Some readers of this blog will be familiar with the extraordinary work of Edith and Francis Schaeffer in the founding of the L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. Their son, Frank, subsequently left the evangelical faith and wrote a number of novels and memoirs which were quite unkind to his parents. So I was surprised to learn from watching a live-streamed appearance of Ravi Zacharias at Princeton earlier this week that Frank Schaeffer published an extraordinary tribute to his mother, March 30, 2013 in the Huffington Post, the day she died. Such a glowing tribute to a mother has rarely been equalled. At the very end, he wrote "You won, Mom. I believe." I'm not sure exactly what that means, and I look forward to learning more.
An excerpt:
I trust my mother's hope-filled view of death because of the way Mom lived her life. Mom first introduced me to a non-retributive loving Lord who did not come to "die for us" to "satisfy" an angry God but came as a friend who ended all cycles of retribution and violence.
Mom made this introduction to Jesus through her life example. Mom was a wonderful paradox: an evangelical conservative fundamentalist who treated people as if she was an all-forgiving progressive liberal of the most tolerant variety.
Mom's daily life was a rebuke and contradiction to people who see everything as black and white. Liberals and secularists alike who make smug disparaging declarations about "all those evangelicals" would see their fondest prejudices founder upon the reality of my mother's compassion, cultural literacy and loving energy. . . .
And another:
Besides a loving God and her steadfast support for the arts -- even when she disagreed with some of my writing -- here's who else my mother introduced me to: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Verdi and Vivaldi. She made them my friends. They are still my friends and companions and I have made them my children's and grandchildren's friends too. And that is my tribute to her example.
He goes on to list great painters and great authors, and writes further of his mother:
Here's what my mother showed me how to do by example: forgive, ask for forgiveness, cook, paint, build, garden, draw, read, keep house well, travel, love Italy, love God, love New York City, love Shakespeare, love Dickens, love Steinbeck, love Jesus, love silence, love people more than things, love community and put career and money last in my hierarchy of values and -- above all, to love beauty. I still follow my mother's example as best I can and I have passed and am passing her life gift to my children and grandchildren not just in words but in meals cooked, gardens kept, houses built, promises kept, sacrifices made, and beauty pointed to. . . .
He concludes (it's a much longer tribute than these quotes would suggest and filled with fascinating details):
I'll miss her voice. I learned to trust that voice because of the life witness that backed it up. I know I'll hear her voice again. You won Mom. I believe.
Books By Edith Schaeffer:
1969. L'Abri. Worthing (Sussex): Norfolk P. ISBN 978-1-85684-025-5
1971. The Hidden Art of Homemaking: Creative Ideas for Enriching Everyday Life. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House. ISBN 978-0-8423-1420-6
1973. Everybody Can Know. London: Scripture Union. ISBN 978-0-85421-405-1
1978. Affliction. Old Toppen, New Jersey: Revell Co. ISBN 978-0-8007-0926-6
1975. Christianity is Jewish. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8423-0243-2
1975. What is a Family? Old Tappan, N.J.: F.H. Revell Co. ISBN 978-0-8010-8365-5
1977. A Way of Seeing. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell. ISBN 978-0-8007-0871-9
1981. The Tapestry: the life and times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Waco, Tex: Word Books. ISBN 978-0-8499-0284-0
1983. Common Sense Christian Living. Nashville: Nelson. ISBN 978-0-8407-5280-2
1983. Lifelines: God's Framework for Christian Living. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books. ISBN 978-0-89107-228-7
1986. Forever Music. Nashville: T. Nelson. ISBN 978-0-8010-8336-5
1988. With love, Edith: the L'Abri family letters 1948-1960. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-067092-4
1989. Dear Family: the L'Abri family letters 1961-1986. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-067096-2
1992. The Life of Prayer. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. ISBN 978-1-85684-046-0
1994. A Celebration of Marriage: Hopes and Realities. Grand Rapid, Mich: Baker Books. ISBN 978-0-8010-8354-9
1994. 10 Things Parents Must Teach Their Children (And Learn for Themselves) Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books. ISBN 978-0-8010-8373-0
1998. Mei Fuh: Memories from China. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN 978-0-395-72290-9
2000. A Celebration of Children. Grand Rapids, MI: Raven Ridge Books. ISBN 978-0-8010-1193-
In putting up this blog post, I checked the L'Abri website and am "blown away" by all the resources found there. See, for example, this index to resources.
