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November 9, 2006
To our dear Brent,
Last week, before you left us, you wrote us letters. I call them love letters.
So today, on behalf of those you have loved so well and served so faithfully, I
write a love letter to you.
I wonder if your letters, (over a dozen you left), were a reflection of the
letters and notes written over the years to the myriad of friends and family
you’ve nurtured through your life...
All of us this week have received letters, emails, phone calls – hundreds,
thousands in total - which have supported you, lifted you and your family up in
prayer, and expressed great love for you and deep grief that you have died.
Letters, Brent, we got letters! Letters remembering your school years – I found
your seminary graduation picture taken at East Liberty in 1972, so young and
handsome – and with hair!!!- on the threshold of your 34 years of good and
faithful ministry. Letters from people in Mannington and Fairmont where I grew
up and you served my family. Letters from all over West Virginia – our hoopie
friends, so special [pronounced ‘spacial,’] and so loving of you. Letters from
Scotland and Ireland and California and Pittsburgh. Letters from young people,
now adults, whom you baptized and confirmed and married and then baptized their
children. Letters, like Tim Nelson’s, reminding us that you gave so much to his
life and were a messenger of God’s word in all our lives – that the world needs
more people like you, not one less. Letters from women, young and old, who
adored you, from men who admired you, from strangers aghast at the happenings of
last week. Brent, you can never imagine how much you were loved, and accepted,
and forgiven.
Now it’s our turn to write a love letter to you – out of our grief, our anger,
our hope. I have read a few of those letters your wrote in those last 48 hours
or so – one was to the presbytery, another to your church family, to your staff,
another to me – and I want to respond and to share portions of your letters with
your friends gathered to thank God for your life and declare witness to the
Resurrection of our Lord, and your Lord, Jesus Christ.
Brent, you tell us again and again how sorry you are for us – that you have
never been so sorry for anything all your life. And you ask our forgiveness, as
you wrote, “not for my own justification, but for the peace of your own hearts.”
Forgiveness pours from our eyes and our hearts and our mouths for you today,
Brent. But peace in our hearts? That will take a while, at least for me. Some of
us are having trouble forgiving ourselves that we couldn’t have prevented your
suicide – that somehow we didn’t hear your silent screams and your masked
loneliness. Peace will come, Brent, maybe in the morning, maybe in the morning…
You write, Brent, of your love for the places you’ve served – for this community
and its people…that until your dark days in hell when you wrote these letters,
your life had been blessed with a fulfilling ministry, with happy days at PNC
Park, skiing at Seven Springs, fly-fishing, sailing and enjoying our
fellowship…Oh, Brent, what better people all of us are for the days we spent
with you. You taught us to enjoy life, the outdoors, our families, a good glass
of single malt, another joke to open your sermon at the Christmas Eve service –
but most of all, you taught us to love and serve our Lord – your Lord.
And Brent – I can’t believe in the letter to your church family, you said, “I
hope that the stewardship campaign is successful!” A preacher, a pastor, a
Moderator, to the end! And you were still serving as our pastor and preacher to
the very end of your letters when you said to us, “Never did I think that my
life would end in ignominy. Please consider your own lives, dear friends.
Cleanse them of all unrighteousness. Live in love and purity with your God and
with one another. Never trade your manifold blessings for a tempting day of
sin.”
Brent, that last paragraph drove me to other love letters by another great
letter writer –St. Paul – so faithful, like you; so compassionate, like you;
such an eloquent writer, like you; and yet so human, like you.
How proud you would be of the people God entrusted to you, Brent! Your dear
family, your staff and the congregations you’ve served, your friends, your
presbytery…you can’t believe the comfort and strength given by God and
multiplied a thousand fold. All because we love you and we are trying to love
our Lord.
You last sentence, Brent, is one I’ve heard a thousand times…but now, forever,
will have new meaning to me: “May God have mercy on my soul.” I believe God has.
I believe God’s grace is greater than your
guilt.
I believe God’s hope is greater than your despair.
I believe God’s peace is greater than your agony.
I believe, Brent that you are with God….we believe…because God first loved us,
and you loved us, and we love you…we believe…
Your sister in Christ,
Jean Humason Henderson
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