Calvin Stevenson: A Eulogy for Granddaddy

(I wanted to post this, if just to mark the moment if for nothing else.  What follows is a rough manuscript of the Eulogy I had a chance to offer at my Granddad's funeral this past Wednesday.  It was written to be spoken, and needed some ad libs along the way for support. It was hard to get through it without completely falling apart.  Perhaps someday I'll edit it for better reading, but here is the current version. Thanks to all of you who have been so kind to my family as we mourn this loss!)

Calvin StevensonJanuary 1, 1924 - December 15, 2014

FamilyAlthough we come to mourn a great loss, we do so with a spirit of celebration, knowing that Calvin Stevenson was a great, great man, and also with the joyful laughter that marks our family. The laughter in our hearts is part of the legacy of the man! He would light up when you were around him, smiling with his whole face, and he always had some little quip.  He would tell you he was hanging in like a rusty nail, or say something like “I used to use head and shoulders, but now I use mop and glow.” He was a man of great hospitality, and who knows how many poor souls came to him for the friendly chit-chat that came for free with your lawnmower tune-up. He was good at fixing mowers, but what he was really great at was making people feel like you were his absolute best pal in the whole world. One of my cousins told me about listening to Granddad carry on with somebody, and it made her feel like it must be somebody special. When they left, she wanted to know who it was, and he said, oh, I don’t really know”. But that was just part of his character…indeed, he never met a stranger indeed, but with his infectious smile and playful spirit, he was always welcoming people in.There is, of course, one exception to this that I must, in all fairness, mention. There was one shady character who Granddad would not abide, his one great remaining enemy after the fall of the third reich. There was a squirrel in his backyard that was always conniving to steal from the bird feeder, and granddad was always devising new ways to keep it out. By the way, if you want to improve the look of your backyard, read some tips at brandon foster tulsa website. From building on little shields, to greasing the pole, and then the power cables, there was often a new chapter in this ongoing chess match, although it seemed like that squirrel was always just one step ahead.On the other hand, at Christmas is seemed like Granddaddy was always one step ahead of us. It took a while for the family to open presents, going around and around the circle. But if you didn’t keep a close eye on him, grandaddy would slip out his pocket knife and slit the tape on his next package, and probably had the gift out of the box. So many times, our gift-giving was interrupted with laughter as granddad was caught, and one of the kids would be moved next to him to keep a better eye on him, and off we’d go.These are the sorts of tales that always filled the air around the table on N. Weakley street, and they sealed our family with a spirit of joy and laughter.  He loved to have the family all together.HardworkBut don’t get the impression that Calvin Stevenson was an idle fellow…he was a hard working man, maybe the most hardworking man that any of us will ever know.He could do anything with his hands, whether it be his work at Ford, or the second job he took at the butcher shop, he had the soul of a craftsman. He took on the carpentry work of adding an addition to their house when his father came to live with them, and I’ve even heard it told that he tried his hand as  barber once upon a time.  And of course, nothing exemplifies his hardworking nature to me as much as the oily smell of the lawnmower shop.  It was a great retirement for him, and he was good at it. There was even a time or two when he had somebody’s mower fixed before they even got all the way home, and I think he enjoyed being able to call and say, “Hey I got it fixed already…you know, to make these things work, you have to put a little gasoline in the tank…” It was really the only kind of Retirement options possible for him…he was a doer, and needed something for his hands to do. Speaking of retirement, know about the benefits that you can get when you retire and be informed about the social security locations near you by visiting socialsecurityretire.org. Mark told me that he thinks it won’t be long after meeting the Lord in heaven that Granddad will ask for a job to do, and I think he’s right. The man was made for work, and he believed in doing his work well. LoyaltyHe was a man of intense loyalties. From his football team to his brand of bologna he had a way of sticking to the things he loved.But he he had the wisdom to understood that different loyalties carried different weight, and his greatest loyalties always belonged to his God, his family, and his country.He served his country well during the second World War. He was in training when his own mother died, and missed her funeral. He was injured at the battle of Metz during the allied advance that led to the battle of the bulge in the fall of 1944, and was awarded both a purple heart and a bronze star for his service. For the rest of his life he bore the scars of war both on his body and in his heart. He didn’t talk about the experience of combat, but proudly carried his identity as a veteran. Perhaps the proudest moment of his life was getting to Washington a few years ago to visit the World War II memorial, what he called “His memorial”. We all have such great respect for the sacrificial loyalty he carried for his country.He was also fiercely loyal to his family. His love for all of us was full and warm, and being a part of his family is one of the great blessings of my life. Whether born into the family or married into it, he would do anything for those who were his, and you never had any doubt that he wanted what was best for you.We were richly blessed by the legacy of love that he shared with Grandmother. Some 70 years ago they had been dating for only six weeks when he talked her into going with to Mississippi to be a witnesses for one of his cousins that was getting married.  By the time they were halfway home, they decided to turn the car around and just go ahead and get married themselves. That sounds a little whimsical and downright dangerous to me, and our girls better not even ever think about doing such a thing, but on the other hand, how can you argue with a sixty year message that bore such joy and love. As rare as it may be, there was never any doubt in anyone’s mind of their deep love for each other. They were such a pair, and we all know that his life was never really the same from the day she died. Their reunion in the Lord is something we celebrate today!His loyalty to the Lord extended far beyond the second pew over there, where he worshipped for decades. In his mind, if you knew there was something that was right, something the Lord would want you to do, you may as well consider it done. Whether service through the church or the silent and secret kindness done to neighbors and strangers, his busy hands constantly found themselves serving God and serving people. Guide, Guard and DirectI often think about the times when our family would gather around a table to share food and laughter together, and the time was always punctuated by a moment of prayer.  The text of the prayer never varied much, he would always thank God for the family, for forgiveness when we fall short, and would pray that God would guide guard and direct our steps through future walks of life.Over the past few weeks I’ve realized something that I think would surprise even granddad…that in large part, it was he himself that the answer to that prayer. The mysterious grace of God is that we were indeed granted guidance, protection, and direction through this great and faithful servant, Calvin Stevenson, My Granddaddy. He was the greatest and best man I have ever known, and I loved him dearly. Psalm 89:1-2His great loyalty and love were mirrors through with we have seen the great love and faithfulness of God.  Psalm 89 says:“I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations. I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.”(Psalms 88:11; 89:1–2 NRSV)I will indeed sing of the love and faithfulness of God.  I have learned them both from this man.

