C. L. Meredith Funeral
Introduction
Memory is a gift God has given to us. Over the past few days, we all have chosen to remember this great man. We have reflected on our lives with him. We have cried. We may have recounted some of his legendary fishing stories. We have laughed. We have thought about years gone by and wept with grief over our loss. And we will continue to. This is the most difficult part of the human experience. It is not fun.
As I thought about my father-in-law, a verse of Scripture came to mind that I want to share with you before we spend some time remembering C. L. a little more this afternoon. It is found in Micah 6:8. It reads, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"
In this verse, God is telling His hearers and us that in the big scheme of things, what he really wants from us, and what makes a life worth living, and what makes the world a better place while we are here and after we are gone consists of three things. Many of you knew C. L. far longer than I did. I've only really known him for about 23 years. In those 23 years, I have seen the three things in this lived out and embodied in the life of C. L.
1. Doing Justice
Doing justice means doing what is right. It means doing what is right in relationships. It means that when someone sees something wrong in the world that they seek to make it right. It means when someone sees someone else that has been done wrong they take the initiative to do what they can to make sure that person's situation can change.
C. L. knew how to make lifelong friends who he made see themselves as family.
I think about the stories that he told about Alec and the photo that C. L. held not when Alec had been gone for decades. C. L. was a friend to the end.
Or Papi and Maoli. Papi, who drove a truck and helped Maxine change a tire one day. And then became forever-friends with C. L. and Maxine. You could not do something good for C. L. and he forget it.
Or Big John. They would fight and argue. But, come thanksgiving or if a need arose, C. L. was there. He was a faithful friend.
What about his group of friends, who after they got in a fight at the bar moved the poolroom to his house. C. L. was always making new friends and he was always seeking to do right by his relationships. If there were moments when things weren't right, he tried to make it right. It was always fun to see who else was coming to Thanksgiving or who was going with us on fishing trips.
He loved buffets. I remember him telling me, "If you don't get enough to eat, it's your own fault." At one Chinese buffet off of I-10, he met the cook, Chuck. The next thing you know, Chuck was going fishing with us, along with some managers or executives from the Q Sports Club. That was a fun fishing trip. It was the first time I had one of Maxine's famous fishing sandwiches and the first time I caught a fish. On the trip out I was nervous. Margaret and I had not yet married and I was with all new people. He went out of his way to include me and make sure that I knew that I was just as important to him as everyone else on the trip. Once we got home he had Maxine clean them and I think eventually she made Macaral patties out of them. He knew how to make total strangers into lifelong friends and friends into family.
A few years ago he had a time when he kept getting pneumonia. Finally, Dr. Aleem, on a guess picked at something he saw in C. L.'s lung during a procedure and it turned out that there was a cap in his lung. Dr. Aleem removed it. He said it was God who prompted him to find the cap and remove it. C. L. believed it, and he and Dr. Aleem became friends. Even though Dr. Aleem is a lung specialist and is not a primary care physician, he had one patient who he began to see all the time, C. L. Meredith. He knew how to make friends into lifelong friends and he would be there for you through the thick and the thin.
I first met C. L. when I was 16 years old. I came to his house one evening to take his daughter Margaret on our first date. She was 20. :-) I remember he had a dog at the time named Chip. Chip was a small poodle. Chip was old. I think by then Chip was blind. He spent most of his time behind. C. L.'s chair in the corner. C. L. cared for animals. He didn't discard Chip because he was old. I watched him do the same thing with his dog, Jake. He would feed him daily with a mixture of table scraps, dog food, and water along with supplements like Una de Gato. He took care of Jake. C. L.'s love for animals extended to the place where once his red Sebring convertible was destroyed and he almost lost his life trying to get the dog that was trapped in the middle of the highway to safety.
That was one of the times C. L. broke some ribs. He has had a few broken bones and a lot of fights! He fought as a child, as a young man who entered the Navy by enlisting using his brother's borrowed birth certificate. He fought as a breadman. He fought as the owner of a cafe, who at times took off his apron and ran out in the middle of two gangs about to have a brawl in front of the cafe to stop them. He fought for workers' rights as the business agent for the Painter's Union Local 130. All the time he was fighting, he was making friends. He made so many friends with workers from Mexico who would travel to the US to find a better wage that he found himself visiting Mexico to attend his new friends' weddings and parties and rodeos.
