A. Carl Sharon

Thoughts and prayers to the Sharon family during this time.

Carl was a wonderful man. His capacity for empathy was unmatched. My thoughts are with you, Micah and Christi. May his memory be a blessing.

Christi and Micah, I was saddened to learn of Carl’s death. As campus ministry colleagues, he and I shared many hours of conversation. He will be missed.

I am saddened to hear of Carl’s death. His last years were filed with such struggle, combined with his passionate love for Micah and campus ministry. He was a gift to the church and to the ministry. I learned so much from him, and I will miss him so much!

I’m saddened to learn of the death of my dear friend and colleague, Carl Sharon. He was a gifted pastor and a kind-hearted soul. I will always treasure our time together from our days together in New Haven and with University Lutheran Ministry. My thoughts and prayers are with Christi and Micah. Rest in peace, Carl Sharon.

I am very sad to hear this news. Carl was an important friend to me for a significant period in my life, and I hope that my friendship gave him some joy, too. I have fond recollections of being his regular roommate at Synod Assembly for a while.

We drew farther apart with time and distance, but my memories of Carl are fresh and warm. I’m sorry his last years were difficult; his personality was always so cheerful, and that made him fun to be with. I hope he is at peace, and that there will be notice if there is a service in his memory.

Carl always enjoyed spending time with Micah and Lauren. He gave the best piggy back rides in the Stratford pool and was a wonderful story teller at bedtime. Lauren and I will remember Carl fondly.

Rest In Peace Dear Carl. Thank you for sharing your journey with us, for all the laughter, conversations, campus ministry and life passages many walked together as colleagues. May God grant comfort to Christi and Micah and other family and friends.

This news saddens me. Carl was always a friendly face and an excellent conversation partner whenever our paths crossed. I can still hear echoes of his laugh… Rest In peace, rise in glory, dear Carl.

I am SO very sad to hear of Carl’s death. He was an amazing, inspiring, insightful, and strongly supportive colleague. (I will forever treasure the “institutional insight” support he gave me in times of professional stress and struggle). He was a deeply valued GNH Clergy Bible Study member–I am sure some of our better sermons in the New Haven area, were due in part to insights and observations that he shared with us. His support for the Yale Lutheran Campus Ministry Resurrection Church Tutoring Program, was strong, amazing, persistent, and brilliant, even, because he recognized the dire necessity of the tutoring both for the students of New Haven and the students of Yale. He made some truly life-changing connections happen, through that. I extend my sympathies to his family. I do hope notice of a recognition service will be publicized.

Prayers for peace to Christi and Micah. Pastor Carl helped me find a place at Yale through faith and service. I am forever grateful.

I am more than a little overcome with grief at the news of Carl’s passing. He was an anchor at Yale’s Luther House for all of my graduate school days there, a community that quite literally changed my life. He introduced me to Taize services (which I then led under his guidance for several years), served as my landlord during 3 years that I lived at Luther House, presided at my wedding soon after my departure, and introduced me to some of the best friends I could ever hope to find. In fact, he was one of them. He gave great joy, great love, great hugs. He is dearly, dearly missed. And I take great solace that I will embrace him again after this life ends for me too.

My sincere condolences to Carl’s family on the loss of a truly extraordinary man. I met Carl when I was an undergraduate in Boston in the 1970’s through Lutheran Student Movement and the Lutheran Ministry in the Fenway. He was a chemical engineer at Dynatech at the time, and was such a devoted mentor to so many of us. I was living at the Lutheran Ministry in the Fenway in 1978 when the famous Blizzard struck. Carl got stuck and couldn’t get back to Brockton in the storm, so stayed with us at the Fenway for over a week. I am deeply saddened by the news of his passing, and my prayers are with his family and friends.

It deeply saddens me not only to have heard that Pastor Carl is no longer with. My heart is heavy, but at the same time I feel blessed to remember how much Carl gifted all of us at Luther House with his mentorship and true friendship while also being our campus pastor. As a physics major at Yale, I first felt connected with Pastor Carl learning that he had first pursued chemical engineering as a career. But what I remember most are the many ways that he demonstrated himself to be a man of faith and disciple of Christ—through his preaching, his community building, his sometimes wry, sometimes mischievous sense of humor, and his trademark bear hugs, often accompanied by the words, “Peace to you!” My heart feels some measure of comfort imagining him similarly being received into the open arms of our Savior. Wishing you peace, Pastor Carl. And I lift up prayers for peace and strength to Christi and Micah.

