Tommy Boyd Memories
The following is (roughly) what I shared at Tommy's memorial service this afternoon.For the past three years I've had the privilege of being Tommy's youth group leader. The year Tommy was in seventh grade, I had just been asked to take responsibility for leading the Junior High youth group. I thought, I haven't led Junior High youth group in ten years...I don't know if I can do this.
And then, to confirm my worst fears, in walked Tommy Boyd and Ellis Williams. Those two boys had more energy, more rambunctiousness, and more mischief than the whole rest of the youth group put together.
And I thought, I'm never going to get these boys to sit still and listen...
But things changed in three years, and the Tommy we knew this year was not the Tommy we knew three years ago. I had almost forgotten the old Tommy, so didn't really recognize how much things had changed until I began collecting pictures of Tommy at youth group events.
In the old pictures, if a group picture was taken, Tommy was always in the front row, often in the very center, and with a big grin on his face.
But in the new pictures, there was a different Tommy. This Tommy was always in the back of the group, with his head peeking up over someone else's shoulder.
Things changed in three years. Without losing the sense of humor that we enjoyed about him, Tommy discovered the ability to be serious. He discovered a sense of quietness. He discovered the ability to sit in the stillness and enjoy the solitude. He discovered the ability to fade from the center and let someone else take the limelight.
This spring I approached Tommy and said to him, "I'm going to be traveling from church to church, preaching, doing ventriloquism, and doing concerts. And I need a sound man. Would you like to learn to use my sound system, and travel with me?"
Three years ago, if someone had told me that in three years' time I would be asking Tommy Boyd to be responsible for my sound system, I never would have believed it.
Tommy thought about it, and agreed that he would be willing to do that. We practiced many hours together. And once Tommy had agreed and committed to it, he never looked back, but just kept working.
I never really knew if he enjoyed working with me - if it was something that really mattered to him - or if it was just something to fill his time. His parents and his grandparents assured me that he was really enjoying working with me. But he never indicated that to me - perhaps that was just his quietness he had developed.
But then came the day that we did our first concert together. I packed my equipment in my car and went to pick up Tommy. After he got in the car, we hadn't even gotten to the end of his road when he said to me, "You know what is cool?"
"What?"
"You get to travel to all these different churches, play your guitar, and sing songs that you wrote, and people come to listen to you!"
And I said, "Yeah, Tommy, believe me, I'm as astounded by that as you are!"
Then he said, "But you know what's really cool?"
"What?"
"I get to be your sound man!"
And then I knew, for the first time, that it really mattered to him.
In times like these, I think of a verse in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, which says this:
It is better to go to a house of mourning
Than to go to a house of feasting
For death is the end of every man
And the living should take this to heart
In other words, it's better to go to a funeral than to a party, because those who come face to face with mortality, come face to face with the realization that what little time we have here on earth, it must matter for something, it must have meaning.
And I am so glad that, before Tommy left us, he had begun to find things that mattered to him, things that had value and meaning.
Posted On Sep 14, 2006 at 7:02 PM
On Sep 14, 2006 Doug wrote: Some pictures of Tommy and the slide show from his memorial service can be found at the South Paris Baptist Church website.
On Sep 14, 2006 Pete wrote: Im so sorry that I wasn't there for everyone when this happened. Then I had the chance to write something for him and I blew that too. Why is he dead, Doug? All I can think about is how I treated him...was there something more I could have done for him to make him feel more like one of the crew? How would we treat people every day if we knew that this was the last time we were going to see them alive...
Death is all well and good from a safe distance. A natural part of the process of life. Its only when someone you know and love dies that it really hits you. Death seems like such a final thing. I know being a Christian and all I shouldn't think that, but it does. Im never going to see Tommy again on earth. For what purpose??
Doug Replied: I'm sorry you couldn't be here as well. I was also away from home last weekend, and wanted nothing more than to be back home with everyone else.
Pete, Tommy was one of the crew, and what's more, he knew that he was. I never really knew it until the last few days (man, it's hard to believe it's only been 5 days - seems more like a month), but the time Tommy spent with us was precious time for him, and when he was at home with his parents, when he was spending time with his grandparents, he talked constantly about youth group. I have heard from several people that in the last weeks of his life, he pretty much talked about nothing but the trip to Acadia, the things that happened there, and the time he spent with his friends.
"Why?" is a much harder question. In fact, it's such a hard one that I have to say: I don't know.
If you want a theological answer, I can give you one we talked about in youth group a year or two ago...
Romans 8:20-22
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole of creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
In other words, all of creation suffers and groans from the consequences of sin. Those consequences include corruption (in the sense that "Things fall apart" - all of life is perishable) and futility - that sense of things happening without purpose or reason, that young men with hope and promise are lost to us without warning, and without rhyme or reason.
But theological answers aren't necessarily very comforting...
I think we go through life trying to guess God's purposes for what happens, and most of the time we're probably either wrong, or - at best - only half right. But in most cases it doesn't really matter to us - it's only when it's a tragic situation like this that we desperately want to know the "why". And we're just as unlikely now as ever to guess the true answer.
I love what Ben Bailey wrote in his MySpace blog about that. And this statement that he made to me: I keep trying to figure out why, but i just realized that i don't need to know why, God knows and that's all that matters.
At a time like this, that becomes the greatest test of faith we encounter - is my faith strong enough that I can say I want to know WHY, but in spite of not knowing, I can still trust, and I can still move foward in life.
Ben's response made me think of a song that came out in the early 90's, by the group 4Him. It is all about that question Why?
Why
They say that into every life Some rain must fall
For the pain is no respecter Of the mighty or the small
But sometimes It just seems so Unfair
To see the One who’s had More than His share
Oh it makes you wonder why
And Lord I wouldn’t second guess Your mighty plan
For I know You have a purpose That’s beyond the scope of man
If You look inside my heart You will find
That I have always been The Trusting kind
Oh but still I wonder
CHORUS
Why Do the rainy days have to come
When the storm clouds hide the sun
I wanna know why
Why When the reasons aren’t clear to me
When it all is a mystery
I want to know why
And though down here I may not understand
I won’t let go Of the Unseen hand
For It holds the reasons why
The Lord has never been afraid Of honest prayers
And He won’t allow the burden To be more than you can bear
When He knows that your trust Is in Him
He doesn’t mind the questions Now and then
Even if you wonder
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