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Essentials in
History
Eulogy for Jim Foley
The Rev. Edward Foley pays tribute to his father, an extraordinary singer and beloved Society member.
Updated: 6/1/2004 4:05:00 PM
It was always a little precarious preaching when Dad was in the vicinity. As many of you know, he was an industrial engineer ... and even more perilous, he specialized in time-study. At the end of a homily -- the man who told me the day I was ordained that “there’s only one father in this family, and it’s not you” -- would usually offer a succinct but pointed assessment of the preaching, ordinarily comprising 3 points:
1) you went 11 minutes and 23 seconds
2) you had one joke but it didn’t get much of a laugh
3) there was no “standing O” at the end.
While Dad was always hoping for a “standing O,” we’ll forestall that wish ... and as he was the professional joke-teller in the family we won’t go there either, but as we offer these words of gratitude for his life, we will at least try to honor his time-study sensitivities, and start his stopwatch now.
Our celebration today, and these few homiletic words are first an act of gratitude for Dad’s living and and even for his dying; a grateful tribute to the man who gave so many of us life and joy. He was not a perfect man, by any means, but he was a good man, a faithful friend, and a hero to his children and grandchildren.
Facile of mind and body, voice and heart, we are grateful for the many and diverse gifts that set him apart. A gifted athlete, he could hurl a softball at 115 miles per hour ... the speed only matched by his accuracy. In the late 1940’s the newspapers of North West Indiana frequently chronicled his successes on the pitcher’s mound. He recently admitted that his favorite headline from those days was the understated, “Ho-Hum .. Foley wins again.” Well into his 50’s he still was baffling batters half his age, and burning the catching hand of three cocky sons who successively thought they could handle Dad’s fast ball. A triple-threat in football, he could also drive a golf ball, sink a bucket, and bowl with the best of them. When he was recalled for the Korean Crisis in 1949, the only action Dad saw was playing sports for the navy base in Point MaGoo California, where he was stationed. But it is especially that image of the grinning 26 year old, standing in the back row of the 1946 Indiana State Championship team will never be erased from our memories.
But the kid who could pitch also could paint; his delicate watercolors populate the homes of children, grandchildren and friends. An instinctive artist, it was second nature for him to bring beauty into the world ... through his paintings, to be sure, but more especially through his singing.
Dad joined the Society for the Preservation and encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America when he was 33 years old, and it was the beginning of a love affair that never ended. He loved every aspect of barbershopping: the tireless rehearsing, the thousands of shows, the travel as he crisscrossed North America, USO tours to Japan and Guatanamo Bay, and especially the contests. A fierce competitor, he was disappointed that this past January he didn’t win his 6th gold medal in barbershopping ... 2nd place was never good enough. He was determined to go back next January ... even if it was rumored that the society was going to institute the “Jim Foley” rule which barred him from taking home any more gold.
The baritone with the sweet voice and amazing ear could ring a chord, hit a bell tone, blend a line and deliver the solo. He also communicated his deepest feelings through his music. Dad was not an overly religious man -- he often said that when he tried to talk to God, God was usually busy answering Tiffany’s prayers -- but while not overly religious, he was spiritual. In many respects his spirituality was embedded in the songs he sang. His life legacy was summarized in “when I leave the world behind,” his optimism ranged from “Rose colored glasses” to “Save a little sunbeam,” and his wonderment about the meaning of life permeated “Lost in the stars.” Even his belief in resurrection found a barbershop frame. The vehicle was the song “This is all I ask.” Often calling it his favorite song, he wanted it sung at his funeral ... in part, I’m sure, because of the masked image of resurrection in it’s wistful closing line, “And let the music play, as long as there’s a song to sing, and I will be younger than spring.”
He loved Barbershopping, and the family is profoundly grateful for the affection and respect ... sometimes even adulation .... that he received from barbershoppers all over the country ... and we are so grateful their voices blend with ours this morning. But while it was a love of his life, barbershopping was not the love of his life ... and his deepest devotion was certainly reserved for his family. Nothing lit up his face like the sight of one of his children or grandchildren, often coercing the grand kids for hugs with the line “grandpas live on hugs.” I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that his children adored him, and often echoed back to him the special phrase he always used with us, “I love you with all my heart.” He taught us about privilege .. not so much in having material things ... and at the funeral we did forgive God for not giving him the winning lotto ticket he always asked for ... but he along with Mom taught us, instead, the privilege of having loving parents in our lives, the privilege that comes from 59 years of married life, and the privilege born of the pride that he always felt for us, for in his eyes we were always lovable ... certainly the most incredible gift a parent could give a child. We did adore him, and in a last gesture of love and respect, it was his children and no others who carried him to his final place of rest.
The heart of his heart, of course, belonged to Tiffany. How many times he’d turn to her and say, “I’m glad we married you.” This past March, After Dad was told by the doctors that he was coming to the end of his life, I asked him, in my best pastoral mode, how he was feeling after receiving this news ... was he sad, or disappointed, or angry, or melancholy? He just looked back with that ear-to-ear Foley grin and said “I’m the luckiest guy in the world ... I wouldn’t be alive this long if your mother hadn’t taken such good care of me.”
His family surrounded him with love as his life came to an end. He was kissed, hugged, stroked and constantly assured of our love. Last Sunday he died in the presence of Tiffany who moments before he passed from this life, kissed him and told him that she loved him and gave him permission to go. Hers was the last touch and voice that he heard ... and so not only for his living, but our gratitude extends as well to his peaceful, gentle, gracious death.
Grateful as we are for Dad’s living and dying, however, our faith calls us to more. For we believe in a God who sent an only son; a beloved son who eternally adored his Father, and who for that Father’s live, lived and died and rose in glory. We believe that all true gratitude begins and ends with the great thanksgiving we here offer for Jesus Christ, who in this eucharist we praise for vanquishing death and promising life. Echoing through the Word today was a clarion announcement of this foundational belief ... thus all our gratitude, praise and petition hinges on this paschal mystery which binds us together in hope, even in the face of Dad’s death.
As many of you know, John’s gospel, from which we read from today, begins with the phrase “in the beginning was the Word.” A celebrated scripture scholar once retranslated that phrase for a group of pastoral musicians as “In the beginning was the song ... “ I think Dad would have liked that translation ... as well as the final transfiguration of his own life into the song of Jesus. For it was the Christ, who with the Father and the Spirit sang Dad into being. It was the Christ who with Father and Spirit gave Dad joy and love despite the difficult circumstances of his childhood. And it was the Christ and Father and Spirit who graced him with gifts and abilities, and the generous heart to share them freely with others. And then, in the last stages of his life, