I came to church early today, for the simple reason that I had food to carry in, and I wanted to be able to park close by.  I knew – we all knew – that on this day, our church would be overflowing, with chairs in the narthex, and people standing in the aisles.

There have been other times and other cultures where you could hire paid professional mourners to make a good showing for a funeral.  I feel safe in saying that none of you are paid professional mourners.  We are here in numbers because Vincent Quist was a man who was widely known and greatly loved.  We have come together in this time and in this place because we willingly accept a sacred obligation and ritual:  to celebrate his life, to mourn his death, to comfort his family, and to commend his soul to God.    

Over the last week, as I went about Washington doing one thing and another, it seemed that people everywhere I went were talking about Vinnie.  For instance – and this is just example – one day last week I was visiting in an office in the Depot when Jim the UPS man came in to deliver a package.  In the short space of time it took to get a signature, he realized that we were talking about Vinnie and he said “Vinnie Quist – a NICE man.  I really liked him.”    

I think it’s worth asking the question, “What was it about Vinnie?  What did he grasp about the art of living that led to such a turnout today?”  And if by chance we learn something from the way he lived his life, and bring it into our own lives . . . what better way could we find to honor his memory?         

With a lead in like that, you may be worried that I am going to eulogize Vinnie as some kind of saint-like figure.  I wouldn’t dare - not in front of this crowd.  Gaylinn Quist had it about right, when he walked into Hartford Hospital, looked at Vinnie surrounded by all the blinking, beeping monitors and said, “Vinnie, you cantankerous old coot, what kind of trouble are you kicking up now?” 

I should admit, that’s not exactly what Gaylinn said.  I cleaned up his language for this venue.  But Gaylinn had a point.  Vinnie could be stubborn, and he could be crabby.  He was a menace on the roads – not because he drove too fast, but because he drove too slow.  Living in an age that valued speed and technology, Vinnie did not think much of either one.  I offered several times to show him different things that I thought he would enjoy on the internet – like choral singing – and he refused.  He said “I am going to go to my grave without having seen the internet.”  And you know what?  He did.   

I’m not going to talk about Vinnie and music or Vinnie and the choir, because that’s their prerogative.  I will only note that he joined the choir as a very young man, because when you were a Quist, you sang in the Salem Covenant Church choir.  I have heard he was a handful for his sister Astrid, when she was choir director.  I know that he loved this group and adored our choir director, Susan.  He always said “We have fun – we joke around.”

Vinnie did love to tell jokes.  He especially enjoyed not just telling jokes to children, but teaching children how to tell jokes themselves, showing them they had the power to make people laugh.  I remember my daughter Maya coming home one day from a visit with Ninnie (when Maya was small, she could not say Vinnie, so he became Ninnie).  Maya said, “Mom, Ninnie has been teaching me about farming.”  I said, “Oh?”   She said, “If a farmer has a barn and the roof of the barn goes down north and south, just like this, and a rooster lays an egg right on the top of the roof, right in the middle, do you know which way the egg will roll?  Because I do.”  I looked at her and thought about it very carefully, and guessed “North.”  “Silly mommy, roosters don’t lay eggs!”  She was very pleased with herself.

Vinnie had a sizeable collection of blonde jokes, which he cultivated for his daughter Margit, who is of course both tall and blonde.  I remember his telling me one day that he had found an especially good one.  It went like this.    

A blonde is out of work.  She goes to a wealthy section of town and knocks on the door of a large house, offering to do any kind of odd job that needs doing.  The man who answers the door says, “Well, my porch could use a fresh coat of white paint.  Can you do that?”  “No problem,” she says.  “OK,” says the man. "Here is the paint and here’s a brush. I want you to paint the porch behind the house."

The blonde immediately went to work. Within two hours, she was done and she returned to the man to get paid.  He said, “How did it go?”  She replied, “It went fine.  I even had enough paint to put on two coats.  But by the way, mister, you should know.  That isn't a Porsche out back. It's a Ferrari.”

Of all the jokes he told, the ones that Vinnie enjoyed the most . . . . the ones he told over and over again . . . . were the jokes on himself.  For example, Vinnie loved to tell the story of what happened one day when he had gone to the Whiteheads’ Farm to get some  vines for a flower arrangement.  After climbing over a few fences and walking across some fields – very contrary to doctor’s advice - he managed to drive his heart rate up to the point where his implanted defibrillator thought he was in trouble, and so it shocked him.  The ambulance was dispatched.  Matt Somerset was the first person on scene, and he said “Vinnie, what happened?”  Vinnie replied:  “Matt, the Whiteheads have an alarm system like you wouldn’t believe.  It feels like Roger Cannavaro punched me in the chest.”

