Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

She may have heard “O Little Town of Bethlehem” as an infant, but at nineteen months Helen Keller survived an illness that left her both blind and deaf. So this story that so many children learn as one of their first Christmas Carols was not known to her.

As a young girl she came to the Perkins Institute with her teacher Anne Sullivan. There in Boston at the age of fourteen she continued her studies prodigiously and was already attracting the interest of many members of the community.

One of the Episcopal Clergy, renowned for magnificent building projects and preaching, began reaching out to Sullivan in hopes of being able to meet this remarkable girl from the south. He was curious what she would think of God, if any of her education had delved into topics of theology, if he could be of help in anyway.

The first attempts at meeting met with some disturbances that the priest always asked, humbly, be recognized as false steps. He was willing to both learn what he needed to do to be a pastoral presence for Helen and also to help her learn how to effectively engage the world around her. This eventually led to talks about God, theology, and Helen’s first introduction to Christianity. It brought about a life long series of correspondence between the priest and the advocate for disability rights.

While she was still in school, however, the relationship was already deep and she considered the priest one of her foremost allies and friends in her new home of Boston. When she received a note from her parents that her youngest brother had been born, she wrote back immediately pleading they name him after her new friend, the priest. This is how Helen Keller’s younger brother was named Phillips Brooks Keller.

As we commemorate Phillips Brooks today, a famous bishop, preacher, and planter of churches… may we recall that the greatest achievements of life are friendships.

Pax,

— Ben