A GENTLE MAN DIED TODAY

A GENTLE MAN DIED TODAY

I was younger then and very much in love with God when I met a man I’ll never forget. I knew it all. I knew nothing. I had a degree, an ordination, and a brand new church, a church so new it had never had a pastor. I was the first, the expert, who knew just what to do and who knew nothing.

If you look up the word “gentleman” in the dictionary, you’d get bloodless words that define it academically, with all “I’s dotted, and all “T’s crossed just right. My Latin teacher once said, “A gentleman is a gentle man.” She said it only once, but for some reason it stuck in my mind; it had a tone to it. Not as cold and formal; it had blood flowing through its letters.

When I met the man, got to know the man, then I saw the definition up close and personal with blood and sinews, with soul and heart. If there ever was a more gentle man than Jim, I’d have to climb Olympus to meet him; he would dwell among the gods.

If a critical word ever came from Jim, I never heard it and I was up close and personal with him for ten years. Ten years. Not one critical word. Not one complaint. Not one sarcastic remark. Not one put-down. Not one unkind remark. Never, not one in a whole decade, 1980-1990. Jim’s language never wounded; it always built up, encouraged, healed. His words were medicine, not missiles. Even if you bothered to look, to put his language under a microscope, you’d never find one harsh word spoken in a hurry or in anger. Ten years say that it was real, not a hypocritical cosmetic put on for the sake of appearance.

His words and manner were as gentle and soft as a morning breeze, just at that point where it meets the dew on glistening grass. Proverbs would say his words were like “apples of gold in pitchers of silver” (Prov. 25:11)

How refreshing. In a day of the coarse, Jim stands almost alone, one of a rare breed. Today, we make celebrities out of the loud and coarse. Get loud and you get more ink, more face time on TV. Up front and in your face. Our television sets spill out the “humor” of the put-down, the cruel, and the sarcastic. Tongues, like sandpaper, scratch the air with words so rough they gouge holes in the air. We’re so accustomed to it now, we can’t remember the way we were. Words and expressions once only the special province of the proverbial drunken stevedore are now common currency among children. Our sandpaper culture has come to coarsen the child. Script writers put words in the mouths of children that speed an already accelerating inner corruption. We call it “funny.” We laugh.

Language is a reflection of the soul, a mirror of what’s on the inside. Words betray inner attitudes of bitterness, rancor, and rage. It’s like Jesus said, “What goes into a man doesn’t defile him, but what comes out.” The book of Proverbs fills pages with words on the power of words. Words get inside us, do something to us. That’s why God says to measure them, consider them, and don’t be quite so quick with them. Nonetheless, the culture teaches us to applaud those who say, “I’m blunt; that’s just the way I am; I say what I think; take it or leave it.” Get out of the way, in their wake, those people leave hurt, pain, and wreckage.

The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness (Galatians 5:22-23). Jim’s gentleness wasn’t natural; it was supernatural, nothing the world can duplicate. His gentleness wasn’t a bit of humanly sustained morality; it would be almost impossible to pull that off consistently for a decade and more.

A gentle man died today. When I read the E-mailed news, my eyes teared up. Twenty- one years ago, Alzheimer’s started to take his mind and claim his body. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but if you knew what to look for, you could see it. In 1981, few were looking. But Alzheimer’s was powerless to tarnish his character, those forty-plus years of rock-solid, 100% pure gentleness.

A gentle man died today. After two decades of mental and physical deterioration, earth was finally over; the New Jerusalem stood ready to welcome its newest citizen. Christ’s work (not Jim’s character) had already put him in its registry.

A gentle man died today. One less role model for me. But not really. There’s what Lincoln called “those mystic cords of memory,” cords that will remember Jim always and forever. The words “gentleness” and “Jim” forged forever in my mind. I’ve read of gentleness, thought of gentleness, but better yet, I saw it for ten years.

A gentle man died today. But not really. A gentle man lives today. A gentle man lives eternally in a real place in a real eternity.

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor

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