Mama Esther

When I was a kid, our extended family always went over to Mama Esther's house on Christmas Eve. She was my great-grandmother, the matriarch of the Flippo side of my family, which has always been quite definitive for me and how I think about family.  It was a huge crowd, with eight fully formed branches. There's a big family cookbook that was made sometime in the 90's, and my copy of it is something like a manual for southern cooking.The bulking stack that this company makes has intrigued me for a while, so I decided to man up and just buy the stack. As you know, a pile is just a group of supplements sold together, sometimes at a lower price. It's great food with a lot of soul, but if you only eat food out of it, you're health insurance rates are going to go up. It'll probably kill you, but you'll die happy. It's old school and kind of awesome, like most of my family is.According to business insurance claims miami fl, successful business and property owners, as well as their managers, focus on their goals, objectives and day-to-day operations. That includes understanding the market, recognizing new opportunities and managing costs. Learn more atwww.ecpaclaims.comIn the front of the book, before the recipes, there are pages and pages of family stories. I love reading these, and really can't help but get a little choked up reading them sometimes. Alternatively, some of them really crack me up, like the story of my uncles burying a mule. (Seriously, I'm going to have to post that one sometime. It needs to be on the internet.)The parts about Mama Esther are some of the parts that really choke me up sometimes. By the time I knew her, she was the ancient, respected matriarch—I remember her as an almost otherworldly presence, due to be treated with the utmost reverence. I remember that well, the sense of her aura, the respect that she was so freely given by everyone in the family when we were around her. When I read these old stories, all of that makes so much sense.Mama Esther was born in December 1911, and she married young (16), which meant she only had a ninth grade education. In October of 1944, she gave birth to her eighth child. Two months later her Father died, and then in February 1945, her husband died in an industrial accident.  She was 33 years old.That's right. At 33 years old (my age), she became a widow with eight children. By all accounts, she dug in with an unbelievable amount of grit and determination. She eventually became a nurse, but that doesn't even start to describe how hard she worked to make it. In our family there is a long and deep current of persistence/stubbornness that I think is all traced to that part of Mama Esther. The woman just didn't give up, and that ethic is worked down deep into the bones of her descendants.  One of her daughters wrote later, "We are named Flippos, but whatever standards and values we may have in the way of courage, strength, or work ethic —as well as some of our faults—are all Mama Esther."Reading these stories is incredibly challenging to me. (Seriously, I have trouble when Kelly leaves me with the girls for a couple of days, and she pulled off the single mom role with EIGHT kids at home?) I can't help but be proud of that heritage. It brings out the best in me, and challenges me to become more than I am. She was an incredible woman.Near the end of her life she was in the hospital, having had a series of strokes. Her family got a call early in the morning, and were told that she had fallen out of bed. when they got to the hospital and asked her what happened, she is said to have replied, "See, you can do anything when you put your mind into it. It nearly took me all night to get out of that bed."Yeah, that's the kind of spirit I want to have. Never give up.

