[church bells gong] i am the recollection and the life, say the lord. And whosoever shall believe in me shall never die. I know that my redeemer live et and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though this body be destroyed, yet shall i see god whom i shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold and not as a stranger. For none of us lives to himself and no man dies to himself. For if we live we live onto the lord and if we die we die onto the lord. Whether we live or die, we are the lords. Blessed are the dead, who die in the lord. Even so, says is the spirit, for they rest from their labors. [music] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] the lord be with you. Oh god, whose mercies cannot be numbered accept our prayers on behalf of thy servant benjamin. And grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship. Through jesus christ, thy son our lord, who live with thee and the holy spirit, one god now and forever. Amen. Most merciful god, whose wisdom is beyond our understanding deal graciously with benjamins family and friends in their grief. Surround them with thy love, that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss, but have confidence in thy goodness and strength to meet the days to come through jesus christ our lord. Amen. Mr. President mr. Justice mr. Secretary, reverend injury jiclergysally, members of the bradlee family, ladies and gentlemen so how lucky were we . This is washington, the city of big reputations. Some of those reputations get punctured. And ben was responsible for more than a few of those punctures. This is a very large building, but everyone in it knows people whose enormous reputations are undeserved. [laughter] we knew somebody much better than his very large reputation, even braver, even smarter, much more fun. He had his faults. And if my mother, Katharine Graham, were still here, believe me she could go on a very long time about those. [laughter] but she literally wrote the book about how great ben bradlee was. And it was a very long book. At the same time, what a lucky guy ben was himself. His marriage to sally filled up the gossip columns of the rival papers. But several decades later we can all say, sal, you were the wife of his dreams. All you had to do to make ben smile was mention your name. Always. He died surrounded by children he loved and who loved him. Ben jr. , whom he admired so much as editor and author, marina, whom i have known since she was a teenager and whom every visit to ben made him so happy, in advance and afterwards. Dino is stuck in another country, who i so wish were here today, and quinn, whose daily companionship lit up his last 33 years. In the kay grahamben bradlee correspondence on which frankly i am an expert, my mother occasionally perhaps teasingly, uses the phrase male cheuvenist pig, surprise in one respect, he wasnt. When kay graham became publisher of the post, many men were reduced to blubber by the idea that they were suddenly working for a woman. No other man they knew was working for a woman, because no other woman was running a large company, other than kay graham. If a man at our company had any insecurities about himself he tended to demonstrate those insecurities around katherine Katharine Graham. Ben, after all those years as a destroyer officer in world war ii had no insecurities about himself. And he recognized a great publisher when he saw one. Myselfmy selfdoubting mother always secondguessing within minutes the last decision she had made. She knew for once, when she made ben the editor, she had done something great. She knew it by the evidence of her own eyes, and she knew it because every reporter she liked and trusted came and told her so. The reporters ben hired to were the toughest he could find. And that meant they were the toughest critics of ben himself. That was fine with him. Those reporters i hate to say it mr. Justice would not believe the word of a Supreme Court justice under oath. The post staff could be fairly described as hardbitten. They were a group of men and women who proudly had no heros. But he was our hero. Benjamin c. Bradlee. And he will be always. Reading from the book of e, pleasethebible. For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. What gain have the workers from their toil . I have seen the business that god has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time. Moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what god has done from the beginning to the end. The word of the lord. Thanks be to god. Good morning. My generation considers the 26 years of ben bradlees run in the Washington Post newsroom as our golden age of journalism. He was the greatest motivator the most enthusiastic cheerleader, and when needed, the best protector a reporter could ask for. There was Nothing Better than ben coming to your desk the morning you beat the New York Times and getting a bradlee verbal pat on the back. I cant repeat what he said here. [laughter] in his memoir, ben wrote that he had been given ringside seats at some of the 20th centurys most vital moments. Lucky us, we were right there with him. For me and others at the post, he became more than just our boss. In 1966, the year ben hired me from the washington star, he heard that ann and i and our threemonth old son ward needed a vacation spot. Out of the blue, he offered us the house he had rented on Marthas Vineyard over labor week because he had to get back to the paper. That started a friendship that only grew over the years. When ben married sally, which would make a good movie, in october of 1978, she brought a new sparkle to his life and ours outside the paper. Along with larry stern and others we shared decades of work mixed with pleasure, thanks to sally and ben. Then Katharine Graham made the post the second family to many of us. But it was ben who every day was the pumping heart of the operation. And he pushed us with a kind of competitive hunger that was infectious. Its atop that solid foundation, built by ben and the grahams that the post continues and i hope goes on to even