Celebrating Oliver

About Oliver

Oliver is known by people as bringing a bright spirit wherever he went. 

From his younger days playing baseball, to his love of professional soccer, to playing ultimate frisbee in high school he delighted in the strategy and camaraderie of a good game.

He is described by many as open, curious and generous. He saw the world in 3D and brought his brilliance to conversations.  Oliver was unafraid to challenge the way people viewed things and also was open to expanding his views.   His insight and humor contributed to people around him.

Oliver attended Saint Joe’s Prep and valued the spirit and community of the school. Oliver also dealt with major health challenges for over 4 years and he needed to leave for his sophomore year to tend to his health. He was determined to return in his junior year and worked hard to do so. He considered this to be a major accomplishment of which he was proud.  In the latter part of his senior year he took a medical leave of absence.  While working through his health issues he did the work to complete his senior year and graduate with his class.  He looked forward to going to Kenyon where he believed he found a community of people who were like-minded and where he would thrive.

Oliver is a passionate person and this came through in many ways, from the classroom to the activities he chose to engage and support other people in.  He jumped in and helped a friend during the beginning of the Garden club.  He was active in Ultimate Frisbee, serving as a captain. He instituted the popular intramural frisbee league this past winter, resulting in the participation of over 100 students. He was instrumental in helping the team be recognized as a varsity sport at the Prep.

In thoughtful notes, many fellow students and others have given insight into Oliver.  Through their words, Oliver’s kindness comes shining through.

Readings from the Service:

You’ll want a physicist to speak at your funeral

By Aaron Freeman

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your friend there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. May the physicist let your friend know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, and that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you'll want the physicist to let them know, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen.

All About Love: New Visions

By bell hooks

Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition. The word “love” is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.

I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word “love,” and was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s classic book The Road Less Traveled.  

Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

Explaining further, he continues: “Love is as love does. Love is an act of will – namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to “love.”