Some Thoughts I Shared at Dad's Funeral

Thank you for being here today. We’re encouraged that you came to help us celebrate Dad’s life and his coronation.

Dad loved people, including his family, he loved to have fun and he loved Jesus.

Dad loved to talk with people. When we camped as a family he would inevitably take a walk around the campground, visit other campsites, and engage people in conversation. It didn’t matter who they were or where they were from. He wanted to hear their stories and tell his. I expect that’s part of the reason he drove street cars and buses for 15 years. He had a steady stream of people to engage, all day long. And working at Bethel for 17 years he was surrounded by students who often heard him whistling his way down the hall on the way to take care of some electrical issue.

Now that Dad is his old self again I expect that, if he takes a break from praising Jesus, he’ll know half the people in heaven before the week is up.

Dad loved to travel. He satisfied that wanderlust by taking us camping. The vacation trips took us all over. Back east to visit New York City (pulling a popup camper right down through the heart of the city) to see the Statue of Liberty (and setting off some sort of alarm because we almost pulled that little camper with its forbidden propane tank through a tunnel), and Boston to walk the Freedom Trail, and Concord, and west to the Badlands and the Black Hills (one of his favorite places) and Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone and Glacier and Banff, and farther west to Oregon and the Sequoias and San Fransisco and down to Los Angeles and San Diego and to Arizona and the Grand Canyon, and north for a trip around Lake Superior. In a tent and then a bigger tent and then a small camper and then a little bigger one. I’m so grateful for those adventures and those very special times together as family. 

And there is the property on Green Lake. Those days at the lake were special to him and to all of us. Now five generations have spent some of their happiest days there. Building the house there helped satisfy his need to always be doing something with his hands -- tinkering, inventing, building, helping someone. When I was little I used to sit in church and play with hands. They seemed really big and strong to me.

Dad wasn’t shy, and he wasn’t shy about his faith. He loved Jesus. He was actively involved at church and made it an important part of our lives, too. He set an example of service by being so being involved in so many ways. (And I really have forgiven him and mom and my siblings for forgetting me at church one Sunday and not realizing it until they pulled into the driveway at home.)

Dad bounced back so many times from challenges to his health but a little while back he seemed to turn a corner. Several times in recent months Dad told us he was ready. And we got the sense he was simply waiting. The Apostle Paul, toward the end of his life said, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Dad knew that. He had 93 good years. To live was Christ, but to die was gain.

Following the example of a friend from New England, I shared this passage from Job with Dad the afternoon before he passed away: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes - I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19.25-27)" Dad did yearn for heaven over the past several months. He’s finally home.