greater heights. I once went into bens office to ask for a raise. He looked up from the crossword puzzing that he was always doing and puzzle that he was always doing and said in his gruff tone p youtone, you ought to be paying me for all the fun youre having. [laughter] he was right. Ann and i, his friends, his colleagues, have a pile of ben Golden Memories that add to the already enormous debt we owe him for the richness of life that he has given us all. [music] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] a reading from the first letter of paul to the kor corinthians. If i speak in the voice of more talls but do not have love, i am a clanging cymbal. If i have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have all faith so as to remove mountains but do no t not have love, i am nothing. If i give away all my possessions and if i hand over my body so that i may boast but do not have love, i gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own ways. It is not irritatable or resentful. It does not result in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge it will come to an end. For we know only in part and we prophecy only in part. But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When i was a child, i spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When i became an adult i put an end to my childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly but then we will see face to face. Now i know only in part. Then i will know fully, even as i have been fully known. And now faith hope and love abide. These three and the greatest of these is love. The word of the lord. Thanks be to god. There has been memoirs newspaper and magazine articles endless interviews, books including ours documentaries movies about bens leadership at the post. What is the central part of his character . The part of him that was different . Its this. He was not afraid. On september 23, 1972, about 9 00 p. M. , i reached john mitchell, president nixons former attorney general and campaign manager, by phone about a story we were running. It said he had controlled the secret funds for undercover operations such as watergate. Mitchell was quite upset responding, jesus several times as i read him the story. He then proceeded to threaten an important private part of Katharine Grahams anatomy which he said would get caught in a big, fat ringer if the post printed the story. He also said were going to do a story on all of you. And he hung up the phone. I called ben at home. Woodward and i did not much observe the chain of command. Ben interrogated me. Had mitchell been drinking . I couldnt tell. Did i properly identify myself . Yes. Did i have good notes . Yes. Okay, ben said put in all of mitchells comments in the paper, but leave out mrs. Grahams. Tell the desk its okay, he said. A top official of the nixon campaign, moore, called me a few minutes later to make an appeal that mitchell had been caught in an unguarded moment. Hes been a cabinet member, and so forth. He doesnt want to show up in the paper like that. The official then called bradlee at home to repeat the appeal. Bradlee recalled saying, which just boils down to this question, mr. Moore, of whether mr. Mitchell said it or not and whether the Washington Post reporter identified himself as a reporter. And if he did that, all my requisites have been satisfied. Mitchells comments stayed in the paper. To be honest, i was frightened. Bob and i were 28 and 29 years old. A raw threat from the former attorney general probably the official closest to nixon, was not normal in the course of business as we know knew it. The statement about doing a little story on all of us was chilling. We knew a lot about how they operated, dirty tricks, sabotage espionage. But ben didnt miss a beat. He was not just cool but hey this is a great story; get it in the paper fast. He couldnt wait to tell Katharine Graham, who stopped by my desk the next morning and asked with a smile if i had any more messages for her. [laughter] lets think about this for a minute. We live now in an era when too many of us run afraid. We look for and we embrace the safety play. What will the boss think . What will the president of the board of directors do . My god im vulnerable. I better be careful and i better seek comfort in the company line or the party line. How do i stay on the main road . An outlandish number of members of congress now, democrats and republicans, hold office in a gerrymandered safe district protected as long as they hold the party doctrine, whether left or right. The dominant political and media cultures are too often geared to the lowest common denominator. Make noise get eyeballs, cover the political battles like a football game, manufacture as much controversy as can be ginned up. Ben lived and worked in an ungerrymanderred world. He lived off the main road. There was no safe line except the truth, no group think what was said, what happened, why what is the context. No sense sensationalism. Keep digging. Months later, in 1973, late on an april night, we learned that watergate was about to explode spectacularly. And that nixons involvement in ordering illegal activities and leading the coverup was indisputable. And that ongoing wiretapping was widespread and that lives perhaps could be in danger. It was 2 00 a. M. Woodward and i decided we had to get hold of somebody from the post immediately. Who . We, of course, decided to go straight to bradlees house. Called him from a pay phone before we arrived. He said come over. When we suggested we talk on the front line instead of inside the front lawn instead of inside, dan in his jammies and bathrobe gazed around amusedly and came out onto the front line. When we started to share details of what we had learned, he had one question. What do we do now . The next day, he mobilized all the senior editors on the roof garden at the post, where electronic eavesdropping would be unlikely. When one of the editors suggested that things had now reached the edge of fantasy, ben said he wasnt interested in the logic of it. Weve seen some pretty