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Friends United
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September/October 2009
30 Minutes with Tom Mullen
By Philip Gulley
A Catholic priest by the name of Thomas McLaughlin taught me religion should be reverent. A professor by the name of Rufus Burrows taught me religion should be relevant. But Tom Mullen taught me religion should be joyful.
Tom died from a massive stroke last week, at the age of 74. That was not his wish. The first time I heard Tom speak, he said he wanted to die at the age of 90. While climbing through a bedroom window. Shot by a jealous husband. For just cause. He said this to a room full of sober Quakers, who I thought would be upset by that remark, but instead they laughed and laughed and laughed. Wherever Tom went, people laughed and laughed and laughed. When we were done laughing, he made us think and think and think. Then he helped us love and love and love.
Sixteen years ago, I was living in Indianapolis and driving to Richmond once a week to take Tom’s class, “Writing for the Religious Market.” I hadn’t intended to write for the religious market or any other market. I just wanted to be around Tom, and taking a class from him seemed the best way to accomplish that.
The highlight of the class was the half-hour every week each student got to spend alone with Tom. It was like having an audience with royalty. Down-to-earth royalty, but royalty nonetheless. Thirty minutes with Tom Mullen. What would we give to have another 30 minutes with Tom! He would read your work, occasionally chuckling and nodding, occasionally writing a modest suggestion with his red pen, which you never minded because you were with Tom. Even his criticism made you feel good. He once told me he’d never known anyone who confused the words “lay” and “lie” as regularly as me. It sustained me for days. But I lived for those 30 minutes. I felt like Nicodemus, sneaking over in the night to visit Jesus. I was drawn to the man.
The best words aren’t yet invented. Charismatic is the word we use to describe someone who is captivating. Gifted is the word we use to describe someone who is bright and talented. But there isn’t a single word to describe Tom Mullen, who was simultaneously delightful and kind and wise and generous and honest and loyal and available. There’s no word to describe all of that. The closest anyone ever came to capturing Tom’s essence was a man I met last month in Virginia. He discovered I was a Quaker and asked if I knew Tom and I said yes. The man looked at me and said, “Isn’t he something!” Yes, that’s what he was. He was something. When he was born, God threw every gift and grace in the bag, just filled it to the brim.
Scientists talk about a mitochondrial Eve, the most recent common ancestor for all living humans. We all trace our life back to a woman who lived about 170,000 years ago. On my way home from the hospital after Tom passed away, I thought how so many leaders in the Society of Friends could trace their ministry back to Tom. Tom had this wonderful knack for discerning potential, for eliciting the best from people, for seeing sunlight where others saw clouds. He’d tell his students, “You’ve got the gift.” We responded by standing a little taller, thinking a little clearer, acting a little kinder, trying a little harder.
If there is such a thing as a spiritual Midas touch, Tom had it. He pastored with such heart and joy that, 40 years after leaving New Castle Meeting, his name is still spoken in hushed and reverent tones. We pastors dream of retiring, moving to Florida and making birdhouses. Tom’s idea of retirement bliss was serving as an interim minister with Nancy. He kept throwing himself into the fray.
His ministerial arena shifted from the meetinghouse to the college when he became dean of students at Earlham College. That role involved maintaining discipline, which was ironic, vesting authority in the man who, while he was a student at Earlham, arranged to have a bucket of water poured on a dean who was preparing to give a lecture on inappropriate student pranks. But Tom loved irony.
He moved on to the Earlham School of Religion and taught writing, preaching, the work of the pastor, then served as dean. Do you have any idea, can you fully appreciate, how many dull and lifeless sermons this good man spared the Society of Friends by teaching its future preachers?
Some pastors’ gifts end at the meetinghouse door. Their families get lost in the shuffle. But Tom not only found a way to serve the church with distinction, he served his family well. The larger his family grew, the more comfortably and capably he drew them into his life. He had a wide embrace. His children hit the Dad jackpot, three cherries in a row. And he had this wonderful knack of attracting beautiful, loving, intelligent women named Nancy, and blessing their lives also, even as they blessed his.
Even people who didn’t know Tom personally benefited from him. Several weeks ago I was speaking out of state and met a Disciples of Christ minister, who said to me, “You want to hear how I conduct pre-marital counseling for the couples I marry?”
Well, I didn’t really want to hear, but I couldn’t say that, so I said, “Sure. How do you conduct pre-marital counseling for the couples you marry?”
He said, “I buy them a copy of Tom Mullen’s book, A Very Good Marriage, and I sit down with them and we read it aloud together.”
In the beginning, I would write an essay and send it to Tom and sometimes he’d write with his red pen, “This story stops. It doesn’t end.” There is a difference between stopping and ending. Stopping is sudden. Stopping is slamming on the brakes. Ending is bringing something to its proper conclusion in its proper time.
On the 19th day of the Sixth month, 2009, Tom Mullen’s life stopped. His body slammed on the brakes. His life stopped, but his life didn’t end. The lessons he taught are no less valuable, no less true, no less helpful. The love he shared no less redemptive, no less transforming, no less enduring.
For faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. So love, and love, and love.
Philip Gulley is the co-pastor of Fairfield Friends Meeting near Indianapolis. In addition to pastoring, Phil is the author of 16 books, including If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus, due to be published in February of 2010. He is married to Joan Gulley, and they have two sons, Spencer and Sam. This article is the eulogy Phil shared at Tom’s memorial service, June 27, 2009.