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[RBallou]

The Eulogy for Pat Danyo—November 21, 2008—Druid Hills United Methodist Church; Atlanta


This is one of my favorite spaces, a fond old friend of a sanctuary. I sat out there through many children’s performances in our time at the school. But I never imagined I would ever be standing up here on this occasion. It is a rare and great privilege to do so.

There are many wonderful remembrances, stories, anecdotes about Pat Danyo, and we will be hearing a lot about these during the Witness part of this service and at the reception in the Fellowship Hall immediately following. Here, I want to touch on just a couple aspects of her life.

Pat was many things, but resoundingly she was a woman of great learning, who never, not even for a day, lost her deep and expressive, demonstrative, love of learning. It was a source of that great light within her—the one that always encompassed you when you were anywhere near her. That palpable, joyful love of learning coupled with her sharing of that love was her greatest contribution to the lives of countless children who passed through her class—the oldest of whom are now just leaving college.

That learning was ever-present in a one-of-a-kind mix, one that included flavorings of joy, fun, silliness, excitement, the awe-inspiring, the flamboyant, the eccentric, the magical, and—always—the humorous. She was a teacher, but at her core she was a teacher-philosopher. Her philosophical interests were not those of the professional or academic philosopher. Her philosophy was social and humanitarian. To spend even just a few minutes with Pat Danyo was to experience that sublime light of her remarkable philosophy.

Her approach to teaching was broad, and she called on the liberal arts, marshaling them in her service in her classroom. She studied math and science when she was in college, as well as English and philosophy, and she left school with a special love for the humanities, which she would hold dear for the rest of her life. It was these that she wanted to talk about, constantly explore, with others, including with the children in her class. The humanities comprised the lodestar of learning in the Danyo household when those kids were growing up. And of course she relished conversation with parents on any of the humanities—really, on any subject under the sun. She had a running conversation with countless people.

I have read that “the humanities, rightly pursued, can teach things, and preserve things, and illuminate things, which can be accomplished in no other way.” And Pat knew that and demonstrated it daily in her class. She would agree with this: “it is the humanities that instruct us in the range and depth of human possibility, including our immense capacity for both goodness and depravity. It is the humanities that nourish and sustain our shared memories, and connect us with our civilization’s past and with those who have come before us. It is the humanities that teach us how to ask what the good life is for us, and guide us in the search for civic ideals and institutions that will make the good life possible. But they are not indestructible, and will not be sustainable without active attention from us.”

And Pat certainly gave them her attention, always talking about ideas in books, art, music, and so on. There was nothing highbrow, pretentious, or even remotely elitist about her. She was both idealist and realist, ever aware of humankind’s long history of hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, crime, and war. In the balance against these things she placed for her students the works of the poets, composers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and saints.

Pat simply wanted to understand, and the humanities—culture—served as a vehicle for her, moving at all kinds of speeds, sometimes seemingly crazily, and going wherever she had a mind to. She was like the brother in the Dostoevsky story who didn’t want millions but simply an answer to his questions. She believed in “seizing the value and perspective of passing things,” as a means for pulling oneself “up out of the maelstrom of daily circumstance.” She was a philosopher, and she encouraged her students to be philosophers as well—to be thinkers. “To be a philosopher,” said Thoreau, “is not to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.” That was Pat. She believed that in finding wisdom, all things else will be added to us. It was a cornerstone of her world view, of her philosophy of life.

One of her many great gifts, of course, was that of conversation, which is the principle of the good society and the good life. Everyone knew and loved her conversational way. For all her personal regard for culture—the art, literature, music, history—it all seemed beside the point without meditation and conversation. And much of that conversation, often gently Socratic, was carried on in her classroom. How many witnesses there were to that! And that love of culture always led beyond just herself. There was never anything selfish in it. As another writer noted, “the love of culture leads to communion of two kinds—with the living, by the discovery of kindred spirits in conversation, and with the dead, by the intimacy of admiration for greatness.”

There remains only to say what good there is in what we’ve lost. The very lifeblood of Pat Danyo was a rarefied desire to enrich the lives of others, especially children, especially through teaching. And at the wellspring of this desire was an early twinned ambition to help others and to do good. Ever the thinker, the philosopher, she agreed with a passage in Philippians: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is commendable—if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Pat Danyo lived a joyful, glorious life—one lived largely on her own terms. She was deeply devoted to her family—to John, Steve, Emily, and Andy; and to Justin and Dan—as well as to her extended family, to her compatriots at the school, and to all her friends. She of course held a very special devotion for her grandson, Gavin. She never stopped doting on her children. She talked of them often—what they were doing and where in the world they were—and this was her way of keeping them close to her, long after they had left home. I’ve heard that when your mother dies you inherit her light.

You know, I had many conversations with her over our time at the school—maybe more than my fair share—and I can tell you that she was a woman who simply wanted, in the words of one of her admired authors, “to live in an inspired condition, to know truth, to be free, to love others, to consummate existence, and to abide with death in clarity of consciousness.”

Loved by all, this incomparable woman of great joy and life, affable humor, sound learning, steadfast integrity, and good will towards all, she will always be with the children she taught and loved—as she will be with all of us who crossed her path, and found ourselves in her radiance.

We shall not look upon her like again, but God-willing, we will remain in her light.