illogical things in the last year, he said. He just wanted to find out what might be true. He pulled off being bradlee because he wasnt afraid of president s, of polio, of Political Correctness of publishing the pentagon papers of possible retribution or the likelihood that the government might strike at his newspaper with all its power of going off to war in the pacific of making mistakes. Eight weeks ago at the gardens on long island, on august 26, sally seated me next to ben at his 93rd birthday party. He held my hand at times, and he and i talked about his oldest friends from another washington era, about fast eddie, lawyer Edward Bennett williams, and doc, and art and their sunday breakfasts at the drugstore on wisconsin avenue and about watergate. You guys, he said. He struggled with some of the particulars, but there was that big bradlee smile. And he looked great. I mean, great. And he made some cracks about sally, who was seated within hovering distance a couple of places away. And he seemed to be having a kind of revelry savoring some memories. And then he blew the candles out. I loved this man. For the thousands of us who worked with ben, it was not mere admiration, reverence or even awe that we felt. This was this love. And the real question is, why . Because he spoke and dealt with all of us personally. He touched each of us, in almost every encounter or discussion with ben no matter how pleading, he made you feel better about yourself. He left you with the feeling not just that he accepted you but that he loved you in return. He made you want to be better. And yes, have more fun, not just for yourself but for him whether it was a 19yearold copy aide, a summer intern, a beginning reporter in an outer county where ben had never visited, or the spouses of the staff. And here i wanted to list names of people who worked for ben and then my wife, elsa, reminded me i would have to read the whole staff director directory or portions of it, over 26 years. Ben made you feel that your enterprises, whatever they were were the most important in the world, though it might only be for a few seconds short Attention Span you know you got that. Ben hated clubs and claimed he never joined one. But he ended up forming the most soughtafter club ever. Club bradlee. No entrance fee no membership card. Nearly everyone felt it was a privilege to work and live in his orbit. We could feel that way because he never conveyed to us that it was a privilege for him. This is what he did. As he aged, he never lost that sweetness for life, for sally and the countless members of his family and for all of us. He was a journalistic warrior unequaled and probably never to be matched. He had the courage of an army a lion, in all seasons. He wanted his newspaper to be like the Navy Destroyer he served on in world war ii. Make a big bow wave and leave a roiling, churning wake. Be noticed and feared. Ben prowled the newsroom, wolflike, in search of news gossip, the hid hidden but emerging truth. He did not observe boundaries. They were for others. Reach out, knock on doors at night with your arrival unscheduled. Schedules were for those who would miss the moment. Ben studied the classics in college. It was a mild effort by all accounts. [laughter] but he absorbed the central truth about the greek heros. Strong leaderly, reckless at times, full of doubt at others, successful, yet men who wept tears as most men no longer do. But ben cried easily at the slightest hint of sorrow in a movie or in life. He was in search of the large truth, not just the facts, which he was devoted to, but he was looking for the deep emotional struggles he knew were in the great events that moved history. He perceived that there was a thin threshold between flaw and fatal flaw. As a result, he was with all that sternness and swagger and selfconfidence, a forgiving man. He understood human frailty, an innocent, unthinking but unintentional mistake was forgiven. I knew this, because i participated in too many of the celebrated mistakes during his years at the post. There were a number of times we obtained information about top secret code word u. S. Intelligence programs that provided a degree of security back in the cold war that was almost unimaginable, the real crown jewels. But in the interests of the countrys safety, at a time of the cold war, ben chose not to publish. He cared deeply about his country. Over four decades i traveled the country and the world with ben to give speeches ferret out the noise or vacation or share countless family holidays. Several years ago, ben and i were invited to speak at the Nixon Library in california. Ben was astonished that this was happening. He could not believe that the world had turned so much. Quote, how do you like them apples . End quote, he said, smiling and getting off one of his favorite lines and adding a second favorite line. Think about that for a minute. We showed up at Reagan National t. S. A. Security for a flight to california. He was not driving these days, so he had no drivers license. He had forgotten his passport and he had no photo i. D. [laughter] ben pulled out his aarp card. [laughter] tattered and expired. [laughter] ben always said, you have to go with what you have, even if it is a low pair. The t. S. A. Man was not going to have anything to do with this. And he wouldnt even look at bens aarp card. Behind us in line, we heard a voice. It sounded like the voice of moses. [laughter] it was vernon jordan. [laughter] maybe you know the voice. Never a subtle presence, vernon bolted forward and said to the t. S. A. Man this is ben bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post. Ben bradlee said the t. S. A. Man. And then improbably and miraculously, he waved ben through security. Ben turned and gave one of those smiles and those muscle pumps with his right arm. He had beat the system. Again. [laughter] in those hard final years of his life, as the great mind faded four people really took care of men. His beloved wife, sally. That was a real 41year love affair. Their son quinn. Dr. Michael newman, a saint in