There was a time when every painter that worked on the South Texas Nuclear Project had to have a name written on their card. That name was C. L. Meredith. He did justice. He made things right where he could. He loved his children. All of them. And there was always room for another. His desire every Thanksgiving was for everyone to be at the table, for everyone to get along. He loved for relationships to be right.
2. Love Mercy
Loving mercy means seeking to show compassion to others and being faithful along the way. While he was at the business of being a business agent and making Texas a better place to live and worship on his visits to Mexico he would bring bags of clothes to those who had less than he did. There is a Biblical word for that, it is called shalom. The idea is that where there is something that is not whole or that is broken, justice causes human beings to do something about it.
On his trips to Mexico where he showed compassion, he was no wimp. Once when a young soldier kept pointing a gun in his face, he just kept pushing it out of his face. And then finally gave them something to appease them so that they would let them go on. He spoke up when things were wrong. He was a man. And the same hands that could fight and work were hands that could hug one of us, hold a child, or pet an animal.
He donated a lot of money to Shriner's Hospital to treat children who would not have had any other option. He was a giver. Most of you can probably remember a time when he gave something to you. If he saw a need that he could meet, he would.
Our lives are influenced and affected by so many things and so many people that often we do not realize. I think about all the industry and entertainment that is in the city of Houston and the region and I realize that C. L.'s fingerprints are on so much that is good. He was on the crew that painted the dome of the Astrodome. What about the red and white smokestacks that you see when you cross the 610 bridge? His fingerprints are on them. His fingerprints are on his children that are here this afternoon. He showed love to you and he did care.
He wasn't perfect, but I wouldn't trade him for anyone. I don't think you would either.
He did justice. He showed mercy. And then there came a place in his life where he began to...
3. Walk Humbly With God
It was only a few years ago that C. L. began attending Springs of Life Church. He sat in this area here...
It was only in the later years of his life that C. L. began attending church regularly. It was a delight to serve him as his pastor. Now to be honest I think it was the grandkids that he came to see when he first started. The girls would sit with him and pray with him. He loved to see his children and grandchildren. He always wanted to protect what mattered to him too. Whenever I would have a guest speaker he would ask Maxine, "Where is Josh." I don't know if he was worried about them firing me or what. :-) Then one Sunday afternoon, C. L. and I were talking and he began expressing how much he had enjoyed the sermon that morning and how much he enjoyed coming to church. Now, something that we never talked about much through the years was politics or religion. But of his own accord, he said, "I don't know what took me so long." I saw God's Amazing Grace working in C. L.'s life as he came to the place where he would pray along with everyone else. If you looked his way during the time we sang he would be singing. And then there were our moments of prayer. We would pray together and he would end it in Amen, and finally, he began to end the prayer "In Jesus Name." When I visited him in the hospital recently we prayed together and he responded. He prayed out loud along with me. As I was leaving I reached and grabbed his hand. He gripped it with all of his strength and his strength was still there. He held on for a while.
He always had such a great grip. He was a man. A man who at age 15 enlisted in the Navy with a borrowed birth certificate. A man who lived more in 90 years than many would live in 200 years. He had adventures, and ups and downs, disappointments and mistakes, victories and defeats. But, he kept walking. That is the secret to his longevity, I think. He just kept going, didn't he? Any of you who were at his 50th birthday know that he climbed to the top of that tree using that rope he had hung. He was strong. He was loving. He showed mercy. And he began a walk of faith that surprised him.
Oh, we could go on talking about him, and we will in the days ahead. But, remember that the greatest tribute you can pay to him is to follow in his footsteps. To do it now. To love one another now. To do justice now. To walk humbly with God now.
Closing and Prayer
Psalm 23 is on the back of the program. It is the beloved psalm. Everyone knows it. It speaks of God as being a distant Shepherd as it begins. It just looks at God as "the Guy who takes care of things and me."
But, in the middle of the psalm, it changes. The psalmist changes who he is talking to and begins talking to God. In "the valley of the shadow of death" he says, "Thou art with me..."
This is hard. We have no words. Nothing anyone can say can make it better. Nothing anyone else can do can make it better.
But, I want to make you aware of something this afternoon. God is with us here today.
I want to pray for you. You are my family.
I want us to invite the Presence of God into our lives this morning and into our grief and loss.
Let us pray the Lord's Prayer together:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Now let me conclude with a pastoral prayer for you.
