Reverend Mother Ileana Isfan c. 2007
Reverend Mother Ileana Isfan (February 21, 1926 – November 15, 2016) passed away at the age of 90 at her residence at Steamboat Hot Springs in Reno, Nevada. The Reverend Mother Ileana Isfan passed into the Light on Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at noon. An Anointing of the remains was held on Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 3:00 pm.
A Memorial Service was held to celebrate her life on Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Child. In attendance were members of the Reno Church Community who had known her.
The inspirational readings delivered during the memorial service were written by two poets that Rev. Mother Ileana had revered and were read by two of her closest friends in the Community.
A poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, read by Rev. Mother Rebecca Willis:
Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who like Jacob, blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his lost son and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up a flowing prophet?
Or, like Moses, goes for fire and finds what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish, and there is a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the Prophet and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere.
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there is a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he is wealthy.
But do not be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanations,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.
Start walking toward Shams, the teacher, the sun.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you have grown,
lifting.
A poem by Kahlil Gibran, “On Friendship,” read by Rev. Mother Carol Ann Crabb:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
The eulogy, delivered by Rev. Mother Rebecca Willis, recounted her life in the Community and the events previous to the forty years she spent in residence that had led her to the spiritual life and prepared her for it:
REVEREND MOTHER ILEANA ISFAN (February 21, 1926 – November 15, 2016)
She was indeed a Mother to this community. She joined the Church in 1974, and soon thereafter was commuting from the San Francisco area, and at the center of the life of the community. She was the editor of our books, she helped raise Geno, Sean and Jamila. She was friend, confidant and mentor to members who arrived to join the Community. She taught in the Parochial School, and nurtured students to become award winning artists. During her many years at the Rectory she presided over the kitchen, whether it was routine household meals, an elegant lunch for Reverend Gene’s guests, breakfast taken out to Red Rock, or meals for Seminar. It was Ileana’s apartment where everyone came for all manner of needs, from wrapping paper or shoe polish, to advice or a sympathetic ear. She dedicated herself totally to the building of this Church.
To know her as the intelligent, sophisticated and well educated lady that she was, it is hard to imagine her early growing up years. She was born February 21st , or 22nd, 1926 in Saskatchewan, Canada. There was confusion over the date, because she was born at home near midnight, so it was recorded as 21st in one document, and 22nd in another. Her family farmed a section of land, and she went to a one room school. Transport to school was horse drawn, and there were stories of the sleigh tipping over in a blizzard and having to be rescued. It was a large family, twelve children in all, mostly boys. Her father came from Romania to Canada, and although he mother was born in Canada, she spoke primarily Romanian. It was her mother who emphasized education. Education was the key to leaving the rigors of their agricultural based life.
When a government sponsored full scholarship for college became available she applied, won and enrolled in engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. Engineering would not have been her chosen field, but it was a college education, so she made the best of it and selected in a course in Ceramic Engineering. The math portions of the curriculum were not her favorite, but she had a great love for science. Although the resulting education eventually lead to her urban life in the United States, the early farm years gave her a grit and determination that was truly formidable, as was learned by anyone who tried to oppose her once her mind was made up. After completing several years at the University she was called in by the Dean and informed that it did not matter how well she did in her studies, they would never award a degree in engineering to a woman. So she transferred to the University of Texas where they would accept all of her credits.
It was in Texas that she met an American sailor named Douglas Baugh, and married. They eventually moved to the San Francisco area where Douglas taught English in a Community College. In this environment Ileana rounded out her education; listening to Douglas and his friends over dinner gave her the humanities side of her education she felt she lacked. They lived in Berkley for a while, where Ileana owed a pottery business named the California Faience Company that made hand-made decorative tile. And it was here she studied painting and drawing with a man who was able to unleash her innate artistic talent. Ileana and Douglas became interested in crystals, and gem stones and they began collecting with the assistance of close friends. It was this background that gave her expertise to run the Jewel Guild, contracting with a company in Reno for the manufacture of crosses and sacred threads for the Church.
The Pottery company had been sold and Ileana was working as a technical editor for a company in California when a friend invited her to attend a lecture in San Francisco, given by Gene Savoy. As she listened to the lecture she saw the room fill with light, and knew immediately this was something of vital importance. She talked to him after the lecture, and when he learned that she was an editor, he invited he to come to Reno to assist him. And so she began to commute, weeks in Reno, weekends in California with her husband. This pattern continued for a while until her husband demanded that she spend more time at home, and she chose Reno and the Church. Her divorce settlement enabled her to help with the purchase of the Chancellery.
When she began the editing work Reverend Gene had written several books which were in dire need of editing. She described them as being one continuous run-on sentence. So she took on the monumental task of editing without changing, to Reverend Gene’s very demanding standards. And it was all done in pencil, on yellow pads. Ileana was not comfortable with things she considered gadgets, and that included typewriters, computers, answering machines, cell phones, or electric can openers. And although she was the driver of the Rector car, she was never really comfortable driving a car, and never particularly good at it. I gained a new perspective on this when I heard a story from one of her relatives about her father driving a tractor after many years of farming with horses. He never understood the gear shift, so put the tractor in any old random gear and shouted obscenities in Romanian when the tractor refused to do what he wanted. Ileana grew up in a world of horses, wood burning stoves, home baked bread and her mother’s ample vegetable garden. When she moved from the Rectory to Steamboat she felt she had spent too much time indoors, so tackled gardening on the Steamboat grounds. That was a legacy from her farm years. She did love growing things.
We say thank you to this intelligent, well educated, talented woman who gave everything she had to building this Church; her dedication, her love, her time, all her resources. She was truly at the heart of the Community, the teachings, the books, and the physical well-being of the members. She nurtured us all with her love, her advice, her insights and her cooking.
Reverend Mother Ileana Isfan preparing Easter brunch a number of years ago.
A reception followed at Bishopstead on Carmel with food prepared by Rev. Francine Petrovich. Francine had first cooked in the kitchen at the Rectory-Abbey with Ileana more than twenty years ago, and the meal they prepared then had a French theme. In memory of this event, Francine prepared for the reception meal a French-themed dejeuner which included champagne truffles to reflect Ileana’s refined taste for sweets and a table decorated with some of Ileana’s favorite flowers, pink baby roses and purple gladiolas.
(left to right) Revs. Amanda Buchanan and Francine Petrovich inspect table before opening the reception
