Last Monday, Wheaton College lost to cancer a brilliant and beloved man, Dr. Brett Foster. Only 42-years-old, Dr. Foster, who served on faculty in the English department since 2005, was a great teacher and better friend.
Dr. Foster attended University of Missouri, Boston University, Stanford University, and Yale University throughout his academic career. At Wheaton College, he was deeply involved in the English Department where he served as an esteemed associate professor, teaching everything from Creative Writing to Shakespeare to Lyric Poetry. On top of this, he was the resident poet for the college. He wrote countless books and poems that celebrated language and word use. As Image Journal put it, "At once playful and scholarly, emotional and intellectual, his poems use the lever of language to open human experience—in particular, our ongoing encounter with a transcendent and moral God."
Although I was unable to reach his friends here at the college to obtain a comment on Dr. Foster's life, work, and/or passing (as is more that understandable given the circumstances), a piece written by Jeff Galbraith, an assistant professor of English, in The Wheaton Record this past week sums up the type of person Dr. Foster consistently displayed himself to be: "A man of many gifts, Brett wrote feverishly, taught diligently and loved with a passion for extending his ever-widening circle of friends."
With almost providential coincidence, though I hesitate to call it even that, the night of Dr. Foster's passing was the first showing of Arena Theater's staging of a collection of about 40 of his poems. Only two shows were initially offered, but a third was added upon tickets quickly selling out. "The Future Belongs to the Good Old Days" told a story that made the audience laugh, dream, and weep. One could not help but be moved by the actors' interpretations of the words Dr. Brett Foster strung together in a God-glorifying array of wisdom and truth too surreal to be contained in a few lines. And yet, they were. I can honestly say that attending this showing was one of the best decisions I have made this semester. I left in awe.
Though I am tempted to write that he was too soon taken from this world, God's timing for Dr. Foster, as with everything else, was and is good. As Dr. Galbraith said, our mourning is his morning. Rest in peace, Dr. Foster. We will see you again.