the medical profession. And carmen, their housekeeper. Not chronologically but psychologically, bens passing is in some respects and in some very clear ways, it marks the end of the 20th century. He is gone. And for that, we are diminished, and the world is smaller. I will never forget the leadership and the smile of this man we loved so much. [music] [singing] [singing] [singing ave maria] [singing ave maria] [singing] part of ben bradlees incomparable charm was that he always seemed ready to say anything to anyone. But ben was meticulous in his outrageousness. Tomlinman, our inhouse grammarian, told the story of how his secretary approached him as she was typing one of bens letters with a copy editing question. Is dick head one word or two . Ben was immensely funny, with a pure zest for life that was life itself. At our twice daily story conferences, ben would make wisecracks trade insults and confide gossip about washington. If you were too sentimental in making a story pitch ben would play an imaginary violin. If you went on too long ben would roll his eyes or put his hands to his throat in a choking motion. [laughter] if you didnt have the story, he told you to go get it. Being an editor is often mundane, exhausting work. Ben made it seem fun. Cool even. No wonder we all tried so desperately to be like him. Ben was a tough man who hated lies and weakness, but he could also be gentle and protective. Many of us remember getting in trouble, making a mistake or being under public attack and having ben stride across the newsroom put his arm around us, Say Something obscene, and we knew instantly that everything would be fine. Knowing bens passion for all things french, sally organized his 90th birthday at a french place. During his birthday dinner, ben then keeled over. We all thought oh, my god is this it . An ambulance rushed him to the hospital. By the time it arrived, ben was chattering away in his Perfect French with the cute french nurses. And sally was glowering with a look that said i told you he would be fine. As with everything, in the final graceful years of bens life, she was right. When ben received the french liaison in 2007, i gave him a toast, recalling the movie casablanca and the way it presented one of lifes great dilemmas. Would you rather be the resistance hero in the white suit who strides to the podium in the germanoccupied cafe, or rick, the roguish saloon keeper, played by Humphrey Bogart who stands in the shadows in his tuxedo and nods his approval . It was bens special personality that he was both. The man in the white suit, who was our leader, and the romantic rogue in the corner who made it cool and glamorous and real. Future journalists could ask themselves with us, what would ben do . Honored guests and family members, im the outlier here. Im from new york and im a heathen from television. But once i was a young correspondent, assigned to cover the white house and watergate. Modestly, i thought i brought with me a pretty good reputation as a reporter in california. I had covered the rise of ronald reagan. 1968, Eugene Mccarthy and Bobby Kennedy, the night that Bobby Kennedy was killed is forever seared in my memory. Chicago and miami that year, caesar chavez, the counterculture movement, the antiwar movement, the nixon the fundraising apparatus. But in washington, there was a lot of skepticism about whether i was up to the job. And after about a month of being on the air from the white house lawn morning, noon and night ben bradlee, who i barely knew, put his arm around me and said, kid, you know what youre doing and it took me to a different level. I was forever grateful. It was the beginning of a great friendship, which was only deepened when he married my friend sally, and the two of them produced my man, the incomparable quinn. So for me, this is a great personal privilege. Ive been thinking a lot about the words that have been written and spoken about ben in the past couple of weeks, including mine and however eloquent or heartfelt they may have been, they were somehow inadequate to the pleasure of knowing him which was a physical experience to be in that Electromagnetic Energy field that he brought into any room that he entered. This defined ben as much as those turnbull and shirts that weve been hearing so much about in recent days. Lets be clear about something. Those were the sally effect. Sally, he dressed like holden caulfield. There was that prep school conceit that came out of his pedestrianpedigree, a pedigree that he was proud of but always wore lightly. He once told joan and john gregory dunn, if you think im cocky now you should have known me when the bradlees had four es at the end of their name. Ben, in his own way was born to become the ben that we all came to love and to know and to cherryishcherish and to want to be part of his life. And if the double e bradlee family had somehow missed a beat in the long line, it might have come off the pages of f. Scott fitzgerald, but that would have been i appropriate, because that would have been a faint copy of the ben and there was nothing fictional about him, his life, his personality, his style, his accomplishments, his instincts and his love for everything in life. There are so many stories about ben. And weve been hearing here this morning. Mine are small, but i think it is telling. In the late 60s or early 70s, ben joined a softball game we were having out on the island. He came to bat. He immediately had a sharp hit to right field. Running to first, he noticed that the right fielder wasnt hustling. So benjamin took off for second, stretching a single into a double. And sliding in. When the dust settled, there was ben, prone and safe at second. That killer smile on his face as he raised his fist in triumph. I remember watching all this and thinking maybe i should have gone to harvard. [laughter] it was not possible, of course because i was being raised at a time and a place when we thought ramen was a bull in a rodeo. And although the brokaw family tree there was an there was no crowning shield. So the end of his life and the