Louie V. Andrews Jr. Funeral Meditation

Louie V. Andrews Jr.

Funeral Meditation

 

Thank you for being here. Mom, Jane, Beck, Susan and I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love that has been showered upon us not just today, not just for the last week or month, but for all of the time you have been part of our lives.

This church, Groves Memorial, has been such a blessing to Mom, Dad, Beck and Bill and we give you thanks. The churches Dad served when we were children, Memorial in Greensboro and Community in Hampton raised us and we give you thanks. Wildwood near Morehead City turned retirement into a renewal of life and we give you thanks. You have such stories to tell about mom and dad. Many of those stories have been revived and relived in the past few days. Thank you for those precious memories.

Some of you have embraced Mom and Dad since they moved to this community. Some of you barely knew our father but are friends who have come to support Jane, Beck, Susan and myself. Your presence gives us such joy.

A couple of years ago Dad asked me to speak at his funeral. I am humbled by this opportunity and as my wife and sisters will quickly tell you it takes a lot to humble me. Dad had four children and any of us is capable of standing here at this moment. We each have stories which equally define who our father was and continues to be. I am not standing here as a minister. I am just here as one of his children sharing a thin slice of the whole picture.

I dare not speak for Mom. How does one begin to speak of a mutual commitment that lasted over 70 years? How does one define love, courage, admiration and inspiration in a few fleeting phrases. I can only place my words on a piece of paper. Mom, you have lived your words, graciously and heroically, often deflecting credit in order that the one you loved might be glorified.

So for the next few moments I want to share my thin slice concerning a man I admired and loved; a man who inspired and frustrated me; a man who established guidelines which would both rule and bewilder my life. My father was a strong individual often brought to his knees by his own expectations. It was in those moments of weakness that I came to see and admire my father as a very complicated child of God.

It was a hot afternoon in July when Casey came to bat. In the late innings of a scoreless game the crowd favorite stepped to the plate. Tom Casey worked the count to three balls and two strikes. I toed the rubber, touched the brim of my cap, alerting the catcher that I was about to attempt the curve ball we had been working on the past week. The ball left my hand and appeared to be heading toward Casey’s head. He stepped back and watched in disbelief as a combination of spin and gravity guided the pitch across the plate. The umpire, who happened to be my father, threw up his left hand and pointed toward first base. On that sweltering day in July, the mighty Casey did not strike out.

On so many levels my father approached life as an umpire. The ball is fair or foul, the runner out or safe, and the pitch was a strike or a ball. There are no gray areas in baseball. Dad completely understood Deuteronomy 30. “I have set before you right and wrong. Do what is right and you shall live. But turn away from what is good and you shall perish. Choose life so you and your descendents might live.”

Dad grew up in a time when the United States was evolving from a third world country into a super power. He had barely enrolled in college before being sent to Europe to fight Hitler. He lived through an exasperating era in which many cultural norms were challenged. He was a southern man in an age of complexities and darkness. He had learned from his father that there was an expectation to have the answer to any question. He was an umpire, deciding who was safe or out. He was a minister, preaching to those outside the lines. And then he became a poet.  Umpires are expected to be right with no help from instant replay.  But poets are haunted by the very truths they once thought were self-evident. Words are spoken. They became our cornerstones. But sometimes they fail to set us free.

        Fifteen years after my first curve ball I was finishing my second year at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. Dad was working on his Doctorate of Ministry at Union. As we walked across the field that separated the two campuses, we noticed two kids playing catch. Dad remarked. “That curve ball you threw to Tom Casey was a strike. I had never seen you throw that pitch before. It caught me by surprise.”

        I was barely a year old when Dad was sitting in an empty church near Tacoma Washington.  Due to the conflict in Korea he had been called back into the Army for a second time. Dad had prepared his whole life to be a supervisor in a cotton mill. He would have been as good at that job as his father before him. But sitting in that church he was thrown a curve. According to Dad a bright light came through the stained glass and he heard the voice of God calling him to full time Christian ministry. Soon he was in seminary choosing life over death. Some of my earliest memories are of Dad dragging me to Alabama to preach at a revival. He was a full blown evangelist, more Billy Sunday than Billy Graham, called to save his corner of the world. Only God was just beginning to throw Dad a steady diet of curves.

