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God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say.
Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
--Soren Kierkegaard
What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love.
--Leonard Cohen
Dear Friends of Talmadge Hill,
On Saturday September 8th, we celebrated the life and ministry of the Reverend Mich Zeman. It was an emotional, but ultimately joyful, occasion. He had indeed touched many lives over the course of many years.
Since then, a number of people have asked about monetary gifts to honor his legacy. In response to those inquiries, this letter is intended to outline explicitly the opportunities for giving with instructions.
If you would like to make a gift, you have 2 options from which to choose:
- Option one reflects Mich’s great love for the Talmadge Hill Church. In his last days, he communicated his desire to do more work on our Memorial Garden as well as a desire to support several initiatives with the THCC music ministry. To support this option, you would write a check to The Talmadge Hill Church and mark the gift “Mich Zeman Legacy Fund”.
- Option two reflects Mich and Mary’s great love for Kenya and the power of education. As you may or may not remember, Mich and Mary began their married lives in Kenya. To honor this chapter in their lives, a primary school will be built in 2019 and dedicated in their names. To support this option, you would write a check to Crossing Thresholds Inc. and mark the gift “Mich and Mary Zeman School”.
Collectively, these giving opportunities reflect two of his deepest loves -- for church and for mission.
All gifts can be mailed directly to the church, and all gifts (both to the Talmadge Hill Church and to Crossing Thresholds) are tax deductible.
In gratitude,
Carter
There is a great difference between knowledge and wisdom. You can know many things, you can know a lot of facts about things, even facts about yourself, but it is the truths that you realize yourself that move deeply into you. Wisdom, then, is a deeper way of knowing. Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life, and the divine. from Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
--Rainer Rilke
Michael Zeman age, 67, the dynamic and beloved Minister Emeritus of Talmadge Hill Community Church in Darien, died on July 18 in the loving embrace of his family. The son of Inez and Erwin Zeman, Mich was born in Ogden Utah (1950) and raised in Lincoln Nebraska where he co-founded the infamous Rubber Band. A graduate of Colorado College (1972), he married Mary Tidball (1971) and together they moved to East Africa to teach and lead the construction of a village school and water pipeline in northern Kenya. Mich earned a Master of Education from the University of Nebraska (1977) and a Master of Divinity from Yale University (1982) after which, he served as Associate Pastor and led for many years the youth ministry at Norfield Church in Weston. He received a degree from the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis Institute (1990). As the Pastor of Talmadge Hill from 1995 until his retirement in 2018, Mich and his colleagues transformed a very small congregation into a thriving, service-focused community with a mission, "To Know the Love of God and Share It". Pastoral counselor and psychoanalyst, Mich was also a devoted lover of poetry and music, a keen observer of human nature, and a wonderful conversationalist with a gift for going straight to the heart. He is survived by his sister, Zoya Zeman of Lincoln, Nebraska, his brother and sister-in-law, Dr. William F. and Ann Zeman of Eugene, Oregon, and brother Albert Zeman of Maui, Hawaii. He is also survived by his wife, Mary; his son and daughter, Benjamin and Joanna, their spouses, Fiona Zeman and Brian Lane, and four exceptionally devoted grandchildren, Maximus (7) and Theodora Zeman (5), Sawyer (5) and Oscar Lane (3). In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Zeman Legacy Fund at Talmadge Hill Community Church, 870 Hollow Tree Ridge Road, Darien, CT 06820. A celebration of Mich's life will be held at 11:00 a.m. at Talmadge Hill Church on Saturday, September 8, 2018.