end of the days that we spent together. For me, it was just enough to know him and to love him. And to his family, i want to say, we share your sorrow. We also share your pride. And we are the common stewards of all ben was, and his love, and his heart for journalism, his style, his character and as i came to know him when i wrote about his war experiences with him, his deep love of his country. Ben married my mother, he took on four step children under the age of 8. In addition to his son ben jr. And then dino and marina. By 1960, there was a huge pileup of seven kids in the georgetown house. Ben was at the center of the vortex with his ruthless teasing and his amazing tolerance for helping out with home work. At 6 00 p. M. Sharp he whistled through the front door and the whole household would come rush to meet him like filings to a magnet. The poem im going to read is bens favorite. We think he may have first heard this laying flat on his back at age 14, paralyzed by polio. The poem is invictus and its last line was often spoken to us in the family either as an exhortation or as an acclamation of somebody he admired. Like the plumber in the next room fixing the sink. Ben was stopped in his tracks by anyone who had authentic dignity, who of the captain of his who was the captain of his soul. Out of the night that covers me, black is the pit from pole to pole. I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the clutch of circumstance, i have not winced nor tried aloud. Under the bludgeoning, my head is bloody but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears, lose but the horror of the shade. And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments i am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming. Im ben bradlee jr. , dads first child from his first wife, and im proud to be his namesake. My first memory of my father is a bit on the traumatic side. It was in june of 1951 when i was not quite 3 years old and he threw me in a Swimming Pool out of the blue, thinking hed give me a leg up op learning how to swim. There were no floaties in those days and, of course, i was thrashing around gulping for air. After watching me for a while, dad hopped in the pool and casually scooped me up, amused as i recall, by the entire scene. It was an act of tough love i think. [ laughter] this happened aboard the oceanliner s. S. America as we sailed interest new york to paris where dad was embarking on a new career as press attache at the American Embassy and then as correspondent for newsweek. Four years later, my parents were divorced and my mother and i returned to the u. S. And settled in boston. Dad came back to washington as bureau chief from newsweek and joined the post in 1965. He remarried, and i began a routine of coming down to d. C. For visits mostly in the summer, where i would often stay for several weeks at a time hanging out with his new wifes four children from her first marriage. These were my new step brother and three step sisters, the pitmans. I didnt see all that much of dad during this period, because like many men of his generation he was consumed by making his bones professionally. He worked long hours, well into the night. I was never the story then. But in the ensuing years after i graduated from college, dad made up for the long absences when i was young, and we reconnected, making up for lost time. In 1971, when i was in the peace corps in afghanistan, he flew to the other side of the world to visit me. When my first child was born on a cold january day a decade later in 1981, he came up to boston and delighted in holding young Greta Bradlee in his arms. He pointed out what he claimed were various bradlee features on the face of his first grandchild. Not long after that, i took greta down to washington for a visit along with my wife at the time martha, gretas mother, who is here with me today. Dad wanted to take martha on a personal tour of the monuments. They ventured out with the baby and ben wanted to push the stroller. At one point, people looked over and smiled and dad turned to martha, who was then in her late 20s and said, ha. You know what theyre thinking. He said, im the father of the baby and a dirty old man. But he stared right back at them with a big smile of his own, quite content to leave the impression that he was still perfectly capable of fathering that child thank you very much. A lot of the way dad and i related centered around the newspaper business because we had that in common. He never urged me to become a reporter and i certainly had no conscious desire to follow him but when i was in the peace corps my supervisor was a retired editor of the press enterprise in riverside, california. Then and now a pretty good paper. He said journalism was a lot of fun and offered to put in a good work for me. I thought living in california would be new and different, so out i went. It was december of 1972, just six months after watergate. But the post was making its mark by then and i was perceived by some in this california newsroom to be a political appointee of sorts. One female reporter who became a good friend told me later when she saw me that first day she whispered to her neighbor, hes cute, but can he type . [ laughter] yes, i could type, and i made sure i worked harder than most. So soon people forgot my last name was bradlee. Eventually i landed back in my hometown of boston at the boston globe where i worked for 25 years as a reporter and editor. Boston was of course dads hometown, too. Though the city is vastly different from what it was when he grew up there, he thought it was still too parochial and continued to view it through the prism of the ancient tribal wars between the bramans and the irish. So when he called to check in on me, my father the braman would always laugh and say hey, benji how the harps treating you . We would tease each other with affection. Once when i had to have minor surgery to get rid of a painful kidney stone that wouldnt pass and i was worried about it, he thought i was too worried so by way of trying to calm me down, he asked theres