Roger Goodman, M.Mus., M.Div., died June 19. He was 69.
Roger was born in New York City in 1946. He was the son of Florence and Gerald Goodman. Roger attended Oberlin College and Trinity College of Music in London for his undergraduate degree (B.Mus) and attended Northwestern University for his M.Mus. He earned the M.Div., specializing in queer theology of the body, at Chicago Theological Seminary; and was trained in spiritual direction by a Benedictine abbot at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in the 1980s.
He was active during the civil-rights movement and protests over the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Yet, he slowly grew away from these movements because of the heterosexism politic. He was also a veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion, the watershed event for the contemporary LGBTQ movement in June, 1969.
Roger was also an international concert harpsichordist, teacher and recording artist who performed in such venues as Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in NYC;, Carnegie Recital Hall in NYC; the Wigmore Hall in London; the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota; and Orchestra Hall in Chicago as well as four appearances on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series broadcast live over WFMT-Chicago. He retired from music in 2010 after 40 years of devoted and dedicated work.
Upon his retirement, he began the completion of his published book Thoughts of a Tribal Elder: One Queerman's Journey from the Ashes Risen. a book of essays on topics such as politics, spirituality, mysticism, mythology, the arts, coming out, the politics and spirituality of HIV/AIDS, and his own journey of recovery from addiction as well as his poetry.
Because of his addictions to drugs and sex he became HIV-positive in the early 1980s and was diagnosed with AIDS in 1995, at which time he came near to death during a 10-day coma, but miraculously came back from death. He often said that the reason he came back was because he had important transformational work to do with queer people everywhere. Part of this transformation work was performing benefit concerts for various AIDS service organizations in Chicago: the AIDS Pastoral Care Network, The AIDS Alternative Health Project, Open Hand and GroceryLand Free Pantry. Thoughts of a Tribal Elder is a major part of that great work, as was his performing and teaching during which time he touched the lives of countless thousands of people.
From 1987 through 2010, Roger was in a thriving private practice as a spiritual director doing chaplaincy work in the death rooms in two hospitals in Chicago with his queer brothers dying during the AIDS genocide in the 1980s and '90s. Roger lived with a number of HIV-related illnesses, two of them being terminal.
He lived in Chicago where he is survived by his beloved partner, Jerry Scholle; his much-loved brother, Len (Susan) of Santa Fe, New Mexico; and his two nephews, Joshua and Eli, and their families. Roger will be greatly missed by countless thousands of people, both gay and straight, whose lives he touched with a profound grace, especially his CMA family of recovering addicts: Matt K., Will B., Rudy M., Gregg G., John L., Todd B., Daniel R. and Christopher M.
A memorial service will be held for Goodman on Sunday, July 12, at 2 p.m. at Leather Archives & Museum, 6418 N. Greenview. His ashes will be interred privately in the Cremation Garden within Chicago's Rosehill Cemetery. No flowers please, but donations should be given to AIDS Foundation of Chicago at www.aidschicago.org/page/donate .