Remembering Dick Ray, 1936–2024
“I find myself increasingly compelled,” Dick Ray once said to me, “by the rich experience of being part of Christ’s body.” I can’t remember the exact occasion, because there were so many of them: small meetings over which Dick presided, a host who wanted everyone to know and appreciate everyone else. Some of these were in the beautiful home he and Lila shared in Montreat, some were in his office at King University, some were ad hoc occasions in a restaurant or a classroom. He wanted us to know each other with our unique abilities and strengths, and so he’d introduce us with lavish praise. It was like being welcomed into a Parisian literary salon, but one in which humility reigned: the host made every guest feel like the guest of honor. And Dick guided the conversation with the same magnanimity. That comment on the body of Christ was his introduction to a point for discussion: what has been animating you and your work? He was like the leader of a jazz band, nodding at his players when their solo came, keeping the rhythm and the underlying melody in a supportive background.
Dick loved the experience of being in Christ’s body, and in that body, he loved to be the connecting tissue.
It’s a bit ironic, in a sweet way, because in his later years, Dick Ray found physical movement increasingly difficult. But as his own physical connective tissues wore down, his connecting of people was as vigorous as ever, even more so. The last time I was at Dick and Lila’s house, he drew me and my mother into a joyous union with four of their friends. By the end, we knew each other’s accomplishments and interests, knew each other as friends, knew each other in the body of Christ.
Connective tissue: as I’ve thought about Dick in the week since his death, this keeps coming to mind. Most of my memories of Dick are in a group of people, bent forward a bit as he sits with his legs crossed, dressed with an effortless elegance, usually surrounded by books. No one could command a room with such a quiet voice and unassuming presence as he did. That voice was unmistakable, a Louisiana drawl delivered with an actor’s care for enunciation and volume, a timbre somehow both smooth and gravelly. And only a voice like his could carry such sentences, each a small marvel of extemporaneous thought. His vocabulary could be dazzling, but was never showy; his expression of deep insight and careful thought was filtered through a preacher’s long experience of speaking to be understood, speaking with love for both people and words. As Dick once said, “Christianity has always been mesmerized by words.” [1]
Dick’s love of words took him to another kind of literary salon, this one found mostly in his study or office or (eventually) his “book house,” that lovely little library in his front yard in Montreat. Here too he invited friends to meet, gave each one attention, asked them to speak. The difference was that they were dead. Entering into conversation with writers from the past, Dick said, was like a “dare … to find new friends among the departed who will be truly gifted to us in love one day.”[2] And their words were found in one of his great loves: books.
In an absolute gem of an essay in Theology Matters, Dick recounted his encounter with written words, from an early experience with Paul Tillich to his eventual journey into ancient volumes. “I was coming to the place in which I believed that the only time in which theology really mattered was when people provided a hospitable place within the warp and woof of their lives for the books themselves. And by taking them into one’s life a communion of the saints can sometimes be found, transcending time and place and suggesting a more metaphysical presence than might be commonly known. Looked at in a different way, the very words could become passports into the writers’ souls.” In the book house, Dick was not alone; he was among the theologians, in the body of Christ.
Books were his companions in so many parts of his life: in the study, in the pulpit, in the lectern, in the office, in the home, where he so often read to Lila in later years. “I seem to have a history of literary entanglements,” he said.[3] And he was the connective tissue for other books, during his years at the John Knox Press. Here he would get an idea for a book, find an author, find an editor, bring them together. Sometimes the connections did not make it to print, but still built the body of Christ; I owe my friendship with the late Bible collector Michael Morgan to Dick, as well as my affection for Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow, which he and Lila gushed about together.
One of the most charming ways in which Dick brought people and ideas together was by physically introducing my students to books. Several times during his presidency at King, he came to a class of mine with a huge stack of books, and proceeded to tell the students about their contents. He was in those moments quite literally the connective tissue between people and words, between the living and the dead, between individual reading and collective sainthood. He had friends who were books and friends who were students, and he wanted them to love each other. One former student of mine heard Dick talking about Meister Eckhart in one of those classes, and was so moved that he ended up pursuing a graduate degree in medieval literature.
Reading was a connective activity for Dick, but it was also individual and prayerful. “When one combines the solitary dimension of the meditative life with that which is communal and historic, across the slender arch of God’s grace, sparks begin to leap up. In the heart of its rhetoric, theology can be personal and incandescent.”[4] During his presidency at King, Dick often used the image of a mind on fire in sermons or speeches, and books could kindle those flames.
Dick’s own mind was certainly ablaze, and he showed a persistent curiosity and wonder throughout his years. I shall never forget that, around the age of 80, he sought out the opportunity to go with a class to a cadaver lab. That’s a mind on fire, to be sure. The flames could take a while to get going: occasionally when he bought a book, he “promptly red shirted it and placed it on the reserve team.”[5] But those interests could catch fire at any time. For many years, Dick had visited a local used book shop, noting every time a Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon that interested him, but never enough to buy it. One day, the curiosity caught flame, and he went to make the purchase — only to discover that it had been sold. A group of faculty purchased a copy for him after he told us this story, and afterwards, he would often tell me of a word he’d learned through that dictionary.
