Bill Kreidler: A Personal Tribute, Part III

I won’t try to summarize Bill’s very personal Christianity further, because I didn’t get to talk with him about it in depth. But it was clear from the New England presentation that it was both deeply felt, and at the same time hardly orthodox. While learning form the lives of the saints, Bill remained at home in the resolutely polymorphous theological stew that bubbles among gay and lesbian Friends -- and other unprogrammed Friends as well. As he put it, quoting a Friend in his spiritual support group, "It’s amazing how different we are, all in the same way." He acknowledged feeling uncomfortable with some of Jesus’ more loudly self-identified spokespersons, but what others said did not change his own experience and commitment.

It’s important to note here what Bill’s "confessions" were achieving in his context. A great many unprogrammed Friends are religious refugees, mainly from Christian denominations, and many of us bring lots of negative baggage about "churchianity" with us into the Society. And what is true generally is, I think, doubly true among lesbian and gay Friends, almost all of whom have a consciousness of being stigmatized by mainstream Christianity, and even some branches of Friends.

In this setting, Bill was both embodying and articulating a process by which, if not Christianity, then at least Jesus, was being "rehabilitated," and revived as a potentially meaningful figure in the religious life of a wide swath of this constituency. Again, this bare summary can hardly do justice to Bill’s voice and influence; but it was major, and felt far beyond the lesbian and gay Friends community.

Just how powerful his impact could be was shown the following year, when Bill gave a major talk at the FGC Gathering in Amherst, Massachusetts. I have a tape of this talk too, but was greatly favored to be on hand when it was given. By this time, for those of us who followed his work, Bill’s themes were becoming familiar, especially the emphasis on spiritual storytelling. But familiarity was hardly breeding contempt, because with each of these talks, there was something new and more moving to take away.

In Amherst, Bill again "came out," not merely as a Christian, but also as a person with AIDS. There were gasps when he acknowledged this; he had seemed too healthy, too animated and ebullient, for such a fate. Besides, the conventional outcome of the "amazing grace" scenario is that the redeemed sinner-- like John Newton, the former slave ship captain who wrote the hymn--goes on to a long and fruitful career of good works and evangelism. I’m sure I was not the only one there who felt personally affronted by the suggestion that Bill’s recovery and faithfulness might not be thus rewarded.

But Bill did not permit us to wallow in shock or dismay. His own account of coming to grips with this diagnosis was too excruciatingly funny for that. It centered on what he called his "broccoli phase," when he looked at ordinary things like vegetables with a sudden and almost mystically intense appreciation. "‘I’ll never,’" he quoted himself at the time, "‘take broccoli for granted again.’"

But this period, he added, passed: "Now I see broccoli and say: ‘Dollar twenty-nine a pound? I’ll take the cabbage instead.’" Life goes on, even in the face of death.

Moreover, the disclosure of his AIDS, while the blockbuster item in the talk, wasn’t his main point, which was centered on leadings, and the importance of following them faithfully, regardless of our circumstances, as long as we can. And despite his diagnosis, as he repeated and reassured us, "I’m fine." He was healthy and doing healthy things, and life and work continued. Besides his consulting on conflict resolution in schools, Bill was also giving workshops on Terry and Julie, prayer, and forgiveness.

By the time his talk was finished, it had been a helluva memorable night for Quakers in Massachusetts, but Bill’s contribution to that day, it turned out, was not yet done.

After the plenary, in another auditorium, there was a concert. This room was smaller, and not air-conditioned. The few hundred of us who crowded, sweltering, into its seats had come to hear what was the farewell performance of a remarkable ensemble, the (stay with me now) "Free Grace Undying Love Full Gospel Quaker Choir Sing and Be Saved."

This was a group of seven New England Friends, who had spontaneously come together around a piano and a hymnbook a few years earlier, and then felt led to keep singing together. They had given several concerts in the region, and even put out a tape, called (what else?) "Grace in Your Face." Word about their performances had spread rapidly in Quaker circles.

The choir’s organizer, dynamic center, and tenor, was Frederick Evans, a gay Friend with a flair for the dramatic. Fred Evans was a very good friend of Bill Kreidler’s; in fact, it was Fred who had introduced Bill to "Terry and Julie" at that fateful 1987 Gathering in Oberlin, and who had run the projector with the Peaceable Kingdom slides during Bill’s New York address.

But Fred Evans was also being memorialized in this concert, because he had died a few months earlier, of AIDS. That night the choir arranged itself around the microphone with a space at the center where Fred would have been. Between songs, they came forward one by one to bear their personal testimony, and speak of Fred and what he had meant to them and others. They were a theologically diverse group, as these lines from one of their songs put it:’

"Some of us think Jesus Christ is di-vine--

Others take a universalistic line;

But though we disagree,

on theology,

Still we sing, sing, sing and be saved."

Then, in between numbers, a new figure came bounding out on to the stage. It was Bill, in white shorts and tee shirt, and an incongruous pair of big shiny black shoes. But these were no ordinary footwear: they were tap shoes, and Bill Kreidler commenced to tap dance for this crowd, with vigor and some style, in memory of his friend.

