Section Three

An unknown poet has written:

My greatest joy on earth shall be,
To find at the turning of every road,
The strong hand of a comrade kind,
To help me onward with my load.

But since I have no gold to give
And only love can make amends,
My daily prayer in life shall be,
"God make me worthy of my friends.'

He was a wonderful conversationalist,
gracing most encounters with a big smile and a sense of humor.
When we got our new church directory last January,
He had such big smile on his face
he looked 20 years younger.
You would never have known
that his health was failing at that time.
He could pull himself together to radiate that smile whenever he met you.

Every former pastor of Grace United Methodist Church that I have met: Mike Clemmer, Doris Crocker, Ruth McCully; all seem to have a special attachment to Dale. Every one of them would have felt honored to stand where I am today. Mike Clemmer mentioned Dale was a dear man. I have fond memories of him, too. He used to pop enough popcorn once a week to fill two 5 lb. potato chip cans. One was filled with white popcorn and the other with yellow. It was his weekly ritual for years.

Dale immediately made me welcome when I first arrived. He was the contact person for us to get the parsonage key.
He would invite me out for long informative and congenial walks around the corn field toward the woods where he had seen some deer and where he liked to meditate.

He traveled to our church picnic on Catalba island. He waded out into Lake Erie with Terry and I.
He made sure our family had a basket of pears
which he probably picked himself .
He even mowed the parsonage and church yard in July and August of that year.
More than a church member he was a friend.

He kept faith with his wife (or dare I say both wives for I believe he tried his best to help his first wife and could not fathom how that marriage bond could be broken). One of Dale's favorite songs was the Tennessee Waltz.

Strangely though ...
when I asked him when he felt closest to God, it was during this turbulent time He stuck it out with God and God worked miracles like finding the money to pay his bills.

Like Job, God had even greater things in Store for Dale. God gave Dale a wonderful miraculous second chance when he met Idell in Sunday School. He had his first date with her by taking her to the charge conference

He and Idell were married on Oct. 4, 1970. Their marriage has lasted just a little bit shorter time than my 32 years with my wife, Pam.

He idolized Idell. They raised a blended family.
He liked to play cards with her sisters in Florida and looked forward to those trips every year.
When two people enter the marriage bond,
they do so as an adventure of faith.
Neither one knows whether the other will always be attractive or cooperative.
They accept each other on faith, taking their vows,

"for better, for worse,
"for richer, for poorer.
"in sickness and in health
'til death do us part."

Faith is a lovely thing at the marriage altar, but it is far more lovely after many, many wedding anniversaries
have been celebrated at which one can say,
"Now abideth faith, hope, love -but the greatest of these is love."

I could see the love in their eyes, especially in these last two years.
Idell learned to become a nurse learning how to give Dale shots, to help him walk, to help him dress. All the time she had the wisdom to allow him to make as many of his own decisions as possible.
She never babied him.
She patiently encouraged him. This man kept faith with his wife and she kept faith with him.

Furthermore, he kept faith with his children. When parents bring children into the world, that, too, is an adventure of faith.

Section Four

Parents cannot be sure their child will be normal,
mentally or physically; they just venture on faith.
They do not know whether the child
will bring honor or shame to the family;
they proceed with faith.

On the other hand,
the children cannot know whether their parents
will keep faith with them. They may disappoint them, or forsake them.
The poet Gillilan said of his father:

He was my own until I fully knew
And never could forget how deep and true
A father's love for his own son may be.
It drew me nearer God Himself;
for He Has loved His son.
These are but grateful tears
That he was with me all those happy years.

