The Lord blesses a people, with someone who just seems to
know the right thing to do all the time. Occasionally, God is good enough to
send us someone, and shape them, to be a kind of guiding light to the rest of
us. We often take them for granted, walking in the illumination of their
God-reflection. Until they are gone.
I was driving to work this morning, and cycled through the
radio stations. One of my local stations was broadcasting the funeral of Billy
Graham. I could hear the bagpipes playing, and the announcer spoke of the body
being moved by procession. They were playing Amazing Grace. I imagined the
group of people standing behind the casket as it moved to the final resting
place. I took off my hat, there in my car. One of those mighty titans of truth
being laid to rest, surely translated to walk in the land of the truly living.
We have lost something, O Lord. Don’t leave us in the
darkness.
Just a few months ago, a mighty hero in my life was laid to
rest as well. I had the pleasure of playing a couple of songs on my guitar at
the funeral. Jim Eller was on of those titans of truth. He walked with
humility, and always was there to pray for me, for my family, and remind us of
how to follow God. He was half blind, and physically unsteady, there in the
last few months. But, I couldn’t help but noticed that he was never more clear
eyed, and spiritually solid. His greatest concern was for his wife, grown
children, and growing grandchildren. He wanted them to follow in the way that
he had been paving his whole life. When we did lay him to rest, I felt like
there was a real hole in our community.
We lost something, O Lord. Don’t leave us in the darkness.
My own Grandpa, Jay Denton Palmer, was one of those too. We
lost him about six years ago. I named my oldest boy after him. I’m so sorry
that my kids will never know him like I did. I loved him as only a grandson
can. I know that he believed in me, cherished to see me grow up. He was proud
of me. In the way that a proud grandparent can, he respected me. And, I
respected him. He ran track in college with some of the legends of the Pacific
Northwest, like Ben Moring and Eugene Peterson. He was a Gideon, believing that
the Bible was powerful enough to be set into a stranger’s hands and left to work.
When he went to be with Jesus, I felt robbed. Even now, I wonder what he would
say if he could see what we are up to now; and wonder what kind of wise words
he would offer. He was a good man, and we are the poorer for having to let him
go.
But, that is the way of things. I feel like there is a
grainy color polaroid, of all those who I grew up with. Many of them were
people to be in awe of. People to listen to. People to emulate. People to love
and respect. They reflected God’s radiance, it seemed. And one by one, their
faces are being rubbed out of the picture, never totally removed, but somehow
eerily absent. Oh, how the people next to them in the picture grimace at the
loss.
Sitting in a coffee shop, I ran into some old friends. Mrs.
Murray had lost her husband to cancer a few years ago. Her friends, the
Stiltzes, had lost a son to an IED. All three of them having coffee. I MEPS’d
in with their son, so many years ago. I’ve memories of us running at the park,
in the early morning Spokane hours, trying to get in shape for basic training.
I came home. He didn’t. We hugged and caught up. Just before leaving, Mrs.
Murray said to me that we are about to lose Marla. My heart caught in my
throat.
Marla is one more of those titans of truth. She worked at
the church I went to as a boy. She taught us to sing, and had the job of
putting on the church musical productions. I don’t know for sure, but I think
she loved it. She always came off that way. Marla never stopped being the kind
of person you wanted to run into on a hard day. She just reflects that light in
a way you can’t explain, but you know when you are in the presence of it.
What are we going to do? Lord, we’re losing so many of our
pillars. Don’t leave us in the darkness. Sometimes it feels like our country
has its hands around its own throat, and it is squeezing. Polarizing, punditry,
anger, and entrenched shouting has become our way of life. Shooting people just
to shoot them. Then, accusing and crying about how we were right all along.
Squeezing. So much darkness.
Lord! Don’t You leave us alone! Raise up the Elijah and
Elisha, the Samuel, the David, the Isaiah, the John, and the Jesus. Send us
leaders who know the way, who know the truth, and who lead in the way of life.