I never laughed so hard as I did when I was with Carl at various national LSM events. We often talked of the absurdity of life – I can see his eyebrows raising and his head nodding as we talked and he’d respond with “Oh, Billy” (only he could call me that). Although careers and life changes separated us, we were able to catch up at occasional campus ministry events and we still laughed at life’s absurdities and he still called me Billy. I feel the pain of his death but know he is being rocked in the arms of our G-d. May his memory be a blessing. Prayers of peace to Christi and Micah.

Christi- I was saddened to hear of Carl’s passing and can only imagine the grief you and Micah are enduring. I remember with fondness times spent with you and Carl many years ago when he served at First Lutheran. I hope knowing how highly Carl was thought of, eases your burden to some degree.

Carl was there for me at the time my wife left me while I was a grad student in mathematics at Yale. He offered me a room for rent at the campus residence for Lutherans at Yale (Luther House), where he was chaplain. He counseled me and offered me comfort and solace when I felt that the rug was suddenly pulled out from under my feet. My whole world was upside down at the time I moved into Luther House. After a passage of healing, thanks to Carl and other residents of Luther House, my life became normal once again. Carl touched the lives of countless students at Yale during the time of his ministry. His chapel services and sermons were beautiful. His wife, Christie accompanied various musicians by playing her guitar in folk services at Dwight Chapel. I will never forget Carl and Christi for their unbounded love and kindness toward Yale students during their ministry at Yale.

I’m so sorry to hear about Pastor Carl’s passing. I fondly remember singing together at the Wednesday evening Taizé candleight services in the reverberant Dwight Chapel (held in cooperation with the Episcopal church) and the house church services he conducted at Luther House on Sunday afternoons. One quirky thing I remember is the crusty and very chewy bread that Carl provided for communion — I never had so much fun at communion as at the house church. At the supper afterwards, various members of our Lutheran community cooked for each other, and in December we made Christmas cookies in traditional and some decidedly non-traditional shapes. Pastor Carl led us by drawing us in and gently steering us without noticeably taking charge. He was patient and open to students like myself who had (and still have) many questions about their faith. He was also the best landlord one could have. At Luther House, Carl supported a diverse community of students, many of whom were not connected to the ministry but were looking for a safe home while living off-campus at Yale. Finally, I remember Carl’s facial expressions of wonder as he gently talked about everything — he was a wonderful model of a man of faith.

I had the pleasure of working with Carl for a number of years on the New England Synod Campus Ministry Committee. I always appreciated his guidance, wisdom, and sense of humor, and especially his support when I found myself chairing the committee.

I am so saddened to learn of Carl’s death. We met as colleagues serving in the New England Synod. I remember best his smile, his loving and encouraging presence to each person, his twinkle of joy, and his strong faith in God. May God’s peace continue to hold him in death as it held him throughout his life. And may our God continue to bring comfort and solace to his family and friends as he is celebrated, remembered and released. Rest eternal grant him O God.

We were saddened to hear of Carl’s death. He was an assistant pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven for a while before he went into the campus ministry. May he rest in peace.

Bpb and Lucy Brusic

So many memories….of the faith & science symposium and his brilliant & open mind that could hold those two in creative tension, of participating in those grueling week-long evaluations of both campus ministry and Resurrection mission’s ministry, of having him as dean of our new haven Lutheran clergy conference and always amazing me with some profound insight, of his so often starting discussions with the question “What’s on top?”, of fun conference gatherings at synod conventions, of his sense of humor and hearty laugh… Carl, you are an amazing creation of an awesome God, and I know you are still somewhere, sometime, curiously engaging in new discoveries, and delighting in the life that, even in the midst of brokenness and pain, is always new and always abundant, and always more than we can ask or imagine. Miss you, my long-time friend.

My belated condolences to you, Christi and Micah, on Carl’s death. I was not able to attend the service, but wanted to add a few words. Carl was my supervisor when I was one of the many Yale Divinity School students who did their field education at Luther House. He was always supportive, always patient, and always kind as I started to form my pastoral identity, even when I preached my first sermon at house church, one that lasted far longer than it should have (a danger when you ask a seminarian to preach). Like many others, I was introduced to Taize services by Carl, and I thank God for his mentorship and his generous spirit. I pray God’s comfort for you both, and for all who loved Carl.