On the passing, and legacy, of the Rev. Charles Brock

It is easy to lose sight of the inevitability of death when we are in the presence of someone so full of life and living life so fully.

A photo of a young(er) Charles Brock, featured in his obituary, courtesy of his family.

If you never met the Rev. Charles Brock, I’m sorry to share that sadly you will now never have that opportunity. If you had met him, you know why I am sorry, and why I say sadly.

As his obituary opens: Rev. J. Charles Brock, the Erie-born Oxford scholar who came back to his hometown to make a profound difference, died Wednesday, Nov. 1, at his home. He was 88.

My colleague, Andrew Roth, said he’d told Charles before he was 88 going on 18 — maybe even 14 — because of his vim and vigor.

To me, Charles was a colleague, a mentor, and a friend. He was that, and more, to many, many others.

He did, indeed, make a profound impact, not just in Erie, but globally, which his obituary details, and which I strongly encourage you to take the time to read.

But whether you had the opportunity to meet and know him, his life is one worth knowing about, and remembering.

He could’ve followed the family path in a well-established business, but he didn’t. His faith guided him.

He taught at elite institutions, yet I would’ve never, ever, used the word ‘elitist’ to describe him.

Years ago, I’d heard him say, ‘We have to take it to the people!’, the it being civic education and lifelong learning. Rather than invite people to his table, he wanted to go to the people and build a table with them. He did in many ways through many initiatives.

Charles’s funeral was today. The funeral home that arranged it live-streamed it.

My JES colleagues, Drs. Ferki Ferati and Andrew Roth, and I were with him and his family and others when he passed. The three of us were asked to offer some remarks, reflecting upon his life and impact.

I am sharing mine below in the spirit of: While Charles may be gone, his spirit isn’t. And I want to do what I can to ensure it remains present. I plan to share more in the future.

For now, here’s how I chose to remember Charles upon the occasion, which, of course, captures just a fraction of a man who contained multitude:

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Last year, when Charles Brock presented at the JES’s Global Summit, and received the highest honor and award from the think tank he helped create, guide, and inspire, he asked the audience: Do you have bad dreams?

Charlie confessed one of his was based on St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the Catholic Church’s most celebrated theologians.

“On the feast of St. Nicholas, 1273, while celebrating Mass,” Charles told the audience, “St. Thomas received a revelation from God that caused him to stop writing, leaving his brilliant lifelong work unfinished.

“Aquinas told his secretary: ‘The end of my labors has come. All I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me,’” Charles shared.

As an academic and a preacher, Charles shared that he would have dreams about giving lectures and sermons with no clothes on.

“I am a neurotic adult with fears that I don’t have much to say. Straw,” he confessed to the audience.

But anyone who spent even just a few minutes with Charles – whether in private conversation or hearing any one of the thousands of lectures and sermons he gave or reading any of the millions of words he had written knows he had plenty to say.

From politics to theology, from music and art to poetry – and so much in between and beyond, Charles might’ve feared that he didn’t have much to say, but we all know different.

And we all know better because of him.

A more recent photo of Charles Brock, featured in his obituary, courtesy of his family.

I had the pleasure, privilege, and honor to have spent more than minutes — hours at a time, over the weeks, months, years I’d come to know Charles.

On poetry, when it comes to Charles, I can’t help but think of the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats.

One of the most celebrated poets in the English language, Yeats also wrote drama. Was a philosopher. Became a statesman when his country needed him, and was working on his poetry up to the very end.

The poem, “Under Ben Bulben,” the concluding lines of which are on his gravestone, was something he was working on up to that very end — dictating changes, improvements, revisions from his deathbed.

Like Yeats, Charlie contained multitudes.

A pastor. A teacher. A musician. A leader. A servant. A lover. A friend.

And like Yeats, he was at work until the very end.

The last email exchange I had with Charlie was about his concern for democracy — in Bavaria.

“Listening to the radio this morning I heard about the populist movement in Bavaria. Sounds gruesome,” he wrote. 

“Just like here, and alas, the rest of the world, and all the more reason I have to push ‘the loss of democracy’ for the Jefferson,” he concluded.

The exchange we had had just before that was a list of topics and speakers he thought worth looking at for future programming at the JES. Ideas. Ideas. Ideas. He was full of them.

Perhaps Charles was such a good preacher because he didn’t really preach. He taught.

And perhaps Charles was such a good teacher because he didn’t really lecture. He listened. He learned. And then he spoke, and after that listened and learned again.

And it was hard not to listen to, and want to talk with, Charles. He had such a warmth. But also such a gravity that it was hard not to be pulled into — and want to be in — his orbit, warmed and guided by his light, even if it was when he shared grave concerns about the world, just as much as when he was he was telling a quick joke or meeting you for a morning coffee or inviting you to his “drinkies”.

His multitudes made us more. Made us better.

It is easy to lose sight of the inevitability of death when we are in the presence of someone so full of life and living life so fully.

Charles is the epitome of a lifelong learner. Full of life. Living so fully.

At it until the end, Charles was still pushing — he had to push.

Now, We have to push onward — for Charles. He lives on in all of us. We are the keepers and carriers of his light, and it is our privilege, our duty, to share it out into the world, sharing the stories, the work, the words, the mission of a man who, indeed, had much to say.

So, as Charles would say: Let us get on with it.