Bill Thetford Tribute: In Memoriam
The following is a tribute to Bill Thetford by Bill MacDonald:
We have just learned that Bill Thetford has `taken on invisibility’ after a sudden heart attack in Tiburon. Most people will know that Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman worked together for six years scribing A Course in Miracles. It was their own difficult relationship as well as their relationships with their colleagues that prompted Bill to cry out one day that “there must be a better way to live than the way we are living without any love in the world” and Helen’s joining with him in the quest that gave birth to A Course in Miracles and preceded Helen beginning to hear the inner dictation which she took down in shorthand for Bill to type up later in manuscript form.
They were obviously the perfect couple for the task as they did complete the job. It was Bill’s total belief in the material coming through that enabled him to give Helen the support and encouragement that she so often needed Bill would be also the first human being to have completed the workbook.
Bill and Helen kept their work with the Course quite confidential both while they were working on the manuscripts and for several years later. Even after Helen died in 1981, Bill never sought the limelight and became like a beacon and wonderful example of a person with little ego needs. Pam and I had the good fortune to meet Bill in Tiburon on three occasions when we visited Tiburon in 1985. and were very impressed with his gentleness. We had the opportunity of attending a Miracle discussion group in a little quaint building which had been once a church high on the top of a hill in Tiburon. We were filled with anticipation with the prospects of hearing Bill’s comments during the meeting. When we arrived the meeting room and the adjoining annex were almost full and to our surprise Bill was sitting right at the back of the annex. It seemed strange that the man who understood the A Course in Miracles better than anyone attending said nothing all night while at the same time enjoying being present. We asked the facilitator about Bill’s silence and were told that was the way it usually was. They respected his silence although occasionally someone would ask for his interpretation of what was being read and his explanation was always masterful. Wary of the over-analysing that can side-rack us from the main thrust of the Course, he served as a reminder of the authors love for all of us. There was one occasion when two avid Course students were arguing about how a certain passage should be interpretated and unable to gain a consensus they asked Bill which interpretation was correct.
Bill’s simple answer to each of them was “If it was me I would have torn out the page. No answer is worth the separation of two brothers.”
Since then, he decided to remove himself from all the Tiburon scene and the fame and adoration that goes with being one of two scribes of A Course in Miracles, moving to San Deigo where he spent the remainder of his days with some loved Miracle friends Jack and Layle Luckett and regularly and quietly attending local meetings and talks. The Lucketts relate how he changed when free of the star status in Tiburon. Introverted by nature and always shy, he lightened up under the Luckett’s influence. It had been Bill’s custom to return to Tiburon regularly to spend some time with Foundation members and he had always believed that somehow he would end his days there, even though he had elected to live his last two years in San Deigo.
On his last trip, Judy Skutch reported that she had never seen Bill so happy. There he was, a previously dignified studious reserved professor from Columbia University suddenly dancing around happily declaring that he had completed all his forgiveness and singing repeatedly “I am free!”
In this happy state he decide to go for a walk and 10 minutes away he simply dropped dead which what appeared to be a sudden and massive heart attack. The attending doctor said it would have been very quick with little or no pain. He had let go his body when its work had been done.
Bill Thetford gave us the impression that he had found the peace of God and that he really had no reason to stay around any more having completed what he came to do. On hearing the news of his transition, I had a feeling of great joy, with a feeling that Jesus on meeting Bill again would have said,
“Well done good and faithful servant”
