Dick Grein said it best: “I always used to look forward to Peter’s company at Council meetings. He was a very bright guy, and always pleasant company.” Let me start with a couple of personal memories.
Peter persuaded the Associated Parishes Council to invite me as a guest to the 1983 Council meeting at Nashotah House. It might have been a more intimidating experience were it not for Peter’s kindness and encouragement. Peter’s concern to bring more lay persons into the Council bore valuable fruit when ADLMC (Association of Diocesan Liturgy and Music Commissions) was meeting in Washington, D.C. Peter and I didn’t know Carlos Mercado very well then, but we invited him to a meal and subsequently were able to bring him along to an informal gathering of Council members and close friends.
Peter certainly practiced what he preached: the regular use of the Daily Office. I remember his courtesy when I visited St. Paul’s, Roy Street, Seattle, and joined him and a few others in saying Morning Prayer together.
Carlos Mercado has a wonderful memory of Peter at a meeting some ten years ago, following our successful visit to Cuernavaca. Some of us were urging the desirability of holding a Council meeting in Costa Rica. Peter felt that we would be parading ourselves in front of the natives, but not accomplishing much beyond being liturgical tourists. He was not afraid to express himself strongly about that.
Bishop Joe Morris Doss remembers Peter’s fine work as principal drafter of the Associated Parishes brochure on the Easter Vigil. Joe, Ormonde Plater, and others remember Peter’s work producing, directing, and “starring” in the film Do This in Remembrance of Me, showing a model Rite II Eucharist, sans guitars and folk music.
Mary Vail Moore kindly sent remembrances from many friends. Jim Adams, a former curate of Peter’s in Albuquerque, remembers him as interviewer at Seabury Hall, at General. A portrait of Thomas Cranmer on the office wall inspired many conversations with Peter. Brian Taylor expresses his appreciation for inheriting a parish that is grounded in liturgy that is traditional, yet flexible and open: “He [Peter] also maintained the parish’s character of diversity and warm acceptance of all.... And, most important of all, I was fortunate to begin my ministry here with a community that was spiritually and emotionally healthy.”
Michael Merriman remembers both Peter’s kindness and “his active promotion of so much we all care about.” Patricia Walker-Sprague, for many years Peter’s deacon in Seattle, remembers “his infectious passion for liturgy–not liturgy, but the heart of the liturgy.... He lived through the complexity of The American Missal into a simplicity which revealed the heart of God in a way the ornate may obscure.”
Mark Miller, a former curate at St. Paul’s, is believed to have inspired these words from Bishop Vince Warner’s letter to the clergy of the diocese: “For him, parish worship was always the source and motivation for ministry and social renewal. He was a man who carried with him a breadth of culture which characterized another time.... He was a man who prayed and kept coming back to prayer every day.” Bishop Warner noted that Peter was on the nominating committee when he was elected Bishop Coadjutor, and remembers Peter’s hospitality and his friendship. Warner continues: “Our time together is characterized by the several times we traveled on airplanes and sat together reading the Daily Office out loud, to both the interest and possibly the dismay of other passengers who couldn’t quite fig figure out what we were about. ”
David Jones, a former Rector’s Warden, told the family that he once said (in jest), “Peter, you’re nothing but a ‘pahswedo’ intellectual.” Peter didn’t quite “get it”–his serious reply–“I think you will find, David that the word is pronounced ‘pseudo’.”
The human side: when the family was doing construction on the Albuquerque adobe, Peter lectured the children about not going barefoot because of the nails. Peter wore an old pair of sneakers: guess who got the puncture wound!
His daughters agree that when a new “date” was coming to the door, Peter would put on his blackest clericals–and insist on opening the door. This outfit could strike terror in “good RCs” in Hispanic Albuquerque–and may even have helped at the time of an IRS audit, when he was also (legitimately) in a cast and on crutches when the visitor “from the Government” appeared.
Among others who expressed appreciation of Peter’s life and love of liturgy was Frank Griswold, the Presiding Bishop. My thanks to Mary and all who wrote to me, and apologies to those for whose stories we had insufficient space.