Remembering Sue:
Two Celebrations of the Life of Suzanne Radley Hiatt
presented June 17, 2002 in St. John’s Memorial Chapel
What Will We Do Without Sue?
by the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward
There is no question that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, but what will we do without Sue?
How are we to go forward without Sue Hiatt’s wit and wisdom, her love and leadership, in the midst of world crisis such as ours today?
How do we Christians and we others cope with this “war against terrorism” being staged by an Administration in which she, like many of us, had less than zero confidence? And what are we to make of the mess in the Roman Catholic church which (though greater in drama and degree than its kindred messes in other religious communities) nonetheless has been shaped and seasoned by the same patriarchal Christianity that Sue spent her entire life not simply lamenting personally nor resisting professionally but building and leading a movement against?
It’s a question of strategy, as Sue would say. Not whether we will go on, because by the grace and power of God, we will go on, but a question of how to build our movement? How to choose our battles? How to resist injustice? How to keep on keepin’ on in a church, nation, and world that urge us to hush our mouths and take off our marchin’ shoes and retire not simply from our professional jobs but from the struggle which, as Sue believed, is life itself.
This is why, following her retirement from EDS in 1998, she revved up to continue building the movement. This she was doing through blessing lesbian and gay unions in Episcopal parishes; preaching a Gospel of radical economic justice-making to affluent Episcopalians; and plodding on, steadfastly, in her work as “bishop to the women”—specifically those lay women, deacons, priests, bishops, and other ministers who struggle daily to live with integrity in the confusion of a patriarchal church that remains to this day profoundly ambivalent toward strong, woman-affirming women — women called, as Sue was, at the core of our spiritual vocations to resist patriarchal power-relations throughout the church’s structures, liturgies, theologies, and pastoral relationships.
Sisters and brothers, it was more than her job, more than her profession, more even than her vocation as a priest. It was Sue Hiatt’s life, the very core of her Christian identity, the basis of how she understood not simply her ordination but moreover her baptismal vows —to struggle irrepressibly and without distraction for justice for all women of all cultures, races, classes, nations, religions, ages, abilities, and sexual identities.
Like all great leaders, she was misunderstood by some and no doubt mistaken in some of her judgments. She was, for example, misunderstood by those who thought that her work was more on behalf of white middle class women than women of other races, classes, and cultures. The fact is, Sue Hiatt was an organizer and historian by trade and training who saw white middle and upper class women—indeed the Episcopal church itself—as a strategic location of social, economic, and political power that needed to be organized and put to work on behalf of social justice. Women’s ordination and the church itself were not, for Sue, ends in themselves but steps along the way toward the Promised Land. This larger view of hers is what Bishop DeWitt, David Gracey, Barbara Harris, Paul Washington, Ann Smith and other colleagues in Philadelphia saw in Sue and affirmed in her as she sought to be ordained a deacon and to work in mobilizing white suburban Episcopalians to cast their lots with the poor and with sistersand brothers of color in the city of Philadelphia and elsewhere.
If women enter the public world in great numbers but don’t change the way things are done there, then there is really no gain for anyone.
Indeed there is a net loss, for the women who used to carry the burden of volunteer community service are no longer available to do that. Being “the best man” is a losing proposition for both women and society.
We who are role models, like it or not, have a responsibility to go in new directions and to help our professions change and grow.
We need to value what women have to offer and see that it doesn’t get left at home. Role-modeling, whether in a hitherto male bastion, or as a wife, mother or volunteer, requires intelligence, imagination and courage.
But we can do it.
-Suzanne Radley Hiatt, 1985
She lived on the basis of a tenacious faith in the capacities of her brothers and sisters, including white affluent folks like most of us here today, to help “make justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream,” and in our willingness to step forward and offer ourselves as laborers in God’s harvest. In this way, Sue Hiatt was an heir of the same hope and enthusiasm that have historically shaped the great Christian movements for social justice and the irrepressible passion for justice among such great Anglican divines as F. D. Maurice, William Temple, John Hines, Verna Dozier, William Stringfellow, and Desmond Tutu.
