Gene...My Brother...A Memory

He came into our lives one September nippy morning. I was four and he had just arrived. We called him Gene. Two years ago he left us after a long battle with cancer. And today I remember so much. Things nobody knew but us. We slept in the same bed room on twin beds for years. He never went to college but he was the smartest in our family. He worked in the Mill and worked at Fort Benning and then the Post office and finally when he retired, well--that's not exactly the right word--but he began to help people with their tax returns. Well over 500. And one day I asked him why he charged so little--he had a gold mine there. He said a lot of people had little money and he wanted to provide a service for those that came. And come they did. Many from all over the country. We all know that word of mouth is the best publicity and people just talking how good he was at his work. And so they knocked on his door or called him long distance. 

The last year of his life was hard, very hard. The cancer had ravaged his body. And so I said, Well I guess you will hang up the tax business now since you don't feel well. He sighed and said I'm gonna keep working and he did. He prepared close to 500 tax forms that very hard year. And when tax season was over he put aside the tax papers and put down his yellow pencil that was stamped: Gene Lovett.

He loved his wife Charlotte fiercely. And he had four children he was very proud of. He had a hard edge some time. He was red-headed and had a temper. Like the rest of us he was a flawed human being--as we all are. He built his own house and he had never done anything like that before. And he raised his kids there and his wife stays there to this very day. He helped others with their houses and painted I don't know how many houses with no help from anyone.

Like most siblings our relationship was up and down. We could make each other mad and we knew how to press the right button. Several years before he died I began to send him puzzles. Not easy ones. Some more than a thousand pieces. And he framed many of these. His last Christmas he told me he had a gift for me but it was too big to send by mail and he wanted it to get there undamaged. He finally got it delivered through one of his kids. I unwrapped the gift and I was stunned. He had taken one of the hard puzzles I had sent, pieced it together and had it framed. He did this for me. So as I walk into my house and open the door and on the right wall the puzzle hangs and I see it everyday.  

At his graveside I had a part and as I stood to speak the wind took my notes and blew them away. Some even landed at the bottom of the gravesite. And people started laughing and laughing and somebody said out loud: "Well Gene had the last word."

Two years ago he left us and I look at his picture on my desk almost every day and I remember.

(Yesterday was my brother's birthday.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com 

September/11 --A Memory

                                                      photo by Tom Fisher / flikr

Everyone has a 9/11 memory. Even children who cannot remember have heard the stories. The Sunday following September 11th we were out West and couldn’t get home. The Airlines were either shut down or swamped. So I couldn’t preach that Sunday—I was too far from the church. But the next Sunday I tried to gather my thoughts and preach to a group of people huddled together under a cross wondering. Wondering, And so was I.

As my sermon ended that day an Usher came and said, “There’s a young man back here that would talk to you.” I went back to talk to the young man. He was dark-skinned. Obviously from some Middle-Eastern country. 

The first thing he said was, “I hope you don’t hate all of us.” Strange way to open a conversation. “I hope you don’t hate all of us.” And then he poured it out. He was from Iraq. He was a student. He’d was far from home. And he had left most of his family back home. He was a Muslim. He was so embarrassed at what had happened.

He said that in that long dark week since the Towers fell some people had been ugly to him. Some didn’t say anything as he  passed but you could see the hate in their eyes. He said others pointed a finger toward him and laughed. “I hope you don’t hate all of us.” I tried to reassure him that I didn’t hate his people and neither did so many others. I told him that we did not hold all his country responsible for what happened. I said we were glad he was he was in our country studying and I hoped things would go well for him and his folks he had to leave behind. He  shook my hand.  And then he turned and left and I never saw him again. 

As I watch all the Memorials today—I remember the dark-skinned man with the burning question. “I hope you don’t hate us all.” Little did I know the months and years that would follow. 

On that terrible day when the Towers came down people from eighty countries died in those two towers. Years later I took my granddaughter to see the 9/11 Memorial.She didn’t stay a word—just looked.  On one wall we saw faces of those that perished. There was not much to say that day. And I still find it hard to put my feelings into words. 

Looking out I see a country terribly divided. About masks? About screaming at parents who drove their kids to school and outside the screams and venom and the spittle. My God have we come to this? So divided over vaccinations. Those who worked 12 hour shifts stumbled out of the hospitals to people waving hate signs and yelling death threats. All this ugliness directed toward those who helped the sick and the dying. 

On  the days after that September morning most of us joined hands. We were united everywhere. Cherly Sawyer’s partial poem says it for me:

“We are 

One color

One class 

One generation 

one gender 

one faith 

One language

One body

One family

One soul 

One people 

We areThe Power of One.

We are United

We are America.” 

I put these words down beside that man’s question after 9/11. But we now must ask our own question to all of us here: “I hope you don’t hate all of us here.” 

"Come by here Lord...come by here,

Come by here, Lord...come by here,

O Lord come by here."

--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Remembering Sid Hays--A Tribute

Sid Hays

May 31, 1931-August 26, 2021

One of the great Biblical words is Remember. That word is sprinkled 200 times throughout the Bible. They remembered many things: Old Noah and the flood, the coming of the dove with an olive branch in her beak. Remembering a rainbow promising that the water would go down and life would go on. 

