Reflections on Clif Collins' Life
Reflection by Steadman Crawford:Lawrence Clifton Collins IIThis past Monday when we were gathered at the hospital, Mother Sheila was there for Clif and comforting Clif’s loved ones. At one point, she and I were talking and she asked if I had planned on speaking at the funeral. I told her Clif had asked me to speak for him back in early July and of course I said I would. I’ve been putting off preparing for this with the hopes Clif would recover, although it was apparent that the Diffuse Scleroderma and Myositis was taking a serious toll on him. In our discussion, Mother told me a good rule of thumb for a eulogy was three to five minutes. Immediately, I reflected on how Clif would tease me about talking slow. I figured I would be lucky to get ten to fifteen words out in that period of time, but I’ll do my best to keep it brief.I became Clif and Eileen’s neighbor back in the 2002 when I moved in the house next door. Coming over to the fence, Clif introduced himself and I didn’t get much more out than my name when Clif asked where I was from. He knew I wasn’t from around here and as it turns out we’re both from Georgia. It didn’t take long for us to realize that this wasn’t just a transitory friendship and I had the good fortune of spending a great deal of time with Clif, most often on his side porch. We would sit out there and chat for hours, and the angel that Eileen is, she would peek out the window with a little smile that politely suggested that I needed to get on home. Clif and Eileen took me into their family as if I was one of their own. With the time that Clif and I spent together I was given the opportunity to know a brilliant and truly remarkable person.Clif was an educator, not only as a professor but as a teacher to many of us that have shared the journey with him. Clif earned his BA in political science and an MA in English from Clemson University, where he taught full time from 1988 to 1990. Clif’s love for the Orioles Baseball Team brought him here to Maryland. What many would consider a conventional decision process didn’t necessary align well with Clif’s wisdom of choosing your own path without the distractions of everyday life. Many of us would like to believe we actually live that way, but Clif was one that truly did. In his early years in Maryland, Clif taught part-time at the prison over here in Jessup. Clif has been a professor at Montgomery College for the past 25 years and it was apparent how much he loved his job. He would often talk with me about the progression of his students. It’s not surprising that his students recognized his passion for teaching and I would like to share one of his reviews I found online. This particular student seemed to get in touch with what Clif is all about.“Professor Collins is a fun time. He will really get you to think about assigned readings and wants students to dig deeper into meanings. You MUST read to do well, he will pop quiz you. He likes analogies and jokes whenever possible. Southern charm? Check. Watch grammar when writing for him and don't be afraid to draw your own conclusions from books”Another student with a similar post added, “Cool, Cool guy really knows his music too.” If you asked folks individually what type of music Clif likes, you probably would get a variety of answers because his taste in music as well as style, food, literature, theatre and pretty much the world in general was eclectic. In many ways Clif’s approach to life was the definition of eclectic which comes from a Greek verb meaning "to select" and was originally applied to ancient philosophers who were not committed to any single system of philosophy; instead, these philosophers selected whichever doctrines pleased them from every school of thought.Clif had a similar approach towards understanding people as well. He wasn’t content with getting to know you from the surface. He wanted to know the person inside of you. He liked to poke and prod around to get to that layer beneath. He wanted to get to that area of a person that made them truly unique. Not in a judgmental way, unless you’re a Yankees fan. That was a primary character flaw Clif struggled with accepting. Clif capitalized on humor and the art of shock therapy to psychoanalyze his subjects. So, Clif’s brand of shock therapy was saying something that was oftentimes less than acceptable for the locker room, let alone mixed company. Things that would get most guys slapped by a lady or punched by a husband or boyfriend was somehow allowed for Clif. He loved that raw emotion he would uncover with his technique. I think Clif’s interest in the psyche of humankind sparked his interest in the theater, movies and television. Beyond knowing the actual names of pretty much any character you see on the screen, Clif would know the background and personal histories of many of the actors.As many of us know, Clif was an actor himself. He played all sorts of roles, he played a General in the military, a homicide victim and on one particular series pilot, Clif was the President of the United States. I especially enjoyed this one, not so much from the doomsday sci-fi theme, but seeing Clif in the Oval Office and imagining our nation with Clif at the helm. Here’s a few things that would take place immediately upon his inauguration:For starters, the official business day would begin around 11ish maybe noon depending on how much coffee the president was able to consume upon wakening.No work on Friday, Clif didn’t believe in working on Fridays.Quite a few new national holidays would be added out of the gate, here are a few:February 6th – Bob Marley’s birthdayAugust 18th– Roberto Clemente’s birthdayOctober 31st– Which marked the first Clemson game ever held in 1896 against Furman CollegeThe nation would change for sure and I’m confident that Clif’s compassion for others, passion for education, integrity, dignity, and let’s not forget, humor, would guide this nation in its most challenging times.Something personal I would like to share regarding my relationship with Clif:Clif is the friend I’ve always had, it’s a shame we only met face to face only 17 years ago. I look forward to the day we meet face to face again.GO TIGERS FIGHT!