Among those who’ve gone on before, and with countless saints of God still here on this earth, our beloved sister stands tall today, a great Episcopalian, a great Christian feminist leader of the 20th Century, a great Christian pastor and prophet and priest.
It was Sue Hiatt’s life, the very core of her Christian identity...to struggle irrepressibly and without distraction for justice for all women...
And it wasn’t that she always got it exactly “right,” though often she did. Some of us affectionately called her “Eeyore” after the donkey who believed that “it’s all the same at the bottom of the river.” Sometimes it seemed as if Sue’s belief in our capacities to help God create this world would fall victim to a pessimism, even at times a cynicism and anger that bordered on despair. In those gloomy moments, this wise and good humored sister would withdraw and seek primarily her own counsel and that of her animal companions like Job and Annie and Sissy and Ginger. In such moments, she invariably would be shocked and amazed if something good happened! It took me a long time to begin to understand and fully appreciate Sue’s courage: I came to realize that her pessimism was not simply the flip-side of her passion for justice. It was a visceral, embodied response to what she saw when she prayed, a vision of a world in crisis and a church too seldom up to the task. The sort of vision that drives prophets mad—as Eeyore would say, “You see, it is all the same at the bottom of the river.” It was, I believe, against this grim, depressing picture that Sue struggled courageously throughout her life to build and lead a movement for justice for all, never failing to believe that, against the odds, folks like you and I could rise to the task.
This, I figured, is what Bishop Bob DeWitt meant when he wrote to Sue and to all of us ordinands, and still to this day does write us: “Keep your courage.” Despite her vision of a chaotic world and an often feckless church, Sue Hiatt kept her courage.
Exactly one week before her death, Archbishop Desmond Tutu who was at EDS last semester as a Visiting Professor, paid a visit to Sue in her room at Chilton House, a hospice residence here in Cambridge. Sue had met the Archbishop several months earlier when she had been able to attend one of his lectures and, several days before his visit, she had called out for him there in Chilton House. When he arrived, Sue was still able, barely, to communicate verbally—and she spoke to him very slowly and clearly:
“Meeting you has been the thrill of my life. You help me see that the truth will go on.”
But how will the truth go on? How will we keep our courage? What will we do without Sue? Here is what, I believe, Sue would say and — through the power of the Spirit in which she is so fully involved—what she is saying to us right now:
We must never retire from the struggle. We must always, as Ed Rodman reminds us, refuse to participate in our own oppression or that of others
and yet
We must never get too busy to take time out, to rest by the lake, to walk the dogs, plant the irises, eat truffles with buddies, pray quietly in the morning and in the evening, “pleasure ourselves,” as Sue would cajole us.
We have to organize! Justice doesn’t just “happen.” We can’t do it alone, not as “heroes,” not as Lone Rangers or Superwomen or Spidermen.
We must do it together.
and yet
We need to learn not only to tolerate the personal loneliness which, to some degree, inheres in the prophetic life. We need to accept it gratefully and patiently and learn to live in it without regret or pity.
We need to put action over talk, the common good over our personal fortunes however great or small, and substance over style and ethics over etiquette, which is why our sister had so little use for most politicians and prelates
and yet
We need always to be cultivating a gentleness of spirit and a sense of humor that will help us speak the truth in love, like when Sue told EDS’s faculty in 1975 that they needed to hire not one, but two, women priests so that these women priests “could walk back to back together down the hall.”
If we live this Spirit, which is Holy, which is God, and which is today Sue with and in God, she will never be far from us. This is how the truth will go on. It is how we will keep our courage. It is what we will do without Sue
and yet
It is what we will do with her in our midst. Because she whom we loved and lost is no longer where she was before. She is now wherever we are.
Alleluia! and let the people say, AMEN!
Memories of Sue
by Margaret Kramer
I’m Margaret Kramer, and Suzanne Hiatt was my aunt and “God,” which is shorthand in my family for godparent.
I have always felt fortunate to have her as my very special aunt. As a little girl, I remember her plaid skirts matched with black knee socks and penny loafers, her VW bug, her chocolate brownies, her plethora of cats and dogs, all forsaken by people less considerate, and her gentle, reassuring ways and little chuckle.
