Oct 9, 2022
Dear St. Peter and members of the admissions committee,
I writing to recommend Gordon Hall 3rd to you and your institution, enthusiastically and without reservation. Of all the recommendations I have written this season, this one is the easiest. And that’s a good thing; as I am writing in some haste. While Gordon did some excellent planning and communicating in general, this opportunity to join your host came up rather suddenly.
You and the committee will be aware that Gordon’s relationship with formal organizations such as yours has always been nuanced. Nonetheless, Gordon’s respect for the venerable is unquestionable, and his partnership is always productive.
To that point, I expect that in short order he’ll be chairing your board of directors. It is a strength of his as much as a habit. He might at some time lead a renovation of the Pearly Gates, absolutely faithful to the timeless original, and with an endowed fund for maintenance in perpetuity. Should he join you in the astral plane, his proximity to the ozone hole would be good news for us all; he won’t quite have the blessing of the relevant committee before he has it squared away. Note that he will convince everyone to erect, at the former site of the ozone hole, a small, very tasteful, cloud monument with his name on it.
I want to be clear that he is not a good fit at your rivals’ campus. Gordon would do fine with the Inferno, but the Inferno would not do well with Gordon. While Gordon cleans up very nicely, he is also quite comfortable in a “less maintained” state. He would not be tormented so much by the sulfurous miasma as others, for example. And though they might wear him down a little from time to time, and think that he was starting to lose hope, he would settle back on a warm pile of brimstone, and shut his eyes for twenty minutes, and wake up ready to get back to business.
And what might that business be? Picture the Devil demanding to know where – in heck – Gordon is, and some overworked attendant would answer, “he’s taken a whole bunch of his new friends on a canoe trip out to the far side of the Fifth Circle, and as you know, sir, we don’t have cell coverage there.”
And after some period, even with a slow start, Gordon would get the ball rolling on a Choral Festival of the Darned. And the administration will have had it with his optimism, and community building, and good humor, and they would banish him from the underworld for good. And he’d end up back in your office anyway.
And, of course, clearly and certainly, he belongs with you. Not only because he is a legacy, going back to the first Gordon Hall and beyond; and not only because has so many excellent friends and beloved family there now — what a joyful reunion that will be — but most importantly because of his trajectory.
Gordon was dealt some wicked moments in his life. Sometimes I wonder about the extremities of your parent institution’s education department, but that’s a subject for another prayer. And God never gives you more than you can handle, as we say on our bumpers, and these formative challenges are the Kevlar in the weave of his character. Within the hardest phases and the darkest hours were still the instincts of generativity, optimism, and love. And see how far the expressions of those instincts have come! Less cudgel and more cajole as he encourages you to help put another parcel of the Maine woods into a working conservation easement, for example. And surely we are going to have large and loving graduation party; he is happiest when those around him are happiest.
We are going to miss Gordon very, very much around here, but it is comforting to know he’ll be enlivening the community he joins next. In my 60 years with him, I have watched the evolution of a soul. I have seen a man unlearn what was burdensome, year after year, and decade after decade, and take on, instead, what is best. His progress will continue in your company, and you, and all who dwell with you, will benefit. For this perpetual learner, the sky is the limit.
Sincerely,
Max Hall,
Hall Family Science Department