- Steadman “Steady” Crawford
Two poems read by Dr. Miller Newman, Clif's colleague at Montgomery College
The Horn Player’s Verse
And a great sky descended,And from it a voice spoke, asking,‘Have you come to count yourselfamong the prophets? For onlya prophet may walk hereempty-handedand his head uncovered.’I answered that I did not and had onlyThis body, swollen and worn,To give for the taking of a lifeJust lived, and again the voice asked,‘Are you then numberedamong the people of the desertwho subsist only thattheir song may be each nightlifted to heaven?’And again I answered, truthfully,‘I know only this body, broken and torn,given to you for a life just lived,’speaking then in a fear coldas the winter cup though the stonesof this very road burned my feet.Clif Collins, p. 55 in The Lives of the Apostles
Sustenance by Participle (unpublished)
Dad’s taking hospicein the living room,oxygen and feeding tubes,motors and compressors grinding—we’re on the screen porch,soft summer night,saying our gracepassing around the heaping bowls,and always having lovedfried okra and fresh green beans,he dreamswhile low voices and clinking spoonspass into a placeonly he knows,and no one is pretending.Clif Collins August 2018Two Poems read by Scott Lilienthal
The Lost Prophet
And I will stand before you with wordsYou will not understand and so will first rebuke,For you have been taught in ways unbefitting a believer,Indeed have not been taught at allBut only told such as meets your prideAnd will therefore one day be your own destruction.I say to you now, Do not look outside for your enemy;He is not there, nor does he dwell alone in your heartSo that you may renounce its iniquitiesAnd the blindness to which they have led you,Knowing therefore the wisdom of that which I ask:To stay the hand that would strike in retribution,And hold the tongue whose words are sown in lies.For surely guilt is with you as it rests upon all men.Therefore should you live always, in word and deed,With humility as an expressing of your unknowing.Clif Collins in Lives of the Apostles, p. 30 
Benediction
(overheard at Penn Station, Baltimore)
Wipe your face and quit crying,You still got mustard on your chin.We all on the same train, baby—we just gettin off at different places.Clif Collins in Lives of the Apostles, p. 62 Homily preached by the Rev. Dr. Sheila N. McJiltonHere we are. We all on the same train, baby. The one who got off the train on Monday evening is now at God’s Table. The prophet Isaiah had one description of God’s Table: “A feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines. . .” A place where God swallows up death forever, where the fullness of God’s salvation and love is finally present and visible. Yet on Monday night, and this week, and in the weeks ahead, here we are. We are still on the train. We may not have mustard on our chins, but we sure do have tears in our eyes and tears running down our faces and deep grief in our hearts. We look at the track ahead—the track that, way down the line, curves out of sight into a grove of trees.Wait a minute. There was more to do. Clif had too much life in him, too much keen intellect still to use, for him to have descended the steps of this train. There was another book somewhere in his bones and heart. There were lots more jokes. There were baseball games and football games not attended, there were graduations and weddings to go to, there were days on the beach in Lewes, there were margaritas yet to be enjoyed. Yet this man who, even to the last, possessed one of the finest minds I have ever encountered, is gone—at least from our sight.Several months ago, I visited Clif in the Laurel hospital. We had about an hour to talk—just the two of us—and at some point, our conversation went as follows:
“Padress, I’m not ready to die yet.”“Not ready?”“No. Not yet.”“Do you still have another book in you?”“I think I do. I think I do.”“So you’re not ready yet.”“No. . .(silence, then) “But you know something, Padress? If it’s my time, I’m not scared to die.”“You aren’t?”“Nope. When it’s my time, I know I have lived a life beyond imagining. Not a day goes by that I don’t tell my boy I love him and how proud of him I am. I found the love of my life. I’ll miss my family and I worry about them. But me? I’m not afraid to die. I’m good.”And he was. On his final day on this earth—which arrived way too soon for all of us—Clif Collins squarely faced the door between this life and the next. He walked through that door on his own terms, the way he wanted. He made his own decisions about how he would leave us. He made that final, difficult journey with courage, and had peace at the last—then—finally—he knew pure joy and freedom.For years, I have believed—with all my heart—that when we pray the “Our Father,” we should do that with fear and trembling. Why? Because when we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” I do not think of that kingdom or that heaven as “pie in the sky by and by.” I really do not think eternity is a place we have to earn or a place we won’t see until we take a step off the train we are riding now.I think we walk in it now, and our responsibility as God’s people is to make eternity real now—with our words, and with our actions. We are to bring God’s kingdom to reality now, today, as it is in heaven now, today. With humility. With love. In other words, on some level, you and I are already walking in eternal time. We may not hear the beautiful music Clif now hears. We may not see the amazing sights he now sees. We may not smell aromas that he now smells. We are hampered mightily by our limited human senses. Yet we are in some measure of eternal life. I agree with the Jesuit priest and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”Yes. