Maybe it was because he had three adored kids of his own. Maybe it was because he really believed in the biblical “suffer the little children” commandment. Or maybe it was because he was just a big kid himself — one who was known to wear fishing boots with his vestments, put traffic cones on the altar, or cover an acolyte with Post-It notes and Scotch tape to make a point.
All it took was a baptism to bring out the child in Father Hank. He would begin the ceremony by asking the children in the sanctuary to come up to the altar. Those of us who had been around Emmanuel Episcopal Church for a while knew what then to expect.
Hank would fish a brown bottle from his robes and start to pour some of its contents into the baptismal font, telling the children gathered around him that this water was special because it had come from the River Jordan, the place where Jesus was baptized. He would then baptize the baby, or babies, of the day and ask the wide-eyed tots looking on if they could remember their own baptisms.
Of course, no one ever could, so Hank — his eyes flashing in that eternally mischievous grin of his — would take advantage of their rapt attention to pepper water all over them and anyone else within reach, too. Hank so loved that part of the service that he once, when there were no children around, sent the water flinging across the pews in the direction of his elegant wife, Edie.
I thought about the children first when I heard late Saturday that Hank had died, taken far too soon while on a weekend holiday. I had just gotten home from the grocery store when Steve met me at the garage door with the terrible news. I dropped the bags of juice and dog food and ran into the house to find our own 17-year-old dissolved in tears. She, like every child who ever met Father Hank, was crazy about him.
A couple of weeks earlier, Kate had served as crucifer during the communion service at church. Hank always seemed on such occasions to linger with her as she helped him wash his hands for the Eucharistic feast. But on this particular day, he seemed to take a little longer and Kate seemed to be trying, unsuccessfully, to muffle a giggle. She told us later that Hank — again with that mischievous grin of his — had said he was taking a survey and wanted to know if she thought his daughter Anna’s new haircut made her look like pop star Ashlee Simpson. It is a moment that Kate will, I suspect, carry with her for a long, long time to come.
Lots of children — Hank and Edie’s own Anna, James and Sam and the hundreds of their little brothers and sisters in Christ who have sung in the choir, carried the cross or the torches, or listened to Bible stories during Vacation Bible School or EDS chapel — have equally precious memories of Father Hank.
He touched and was revered by every child he ever knew, so much so that one little girl, on being told that the bishop was coming for a visit, announced, “I thought Father Hank was the bishop.”
If we can find comfort in his much-too-early leaving, it is in the hope that God surely needed his special charm for some heavenly work involving children. I like to think that Father Hank is even now training the cherubim, soaking them in precious water from the River Jordan, listening to their innocently crafted statements of faith, and smiling his mischievous grin as he sprints around heaven in gold vestments and fishing boots.
Brenda Bouser, wife of Pilot Editor Steve Bouser, is a member of the Vestry at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Southern Pines.
