Today I attended my second funeral this year for someone named Gene. The first was for my friend Siobhan's grandfather. The second was for Gene Barrows, an elderly man I knew from church.
Most of us have been taught the principles of right living, but every now and then you meet someone who demonstrates how to live them. Gene was such a person. He was a physicist of vast intelligence, and one of his relatives commented today that he only seemed aware of matter at the atomic level. He never noticed whether clothes, cars, or houses were fancy or plain, cheap or expensive. If he measured people at all (which I don't think he did, frankly), it was by their heart.
Gene may not have been interested in things, but he cared a lot about people. When family members daydreamed about what they'd do with a million dollars, Gene declared he'd spend every cent helping his stepkids with their careers. In a Sunday school lesson, he once said that in the next life, the reward for those who have discovered the joy of service will be the ability to serve much more quickly and efficiently, and thus experience even greater joy.
Funerals are such bittersweet things. I feel for Gene's grieving family, yet I'm so grateful for all that I learned today about his life, and I'm excited that he's gone home to a place where he can learn and serve even more than he did here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment