Thursday, March 17, 2011

Of bagpipes, funerals and a graveside ... a lighter side of life

Note: My next posting will be on Monday, March 21 ... see you then!

The following story was passed on to me by a long time friend, Bruce Hurst. Bruce was our part-time youth director at St. Luke’s UMC. He and Joyce are just neat people and fun to be around. Unfortunately, for us they live in Atlanta, GA now. Bruce was a person after my own heart … always ready to have a fun time and quick with a good story or two. The teenagers of our group just dearly loved him. I still use one of his standard lines when asked, “How much longer?” And Bruce would reply, “Five more minutes.” Well, it didn’t take long before the youth just stopped asking.

He and I, along with several other committed adults, took a bus load of youth to Knoxville, TN to hold an inter-city VBS experience for the children of the neighborhood. It was a rich time for our youth, who participated in a Youth Activities Week in the evenings with a local sponsoring church. We also took them into the Great Smokey Mountains where several of our more macho-type young men decided they wanted to impress all of us (especially the girls) by running up Clingman’s Domb. Well, you can imagine the comments that were made when we got a little over half way up that very steep climb to find them all laying down on the walkway totally exhausted. I don’t think they have all lived down the ribbing to this day.

Here is Bruce’s story:

As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a grave side service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Kentucky back-country.

As I ...was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost; and being a typical man I didn't stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.

There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch .I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.
The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low my heart was full.

As I was opening the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."

Quote for today: St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic. ~Adrienne Cook

No comments:

Post a Comment