But there was so much more. God led his chosen people through that terrible wilderness of 40 years… But more—Jesus in his first sermon telling his hometown: “I have come to heal the broken hearted.” But so much more. Bethlehem…and Jerusalem and all those dusty miles in between. The miracles. His wonderful stories. His cross. That glorious Easter Sunday. Those he left behind left grief-stricken and afraid but one day—one day— would remember and those remembrances kept them going. 

And so we make use of that proper word, Remember today. Sid Hays was born in Arab, Alabama in May 31, 1931. He grew  up in a family with a brother and two sisters.

Somewhere back there in Arab surrounded by Gospel songs and Scripture—he walked down that little church’s aisle and said: “Yes.” He was baptized there that happy day…that happy day because that flickering spark of faith grew and grew and carried him all the way to the finish line. 

I can just imagine one 3:00 o’clock dark morning Sid’s boat began to move slowly, slowly away from the shore and his boat moved until it was almost out of sight and Ruth and Shannon and Lee—squinted— on the horizon across the water as the sun came up and that tiny boat landing on the far shore was filled with incredible light. No more breathing machines. No more oxygen tanks and no more pain. Just laughter…great laughter.

He was an Entomologist—and an Auburn man. He was a veteran and served his country in Korea.  Back home—a young woman in the Zoology Department  in Auburn held up a white rat by the tail in her lab. The Atlanta Journal picked up that picture. And a man named Sid saw the picture of a girl named Ruth. She was at Auburn in Graduate School. He kept that picture and found her lab and met her and the rest is history. They were married for 56 years. Two daughters came into their family: Anna Lee and Shannon. And then much later there would be three grandchildren. 

Sid had a motto: “Never, ever, ever give up.” And this man of faith and integrity and love never did give up.

We remember he left his fingerprints everywhere. Family and Friends and Church and the farm he loved and his beloved pecan orchard. 

I share with you two stories that I remember about Sid. At the First Baptist Church in Clemson his fingerprints were everywhere. And when we built an addition to our church and renovated the sanctuary not only was he Chair of the Building Committee but he built the pulpit furniture and Communion table that you can find there today. 

Later when I moved to a church in Birmingham we were building a new sanctuary and Sid volunteered to build the pulpit furniture there—a pulpit, a lectern and a Communion table. But that’s not the end of that story. About two months later someone forgot to snuff out an advent candle on the Communion table and it burned all the way through the table and then went out. I called Sid and he said, “Well, I’ll just have to build you another one.” And he did. So many stories about his fingerprints. A tornado swept through Birmingham and Sid read in the paper about this Baptist church that was totally destroyed. Sid called them up and asked if he could build their pulpit furniture. And when they were finished he loaded them up on his truck left his farm, drove down Interstate 85 through Atlanta all the way to Birmingham.

Oh we could tell all sorts of stories. His faithfulness…his bone-deep integrity and love that took him all the way to that dark August morning when he slipped away into the mystery. We thank God for Sid Hays and his incredible life.

But I think Sid would want me to talk about some other rememberings today.We gather in this holy place and look around this beautiful sanctuary filled with so many reminders of faith. The words the Pastor has read: “The Lord in my Shepherd…surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the way to the finish line.”  We come here to remember Jesus’ Beatitude : “ Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.”  And the words our Lord spoke there toward the end: “Let not your hearts be troubled…” And the beautiful promise: “I will not leave you orphans…I will send my Spirit, the Comforter to be with you through thick and thin.” 

So I would remind us all that grief is a long and circuitous journey. But we lean on those Everlasting arms. God is here touching us one and all with whatever we bring here today. “Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

And so we remember Sid and lift up his family…Ruth and Lee and Shannon and these grandchildren and all of us. 

I  close my remarks with that wonderful Roman Catholic prayer for the Dead: “

“Into paradise may the angels lead dear Sid; at his coming may the martyrs take him into eternal rest, and may the chorus of angels lead him to that holy city, and the place of perpetual light.”

                                             And the Benediction:

“And now may the peace that passeth all understanding and the love that will never let us go rest and abide with us today and forever. Amen”

                                 +                                      +                               +                                   +  

                                     --Roger Lovette. rogerlovette.blogspot.com                  

This memorial meditation was part of Sid Hays' funeral service at the Boulevard Baptist Church, Anderson, SC

August 29, 2021

Putting Stars Back in our Skies--A 2021 Meditation

  

photo by Stanley Zimmy / flickr

It is reputed that Plato  once said, “Be kind everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Which means all of us are in the same boat.We are all vulnerable and who here is not fighting a hard battle either in the past or now or some time in the future. 

Reading Psalm 86 the other day I saw my name in this Psalm. For of all the hard things that this Psalm talked about I said this is me. And unless my bet your name is there too. 

This Psalm is really a prayer of desperation and vulnerability.

“Incline your ear…for I am poor and needy…”

“Preserve my life.”

“Save your servant.”