Sue was like another version of my mom to me. She and my mother Jean would sit for hours at our kitchen table, discussing the lunacy of Nixon, Vietnam, Watergate, sometimes doing hilarious impressions of various political figures in their soft Hiatt voices—a discussion that continued with each Republican politician.
Sue and my mom also shared a belief in reading—excessively—and that the most important quality in life is to be a good person. But Aunt Sue’s greatest lesson to me was that it isn’t enough to agitate: if we care about something, we must organize and take action.
In 1974, when I was thirteen, she demonstrated her values to me and to the rest of the world. I knew she had been ordained “in a big way’ in Philadelphia, and that the church didn’t much care for this. But I also knew that women around the world cheered - and so did I. My own private godmother was in the annals of women’s history, and I was proud to show others her bio in my Encyclopedia of Notable American Women.
In her fight for equality and justice, she evolved into a real role model for countless people. With those with whom she disagreed her temper rarely flared, but instead an incredibly astute remark would quietly shoot down their arguments while she managed to be diplomatic at the same time. This is a rare gift, and one that more of us could use.
She was unafraid to be herself, and was unequivocally Sue Hiatt. I never met, and still haven’t met, someone who was bent less to fashion, and proudly so. Her style was unmistakable. Was it irony or leadership that led her cats-eye glasses and knee socks to show up on some teenage girls?
Sue Hiat was an heir of the same hope and enthusiasm that have shaped the great Christian movements for social justice.
I smile when I see it.
Throughout our relationship, Sue would challenge, expand, and change my assumptions for the better, with kindness and greatness of heart. When I was going through challenges as a teen, my aunt always was there for me. Sometimes she and my parents were divided on what would be best for me, and I still relish the moment when she backed ME up instead of my parents.
This bonded me to my aunt even more, and we developed our own special relationship outside of our family, enjoying each other as people. I know also that she developed special relationships with her nephews and appreciated each of them for their individual qualities.
Years later, she officiated at my wedding to Jeffrey Stein. But before she would marry us, she insisted that the three of us talk it over first. Sue, ever the individual, took us for a meat and potatoes dinner in a dark highway restaurant for our pre-wedding counseling. There we went through the wedding service to eliminate as much of the patriarchal language as possible while still using the traditional ceremony. She was more than happy to oblige: there would be no obeying for me or any other woman!
When the day arrived, she seemed to choke up as we took our vows, and Jeff has always joked that it was because I was getting married to him. In reality, I know she was always more sentimental than she appeared; certainly this was evident in her love and care for animals.
I started a career in social work, and she encouraged me in my goals, sending me readings that would help me think “out of the box.’ She came to my graduation from the University of Washington and this meant so much to me because she was one of my inspirations for choosing this path.
She later came out to visit us in Seattle several times, and the phone was always ringing off the hook when she visited. The Sue hotline was in full force, with many friends and admirers clamoring for some time with her too—I realized my aunt was truly someone special when her friends treated me reverently! Though her schedule was busy, she always took the time to be part of our life, meeting our friends, sleeping on our couch, advising and supporting us through challenges.
Despite all of her achievements and her intellect, she was modest, and hankered for the simpler things in life: steak dinners, summer weekends at the lake, talking with people from all walks of life, and offering encouragement to whomever she met. When she and I had biopsies at the same time last year, we talked on the phone before either of us knew the results. She was comforting and calming to me even when she was going through the same range of emotions.
While I was fortunate to have a negative result, we know that Sue was not. It has been a tremendously difficult year for all of us, but it has also brought many gifts. It is obvious how much Sue has meant to so many and her qualities are reflected in the support, caring, practical and emotional help she received the last year and a half of her life. It is an amazing act of love to witness, and our family is most grateful to you. We are comforted by the thought that our dear Aunt Sue came to a peaceful place with her living and dying after a year of ups and downs, tears and laughter.
I was trying to figure out what I might possibly say today, and I went exploring in my local used bookstore. I came across a poetry book called The Nonconformist’s Memorial. This seemed to fit the occasion perfectly but I would add The Beloved Non Conformist’s Memorial.
Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts and memories with all of you—and with Sue, who is undoubtedly listening, laughing and humbled at this gathering in her honor.
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