‘Generosity flowed freely from his core:’ Remembering Jake Gibbs
Editor’s note: On March 3, Jake Gibbs, Third District council member, died unexpectedly of natural causes. This is one of the eulogies given at his memorial service on March 7 at the Kentucky Theatre by David Kennedy, a friend of Gibbs for 30 years.
I am David Kennedy, a friend of Jake’s.
As a man, I often feel heartbroken and ashamed by what powerful men have done in this world. Using their strength to prey on the vulnerable, the young, and the poor. Flaunting their hoarded riches while others go hungry. Feeding the Natural world to their machines.
Jake Gibbs was a very different sort of powerful man. He was a true Celtic warrior, using his unassuming strength to protect the family, the friends, and the community that he so fiercely loved.
Work boots at the foot of an armchair piled with books marked his refuge and his fortress. It was a love seat, because Jake loved the quiet work of gathering information from far flung fields and carefully filing it in his prodigious memory.
Like most people who get things done, Jake worked hard. But he didn’t work tirelessly and he wasn’t a workaholic. He savored the International Nap Hour. He always had time for his family and his friends. And somehow he had time for poker games, bike rides, coffee shops and bars.
I think he practiced a sort of mental jiu-jitsu. Using his knowledge of history to find leverage points, where a modest effort might prove fruitful. He often served as a catalyst or an enzyme in the community, enabling the actions of others without himself being consumed in the process.
Though he had no time for religion, he was skilled in what the Quakers call “discernment;” the patient listening, the weighing of evidence and then the grasping of the difference between the signal and the noise; the difference between an idea that is right and an idea whose time has come.
The world is becoming more complex. We already need to make important decisions about artificial intelligence and genetics and our relationship with Nature. We really need more leaders like Jake, willing to do the work for the deep and nuanced knowledge that making these complex decisions will require.
More than that, we will need leaders, who like Jake, understand that generosity is not simply acts of kindness. It is an unbroken state of being; the definition of functional love. Jake’s generosity flowed freely from his core. Its power extended far beyond those close to him into making sure that intersections were safe for people walking, and that Lexington would be a vibrant tree-covered community long after he had gone.
One hundred years after women were finally able to vote, it is way past time for them to have more say in what gets done. But as a man, I am filled with hope about what the world could become if men could learn to use their strength in the way that Jake did. He was a whole lot closer to what we could be, than to what we have been.
I miss him already. Thanks.
David Kennedy is the Director of Leaf for Life which promotes growing leaf crops to reduce childhood malnutrition in developing countries.