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. That means that regardless of our particular religious beliefs or our associations—or none—with a religious institution, we human beings aren’t so much human as we are spiritual. This, of course, explains our deep, spiritual hunger. Now it is true that we explore our questions about spirituality in many different ways, and Clif did that. He found God in this community of faith, within the Episcopal Church. He found God in words—in the words written by James Baldwin or Flannery O’Connor or Sherman Alexie. He understood that poetry is the finest of distilled language, because the structure and the sound of every syllable counts—double or even triple the usual value of a word.I believe Clif found God in the acceptance of all kinds and sorts of folks, and he saw God, and experienced God, in the spiritual, everyday exchanges among people he met and partied with and loved.Ultimately, of course, Clif found God in. . .football and baseball. (Please note, Clif, that this priest has used baseball in a sermon.) A few years ago, I read a book by John Sexton, entitled Baseball as a Road to God. For years, Sexton taught a very popular class at New York University with the content of what became this book.At some point, in a feature story, the PBS journalist Bill Moyers asked a student to explain the content of the class. The student replied, “Is it about baseball? Not exactly. Is it about God? Not exactly. So what is it all about? If you want to know, you’ll have to come and experience it for yourself. It’s ineffable.’[2]Ineffable is a word that tries to describe something that cannot be put into words. Yet Sexton contends that “poetry and music and art sometimes come close.” The ineffable is something that is beyond us, and we acknowledge that it is. In other words, we acknowledge that God is God and we are not, and so many things—including a death that has come too soon—are way beyond our comprehension. Yet we still ask questions. We still push back. We still ask Why. We still look at the final score with our mouths open—either in ecstasy or disbelief.Sexton says, “Baseball evokes in the life of its faithful features we associate with the spiritual life: faith and doubt, conversion, blessings and curses, miracles, and so on. For some baseball really is a road to God.”[3]So the road to God looks different for each one of us. Yet on Monday night, as I prayed in an ICU room with grieving people, I knew one thing for sure. At the end of that road, there is love. Only love. And that love is spelled in capital letters. It is the ultimate poem of God’s heart.Today, we celebrate the life of a man who lived life large. He loved his wife and his family. He had strong opinions. He cherished his good friends. He didn’t talk much about his faith, yet he did live it. He had integrity and courage. He possessed a keen intellect and wit. And until the train came to a stop, he was still writing good poetry and listening to Steve Earle’s music.In a little while, we will play a piece of music that Clif wanted, a song entitled “I’m Going Home” by Arlo Guthrie. I quote those words now:“Like the tree that grows so tallLeaves turn gold and then they fallThey've gone down, but now they've grownThey're going homeMountain streams may run and flowClean the sands on which they goStretching down like it had knownIt's going homeSunrise early in the dawnSlips away, and then it's goneLeaves the night to carry onWhile it's going homeOnce a man he lived and diedWhat he said death could not hideEven though it's often triedBut he was going home Now my friends it's time to goAnd this love will live to growAnd I want you all to knowI'm going home.”[4] 
My brothers and sisters, we have all come from God. Someday the train will slow and stop again, and one by one, we will return Home—to God. Clif’s already there, waiting for us. May he rest in peace and great joy with the saints of God. And may he get not just bread and wine at God’s Table. . .I hope he is enjoying the best fried okra and sweet tea he has ever had.Clif, we thank God that you were a blessing to us,your family and friends. We pray that we were blessings to you. We thank God that we could walk with you—even for a little while—on this spiritual journey in our human bodies. But please, please, will you remember what your mama Charlotte told you? Please. . .please. . .Be sweet. Amen. Note: Lives of the Apostles by Clif Collins can be ordered at one of the following: www.pagepublishing.com/books/?book+lives-of-the-apostles or at www.amazon.com [1]Clif Collins, “Benediction” in Lives of the Apostles, (New York: Page Publishing, 2017), 62.[2]John Sexton, Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game, (New York: Gotham Books, 2013), 7.[3]Ibid., 7.[4]Arlo Guthrie, “I’m Going Home.”