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Click on "Stories" to have more writing space than is available on "Tributes". Reflections from the February 12, 2012 Memorial for Jack can also be found there.
John William (Jack) Glaser died at St. Joseph Hospital, Orange, from complications of congestive heart failure and liver disease. He was a loving and adored husband, father and grandfather, and a tireless champion of justice. He was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, the second of three children of Clarence and Margaret Glaser. He was educated in Jesuit schools and was ordained as a Jesuit priest. His doctoral degree is in moral theology.
Jack married Mary Ellen Brodhead in 1972 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1986 Jack and Mary Ellen moved their family from Michigan to Santa Ana, where he began his 25 years working in leadership at St. Joseph Health System. He was executive vice president of theology and ethics, and his contributions to health care ethics and the mission were prized.
Jack served on the boards of Share Our Selves, The Wooden Floor, and the St. Joseph Health Ministry. He was a gifted writer, photographer, and a lover of the arts. His gentleness, wisdom and extraordinarily beautiful heart touched many lives, and he will be dearly missed.
Jack is survived by his wife Mary Ellen Glaser; his sister Lois Stolz; his son Brian Glaser; his daughter Margaret Terán; his daughter-in-law Melanie Ríos Glaser; his son-in-law Diego Terán; and his grandchildren Andoe Glaser, Diego Andrés Terán, John Glaser, Claire Terán and Sabine Terán. He is also survived by extended family and friends. Contributions may be made in Jack's memory to Share Our Selves, The Wooden Floor, Taller San Jose (all of Santa Ana, CA), or the Saint Joseph Health System Foundation, Orange, CA.
Tributes
Leave a tributeI just wish to tell you that Jack's legacy is alive and well at Providence St. Joseph. We share his thoughts on sacred encounters at our New Caregiver Orientation, blessings of offices and in reflections. What a blessing to be able to share in his wisdom and the beautiful way in which he honored the value and worth of every persona he encountered. Sending love and gratitude, Liz Wessel
You will always be one of my favorite people in this world. I learned much from watching you and your compassion.
Although you are missed dearly, I am happy that you do not feel the pain of all that is going on in the world and especially our country. I know you would have words of wisdom for all of us who have known you, regardless of how long. You have touched my life forever with your compassion.
Happy birthday! We are thinking of you today and will celebrate by spending time together and talking about things you cared about: the beauty of spring, the changes we keep working for to build justice in health care and education, the value of simple tenderness and kindness.
We remember you with love today.
Today of all days we tragically hear of fire at Norte Dame. I remember standing before it many years ago and thinking of all the lives it represented over hundreds of years. I was awe struck. It is your heritage as well. I know you would have been pained over the loss of any of it. As certainly the artist in you would grieve the beauty, but even more the symbolism for all those that love God. I loved working at SJHS and even more meeting you. You are forever missed.
Today I greet you from my newly working Internet. At&t replaced all the equipment that was installed by your arrangement when we moved in on August 5, 2011. Internet kept going out, finally a very knowledgable technician(Sal) fixed the problem. Our system needed all new equipment, which he put in place and hauled away no longer needed cables and all. I have a new WiFi# and password! This is a big step. It is streamlined and apparently simpler!
So keeping our home loving,warm, and alive without you is often a struggle, but grace comes through.
Gabriele Carey is here working on the John William Glaser Papers archive. She is a delight to work with, so capable and I have been able to learn and assist her. Just found one of many post- its on one of your documents. Here is the quote, speaking about your spirit and thoughts:
"If we are to reach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children".
Mahatma Gandhi
Tonight all the grandkids are arriving with their dads for my homemade split pea soup, salad and grilled cheese sandwiches. Dessert too! The Moms are out of town pursuing career advancement opportunities.
You are deep in my heart and wonderfully around us all. Miss you so!
Love, Mary Ellen
I have missed him from the day he left us.
You are dearly remembered by many of your precious family and friends. We decided to honor you today in a unique way by focusing in on our work, the children and relationships, not orchestrating a party or an event amidst the mini celebrations that occurr everyday, especially with our 5 grandchildren. Each one of them says loving words about you often. An example, last evening Claire Teran age 6 brought me a drawing, "We love you Grandpa. Deth can't stop love." That's how she wrote it. So bright. Today she can express for all of us!