not going to be any press in the operating room covering it are there . As his prominence and legend grew, dad would profess to be worried about becoming the first celebrity editor because of the journalistic credo that reporters should always just cover the news, never be part of it. The truth is, he loved being a celebrity. He owned three big houses that were featured in architectural digest or house and garden magazines. Sally quinn may have arranged for those spreads, but dad secretly liked them, too. He was not introspective in the least. He felt guilt about certain aspects of his life, but he didnt dwell long, if at all, on personal failure or search for whys and wherefores. As was once written in the new yorker dad gave the lie to the idea that the unexamined life is not worth living. As is well known he was profane and colorfully so. He would sprinkle off color language into his every day speech and his writing as well. This wasnt gratuitous swearing. Just a natural way he expressed himself, a style which even those with more delicate sensibilities grew to accept and even enjoy. This is where i planned to tell the story but David Ignatious scooped me, so ill move on. Dad thought journalism should be fun. The real spiel i have for you is to have a good time where youre in your jobs, he told graduates of the Columbia Journalism School in 2007. Have a good time. The newspaper will be great if youre having a good time. And style, like the post section he named was important to dad. He liked those who had it and of course prodded by sally to pick up his game in the fashion department, he had it himself. With those shirts. Im wearing one of his shirts in his honor today and a tie, too. But i know full well they dont look nearly as good on me as they did on him. He lived a full life and he was a man in full. He founded what he wanted professionally early on but not personally until he found sally quinn. Sally, you really made him happy. Thank you. I spent a week with dad before he died and im glad i got to have that time with him at the end. When he could still talk, i asked him if he was ready to check out. He thought for a minute and said, not yet, but he was thinking about it. Then he reached out to take my hand and told me he loved me. I loved him, too. I am the son of ben bradlee and sally quin and a lot of people have been talking about my father as a legend and a giant. I have to agree. He was a huge, huge man. But for me, ben was majestic. But he was the simplestt man i ever met. Because he was an impeccable father, he taught me that to see big or Little Things well and treat everyone with respect it can take you so much further than you ever anticipated. My father was the happiest man i ever met. I grew up with him telling me that my happiness made him happy. He never complained about anything. Clap your hands if you think happiness is the truth. When i hear these lines from the hit song happy i smile and think of dad. Everyone who ever met my father wanted more of him and wanted to be his best friend. They wanted to please him. They all reacted the same way. Even though he seemed to give each of them something different. My father was the most courageous man i ever met. Just be there for your kids might not seem hugely courageous but being with me especially at the beginning of my life was a courageous act. He could have said, no. I cant do this. But my dad always loved an underdog. Maybe it started with the redskins. He always was reading for me in part because he saw i struggled more than most people to get by every day. He taught me that hardship actually makes a life more interesting and makes the happy times happier. He was teaching me and reassuring me until his last breath. My father was the wisest man i ever met. Much of what ive learned about life i learned from working in the woods with dad. We didnt speak that much in the woods. We talked through body language. He had the most piercing eyes xray eyes. I could see his eyes across an open field watching what i was doing. He never made me feel he was disappointed with me. He always showed me how to do things better. He taught me that you have to plant it and seed it and water. Before you cut down a tree you must study it. See which way it is leaning, where you want it to fall where the dead wood lies. He taught me how to trust another person in the field. Once the work is done, theres a small accomplishment but there is a big pay off. You are taking care of a place you love. Taking care of a place you love alongside a person you love is about as good as it gets. As time passes, i realize that there are areas in life that you need to tend in the same way dad and i used to tend our fields. My father was the best man i ever met. He never bragged. I remember someone asking about the United States secretary of the navy. Yeah dad said, the worst secretary of navy in history. My father had the deepest voice, the broadest chest, and the loudest heart of any man i ever met. I used to put my head i used to put my head on his chest as a kid. His heart would beat so loud. I would move my head over to that right side of his chest. Your heart is still beating, i would tell him. And he would laugh. My father had the biggest heart of anyone i ever met. People talk a lot about his colorful language. He also had the most colorful heart. Because he was warm people of all races, all walks of life, he could identify with anyone. He treated all people equally. Finally, my father was the strongest man i ever met. The last days he was able to speak, he could barely keep his eyes open. Earlier that day he was lying on his left side on the bed and i climbed in and laid down behind him. He looked so content, just barely looked over his shoulder and said, i got a good feeling about you. I love you. Those were his last words to me. He made me stronger. Something inside me quit. I was someone others might need to take care of but now i feel ready to take care of others. My mom needs to know i will take care of her. Those piercing eyes of his he did not need to say anything. I cant see