Fire: through his cool demeanor, you might not have seen the flames, but consider that Dick’s favorite composer was Beethoven. He came to love the intense language of spiritual writers of old, as he pulled volume after volume down from their waiting perches. Gentleness of demeanor does not indicate pusillanimity or lack of heart; Dick had depths of fire that shone in his prayers, licked out in his sermons, and occasionally flashed in his eyes.
I had the great privilege of spending considerable time with Dick in his later years, and the even greater privilege of doing some connecting alongside him. It began after he gave a lecture at King on three longtime faculty who had died around the same time; after the talk, I went up and suggested that we do something about the 500th anniversary of the (probable) birth of Scottish reformer John Knox. Dick perked up at this, and before long he had me come down to a meeting of the Board of his beloved Presbyterian Heritage Center. Here I met the Director, Ron Vinson, his wife Ann, and we assembled something pretty remarkable, a conference that drew many scholars and pastors together to consider the complex and remarkable legacy of Knox. I don’t think I realized it completely at the time, but this was, from start to finish, a masterpiece of Dick Ray connecting people.
He invited me to a conference recognizing the 500th anniversary of the posting of the 95 Theses, also in Montreat. I was out of my depth for these, especially paired with the famous scholars he had brought in, but Dick believed in me and it brought out my best. Here again was the jazz conductor, offering me solos, keeping the band going to raise my work beyond its own scope. I got to speak a final time as the Distinguished Reformation Lecturer in 2022, and for that event I had the pleasure of spending more time among Dick’s Montreat circle. What I found there was no surprise. They all loved Dick and Lila Ray, they were all part of the band. When I ascended to the lectern, everyone in the building was rooting for me, because Dick had helped us be the body of Christ together.
When I gave that lecture, Dick wanted to walk to the lectern to introduce me without a cane for support. I walked next to him, offering an arm if needed, but really he was carrying me.
I have alluded several times to Lila Ray in the foregoing, but anyone who knows Dick would attest that she is central to every aspect of what I’ve said. The connective tissue was strongest with Lila, and everything else flowed from that sweet relationship. I have rarely encountered two people who liked each other better. And it’s a lovely image to me that Dick read to Lila so much as her eyesight dimmed. Books connected them, too. Lila is completely Dick’s equal in making friends, remembering names, and putting people together. I saw them in action together at King, and they were a formidable team, introducing folks to each other, joining the members of the body of Christ.
Lila also helped bring out Dick’s sense of humor. One Halloween at King, perhaps 2015, there was a trunk-or-treat in one of the parking lots. I saw them headed down, both having just purchased King baseball caps in the bookstore, wearing them askew. I asked about this purchase, and they told me: “We’re dressed as King students!” Lila was also present when, the last time I visited Dick in the house, he told stories of his time coaching flag football at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Dick had been tasked with bringing the campus together, creating some unity — being connective tissue. So he decided that the eastern Presbyterian seminaries should have a flag football league. The team duly assembled, he coached them to an unimpressive record, but forged many fond memories. He told us that day about a game in which a member of the other seminary gave the opening invocation. Dick thought that this prayer was of insufficient orthodoxy, and used this for his final pep talk. “Those rascals are heretics,” he told his squad. “Go whup up on them!” They didn’t win, but I bet they all remember the humor, warmth, and tiny flash of fire in those words. (And they probably remember the actual words, which I omit here.)
The last time I saw Dick, he was at a board meeting at King, accompanied by a friend who helped him get around. It struck me that this mighty man, who had been such a nourisher and connector of persons, was being carried by the other members of the body of Christ. His good work was now being given back to him, as others helped him, honored him, supported him. No one did this more than Lila, and as Dick’s health declined, their bond of reading continued, their love for others continued, and they sang together often.
It is the strange way of memory that only when a story finishes do we begin to see its full contours; only now do I see the full imprint that Dick Ray made on me. I love connecting people and ideas, and I learned a great deal about this from Dick and Lila together. I met so many sweet people through them, and those friendships continue. I have turned my attention more to reading ancient authors because of Dick’s example, and I’ve found some of his great joy in being part of Christ’s body. As he joins the saints of old in glory, Dick is still bringing us into the circle, welcoming us to deeper communion, daring us “to find new friends among the departed who will be truly gifted to us in love one day.”
Written on the day of Dick’s funeral, April 22, 2024, the 20th birthday of my son Peter and the eighth anniversary of my father’s death.
[1] Richard A. Ray, “When Theology Burns,” Theology Mattters, vol. 24 no. 1, accessed at https://www.theologymatters.com/articles/theology/2018/when-theology-burns/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