On a regular basis we visit your gravesite, putting mementos, plants and flowers near your headstone. I am headed south to the beach, where you invested time and found so much solace from the ocean rhythms and also much needed time to rest and reflect.
Love, Mary Ellen
Your memory and even your presence is alive around me urging us to live fully and to contribute our gifts and talents to the emerging world. Your name and influence is spoken often by all 10 of us, your children and grandchildren. And many others, too.
Your headstone at Fairhaven is engraved, "there is the dearest freshness deep down things" from G.M. Hopkins. We gather there!
Today we celebrate your birth and the unique, brilliant light you gave.
Love, Mary Ellen
I made these remarks. I post them here in loving memory of Jack.
"Having our family gathered around in this lovely park-like cemetery makes me feel very grateful and appreciative that our bodies and are spirits are here! for months we've been planning for this day. I think we picked just the 'right time' for this occasion to bury Grandpa's ashes. yet we wonder how this will be for us.
This precious box has been on a special shelf in my living room. Grandpa's ashes are from his physical body. We will bury them in the ground, as is the custom in many places around the world. WE'll lay over his grave the special marker with his name and some important things about him. This will now be a public place where we can come and honor his memory.
Grandpa was our dear leader when he was alive. Even in his death he continues to lead us by our memories and thoughts of him. What would he say to this/ What would he do in this situation?
It is interesting that today is the Feast of St. Joseph, who was known as a wise protector of his family. A psalm for today reads, "Behold a faithful and wise man, which the Lord set over his household".
Grandpa lived a good life - and he died a good death. Such ideas were some of what he thought and wrote about, and they were part of his scholarly work and teaching.
As a boy, as a teenager, as a student, as a grown-up in all these stages he was loving and curious. He developed his talents. He worked and played and laughed and loved. He used his brains and his heart. He liked sports. He was musical, artistic and poetic. He liked to fix things and even to cool sometimes!
As a husband, as a father and as a Grandpa he was present to us, very loving, ever curious. He was enchanted with us, cherishing our special beauty and uniqueness. Grandpa died a good death. He came to understand his age and his illness. He had the good fortune to be in the care of doctors he respected. He died in a hoppital that he knew and he even caled it "my hospital". Wonderfully, he got to say good-bye to all of us.
Grandpa believed in Easter! New life! Hope! No matter the trouble, the problem, the sorrow, how big or small the disappointment. He knew about a future we can surely believe in through it all. As G. M. Hopkins wrote: "For all this nature in never spent..." As the engraving on Grandpa's marker reads: "There is the dearest freshness deep down things".
There will always be his spirit to guide us with "warm breast and ah bright wings".
Jack loved this quote from one of his favorite poets. Remembering him today, it strikes me how Jack was this to us: a dayspring to our dimness, eastering what is deepest in us. I am grateful for his continuing presence in the minds and hearts of so many.
Sending my best to the Glaser family.
--Micah 6:8
Jack embodied this more than anyone I have known. What a privilege to have been his friend; what sadness at his loss, and what joy in knowing he rests in God. Happy Anniversary, Jack.
Leave a Tribute
I just wish to tell you that Jack's legacy is alive and well at Providence St. Joseph. We share his thoughts on sacred encounters at our New Caregiver Orientation, blessings of offices and in reflections. What a blessing to be able to share in his wisdom and the beautiful way in which he honored the value and worth of every persona he encountered. Sending love and gratitude, Liz Wessel
His Spirit Soars
I'm on retreat right now in this beautiful, sacred place. Jack was someone who naturally drew you into deep contemplation...and TJ is picture captures Jack for me. Gentle, deep, inviting and adventuresome. Jack was a mentor for me and always a welcoming presence. I miss you, Jack, and I thank God for the gift of you.
Mary Ellen, you are in my prayers as we remember Jack today. I surround you with prayers and love!
Jayne
Wishing you a Generous New Year
"It is good to be children sometimes and never better that at Christmas when its mighty founder was a child himself." --Charles Dickens
Our Glaser tradition sending family photos continues, even without dear Jack behind the camera. The grandchildren often say "He is always in our hearts."
His legacy is honored creatively by St. Jopseh Health and in kind words of rememberance by those lives he influenced.
Life moves forward. My priorities are to advocate for healthy child development, spend time with family and friends and doing clinical social work in the community.