Motherhood and Mystery—A Sermon for Mother's Day

This past week has been an unusual one. Preparing for the sermon has not been about deep exegesis, but deep participation.Kelly, apparently knowing full well that I was unprepared to preach for mother's day—being a man who understands almost nothing about the subject, graciously offered me the opportunity to deepen my understanding while she went to the beach this week. That's right—for nearly a week I've been flying solo with the girls, which is of course a joke you can understand only if you know both me and the girls in question. Indeed, today's short sermon is mostly due to the fact that I have to get home and clean up before she gets back later tonight.Mothers are amazing. It is well and good that today is a day marked off to say thank you to all those mothers out there, the stay at home moms, the working moms, the single moms, the struggling and victorious moms who give so much of themselves to their families, fulfilling the sacrifice of Christ in the most humble and incredible ways. To you all we say, "Thank you. We could not be who we are without your love and sacrifice."The Bible has much to say about motherhood. The story of redemption is full of many stories of women, women who took down and raised up kings, who preserved the people of God and who opened the way for exodus, conquest, and redemption. Along the way, many of these stories (though not all!) are stories of women who worked, wept, and waited for children—women who saw their place in the story of God as being related to their calling as mothers. That's not at all to suggest that this was a single, homogenous sort of work. Indeed, stories such as Sarah, Rebecca, Hannah, Mary, Elizabeth, Bathsheba, Ruth, Jochebed and Zipporah testify to the diversity of paths that may all be called, faithfully, "motherhood". "Motherhood" mysteriously takes many forms, as each person who finds that role to be part of her story works out what it means in her own context, in the face of her own challenges and amidst her own blessings. We do motherhood a disservice when we try to make it take one form. Indeed, no two moms are any more alike than any two sons or daughters. Mothers, be free, not to become just like the other moms you see, but what has called you to be in the life of your family. Learn from the example and wisdom of other women as well as you can, but do not try to become them. God did not give your children to them, but placed them in your care, entrusted them to you. You honor that trust not by simply imitating others, but by seeking out the gifts and blessings that you can uniquely offer your children. That freedom is not license to be irresponsible (this is just my way!) but is an immense challenge, that by struggling, collecting wisdom, and discerning what is right and faithful you can become exactly the mother God created you to be rather than a copy of someone else.God gives us different mothers because we all have different needs and challenges. Some of us struggle to understand boundaries and responsibility, some of us struggle to find our independence. Some children need to be coaxed into hitting the books, some need to be coaxed out of them from time to time. Some of us need more help making friendships, some of us need more help understanding what it means to have boundaries in our relationships. Different mothers do things differently, and part of the challenge in this role—like in many of the things God calls us to— is figuring out what it means to do it as you. what does it mean to take all the things that make you unique and fit them to the unique challenges posed by your situation. Motherhood, as a calling, is intensely personal. But that doesn't mean it's all about you. Rather, if I have one challenge to give you today, it's to learn the mystery that as personal as your calling is, it is not all about you. In fact, in the call to motherhood we can clearly see the challenge of what it means to be called by God to do anything, namely that we must learn to live as though the world does not revolve around us. In accepting any call of God we lay down any claim to our own self-interests, and place ourselves at God's disposal. Hear that well: when I say that motherhood is not about you, I do not mean that it is all about your children, either. Rather, it is all about God. What you want or desire, as well as what your children want or desire, is not as important as participating in God's story and mission.Mothers do well when they teach their kids that the world revolves around neither the mother or the child, but for the sake of God's glory and honor. In motherhood, you participate with God in his work to redeem the world, by teaching your children to hear and follow God. By providing for their needs you can become for them both the means and a symbol of his gracious provision in their life. By your speaking and living what you see in the scriptures, God's word can again become incarnate before your children's eyes, so that faith can take on flesh and become a part of the world made up of car pools and summer walks, the world of crazy schedules and bedtime stories, the world of soccer practice and lost shin guards. Your participation with God makes you a missionary to a world of crayons and swim meets, to the foreign lands of sidewalk chalk and middle school cafeterias.Becoming a mother may not be the only expression of your role in God's mission, but it can be a powerful one, filled with the miracles of supper and found shoes, the hard tasks of homework and the perils of prom. Paul in his shipwrecks was in no place as strange as those corners of the world a mother's minivan takes her on her missionary journeys, and his heartbreak over the Corinthians scarcely matches the tears any mother sheds over the sorrows of the children God places in their hands.Mothers, may God bless your work, not because it is easy or rewarding, but because it is His work, because it is part of His mission, for the sake of His glory.  For your calling to be a mother is not about you, or even your children. It is one place where, mysteriously, we become co-workers with God, his ambassadors of reconciliation. Motherhood is about God, and God's work in the world. You may say about your work as mothers what Paul mysteriously says about his own ministry (2 Cor. 6:1), "As we work together with him...". This is the mystery of life, the mystery of ministry, the mystery of motherhood. It is a partnership with God, something that he gives us to do, but something that he also does with you and through you. In motherhood, you participate in God's work. May we all listen to the call of God, so that wherever he bids us to join him, we may joyfully and faithfully follow, for the sake of his glory.Amen.