God help me, I can’t begin to describe the impact. We were weeping and laughing at the same time, sad and exalted in a way that stands out in my nineteen years of attending nineteen FGC Gatherings. I wrote the next day, in the Quaker Free Press, that it was the closest FGC ever came to a revival meeting, and if Bill or someone had given an altar call, there would have been a rush to the stage by even the least theistic in the house. Tap dancing old Quaker ladies, indeed.

 

The choir disbanded, and I heard Bill speak only one more time, in the spring of 1995. By then I was on the staff at Pendle Hill, organizing something called a Quaker Theology Roundtable. And I persuaded Bill to come. Not only did he come and talk, but I also managed to shake a written version of his presentation out of him. At this writing, this is the only talk of his that is in print, to my knowledge.

(I acknowledge feeling quite proud of having done this. But it was not my charm or good looks that persuaded him to write it down; it had more to do with hanging on to his honorarium check until the text arrived.) The piece was included in the Pendle Hill collection of Roundtable presentations, called, "New Voices, New Light."

In this talk, Bill summarized what had become the major themes of his ministry, which was aimed, he said, at promoting spiritual revival among the unprogrammed branches of Friends. As always, it began with the personal:

"Like many people, I see my spiritual life as a journey. Step by step, concrete, down to earth, practical. A journey with smooth parts, rough parts, unexpected and sometimes unpleasant detours, places where I almost gave up, corners I turned and found visions of unexpected beauty, times I could only sit on a rock and cry in despair. A journey where some of the tiniest details became immensely important."

Reflecting on this journey, he had four points to emphasize: the need for spiritual storytelling, for nurturing our communities, for following follow spiritual disciplines, and for discerning and following leadings. He spoke about "Terry and Julie," the Peaceable Kingdom paintings, and his own addiction and recovery.

Again, these sound like truisms in this bald summary, which hardly does them, or him, justice. Moreover, this presentation was not as funny as some of his earlier ones, perhaps because, as he said, the rubric of "theology" was strange to him and he wasn’t as relaxed addressing it. Nevertheless, his talk was brisk and arresting, and the essay clear and concise. By 1995 Bill’s reflections on his journey had taken a coherent and persuasive form.

I rushed to get the book of Roundtable papers into print in time for the FGC Gathering that year in Michigan, to show to him and others. I made it, but it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. Bill saw the book at the Gathering bookstore before I did, and he came up to me in the hall outside the bookstore looking stern and announced, "We have to talk!"

I followed him back inside, still feeling proud of my work. But then he was waving the volume in my face and pointing to the cover-- which I thought was rather well-designed, and equalitarian besides, with all the contributors’ names listed in alphabetical order. His was prominent among them, in bold type: "Kriedler."

Did you catch it? It was only at that moment, with Bill standing there furious, that I did: His name was misspelled, "ie" not "ei," and on the cover, and my proofreading had missed it. Instant humiliation.

He said he forgave me, but Bill had his pride too, and was something of a perfectionist. I still cringe when I see that cover.

After that, I only saw Bill a few times, at Pendle Hill, usually briefly. The last time he told me that something disturbing was happening to him: he was having bouts of depression, which he attributed to side effects of the anti-AIDS drugs he was taking. Such experiences were new to him, he said, and he didn’t know quite what to do about them. I tried to speak comfortingly, no doubt in cliches, I hope not inanely. What do I know of such conditions?

One other thing I said, though was to renew a plea made to him several times over the years: to write down and publish some of his talks. They were, I urged, too good, too valuable a ministry to leave in the obscurity of a few tapes. Bill’s replies were mostly evasive, but once he said he was working on a book, and hoped to sell it to a major religious publisher. I don’t know what became of this project.

(I hope his executors can be persuaded to get something into print; already, requests for copies of the tapes of his talks are burgeoning, to me and others who have them.)

Bill’s public ministry, unplanned and evolving as it was, had a major influence on the atmosphere and spirituality of FGC Quakerism in the 1990s and beyond. It is also a testament to the verse in the Gospel of John that the spirit blows where it will, unpredictably. Who would have thought that a homosexual male Quaker would be the one to bring a motley crew of universalist Quakers back to the point of taking seriously such figures as medieval women saints--not to mention Jesus? And keep us laughing all the way to the foot of the cross? So it goes.

I only know of Bill’s last years by second hand report. It’s clear his health was deteriorating, and last winter he developed an AIDS-related cancer. Among his last journeys, I’m told, was a visit to the large exhibit of Edward Hicks paintings, including many of the Peaceable Kingdoms, which is now on tour around the country.

Those close to him report that Bill’s passing was peaceful, and among Friends. His memorial meeting at the 2000 FGC Gathering was large and covered. A display of photos of Bill, mostly at Gatherings past, was mounted in the Gathering’s art gallery. Among them was one of him, in white shirt and shorts, tap dancing madly that unforgettable night in Amherst.

Dance on, dear Friend. And as the Jewish prayer goes, "may his memory be for a blessing."

Copyright (c) 2000 by Chuck Fager.  All rights reserved.

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