined in prayers with one another. My own prayers were prayers of thanksgiving for David, and for his friendship. I gave thanks for his ministry, and for all that he gave of himself to the FCCOL community. Those prayers extended to Corinne, and to all of those in our midst who will feel David’s absence most acutely. And then those prayers ranged toward those who had cared for David during his long illness – Becky Crosby, Ghoufran Allababidi, and Reza Mansoor most especially, but also Carleen, Tsholofelo Mahika (David and Corrine’s home health aid, who has provided amazing care), and to the many others from FCCOL and from the Berlin Mosque who have organized care for David and Corrine. We hold them all in our prayers.

Then, on the way home, my heart full from the events of the day, I put on a reading of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets in honor of David. It seemed a fitting way to conclude the day. The final stanza of the Quartets contains the words cited above: “We shall not cease from exploration.” David never ceased his exploration into God, into the mysteries of the human soul, and into the complexities of the world. Neither must we cease our own explorations into those elusive but all important realms. Even now, we trust that David has arrived where he started, which is the mystery that we call God. Let us give thanks for all that we have been given in his life. And let us trust that somehow and in some way, in the words of the Four Quartets, “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

With love, for David, and for all of you who are reading this, and celebrating the life of this remarkable man…

All manner of things shall be well.

Senior Minister Rev. Steve Jungkeit

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The memorial service for Rev. Good will be held Sunday, April 21, at 2:00 p.m., at FCCOL.