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During Covid, I first ‘met’ the Reverend Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, England. It was a charming video that went nearly as viral as Covid: Dean Robert giving the Cathedral’s daily morning prayers outdoors as, like our own church, his was on lockdown. Only Dean Robert and his partner, Fletcher, were present—Fletcher being behind the camera—along with cheeky cats, chickens, turkeys and, from time to time, pigs, as Dean Robert gave the readings, lesson and reflection to all who viewed online, soon to be known as the Garden Congregation.

The introductory video I watched was the one picked up by the news media…As Dean Robert, seated and wearing his black cassock, was midway through his reflection, one of the cats, Leo, wandered between his legs and disappeared into the folds of his robes, quite unnoticed. Without missing a beat, Dean Robert continued, and as I searched for more videos, I knew at once that I would also love to be a member of the Garden Congregation.

Dean Robert was exactly the sort of elderly clergyman with whom any of us who have ever enjoyed Midsomer Murders or Agatha Christie would find immediate comfort. Indeed, it was as if he’d been sent from Central Casting: tall, slim, bespectacled, a thatch of white hair and modest manner. As with a handful of other ‘Great Deans,’ he had a nearly all-consuming devotion to the beauty and history of his cathedral as well as liturgical order and pastoral power. His sermons flowed organically from a humble intellect which must have contained a million points of reference as not once have I ever seen him speak from notes.

When it was clear that our own church would remain closed for Christmas service that first, very bleak year with so many ill and dying, it felt terribly depressing and surreal. In our lives, Paul and I had never missed a church Christmas service…would it even feel like Christmas at all?

Clearly this had been on the mind of all at Canterbury Cathedral as the doors were open for only the clergy, staff, choir— and YouTube. From the pulpit of this magnificent place of pilgrimage, this austere cathedral founded in 597 by Saint Augustine, Dean Robert gave such an elegant, simple and moving sermon that Paul and I looked at each other at its conclusion and said, “Perfect.”

Dean Robert began to accompany me in the barn each morning as I cleaned stalls and fed the horses, while I took a hot soak, when I couldn’t sleep. He became a sort of spiritual guide and my understanding of biblical history expanded beyond measure.

Thank God all those videos remain online from 2020, through his retirement and most sadly, days before his untimely death last week at the age of 77 towards the end of an enormously enjoyable and successful tour across America. Churches across the country had reached out to invite him over to speak and it was gratifying to see how enthusiastically he was received and how wonderfully he wove sermons from all the places he visited: Houston, Oklahoma and where he suddenly took ill, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.

It is always an odd thing to come to grips with, as well as to grieve, the death of someone you’ve never met. But that’s just the point— with his mellifluous voice, his unwavering sense of justice and, as Fletcher put it in his heartbreaking tribute, his ‘oh, so kind’ manner, Dean Robert, even in this digital age, had the rare ability to draw in each viewer with his quiet warm inclusivity and love for all creation.

We have never needed exactly that more than we do now. Godspeed, Dean Robert. To borrow your own words, may you rest in peace and rise in glory.