Last Sunday I had the honor of saying a few words at the celebration of the life of a friend who I’d known the last seven years of his near 95 years; and later that day more words at a now-annual dinner that wouldn’t exist were it not for him.
(More details on both can be found at A Million Copies, click on Lynn Elling, and, there, click on “celebration” in first paragraph at the top of the page.)
The real problem: how does one condense this guys life as a peacemaker into a few words?
I had four minutes.
At coffee over many days I made a list of experiences I had had with Lynn over the seven years. It became a very long list.
I finally zeroed in on a single vignette from another Memorial service I had attended in Comfrey MN at his request June 23, 2009. And within that visit, a single recollection from the piece of paper he asked me to read at that Memorial about the LST he and his friend, Melvin, had served on for two years in the Pacific in WWII. That summarized Lynn’s life for me.
(LST? Officially, that’s a “Landing Ship Tank”.
In his words, on his piece of paper from which I read, “LST” was a “Large Slow Target”. LST crew would understand…. Somebody in that congregation that day, a man, laughed out loud. He knew….)
As I prepared my list about Lynn, it dawned on me that Lynn was not alone as a positive example in my life.
I began another list, this one of people I’d known at many other points in my life who were in one way or another, like Lynn.
Then I decided to use part of those four minutes to talk about Lynn, the “exasperating” individual. He could be, I said, the kind of individual you saw coming, and ducked across the street to avoid. You knew that he wanted to tell his story, and that the pitch would include something he wanted you to do.
Some folks in the pews chuckled. They understood.
They were there because they knew Lynn.
I mentioned my new list of exasperating people, (the last entry was #27 – there are 14 men, 13 women.) They came from all points in my life. The list could be much longer.
That list is a keeper. You’d be honored if you were on that list!
From that list, last Sunday, I mentioned only Geography Prof. George Kennedy, who, back in about 1960, got very angry at me, calling me “lazy”, and that was for starters.
Well, that is exactly what I was: Lazy.
He knew I had talents I wasn’t using. I never forgot what Prof. Kennedy said, and how he said it. It was very pointed and very personal, and it changed my life.
Too bad I couldn’t tell him that he made a difference for me while he was still alive.
Exasperating people can be very irritating and annoying. That’s what the word means.
But if you take a moment, you can learn something about what you learned from them, about yourself.
Hopefully, I sometimes fill that role, of being “exasperating” to somebody else.
Exasperating. Remember that word…. At times, I fit that word. You?
Happy Mother’s Day May 8, to Mom’s (and all others who in one way or another have filled that oft-times exasperating role).