wfn.org | Jim Gittings, Presbyterian rennaissance man, dies

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6775 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

06-August-2001
01259

Jim Gittings, Presbyterian rennaissance man, dies

by Vic Jameson

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - James A Gittings, 73, who chronicled the life of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for more than 40 years, died Aug. 3 of
pancreatic cancer. He died at his home in Greenville, S.C.

	Gittings was a journalist, author, poet, and social activist in Pakistan,
Indonesia, Japan, Central America and the United States.

	His range of interests was wide and lifelong, as was his writing. He was
named poet laureate of his third grade class in public school and years
later received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Juniata College, his alma
mater, and a Lifetime Service Award from the Presbyterian Writers Guild.

	Born in Johnstown, Pa., Gittings attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
for one year, leaving to take a missionary assignment in Pakistan. After
returning to the U.S., he earned a Masters degree in journalism from
Columbia University. Later he served in Japan, where he also published Asia
Notebook, a small magazine dealing primarily with mission matters.

	In 1968, he joined the staff of Presbyterian Life, the denomination's
national magazine, and continued with its successor, A.D., until 1983 when
financial problems forced it out of business. He wrote for the American
Leprosy Mission until his retirement in 1992.

	Although retired, he continued writing about Presbyterian causes and
concerns and taught writing courses as an adjunct professor at Greenville
(S.C.) Technical College.

	Gittings was also active in a guardian at litem program of the juvenile
court system in South Carolina, working largely in finding safe homes for
children in troubled circumstances. One of his last projects was that of
persuading the church of which was a member, Westminster Presbyterian Church
in Greenville, to fund a program providing bus transportation so that
families of inmates in that area can visit their relatives in prison.

	He wrote six books, on subjects ranging from social injustices to poetry,
including the popular Company of Pilgrims celebrating the bicentennial of
the PC(USA).

	Gittings is survived by his wife of 45 years, Sue Kellams Gittings; three
daughters: Jennifer Gittings-Dalton of Reading, Pa.; Elizabeth Gittings of
Charlestown, Mass.; and Miriam Fares of Miami; one son, James A. Gittings
Jr. of Pottstown, Pa.; and six grandchildren.

	A funeral service will be held at King Funeral Home of Gibsonia, Pa., on
Aug. 8. A memorial service will be conducted Aug. 11 at Westminster Church
in Greenville, S.C.

Jim Gittings  A tribute

by Vic Jameson

	Jim has left us. Gone to that great Newsroom in the Sky.

	His Lord (and ours) spoke of a house of many mansions. Jim will need such:
a room for journalistic writing, one for poetry, one from which to hurl
invectives at oppressors: the would-be Big Shots, phonies, cheaters, all
other sorts of no-goods who infect the earth.

	Jim will perhaps want a computer in his room or rooms, but most likely he
will want a place with lined yellow pads and ordinary pencils. And ash
trays.

	He will not want, but will desperately need, an editor: one with enough
patience to last for - well, an eternity. Jim never did take kindly to
editors, and struck back at them by frequently violating the most precious
thing an editor has - a deadline.

	He was a big man: as big a forgiver, bigger, than a forgiveness-needer. He
and a buddy often philosophized, "God save us from what we deserve." But his
graces were bigger and more numerous than his faults, no matter how hard he
tried.

	He excelled in every sort of writing under the sun (or under the yellow
lights of a neighborhood bar), but his great writing love as poetry. He
could make the language sing, and make the reader weep for the sheer beauty
of his words.

	He had an abundance of faith in the hardest of times and lived it in even
the best. He had an abundance of friends in high places and low, and to him
the place made no difference.

	He was a magnet of hopeless causes, drunks, and revolutionaries. He
hankered for good food and enjoyed good vodka. When he laughed, he roared
with it. When he hated, he did so with the same vigor, but it never lasted
as long.

	When his time came to go he accepted the call; his regret for not being
able to stay longer was "It's been so (colorful words deleted) much fun!"

	He is gone and all who knew him will miss him, possibly his opponents most
of all. He is free now of pain, sorrow, trouble. If earth had a window to
Heaven, it would not be surprising to see him in earnest conversation with
our Lord, or writing poetry in the shade of a tree.

	So Heaven is richer and livelier for his presence there. And earth is
poorer for his going - but better for his having been here.
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