Charles Sinay died just twelve hours before Easter sunrise this year, in a time of waiting, between the pain of Good Friday and the joy of the Resurrection – a fitting passage for a man who spent his entire life waiting, searching, and hungering for a way to live out his love for Christ more fully. Charles was a brother among us for only ten months, yet through his life and his passing, God spoke to us and gathered us this Easter in a special way.

Though Charles was not transparent about his background, bits and pieces of his travels were mined over time. Charles had a great heart for the poor, which no doubt took him to places like Bali and Sumatra, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico. We know that he spent six months in South Korea and lived for seven years in Japan, teaching English in Tokyo, and even spending six months in a Buddhist monastery there.

Charles was a deeply spiritual person, a seeker, with a “divine restlessness” over the state of the world, and an indignation at the silence and apathy of the churches in the face of injustices around the globe.  He lamented the lack of true “salt” among Christians. “I am grieved by why Christians, especially, do not revolt,” he wrote. One of Charles’ best friends in recent years characterized him as a true Christian socialist (even with anarchist tendencies), yet tempered by a “deep love of Julian of Norwich and the English mystics.” Charles was one of the founders of the Anglican Left, formed in October of 1999, and was for many years one of the moderators. He corresponded about Anglo-Catholic Socialism and networked with organizations such as the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and the Jubilee Group in London.

Charles’ greatest love was reserved for the countless children he taught over the years. Charles taught for ten years in Texas before moving to California. Charles also taught English as a second language to Korean immigrants and worked for Schools on Wheels, tutoring and teaching homeless children in shelters and rooming houses of LA’s skid row who had fallen through the cracks of the public school system.

Charles first began corresponding with our community in 2004, and in 2006, two of our members, visited him while on a trip to the West Coast. Charles was increasingly drawn to the witness of full Christian community, as described in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts, and to modern attempts to live together fully in the spirit of the early Christians. In January, after a short stay in the hospital, Charles went through a time of great suffering, contracting a MRSA infection that caused him to collapse and left him comatose for days, permanently damaging his heart. Contact ceased for close to a year, and we feared that he’d died, but then Charles got in touch again by e-mail. At that point he was hardly able to care for himself, let alone teach again. He never really recovered.

In May of 2008, Charles asked if it was possible for him to be baptized as a member of our church community, even if he would never be able to travel east and live with us.  My wife, Emily, and I went to visit him at his apartment near Pasadena and seek with him about baptism. A day before we flew, Charles’ roommate Ted phoned to say that Charles had collapsed and had been taken to a hospital in L. A. We feared that Charles might die before we’d had a chance to meet with him, but he called us the following day, pleading with us not to cancel the trip.

 

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Responses

I found his story very moving. I could identify what he was searching for. It was helpfull for me to read his story as I start moving towards following my call to the church communities. I think we are all searching for Peace and living for others. Community life has much to offer to those seeking a life of service and an opportunity to live out Jesus' words. I am 26 and the more I get older, the more I see how we need to reach out to people like Charles and help them. Thank you for this article.

Ruth Parkinson, Wisbech, Cambs, England