The Plumb Line

               The Reverend James R. Squire, Hon.               

                Eulogy for The Reverend Alexander (Sandy) McCurdy, III Ph.D., ‘87

Sandy and I were in a meeting together with others to give feedback to a person who requested a response to how he was doing as a leader. About halfway through the meeting Sandy stood and held up a plumb line, a simple string and weight on the end, which was used by carpenters to determine true or proper alignment. The plumb line represents God’s standard of justice and righteousness which is straight and true. The prophet Amos used this image as a call to Israel to seek righteousness and balance between their beliefs and actions noting that one’s beliefs should inform the other.

Sandy’s own plumb line was critical to his balance between his inner world of his soul, and psyche and the outer world of action based on his beliefs. His inner world contained his work as a priest in the Episcopal Church and his strong belief in the Resurrection as well as his beliefs in Jungian Psychology. His outer world which was as a global citizen seeking to be an instrument of justice and love, the two pillars of the ethical life.

Sandy had an awareness that other people and situations are mirrors of our inner wounds and struggles so he knew the need for balance between those two worlds. He spent a lifetime helping others to have their inner world shaped by prayer, worship, meditation, and connecting with others in a palpable way such as the way that he connected to others here at St. David’s Church. As a Jungian therapist he took others on a journey to follow their light to deal with the shadows in their life. Balance between the inner and outer worlds would lead to righteousness and right living was the key with the soul/psyche informing his quest for love and justice, the two pillars of ethics.

He was certainly a global world citizen as well. He studied at the Sorbonne where he met his first wife, Dagmar. They traveled to Berlin where Greg and Daphne were born. He traveled back to the states and attended divinity school, took a parish in Connecticut and then back to Berlin to train to be a Jungian analyst. He met his second wife, Jole (Yolee), and had a thriving therapeutic practice in Rome. Jole died of pancreatic cancer. He returned to Wayne and married Patsy who is an author of biographies of natural scientists. He literally traveled the world all the while keeping that metaphorical plumb line in front of his vision with his inner world calling for action of social justice as he witnessed for Jesus and for the healing of souls in the world of people moving through life’s struggles.

His life balancing his inner and outer world is seen in his days at Episcopal which is a nexus for him and his family. Sandy was an Associate Chaplain at our school during the sixties. He was a student organist who was taught by his father, a prominent organist and teacher at Curtis, Alexander McCurdy Jr, who designed the organ on which Sandy played. His wife, Flora, was an accomplished harpist. Later in his parents’ life, they would come to the chapel to play, his dad on the organ and his mom listening to the nuance of each note leaning forward in the first pew to experience the world of music that they both loved.

There are legends and urban legends about Sandy’s time at EA as an associate chaplain. His words on his fiftieth reunion page still hold that plumb line. He mentions that he found his faith in the words of the old prayerbook to “giving up ourselves to thy service.” This took the form of his quest for civil rights, and the correction of the disparities between the haves and have nots. He did not change that plumb line metaphor through his entire life. He made it clear that he was against the Vietnam war and invited a member of the black panthers to speak in chapel. There were no comfortable pews in the chapel as he gave voice to his concerns. The students loved him. Some of the adults not so much! But he was determined to preach the Gospel. He challenged our school community to make their inner world of faith inform their outer world of action leading to justice for the disenfranchised.

What I remember about him is the energy he possessed and, despite life’s challenges, he was an agent of happiness. He did not walk into my office; he bounded in and landed and usually opened with a “Hey What!” (in a slightly British accent) There were times when I thought that his skin could not contain him. He was restless for engagement. He wanted to know everything that was occurring in my life while sharing what was happening with him, fully transparent, balanced with the metaphorical plumb line before him, balance between his rich inner world and equally present were his concerns about the suffering of others, local and across the oceans. He would leave the office like a recently refueled jet plane seeking the light of Christ to change the world.

I write a blog that he would read religiously and share his insights to balance and affirm my own. He reviewed my books and his words were to me were so powerful that I kept doing what I was doing because his opinion carried me and others to keep trying to do and be our best.

Sandy’s children, Daphne and Greg, are graduates of the Episcopal Academy as well. I was Greg’s advisor for his time in our Upper School. It is so clear that Sandy’s vast invisible inheritance was given to Greg and Daphne. They too traveled greatly around the world seeking balance on their own.

I recall hearing about Daphne’s work on the Godfather III movie and her time with Francis Ford Coppola in Italy and now full circle as The Assistant Director of the Division of Animation and Digital Arts at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

It was not uncommon for Greg and me to meet frequently since I was his advisor. He is a true intellectual and would arrive in my office before school already having read The New York Times apprising me of the needs of the world, and he found his balance required by his inner world what justice should look like in the outer world. If you want to see Sandy’s legacy, look into the eyes of his children.

Our school motto at EA is “Esse Quam Videri, to be and not to seem to be. Be authentic! Be real! There is no better example than The Reverend Alexander Sandy McCurdy, III, Ph.D. ’EA ‘57.

Sandy often would write to me “Keep writing! Keep Writing. I love you!”   He has now taken his Resurrection faith to his new eternal world. That plumline is hanging vertically not by him but by the Lord himself holding it before his eyes for a life well lived, doing right and being an example of righteousness as he hears the words: “Well done, well done,my good and faithful servant.”