Rufus Jones, the late Quaker teacher, writer and philosopher, lost his only son at the age of eleven years. But the boy continued for forty-five years
to be a dominant influence in his father's life.
The Jones study at Haverford College
contained many photographs of distinguished personalities,
but in the center of the mantel
was the portrait of the boy, Lowell.
Rufus Jones felt he had to live for that son.
Writing forty years after the lad's death, he said,

"I overheard him
once talking with a group of playmates,
when each was telling what he wanted
to be when he grew up,
and Lowell said, when his turn came,
'I want to grow up and be a man like my daddy.'
Few things in my life have given me
greater impulse to dedication.
What kind of a man
was I going to be,
if I was to be
the pattern for my boy?"

Just as Rufus Jones never lost faith with his only boy, Dale kept faith with each of his children. He tried to help them through the adjustments of his divorce and remarriage.

Blending all those children together was not easy. Dale and Idell treated each others's kids as their own. There were rough sponts. Dale once told me that as children there was one of his kids and one of Idell's kids with whom he was not as close. In recent years he has received magnificently poignant Father's Day cards from these two expressing how much they appreciate him.

He really took an interest in the grandkids When I saw them around him. they seemed so much at ease. One of my first visits after coming here was to Caleb Henry in the hospital. The visit was in response to Dale's concern for him.

In response to the question on the information cards I used to get acquainted with the church people when I first came here, I asked "what do you enjoy?" Dale's repsonses were: "I like traveling, I like to cook and bake, but don't care to do meal planning; I also like simple crossword puzzles.. ..I enjoy.. my family and can't imagine what it would be like not having kids" And, I bet you kids can't imagine what it will be like not having Dale physically present with you. Dale just loved kids.
Someone mentioned the other day that he willed himself to stay alive to see Annette's baby.

Most importantly of all, Dale kept faith in God. He started early in life with faith in God,
and he kept that faith to the end.

He had strong roots in the United Brethren tradition and then United Methodist.
He was a dedicated Sunday School teacher, a Lay Speaker, a choir member and held many offices in whatever church he was a member.

He had some great miracles in his life. When he had his first heart attack, he had one of those "life after life" out- of-body experiences in which he looked down on the staff working on him.
He felt his marriage to Idell was a miracle.
In January 2001, he had such terrible congestive heart failure in Florida, that they rushed him home either to get emergency treatment or to die. But, He recovered so well, that he could walk the fields with me this past Summer.

I have found myself wondering if he survived these last 22 months so that I could have the blessing of meeting him and to start my ministry here with a miracle.
July, 2001, he sang a duet with his sister. It was at the commuity hymn sing and it was one of his favorite songs: "I know whom I have believed ..." The chorus goes, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day!"

Dale was a testimony of faith to all of us at Grace. He tried to attend church as much as he possibly could in the last year. He would walk under his own power if he could, rather than use a wheelchair or walker or even the chairlift at the church.

Many people were so surprised last Sunday. Dale had not been breathing well and had not attended the worship service. But on his own, he walked over to church to the Baptismal party for Brittany Dashner.

Dale specifically requested that one of our Scriptures for this morning be the one from Romans 8: "Who shall separate us from the Love of God?" It was his realization that a greater power was behind his life that gave him courage, that kept a song in his heart, light in his eyes, and made him expend himself for the Kingdom of God.

He had faith that God had destined him to live beyond the earth. He believed that there is laid up for him, and for all those who love the Lord, a crown of righteousness. This conviction kept him going.

He was prepared to go months ago, but felt that the reason he lingered was because God had some final things for him to do. Things such as to making amends with anyone he with whom he'd had conflict and to share his faith with each and every person who visited him.

In II Kings 2:9 one can read the interesting conversation, shortly before his departure from the earth, that Elijah had with his young son in the faith, Elisha.

The elderly prophet says,
"Ask what I shall do for you,
before I am taken from you."

The young man with insight, high ideals, and profound appreciation, responded, asking not for worldly inheritance, nor fame and honor, but rather,

"I pray you,
let me inherit
a double portion
of your spirit."

How fitting a request for a son to ask, of a worthy father. That's what Dale would give each of you today a double portion of his faith. Take the double portion of faith and live mightily as he did.

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