Good morning…
I melt into tears as I finally have a quiet moment to savor your many loving texts and emails following yesterday’s post. Thank you for responding with such love, care, and support as our community grieves yet another shocking loss. Up the road from Northside Church, in the St. Philips community of faith, a similar story is unraveling as another dad of Lovett grads was found dead on Friday evening. “The official cause of death was choking but the sad reality is that his body, too, simply shut down,” one of you shared as you asked for prayers for this well-loved family.
“I feel like our community has had a dark cloud hanging over it for a long time now,” she said as we walked into yesterday’s funeral. “I wish this black cloud would just move on.”
Yet as the expansive sky teaches us, dark clouds and bright sun intermingle, day after day, community by community, all over the globe of our temporary home. We have no control over darkness descending but we can watch clouds gradually shift in form, welcoming in more light. At yesterday’s service celebrating one father’s life, collectively we experienced the stories of three friends, the memories of three sons, and the voices of the Lovett chorus singing of the freedom we feel marching together in the light of God. With each song, each story, each Scripture verse, I felt the dark clouds in my soul parted a bit. My husband’s eulogy also shifted the clouds some for me. Please ponder these words privately and feel God dawning in your own darkness.
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Excerpts from Steve Brooks’ eulogy by Rev. Steve Allen
I spend a good deal of my time, reading and teaching about people in the Bible. It’s kind of a requirement of my job as the Upper School chaplain of The Lovett School. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,, Mary, Joseph, Peter and Paul. And I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest assumptions we make is that these “Bible People” were perfect. They weren’t.
They were human – which means they experienced both success and failure. They warmed people’s hearts with their sweetness and devotion and they left people cold with their heartless insensitivities. They made people laugh and they made people cry. They had an amazing capacity for kindness and an infuriating tendency toward selfishness. And when they died they left their loved ones with sadness and some regrets, but they also left them with strong legacies to follow and heartwarming memories to cherish. Their stories were a mix of beauty and pain. These were the real lives of the Bible people. A strange combination of soaring highs and painful lows.
In the same way – these are the stories of our lives. And this was the story of the life of Steve Brooks. A man who embodied all the things that make us human, including the successes and the failures, the highs and the lows. And so, as we reflect on his life we do what’s important to do at times like these. Not to assume perfection – but neither are we to dwell on the shortcomings. Instead we celebrate the cherished memories that saw him soar to great heights. These are the legacies we all want to leave in our wake after we’re gone…
…My friends – the bottom line is this – death has an incredible success rate – 1 out of every 1 of us will die. And because we all know that – I think that deep down there’s a desire within us all to leave a strong legacy in our wake as Steve Brooks was able to do in so many meaningful ways. To do that however we will have to contend with our humanity. We will do battle with our demons so to speak – with all the things that threaten to derail us in life. It’s because of this that I call us to follow the example of those Bible people that I mentioned earlier – imperfect people who were simply a little better than most at tapping into God’s offer to help guide them in their efforts to build a strong legacy for others to follow. Because of this they were able to overcome their struggles to leave lasting legacies of significance. Legacies we continue to read about and study even now so many years later.
So now – as we consider the strong legacy of Steve Brooks – as we consider the legacies we are forming ourselves- may God guide you, the Brooks family, and all of us to lives of significance and meaning for those who will come after us.
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People sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light; sitting in that dark, dark country of death, they watched the sun come up. This Isaiah-prophesied sermon came to life..the moment Jesus started preaching. He picked up where John left off: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here” (Matthew 4:16-17, AMP).
God’s kingdom is here, in our grieving community, in our everyday lives. Waiting together in darkness, we will watch the sun rise.
…Sue…