“Listen to my cry of supplication…” 

“My heart is divided…” 

“Give me strength…”

Do you think, most of the Psalms deal with praise and glory to God. But what I discovered is that 65 to 70 of the Psalms are what we call Laments. Again and again God’s people lifted up their pain to God. That’s Lament.

We find this is a little book by the Presbyterian writer Ann Weems. She writes: “On August 14, 1982, the stars fell from my sky. My son, my Todd, had been killed less than an hour after his twenty-first birthday. August 14th 1982 was a long time ago and yet she writes I still weep. She said her friends surrounded her when her son died . And the sympathy cards, casseroles, phone calls and visits just kept coming. And, she says they were a great comfort. But one day her friends went on with their lives and she was left alone with a stack of sympathy cards. Her grief was still raw and hard. And so she turned to the Psalms of Lament: Help me…Hold me…Be with me. Save me.” And out of her grief she began to write this book of prayer poems about her loss. It was a terrible time for her.

But if Psalm 86 is a prayer of Lamentation maybe we put these words down beside us today. A virus that seems to have no end…so many—some we even know, dying. Cooped up in our houses. Wearing these cursed masks. Worrying about our children in school. Will they catch it? And outside these doors a world that just seems to be convulsive. Afghanistan. Climate change. Fires in California. And just last week Hurricane Ida blew in and tore up a lot of New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana and up and down the Eastern seaboard.

And so we come here to this sacred place where people have been worshipping since 1832.  And through hymns and prayers and silence and even sermons they lifted their voices and hearts to God.through it all. The civil war…World War One…the great pandemic of 1918….the terrible depression…World War II and the defeat the Nazis…the Civil rights crisis which still goes on..and even down to this time of a cursed Coronavirus. This is what they and most of have found. 

“I am poor and needy…”(vs. 1)

“Preserve my life…” (vs. 2)

“Listen to my cry…”(vs. 6)

“Mend my divided heart…”(vs.11)

“Turn to me…” (vs. 16)

And what is to be our response when the stars fall out of our sky?

We can Deny. We can deny our troubles. Or we can say: “You think we got it bad—There are some people out there that are a whole lot worse off than us.”Just sweep your own  troubles under the rug.” “We can turn on Netflix or the ball game. One woman coming our the door of the church, shook the Pastor’s hand and said huffily, “We don’t talk about dark things in our church…People want to feel good.“We can find one of these churches where all they sing are happy-clappy songs. We can browse the internet and find Amazon and order something. Or stay all day on Face book.” Somehow all these things have a hollow ring. But I don’t think we can eat cotton candy all the time. We can’t deny where we are today.

We can sink into Despair. We can turn on the tv, read the newspapers or get emails from our friend in Oregon. Oh God…it is so terrible out there. The fires in California. We can keep the TV on all day long. We can get stuck in our grief and can’t move on. We can just talk about “Ain’t it awful to our friends.” And folks some days it looks like it will always look dark.

 We can share our pain. We can open up our hearts and share our pain with somebody else. Not everybody. But the amazing thing happens when we really do open our hearts it gives the other person permission to tell us his or her story which is not exactly moonlight and roses. We can take care of one another even the hard ones and especially the difficult ones. I love the old song: “he ain’t heavy he’s my brother or sister." We can think about somebody else than ourselves.

We can turn toward the Laments.  We can look at our own situation or someone we love. And we can turn to the Laments. Our prayers to God like this Psalmist did in a hard time. We can look around us and realize everyone we know really is fighting a hard battle. We can come to the realization it isn’t just us and our family…but this circle takes us all in. 

And what we find is a different perspective. The world gives us all a little hand of cards and then we are left to play with the hand we've been given.

Now back to the Psalm 86. What was God’s response to this man’s lamentations. 

After he poured out all his longings to God. This is what he also said:

in verses 7-1 Faith falters but recovers.

“Lord, you forgives us and help

        us…always abounding in your steadfast love…” (vs. 5)

“In this day of my trouble you have answered me…” (vs. 7)

“I give thanks to you Lord, for great is your steadfast love…” (vs. 13a)

“You have delivered me from the gates of Sheol…”vs. (vs.13b)

I have been leading Grief Support Groups for a long time. And one dayI went through the Bible and just picked out those Scriptures that helped and others down the road. And put these in a handout. They covered the paper back and the front. And one of the things I did was to them give them to those in my groups. I asked them to take just one of these verses and live with it all day long and take another Scripture verse the next day. But we all I have to find to keep us healthy this hard time.

Back to Ann Weems that I talked about at the beginning of this sermon how she lost her 21 year old son. After a long time of sloshing through all her pain  and bitterness, this is what she discoverd:

“In the godforsaken, obscene quick sand of life, 

there is a deafening alleluia

rising from our souls

of those who weep

and of those who weep with those who weep. 

If you watch, you will see the hand of God putting the stars back  in their skies

one by one.”

May we find those stars in our skies as well. This is a pretty good Benediction.

photo of van Gogh's " Starry Night" byThomas Hawk / flickr

(This sermon was  preached on the Sunday before Labor Day at the Mount Zion Presbyterian Church, 

Sandy Springs, SC, September 5, 2021)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com