Dedicated to my beloved mom, Doris Fisher Harris, January 19, 1929-September 3, 2026
She took the stage and gave the old words breath,
made Shakespeare live in ordinary flesh—
a scholar’s soul in Sunday clothes and hope,
who taught that language outlasts even death.
Professor of speech and drama, sure and wise,
she loved the living line, the scene, the play;
six hundred articles of Christ-centered fire
she set upon the page like votive light;
a pastor’s wife, a Proverbs 31 life,
who served her home and campus, sure and bright.
Her gifts were kindness, grace, and care,
hospitality that opened every door,
a tea bag tucked beside a note of prayer
for student, friend, or colleague she held dear.
She loved Christ her Savior, family, campus, all
her students with a love beyond compare.
She shaped the vespers, theme by theme,
till every program bent toward Father, Son, and Flame.
We grew among that holy beauty
on a Christian campus filled with light—
Scripture, preaching, song,
heroes and heroines of the faith
like a holy sea around us.
Shakespeare on a beauty-saturated stage,
an opera staged with care each spring,
and chapel held both hymn and living word:
poetry sung, and preaching shaped like verse,
rich in doctrine, full of Christ our King.
The gallery held holy art
in ornate frames that trained the seeing heart
and gave us a Biblical aesthetic
still living in us to this day.
Such beauty stored in hearts cannot be taken away.
How blessed we were and are. She named me Debra for
Deborah, who wrote her poem to the Lord;
she named my twin, my brother David, for
the king whose songs were lifted and adored.
David sings now to worship the Lord,
as King David once sang,
formed by Christ in our parents’ faithful hands.
Our father was a singer, pastor,
professor, and a Shakespearean actor too—
now in glory, waiting there for Mom.
These were the gifts you cultivated, Mom.
You watered them with love,
and they took root.
She hung inside her son and daughter chandeliers of light,
a mother’s patient grace through every day.
No gilt, no pomp—just rhyming, faithful care
that trained the ear to hear the Word made fair.
She made the house a home;
she filled the campus with prayer.
Christ was her worship.
Beauty was only how she said His name.
The rooms she taught still hold the glow she gave.
The Actress has laid her script aside and found
the Voice she spent a lifetime learning to obey.
The Writer’s pages closed. The mother’s hands
that poured the tea and wrote the notes of grace
opened toward the country of the Lamb,
where Father waited to see her face to face.
We will not dim the chandeliers she made.
His song and these lines are the lamps she lit.
We tend them still, and will not let them fade.
Go gently, Mom. The play was not the end.
The Lord you loved has called you home.
Your life was poetry the heart could understand—
clear, classical, and fiercely full of Him.
Now she sees Him face to face
and hears His golden, tender voice begin:
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
The curtain lifts on glory. She sees Him.
The Author of her life has called her
victoriously and triumphantly home.
