Tribute

Today i sit and remember a life that had a profound and long-lasting impact on my life that i pray will continue forever. Of course the most recent images and memories are at the forefront because they are a testimony to the seriousness of his mission. The position that he held for the last almost 30 years of his life will be the one that people remember most, although his ministry lasted most of his over 80 years life, over 60 years as God's ambassador. For the last couple years of his life he, through his pain and his body showing the ravages of Parkinson's disease, continued to lead and serve at a time he should have been served. He still had wisdom and truth for the ages to share and felt it had to be shared, even though his words, at times, were hard to decipher. His commitment to serve God left no time to give in to his obvious pain and infirmities. He could not waste time complaining about how rough his life had become. People depended on him. He had the most important work of all to do,
sharing God's message of peace and love to a lost and dying world who desperately need it. At a young age, coming from a world of poverty, he made a decision to minister to others, serving God, following the example of those of the royal priesthood that had gone on before. For the rest of his life he would preach the Word, in speech and in deed. Many were brought to faith because of him. Many more were brought to faith by those who he brought to faith, and many more will be brought to faith as a result of his influence, as distant as it may be. He desired peace and worked toward it. He looked for the best in humanity, and found it, even when humanity didn't see the best in itself. He made people believe in themselves as God intended and created them to be. He worked to make it possible for the downtrodden to overcome their shortcomings and, more importantly, the view the world had of them. He had faith in God's creation. He not only hoped for the best, he expected it because he knew Who's world this really is. He also strove for peace within his own religious tradition, an arena that saw the most hostile of debates and fights. He brought together people who looked at each other as the enemy even though they all had the blood of Christ running through their veins and shared the same adoption being sons and daughters of God. He fought for unity in the faith, he worked for the unity of believers that Christ Himself prayed for in His last hours on earth. He truly respected those who shared a different understanding or did things differently than he did as long as the core truths were there and as long as there was light shining forth from the work or words of those people. He never stopped learning, which you can not do if you assume that you know everything. He knew he had room to grow and had much to learn about the God he served. He walked humbly through this world, never thinking of himself as anyone more than one redeemed, even though he well could have considering his role in this world as God's own messenger. He taught, he mentored, he practiced what he preached. He led by example. He did not just preach compassion for and serving those who could not take care of themselves, he daily practiced it himself. He did not just teach reaching out to the lost, he reached himself. He did not just talk to people about living a life of sacrifice, he was a living sacrifice giving up so many comforts to live the servants life, sacrificing what he had so that those without no longer had to go on that way. He had so that others could have, he was blessed so that others would be blessed. The only things that mattered to him was his God, the lost, and those who he was given charge over.
i could be speaking of the Pope, whom i firmly believe answered God's calling in his life and worked tirelessly to help those who needed help, and did it sincerely. Acting as a shepherd he took care of his flock in the way he knew best. He had a lot of responsibility that he took on and i believe the world, though still lost, is better off because of his value for life and passion for seeking justice for the sick, the poor, the oppressed, the orphaned, the widowed, and the hurting of this world. Millions now mourn the loss of this great man, and millions wonder what the world will be like without him in it. He is not, though, who i am speaking of. i am speaking of my grandfather, Clyde V. Moore (Papa to me and those others privileged to have had him as grandfather). His ministry began at age 16 when he was a driver for an old circuit preacher in the hills of Pennsylvania who mentored him and enabled him to become a preacher at a young age. Papa's ministry took him to much of the counry were he would help new and small churches grow. A bulk of his work being done out west and spending the last part of his ministry on the east coast. He preached in Myrtle Beach and Chester South Carolina in the seventies and moved back up to Pennsylvania where he planned to retire. His plans to retire were sidelined when the need arose for a preacher to come to a church that he would preach at in the early days of his ministry. He stayed there for 28 years, until he was 83 and too tired and worn out to speak. While there, he took good care of the small flock that he was given charge of and he helped bring together factions within the church of Christ in Pennsylvania for times of fellowship and singing where they could look beyond the differences that much of the time kept them apart. He has been gone now for just over a year. There was no millions mourning his passing, no thousands of people watching 24 hour news coverage of his body lying in state, no presidents or world leaders attended his funeral nor did they even speak of the positive impact he had on the world. There was not even a write-up in one of the myriad of brotherhood magazines. His life, though, was deserving of every bit of pomp and celebration that the Pope is receiving, all that and much more, but he left this world as he lived, with little attention brought to the wonderful impact that he had on this world.
There are many more like him who work tirelessly, giving their life to answer the calling of our wonderful Savior, never asking for a return, but living and sacrificing with the knowledge that his true reward awaits him in the future home of heaven where he will live as a king (but not the King). They work not because of the reward that awaits them, nor do they work because they are afraid that if they don't they will lose that reward. They work because it was the Divine Nature of the Master Teacher and it becomes their nature.
To Papa and to all those men and women who sacrifice their lives, becoming living sacrifices, to carry out the work of Jesus, to share the love of Jesus to this lost, hurting, lonely, and dying world, i pay tribute.
raymond, a child of the King