** Update, 4/28/13 - I came across the obituary written by Uddo Middleman, Edith Schaeffer's son-in-law at Douglas Groothuis' "Constructive Curmudgeon" blog site -
Edith Schaeffer marked her life with the expression of rich ideas, often rebellious against the staid and superficial life she saw among Christians. The oldest sister became a communist in New York of the 30ies, the second eloped. Edith Seville married Francis August Schaeffer in 1935 and in no way was she the typical pastor’s or missionary wife. She turned her active mind to work with her husband, teaching first seminary wives to think and to question, to create and make of life something of integrity, as her husband so wanted her to do.
To put her husband through 3 years of seminary she tailored men’s suits, made ball room gowns and wedding dresses for private clients. From whole cow skins she made belts sold in New York stores. With very little money she prepared tasteful and varied meals. She painted a fresco on the ceiling of the vestibule in the little church her husband pastored in Grove City, while he attached a steeple to it with the elders’ help. They lectured together and encouraged many to use their minds to understand what they believed and how to respond to the intellectual and cultural ideas around them. Together they travelled and taught in churches and university halls from Finland to Portugal, helping people understand Christianity as the truth of the universe, not a personal faith, and pointing out the cultural and philosophical pitfalls in everyone’s way.
She lived her life as a work of art, an exhibition of true significance and a portrait of a generous, stunning and creative personality. She always sought ways to draw on life’s opportunities to show that human beings are made for the enrichment of everyone’s life, for the encouragement of people. This was a central part of the work she and her husband engaged in from the very start of their life together. She was in all things generous. When books provided royalties she used all of it to give her four children and their families annual reunions for the cousins to know each other.
When she left the work of L’Abri after her husband’s death she started the Francis A Schaeffer Foundation with Udo and Deborah Middelmann to safeguard his papers and the ideas that underline their life, to make them available for a wider audience. She found people interesting anywhere, engaged in conversation and so met the most amazing individuals. She talked, for instance, with the author Andre Aciman, standing in line for tickets to Carnegie Hall in NY and found out that he had had our village doctor, Dr. Gandur, as his pediatrician in Alexandria, Egypt. He was so grateful to be in touch through her with his old doctor.
She enjoyed people in the streets, in airplanes and over the phone, wherever she found them or when they could reach her. She stayed up nights to help someone out of their distress or need. With much imagination she served her meals with stunning decorations made from twigs and moss, field flowers and stones. Duncan from Kenya once remarked: “This is the first place where I see the beauty of the truth of the Bible consistently carried over into all areas of life.”
After the death of her husband in 1984 Edith Schaeffer added a whole new chapter to her life. She continued to write books, lectured widely and returned twice to her place of birth in China. She investigated the making the Baby Grand Piano she had received as a gift at the Steinway factory in New York and presented “Forever Music” in a concert at Alice Tully Hall in New York with the Guarneri Quartet. Through Franz Mohr, the chief piano voicer at Steinway she came to know musicians like Rostropovich, the pianists Horowitz and Rudoph Serkin, the Cellists YoYo Ma and Ya Ya Ling, and also the guitarist Christopher Parkening. She organized concerts and elaborate receptions for musicians and friends in her home in Rochester, MN. When she met B. B. King at the International Jazz Festival in Montreux he gave her his pass to the evening’s concert. Once on vacations on the island of Elba, Sonny Rollins noticed her beauty and rhythm in the audience as she danced during his concert, came off the stage and danced with her.
Today she “slipped into the nearer presence of Jesus”, her Lord, from whom she awaits the promised resurrection to continue her life on earth and to dance once again with a body restored to wholeness.
If you wish to honor Edith Schaeffer’s life you can support her intense commitment to the work of the Francis Schaeffer Foundation, Jermintin 3, CH -1882 Gryon, Switzerland
Udo W. Middelmann
The Francis A Schaeffer Foundation
313 East 92nd Apt 5E
New York, NY 10128