At least, that’s Vinnie’s version of what happened.            

Vinnie was of course known for his flower arrangements.  He had no formal training in flower arranging, but he had an eye and a gift for it, and he cultivated both, to the delight of this church and his friends.  His arrangements were built around flowers and plants that were local and in season, cut from his own garden or found in the woods and fields – budding apple branches in the spring, black-eyed Susans in the summer, hydrangeas in the fall, bittersweet in wintertime.  You could not get a Vinnie Quist flower arrangement for money – he only gave them away for love.

Let’s talk about love.  This was something that Vinnie gave and received in abundance, with joy and generosity.  Naturally, he loved his granddaughters.  He would say, “Maya is very bright – she studies Latin and Greek – but best of all, she has a great heart.  Isabella is her mother all over again.  She is beautiful, and she is sweet.  Do you know, when she was only ten months old, she was so beautiful and so good, she was chosen to play the part of baby Jesus in the church Christmas pageant?  And Ava has no fear.  She comes into The Kent, and she just babbles away to everyone.”

When it came to his children, Vinnie was especially proud of how hard they worked, because Vinnie Quist was a great believer in the virtue and value of work.  His solution to any kind of problem – physical, mental, spiritual, relational - was “Work it out.” 

When he talked about you, Gunnar, he would say “You should see Gunnar’s farm,  It’s amazing, the job he has done with it.  You know, his barn is Amish built.  He has a small crew, because it’s not everyone who can work for him.  Everything has to be done a particular way – his way.  But that’s why he’s successful.  And no one works harder than Gunnar himself.” 

Ever since you bought the property in Millerton, Gunnar, there was nothing that made your dad happier than helping you out.  It gives me joy to think that every spring and summer, when the thousands of bulbs that he planted on your land start to bud and flower, you will be able to look at them and think “My dad is here in spirit.”

And you, Margit.  Your dad loved you so much, and he was so proud of you.  I heard him say many times, “No one could ask for a better daughter.”   Another time he said, “Margit is never going to be out of work, because whatever she does, she does the work of two people.  And she has style.” 

Your dad placed a great value on the ability you have to take a house and turn it into a home.  He often talked about what a great mother you are.  He knew that neither of these things are easy, and that both have great worth.  And he was proud of what a good friend you are to your many friends. 

But above all else, Vinnie loved his June bug.   

There’s a silly expression – I’m sure you have seen it on T-shirts – that says “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  This saying flashed into my mind last week.  It was the moment when the hospice nurse asked June, “What possessions does your husband have?  I need to make an inventory.”  June said, “He has his wedding ring.”

There you have it.  Stripped down to the bare essentials, he had his wedding ring.  I can see it now, in my mind’s eye, a thick, plain band.  The symbol of a family man, married to the same woman for fifty-five years.  Oh, he complained about June and she complained about him; that was a well-worn and familiar path.  But their marriage was at its core exactly what it appeared to be:  a long marriage and a good one. 

In the last days of his life, when Vinnie could not speak for himself, this little lady spoke for him.  She negotiated difficult, difficult terrain with courage and grace and strength and above all else, with perfect love.   

It is possible that there are people here who did not know Vinnie well, who perhaps know his family and have come out of respect for them.  You may think, from what I have said thus far, that Vincent Quist was a parochial man.  He was not.  He followed the news closely, and had done so for decades, which gave him a sense of history and of context.  In his years at Tatetuck Farm, many people developed the habit of swinging by the barn in the early morning to take part in political discussions over coffee and donuts. 

I am remembering now the morning of September 11, 2001.  On that morning, I did not want to be alone, and I went to see June and Vinnie.  I found Vinnie in front of the house, working in the garden, and I said “Vinnie, have you heard the news?”  He said, “I have heard it, and I have seen it, and I can’t bear it.  I am taking care of the garden.”

Like Voltaire’s Candide, he had seen the world, and his response was to tend to his own garden.  That was the essence of who he was.  Vincent Quist did not live widely, but he did live deeply, rooted firmly in this good Washington soil.  He did not have a great accumulation of things – indeed, he owned very little – but those tools he did have were carefully chosen and useful for the work he wanted to do.  He was not a public person who changed the big world.  He was a private person who did small things with great love.  In doing that, he changed our world, and he changed it for the better.  In all that he was  – son, brother and uncle; husband, father, and grandfather; friend and neighbor  – and in all that he did – chemist, salesman, farmer and gardener – in all that he was in the span of four scour years and four – he left the imprint of a humble and a loving spirit.  

We will miss him very much indeed, but we can turn our eyes and hearts to God and say without reservation, “Dear God, here is Vincent Quist.  In this life, he was your good and faithful servant.  We commend him to your care.”