Clyde Garren was local, and by that I mean, with a few ventures off to

Transcription

1 1 A Witness to the Gospel at the Death of Clyde Garren John 1:43-51, 14:1-17 Pastor Phil Thrailkill, Main Street UMC Clyde Garren was local, and by that I mean, with a few ventures off to Clemson and World War II and Korea, his life was here in Greenwood. What was the Cobb farm, now a mass of developments strung along Northside Drive except for the twenty-six acres that remain, was where he lived and died, and when you ride by the home your first thought is, when compared to the surrounding houses, This place has been here a while. It can be said of Clyde that he knew one place well, and that was Greenwood. Seventy-nine years a member of this church, fifty-one in the choir. Local, grounded, rooted, a life well lived in one place and on one piece of land and in one home with one wife and one church. How normal that once was, but how odd it is today, but then remember, Clyde was almost ninety-one. It was on Thursday, a week ago yesterday, that Clyde had his incident. Despite the growing difficulty of the Parkinson s, he did not want to abandon some of the simple duties that reminded him of his former vital life. So when Francis volunteered to take the watermelon rinds out to the garbage, he said, No, I can do it. And while outside, something happened, and there he lay unresponsive until Francis rushed out, began compressions, and called 911. And if that sounds dramatic, it is. A devoted wife trying to save the life of the man she loves only a few feet from where he was born.... in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, till death us do part. And it is the end of that promise that we mark today. I d visited in their home maybe ten days before, and as I observed the involuntary tremors and the difficulty walking, I wondered how he could do much at all, but Clyde persevered because that was his character. Not to complain, but to do his manly duties as long as possible. That was the man code, not only of Clyde, but of many of his generation who agreed that good men take responsibility for those around him, and having been invested so long in that code, even the little duties that remained were of high value. When I arrived, he was in the midst of a very large puzzle with very small

2 pieces. I heard the medical report. We talked a bit about his twenty years in the Army and Reserves, his years at Greenwood Mills, and all his friends in what my father used to call the South Carolina Textile Mafia. Clyde was in the sensitive work of Executive Salaries and Deferred Compensation, and that meant knowing not only your own company but also the packages of J.P. Stevens, Burlington, and the rest. You don t want younger execs jumping ship for a small raise. The big companies want to keep good people. Not long after my arrival Clyde and I discovered we had several links. He and my father finished Clemson in 1948 and knew each other. Clyde had the annual out and the picture located before I arrived. Like many peers, they had the same path. High school in eleven grades, off to Clemson for several semesters, then a time in wartime service, then back to Clemson to finish up. My father once laughed and said, Son, after the war the grading curve was gone. Everyone was serious. Everyone took an overload. There were no slackers. We were men just back from war. It was a competitive environment. I visited Clyde Friday and each day till he died, and it was at Self Regional on my first visit that, after a discussion with Rebecca, James Griffin walked in. And to Rebecca I noticed it was more like greeting an uncle rather than just her dad s friend. I soon learned that Clyde, ten years older than James, had been his mentor in the personnel business, and the two forged a strong bond. It was then that I asked James, Did you know Karlo Baker who used to run the plant in Orangeburg? His face lit up as I told him Karlo was my dad s best friend, hunting buddy, and the best dressed man in Cheraw. Strictly G.Q. James laughed. I so happens that just the day before Karlo s daughter had sent me a picture of her father and mother on Facebook, and for some reason I d saved it, so out came my phone, and in about three seconds I held a screen in front of James, Is this the man? Some say it s a Southern thing, and perhaps they re right, but I find that nothing overcomes social awkwardness better than a connection, and so I look and often find them in the oddest places. I will tell you that it is a good thing to hear one ole guy praise an even older guy, and in his rich appreciation for his friend Clyde, that is what James did in my presence. And since his death late Tuesday, a consensus has emerged 2

3 from everyone I ve spoken to. They all say the same thing, Clyde Garren was a fine man and a fine Christian gentleman. And to have Francis say to me, He was the perfect southern gentleman, is truth from an insider. And when she said it around the dining room table as we prepared for this service, both Helen and Rebecca heartily agreed. They respected their father deeply, and it was with a dose of fear thrown in lest they disappoint me. All it took was one hard glance form the choir loft to restore them to proper reverence in the Lord s house! And, I am told, he kept a shotgun just inside the back door in public sight, and it was for two purposes, one explicit, one implicit. The public purpose was to take care of pesky squirrels. The other was to send young male courtiers a symbolic message that these girls had a father, and that while vengeance was the Lord s, the shotgun was Daddy Clyde s! And if they were late for curfew, one or the other of their parents went looking for them. Word soon got out, You d better have a Garren girl home two minutes early, and no long lingering on the front porch in hopes of a kiss. When the porch lights starts flashing on and off, you are done! Go home. Realism and oversight are neglected parental virtues these days; don t you agree? Clyde Garren was a man of deep affection but few words, and the lives of his two daughters are marked by several oft-delivered words of wisdom. After a slack semester at Clemson, his command was Buckle down, and if the balance in their check books grew thin, the word was Save that money. Sunday was the Lord s Day and church loyalty unquestioned. And almost every Sunday afternoon, they d go for a ride with their dad, and the two goals were always the same. To visit one or more of the elderly who needed a kind reminder they were not forgotten, and a visit to the cemetery to the grave of Clyde s parents. What is repeated in a man s life is a way of telling others what he believes. Clyde believed in keeping his connection with God alive through worship and singing, and he believed his two daughters needed to know how to go into the homes of older people and to sit and listen as they conversed about all the little dramas of life in Textile Town and what was going on with friends. The man had been here all his life, and he felt some responsibility on the Lord s Day to go for a visit or two and then conclude with a Ten Commandment ritual of honoring father and mother at their grave side. And if that sounds quaint and 3

