Benjamin Wren, 75, Loyola's Zen expert
Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2006
Times Picayune 	07-21-2006


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Benjamin Wren -- 'Zen Ben Wren' to thousands of Loyola University students who knew him
as a teacher of Zen practice and Asian history as a Jesuit priest, then as a layman --
died Thursday morning of lung cancer at Canon Healthcare Hospice, his wife said. He was
75.

Mr. Wren spent 35 years on the Loyola faculty, recently concluding a summer course on
Zen and Japanese history, said his wife, Patricia Wren.

For almost all his career he was a Jesuit priest. He left the order in 1996 after 48
years as a Jesuit, married and remained at Loyola. He taught Zen in a spare, fifth-
floor zendo, or meditation hall, in Marquette Hall where the center of focus was a
metal figure of the crucified Christ hanging on a barbed wire.

Mr. Wren was fascinated his entire life by Eastern philosophy, which he believed could
be successfully integrated into Catholic spirituality, despite some reservations from
the Vatican. He used Zen as a form of nondirected meditation, believing it opened the
practitioner to the experience of God.

'God is not found by adding, but by subtracting,' he said in a 1990 Times-Picayune
interview. In the stillness of Zen, 'we find the present moment is pregnant with God.
Most of us are guilty of abortion.'

He explored much of that territory in a 1999 book, 'Zen Among the Magnolias.'

Loyola spokeswoman Kristine Lelong said Mr. Wren's Zen classes were among the most
popular on campus, and returning alumni would frequently ask about him.

Yet his Zen classes were not open to all. He screened applicants. 'Some people's
consciousness is best left undisturbed,' he told an interviewer in 1999.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Wren's background was multicultural. His mother was born in Hong
Kong; his father was an American Marine. Mr. Wren was raised in Georgia.

'I said my grandmother on my mother's side is buried in Singapore. And my grandmother
on my father's side is buried in Georgia. So East meets West, and here I is,' he once
said.

Mr. Wren entered the Jesuit order at 17. He earned advanced degrees in Eastern studies
from the University of Arizona, taught high school in Texas and arrived at Loyola in
1970. Except for a one-year stint teaching in Tokyo, he remained continuously on the
Loyola faculty.

Thirty-five years after his ordination, Mr. Wren left the Jesuits and at 65 married a
former student. Although his ministry was no longer recognized by the Catholic Church,
he considered himself a priest even in his new life, his wife said. He affiliated with
CORPUS, an organization of men who had left the priesthood to marry, his wife said.

Besides his wife, Mr. Wren is survived by four stepchildren, Sarah, Melissa, Christy
and Andrew Voelkel, and a sister, Paula McKelvy of Sun City West, Ariz.

A memorial service will be held Aug. 19 from 12:30 to 3 p.m. at All Saints Episcopal
Church, 100 Rex Drive in River Ridge. Bagnell and Son Funeral Home in Covington is in
charge of arrangements.