him anymore. I cant hear him. But i hear the message. Hey, buddy, its your turn. Get it right, kid. Id like to end with a poem that came to me as dad was dying. Im no poet but sometimes i get the urge to play with words. The lights turned down but not off. The world goes silent. You hear not even a pause. The passage is gentle not violent. Where he is now the ages no longer part of lifes stages. Inside our hearts may ache and burn. Outside the world continues to turn. He lives, he loves, he laughs. We should all strive to take this path. In our 38 years of friendship, ben bradlee never said, goodbye. He always said, keep the faith. I recently learned that the second letter of timothy was his favorite biblical passage. As for me, i am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day. And not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. Keep the faith my friends. The word of the lord. Thanks be to god. I cannot hope to add to the moving chorus of remembrance and praise that we have heard this morning in memory of ben bradlee. The range and the depth of the remarks offered show the extent to which the nation and the world and his familiar lane his friends loved, admired, and valued this remarkable man. In the role of preacher there is not a lot that i can add to these tributes. But because i am a preacher, it falls to me to say a brief word about what Christian Faith proclaims in regard to such a long and blessed and accomplished life. We heard three readings from scripture today. We heard the words of eclass giannoulias tease telling us there is a season we heard the words of eccliastes telling us there is a time and season for everything and we heard from the psalm 23 god is with us as we make our way through life. We heard pauls discourse to the corinthians on the nature and purpose of love. Each of these passages reminds us of the final assurance of biblical religion. Judaism and christianity to be sure but islam also. That final assurance is that human beings matter. That our lives our experiences, our joyce and our struggles all are written on the heart of the one at the center of creation. If i listen to these readings, though a single phrase in them caught me. Near the end of pauls words on love we heard him say this. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then well see face to face. Now i know in part. Then i will know fully even as i have been known. Most of us gathered in this room today are knowing worldly types. And we live our lives thinking that we know whats really going on. But paul suggests a deeper mystery about human experience. In our earthly state we see only through a glass darkly. We know the part but not the whole. Our daytoday lives are spent focused on the claims that tell us that they are urgent. We do not normally attend to the things that really matter. So we do see through a glass darkly. But every once in a while a person appears among us who allows us to see things more clearly. In the dim light of daytoday life we dont see very well at all, but then peesm come along people come along, not very often but just enough to point us toward what really counts. These people are not usually conventionally pious but they help us see things from gods point of view. They point us toward justice. They point us toward compassion. They point us toward truth. They point us toward the sheer exuberance of being alive. Of the breadth and depth of human existence in all of its possibilities. Now, without trying to sound sentimental in a way that he would have found painful i want to suggest that ben bradlee was one of these people. In his professional life, in his family life, in his friendships, in his role as a public figure and citizen ben bradlees work and values and commitments helped us see through the dim darkness of our present moment into a glimpse of what life is finally all about. For people of faith, the final truth about life and god and the universe and every one of us is embodied in the word love. Love is acted out in relationships as affection and in our social relationships as justice. When we see through that dark glass, we see a universe whose power and violence and selfishness will always give way to love and justice and hope. In his poem blizzard of one the Great American poet and former poet laureate mark strand says this. He says, from the shadow of domes in the city of domes a snow flake, a blizzard of one weightless entered your room and made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up from your book, saw it the moment it landed. Thats all there was to it. When i heard of ben bradlees passing, i thought immediately of this poem. Not only because it enacts an experience of plain spoken grace in an everyday moment, but i thought of it because frankly, ben bradlee was a blizzard of one. A single human being like a snow flake precious in his uniqueness, who went through life generating the energy of a snowstorm. A human blizzard of life and love and work and energy and charm. I thank god for making and redeeming and sustaining a universe in which love and justice and compassion are finally the things that matter. I thank god for sending us messengers who help us see through the dark glass of life into the luminous truth at the heart of the universe. I thank god that our personal, public, and spiritual lives are knit together in a single continuous fabric of love and justice and hope. In other words i thank god for ben bradlee. Amen. