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In Memoriam: The Rev. Dr. Louis R. Tarsitano
by S. M. Hutchens
TOUCHSTONE MAGAZINE
January 17, 2005
One of the apothegms that has been most useful in helping me understand this confusing world is found in Ecclesiastes 10:7: “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” Note that the Preacher does not say every notable person deserves less than he has, and all who have less deserve better. We may infer that some on horses are true princes, and some of the lowly belong precisely where they are. Rather, he is speaking of the shape of the world as seen by the Lord who does not judge by outward appearances, and calls upon us to share his vision as far as we are able.
I first encountered Lou Tarsitano through his writing. I don’t remember where, for he wrote for a number of publications I read—perhaps it was in the Evangelical Catholic in the days when David Mills was its editor. He struck me as one of the most consistently trenchant, penetrating, and knowledgeable authors I had read among living Anglicans. He always went straight to the heart of his subject, anatomized it elegantly, and served it up neatly for the consideration or ridicule it deserved. I was old enough by then not to be at all surprised to learn that this supremely gifted man made his living as the priest of a small continuing Anglican parish in Savannah, for by then I had seen, particularly in the Anglican world, vastly more than the usual number of princes on foot. (The equine reference that comes to mind with respect to their proverbial counterparts we shall let pass for today.)
As sharp as his intellect was, Lou was never a mere intellectual, wandering the fields of ecclesiastical polemics, seeking whom he might devour. He wrote first and above all things as a father, and therefore as a pastor—the father of his children and of the souls that had been given into his charge. The motive for the battles he fought and the causes he took up was never in the first instance the love of the hunt, at which he excelled, but love of those for whom he hunted, not only to feed them, but to rid their world, as far as he was able, of what would cause them harm. Rarely did his work lack clear manifestation of the pastor’s heart that was behind it, including understanding of and regard for those he opposed.
Whatever the Lord is preparing for us in the place to which he has gone, we may be sure that in the New Creation things that are wrong in the old one will be set right. That is why I would not be surprised, if I could receive news of that Good Land, to hear that Lou is at this moment being supplied with a very fine horse, along with the command to go higher up and deeper in.
Godspeed, brother.
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