        How does one explain a southern man raised in mill villages joining students from North Carolina A&T in the Woolworth lunch counter seat-ins in Greensboro? How did this evangelist count among his best friend an orthodox Jew who ran a deli in Newport News? How does a veteran of both World War II and the Korean Conflict find himself protesting against nuclear weapons in the 1970’s.  How did a man so sure of his sexual ethics come to celebrate the lifestyle of Alice Taylor, the founder of St. Columba Ministries, and her partner Carol?

        Thursday night I wandered into Dad’s study. At one time he had a magnificent library, but then he started giving books away. I am as guilty as anyone of building my own library through his generosity. But a few books he couldn’t bear to give up. I discovered well worn copies of the prophets who consistently threw curve balls at this evangelical umpire. Howard Thurman was an African-American mystic and poet who became a mentor to Martin Luther King.  Elie Wiesel was a Hasidic Jew who escaped Auschwitz and spent his whole life trying to understand the connection between the pathos of Jeremiah and the hope of Second Isaiah. Malcolm Boyd, a gay Episcopal priest whose jogs with Jesus both confused and enlightened my father. And finally Donald Dawe, a professor at Union who spoke of grace in a way that completely erased the lines on the field. 

        These poets and others changed my father’s theological strike zone. But they didn’t change his style. When he embraced a new pitch, he would try to convert everyone with his Billy Sunday fire and fury. That is just who dad was.

        The last pitch God threw Dad’s way was death.  You would think a preacher who embraced universal grace had death figured out.  But I was amazed at his final observation. The guy who always embraced the strike zone, even when it changed, seemed a bit uncertain. He wasn’t afraid of death in fact I think he welcomed it. But a few months ago he made a remarkable observation. “When I die I believe it will be a quick transition. I’ll be here and then I will be with God. But if I am wrong and there is no God, it won’t matter because I won’t know the difference.” Some of you may be taken back by this remark. I prefer to rejoice and celebrate that Dad chose not to worry about tomorrow. A rational person might say he finally came to his senses. I think Dad just decided to let God be God. What a radical conversion to admit he was not in control.

       

So what legacy does my father he leave behind:

He was dogmatic, even rigid, and yet I loved him.

He had trouble with the curve ball. Sometimes the moment was too big for him. Sometimes he couldn’t find the words I wanted to hear. Sometimes he might have regretted the words he used. My goodness we went head to head with each other and yet I loved him. And you folks from Memorial, and Community and Wildwood know why.

When you were sick,

he visited you,

When you were hungry,

he fed you.

When you were buried in a deep psychological prison,

he never left you.

When your soul was stripped naked,

he stood beside you.

        Bless his heart my Dad was complicated:

        He was a southern man who loved Neil Young.

        He was an evangelical converted by a Hasidic Jew.

        He was a straight Presbyterian who loved the poetry of a gay Episcopalian.

        I loved him because he tried to care for the stranger, the church member, and his family, equally. My goodness is that a hard, perhaps even impossible task.

        Sometimes his words would drive me crazy, yet I know his hands and heart were always trying to do the right thing.

        How ironic I am talking about love because that was a word that seldom fell from his lips. From the moment I got my driver’s license until the last time he was aware I was heading home, his parting comment was always, “Drive Safely”.  That’s Southern talk for “God be with you.” Whenever he would send a letter or an email, he always closed with the word “Peace”. That is theological talk for, “God be with you.”

        More than anything else my father implanted a deep assurance, a whisper in my heart, a stirring spirit that renews, re-creates and steadies me. Whether I walk in the light or the darkness, whether I remain inside or outside the lines, Dad’s voice will always remind me, “God is with you”.

(stop)

        Again, my family thanks you for being here. We are overwhelmed by your love and support.

        Drive Safely.

                        Amen.