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord he has grounding out the vintage where the fwrapes of wrath are stored he has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword his truth is marching on glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah his truth is marching on glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah his truth is marching on in the beauty of the lilies christ was born across the sea with a glory in his bosom that trans figures you and me as he died to make men holy let us live to make men free while god is marching on glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah his truth is marching on glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah glory glory hallelujah his truth is marching on amen for our brother benjamin let us pray to our Lord Jesus Christ who said, i am the resurrection and i am life. Lord, you consoled martha and mary in their distress. Draw near to us who mourn for benjamin and dry the tears of those who weep. You wept at the grave of lazz lazarus, your friend. Comfort us in our sorrow. You raised the dead to life. Give to our brother eternal life. You promised paradise to the thief who repented. Bring our brother to the joys of heaven. Comfort us in our sorrows at the death of our brother. Let our faith be our consolation and eternal life our hope. Pray together the prayer our lord taught us, we say, our father who art in heaven, halo wed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen. Ben was my friend and my patient from 1975 until his death. Thats nearly 40 years. I treasure our friendship bens hearty welcome mike and his inscribed his autobiography is entitled a good life and its inscribed for sally and quinn, who light up my life. It was a good life, rich with love engagement, and fun right to the end. The ending of our lives is uncertain. With respect to cause, time place, circumstances. But we hope for a good ending, a soft landing. Ben had a good life and a good ending, for which sally deserves total credit. Sally made this journey and knew how to travel this road beginning with her total commitment to bens welfare. She was extraordinary, doing whatever was necessary to assure that ben was comfortable and well able to enjoy life with family and friends. Quinn was always present, given his remarkable insights and their special bond, quinn knew where ben was and what would be comforting. Carman and jorge were Exceptional Care givers, providing practical and tender care throughout this journey. Ben enjoyed a good life with a good ending, caring, loving support wherever present. Now we mourn. But let us celebrate the life and legacy of our friend, ben bradlee, who did light up our lives. Im now going to say perhaps the most recited prayer in judaism, a prayer that dates back to the destruction of the Second Temple and the exiled jews to babylonia. It was originally written in aramaic. Its a prayer associated with mourpg, but it is not about mourning. It celebrates the magnificence and glory of god in the world created whatever our challenges and our being tested. [ speaking in other language] exalted and hallowed be gods great name in the world which god created according to plan. May gods majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime and the life of all israel. Speedily imminently, to which we say amen. [ speaking in other language] blessed be gods great name to all eternity. Blessed, praised honored exalted, extolled glorified, adored and lauded be the name of the holy blessed one. Beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing, praise, and comfort. To which we say, amen. [ speaking in other language] may there be abundant peace from heaven for us and all israel to which we say amen. May the one who creates peace on high bring peace to us and to all israel, to which we say, amen. God of compassion, be near to all who call upon your name. In the course of their daily lives, work, and service. You call and gift us for works that brings us joy. And embodies concern for our neighbors. Make us glad and grateful for the strength to serve you and our neighbor. Weave together the work of every hand and the commitment of every heart for we recognize our interdependence, our responsibility to one another, and the Mohamed Ghannouchi yuliehty of the mutuality of our destiny. Let us pray to the lord. Pray together. Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love. Where there is injury, pardon, where there is discord union, where there is darkness, life. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. Fwrant that grant that we be not so seeking to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to ups. To be loved as to love. For it is in giving we receive. It is in pardoning we are pardoned. And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. Open our hearts, god of all, to pray for those who will this day face any great decisions. For all who will engage in settling the affairs of people and of nations. For all who mold Public Opinion in our time. For all who write what others will read. Send us forth to work another day surrounded by your loving kindness. Pledged to faithful service. Standing in your strength and not our own. As former things pass away, o god, make all things new. Let us pray to the lord. Thanks be to god. Obeautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain America America god shed his grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea oh, beautiful America America god mend thine every flaw confirm thy soul in selfcontrol thy liberty in law o beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears America America god shed his grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea give rest, oh, christ, to thy servant with thy saints. Thou only art immortal the creator and maker of human kind. We are mortal, formed of the earth. And unto earth shall we return, for so god did ordain, saying, dust thou art and to dust thou shalit return. Even at the grave we make our song hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Give rest oh christ to thy ser vein. Into thy hands oh, merciful savior we commend thy servant, benjamin. We humbley beseech thee as sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine old flock. A sinner of thine own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of thy mercy, into the blessed rest of ever lasting peace and into the Glorious Company of the saints of light. The lord bless you and keep you. Amen. The lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. [taps] next on cspan a Memorial Service for former Reagan Press Secretary and gun control advocate james brady
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.