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Thomas Dix Bowers - A Eulogy
by David G. Duggan ©
www.virtueonline.org
July 15, 2024
It must be by divine Providence that the Rev. Thomas Dix Bowers died the same day a lone-nut gunman tried to kill former President Donald Trump. Tom and Trump were front page news in New York City in the 1980s, Trump because of his re-developments of old Manhattan buildings; Tom because of a re-development he wanted to make of an old Manhattan building but which was blocked by landmark preservationists. The moral of the story might be nobody has any use for religion; but the world, the flesh and the devil get all the power in this life. Heaven help us.
From the late 1970s until the early 1990s Tom was the rector of St. Bartholomew's Church at 50th St. and Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan. St. Bart's is the largest Episcopal parish church in this hemisphere, seating more than 1200, with a membership roll running into the thousands. He had come from St. Luke's Atlanta and had begun the slow, steady process of rebuilding the parish. Started in the 1830s, St. Bart's had been running on the fumes from the Vanderbilts and other gilded age families which had endowed the parish more than a century ago. The domed tabernacle, designed by famed architect Bertram Goodhue, encased not only mosaics by Hildreth Meier, but a sculpture by Gustav Thorwaldsen, and an Aeolian Skinner 12,000 pipe organ which was the largest in North America. Its principal benefactor was the owner of the most valuable stamp collection ever assembled.
Having been raised in Episcopal parishes, I was used to tepid sermons, indifferent liturgy and ministers more interested in their sinecures than in preaching the word of God. Tom changed that perception. When he preached, I thought that he was speaking to me personally. I can still recall the sermons he preached on the movie "Ordinary People," filmed in my home town, and the movie "Chariots of Fire," which he proclaimed the greatest ever. Describing the Scottish runner Eric Liddell's victory in the 1924 Olympics, Tom recounted how Liddell, the son of missionaries to China told his sports-skeptic sister: "I know that God made me, but he made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." I still cry when I repeat those lines.
In a sense, Tom changed my life. I was seeking fame and fortune in the Apple, but somehow God had a different plan for me. I understood that the homeless, who were populating the streets next to St. Bart's were me without the breaks I had received. I understood that our nation, blessed in so many ways with riches both material and spiritual, had much left to achieve. I understood that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was also the God who despite all the reasons not to do so, still loved me.
I kept in touch with Tom in his retirement, calling him to read devotional essays which I had written, an effort in introspection I had begun nearly 40 years ago when I was worshiping at St. Bart's. We loved those times over the phone. I last spoke to him a week ago, and he expressed some premonition of the end. I called him on July 14 to wish him a happy Bastille Day and remind him that it was 100 years ago that Eric Liddell had won the 400 meter race in Paris, flailing his arms around the track like a man possessed. Tom too was possessed by a spirit, the spirit of the God who doesn't let a sparrow fall to the ground without knowing about it, the spirit of the God who created out of nothing the world which is falling apart, the spirit of the God who rose from the dead to usher all of us into eternal life in Him, which Tom so eloquently preached. Thomas Dix Bowers, RIP.
