Eulogy For John
Delivered at John Firman's Memorial Service,
July 11, 2008

Robert Johnson, the great blues guitarist, once sang, long before Eric Clapton:
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Asked the Lord above for mercy, "Save me if you please".
I went down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed me by.

For me, one of the many tragedies of John's too early death is that in a world that is filled with so much pain and suffering, we lost a true healer. In a world where we often don't feel known, where we feel passed by, John was a vehicle for healing by seeing people deeply, by loving us completely, with our warts and all. He did this by seeing through to our Being, deeper than all the troubling behavior that was created by our wounding, and loving the whole package: Being, wounding, behaviors…. This was the practice of John's life and his writing and work - this "seeing", this loving. When we were seen and loved by him it helped us to see the beauty in ourselves. Although you may describe the effect John had on you differently, you probably know what I mean-but how would you ever describe this to someone who had not met him? It was so obvious but so hard to describe because it came not only from his actions but from his Being. For me it came through his smile. There was a gentleness and kindness and joy in his smile --the feeling I had when he smiled at me, was like a bird's wing softly, lightly stroking my heart, and saying "you're OK just the way you are, old being."

Greg Allman sang:
'Cause I'm a picker, I'm a grinner
I'm a lover and I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one

Much of John's intellectual work and his great capacity for compassion came from his ruthlessly honest work on his own wounding and the behaviors which arose from it. John was not always a saint, and because of the difficulties that he had been through and the bottoms that he had hit, he was able to open his heart to others who were struggling-because he had been there too.

Those of us who knew him as a colleague or teacher know that John was a precise thinker, but he not only had a rigorous mind; he also had a rigorous heart. He made loving his spiritual practice. He tried hard to not to speak ill of people or to make them bad. He tried to see the divine in you and tried not to humiliate or hurt in any way. He could disagree with you on a conceptual point and argue vigorously, but he never made you feel bad or less or wrong. And it was a practice . . . sometimes when he'd slip up and say something cynical or derogatory about someone or something and catch himself, he'd go like this. (waving his hand up and down over his chest) . . . brushing the bad thing away from his heart and letting himself and you know that he wasn't living up to the ideals of his practice.

John was a model to me of a person with an integrated mind and heart. He loved to think and discuss psychological theory and much of that was about love and empathic presence. And he would practice and teach the love he was writing about and learn more about it thus clarifying the theory. This meant the theory was very grounded in experience and practice. Out of this came his and Ann's tremendous contribution to Psychosynthesis. When I was meditating with others about John an hour after he died, one of the images I had was of Roberto Assagioli (the founder of PS) hugging John and loving John the way John loved others. There was an overwhelming feeling of Roberto communicating to John, "You have made me very proud, my son."

A quick story about John's mind and heart: One of my most intimate moments with John toward the end of his life was when it was getting harder for him to read in order to distract himself from his pain so I would sit by his bed and read to him. I was reading him a Robert Parker, Detective Spencer mystery. He would lie there with his eyes closed. I felt very tender toward him and the whole scene reminded me of when I used to read to my children at bedtime. It was very poignant to me, maybe because I was finally able to give back to him some of the tenderness that I had received from him. Then all of a sudden John would open his eyes and say, "Mark what he just said, it's a great example of a non-empathic response!"And when I thought he might be getting tired I asked him if he wanted me to stop, and he said, "No, no, keep going, I want to find out if Spencer gets back together with his girlfriend." So even in the mystery books he wasn't concerned with who done it, but about the loving relationships.

Dion, of all people, first sang these words:
Has anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young,
I just looked around and he's gone.

Goodbye my friend. You have left a big hole in my heart. I will miss you so much.