With love,
Mary Ellen Glaser
A TRIBUTE TO JACK GLASER, from Deborah Proctor, St. Joseph Health System CEO
We have already heard this afternoon from Jack’s family and friends about the beautiful, rich and complex nature of Jack Glaser. We know he was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and friend.
It is an honor for me to reflect for just a moment on Jack as a major contributor and shaper of the Catholic Healthcare Conscience.
Throughout his ministry in Catholic theology and ethics, Jack served as a teacher and a mentor to so many people. Since Jack’s death and as recently as this week, when I attended the Catholic Health Association Board Retreat, people have shared with me the significant impact that Jack had on their professional lives. Sr. Pat Talone, vice president of mission services for CHA, told me that Jack wrote an article many years ago that called to her so deeply, it served as the impetus for her decision to seek her Doctorate in theology and ethics. When she met Jack many years later and shared this with him, in his usual humble way his response was to thank her for being one of the two or three people who read that article. I have heard this story over and over again in the last few weeks.
For those of us who worked with Jack, we know his gift for providing us frameworks for examining complex issues. One of the frameworks he set forward was three concentric circles: the individual, the organization and the society. As I reflect on Jack’s career with SJHS, I am struck by how his own contributions paralleled these circles.
In the early years, Jack was deeply involved in helping us understand and work through individual patient issues, especially at the end of life. He and Corrine explored the issues related to personal autonomy through individual cases like that of Karen Quinlan. He consulted with our ethics committees and helped us develop resources for our clinicians, pastoral care and mission leaders as they faced end of life decisions such as DNR orders and withdrawal of feeding tubes.
While these individual issues never lessened, Jack began to expand our thinking about issues on the organizational level. This past week, our President’s council reread and reflected on an article Jack wrote on the role of the organization in assuring for the common good. Jack challenged us to remember that our budget process was laden with choices that reflected the tension between individual “wants” with the larger common good. He helped us understand that these decisions were difficult not because they were a choice between the good and the bad, but because they were a choice between two goods. I know many of you can see one of Jack’s “stick person” drawings with a single yes, surrounded by so many nos.
And in collaboration with Johnny Cox, Jack brought forward to us the concept of using “personal footprints” in our process of selecting leaders. He called us to move beyond the use of resumes and traditional selection tools to look for the life evidence of a person’s values and contributions.
But nowhere will Jack be more remembered at SJHS and in Catholic Healthcare than in his dedication to the societal good as best represented in his passion for healthcare reform. Jack demonstrated this commitment from his wonderful drawing of the lopsided house of healthcare delivery, to his partnership with Sr. Nancy in creating the Center for Healthcare Reform. Through the Center Jack did more than anyone I know in helping people understand the issues at the heart of healthcare for all. We know his deep belief that the change that is required for us to truly achieve reform is a change in the hearts and minds of the people, not the politicians. He challenged us to remember the examples of child labor and slavery where true social reform was demanded by the public. He helped us shape our own Vision of Healthcare Reform that directs our work on a daily basis.
Finally, for all of us who had the pleasure of sitting with Jack in his office or ours, being with Jack in a meeting or learning from Jack in a class, we recognize that perhaps his greatest gift to us was to slow us down, to stimulate our hearts and our minds, and to ensure for the presence and time for the movement of the Spirit. I was reading through the many tributes on the beautiful life celebration page that Corrine set up and I came across an entry from Jennifer Perry where she reminded us of a typical “jack-ism”: “don’t just do something; stand there.”
Jack, we thank you for these gifts, and we pledge our adherence to using frameworks so that our discourse is not filled with wild personal rantings but is instead a thoughtful dissection of the complexities of life.
There was another entry on Jack’s page from Marty Trujillo that to me summed up all I would like to say: “He was also one of the wisest and funniest persons I've ever known. I loved his quirky and unpredictable ways. I loved how he'd sit in the dark in his office, eating apples, doodling, quoting Goethe, and flashing you his incredible gap-toothed smile. All the secrets of the universe seemed to dwell in that smile of his. I'll miss it."
We all know how Jack loved poetry and music, so I wanted to end this reflection with a poem written by William Henry Channing, Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives in 1863-64, called My Symphony.
My Symphony
To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury;
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable;
and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, to think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious
grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.
Jack, we thank you for the symphony you brought to our hearts.