4 peculiar and old fashioned, it is, and that is its value to us today who have forgotten and abandoned such graces. Exodus 20:12, Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you, and that Clyde did, and that God did. I am told by one who was present that their first date was not love at first sight. He was mid-thirties, she nine years younger, both working, independent adults. After Francis returned from Kentucky and Tennessee after a stint as an X-ray tech at United Mine Worker hospitals, she went to work for the legendary Dr. Klauber, and it was there a co-worker set her up with a blind date. After the evening, which consisted of a movie and a burger at the Caravan, there was no contact for a while till a post card arrived from Fort Leonard Wood where Clyde was at summer camp. And for five years after that they dated. Five years, and then when they revealed to her father their plans to marry, he lectured them both with the Be sure sermon. Well, they were sure, though it took some five years to be sure, and on 9/11/65 they married. Clyde was thirty-nine, and what came from that union were Helen and Rebecca and a host of grands and step-grands who are with us today. The Garren name is now eclipsed, but the legacy continues, and it s so important for these grandchildren to hear stories of the Cobb farm and the Abbeville connections and the young x-ray tech headed off to the coal fields of Kentucky and how Clyde fought in two wars and gave his nation twenty years and how grandmother Francis went back to college at age fifty and how faith in Christ and faithfulness to his church undergirded everything they did and held precious. It is in hearing such history remembered and savored that children are grafted into a sense of roots and place and belonging and heritage and faith in God, so make sure, family, that not a week goes by you do not remember and retell a Francis and Clyde story, not Bonnie and Clyde but Francis and Clyde because hidden in that story are many of the practices and virtues we need to recover. When I arrived a bit over four years ago Clyde was still strong enough to sit astride his beloved green John Deere and mow the grass, a task he refused to delegate till he could do it no more. It was his place, the place he d spent all his life, the place he loved when he went off to war, the place he brought his bride 4

5 home to, the place he raised his late in life brood, and for him it was home in a depth known only by a few who manage to live a thoroughly local life. I d ride by and honk, and he d wave back. A man tending his field, paying attention to details, doing his duty to God and country, to his wife and children, to his church and his work, to his neighbors and old friends, and it was to that same piece of earth that he fell Thursday evening a week ago in an event that finally landed him in a new home and us here this Saturday morning. How many times did he put on the same choir robe, how many times leave Sunday School early for a last minute practice, how many times did he tune his voice to make harmony to God with others, how many times did he endure bad sermons including some of mine! how many times did he repeat the Creed and the Lord s Prayer, how many times did he come to the Lord s table, how many times did he gaze across the congregation and offer a prayer for a coworker or old friend whose story he knew, how many times did he put his envelope in the plate in the same beloved church where he came to faith in Jesus Christ? How many times does it take to be faithful? Just one more. And that is why good habits and having deep grooves cut in your character are so important, because if life is left to whim, it s hard to stay faithful in a world of diversions. Sow a thought, reap an action; sow and action, reap a habit; show a habit, reap a character; so a character, reap a destiny. Our brother Clyde had the privilege of living well and long in one place, and that world is almost gone. What Jesus said of Nathanael might be said of Clyde, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. So where is Clyde? Well, his body in now in the earth, there to await the great resurrection of the dead at the coming of Christ and his kingdom to change everything forever. We just left his fresh grave, and so there he lies in a city of the dead. But where is Clyde, the man you knew and loved? He is now with Jesus Christ and the saints and angels, a saved soul waiting eagerly for a resurrection body and a return to all creation renewed. How good a local life and how good a passing, in the care of Hospice, your mate at your side, a nurse cradling you in her arms and singing, And he will raise you up on eagle s wings... How good is that! How kind of God to give him such a passage from the life to the next. No more Parkinson s, no more tears, no more pain, no more weakness. 5

6 Clyde has discovered what you can discover when you die, and that is that it s all true. All the hymns, all the Scriptures, all the hints of love in an ambiguous world, at the sweet moments in life that point ahead to a richer fulfillment, truer than you now know. Clyde is forgiven, Clyde is at home, Clyde is safe and secure from the subtle threats of temptation and evil. He now understands your struggles and is pulling for you from the bleachers. All those years of cheering for the Tigers are now turned to cheering for you, and the song is not Tiger Rag but Amazing Grace. And if you hear his voice in your head when you re about to do something sorry and sinful and stupid, then know that God has tuned his voice to that of his servant Clyde so it will sound familiar and fatherly and wise and you may be rescued from trading in a slice of your character for something trivial. His trip around the track is over, but yours is not. How will you pick up the torch he carried, the local faithfulness he practiced, and the candle of Christ that lit his way? Will today be the day you became serious about serious things? Only one way to have a good life. Only one, and his name is Jesus Christ. Do you know him? Are you known by him? So on the day of Clyde s burial, what better gift could you give him than to see through his life to the One who gave him strength and courage and loyalty and fidelity and to desire the same for yourself? Seek Christ daily, take up the habit he taught you of a daily devotion with an open Bible and an Upper Room with the corner of the page folded down, and may Sunday after Sunday find you not at your entertainments but in the pew or choir loft and with time set aside to build up the social capital through a kind visit. Today is a turning point, and what will you do with it? Faith of our fathers, holy faith, we will be true to thee till death. 6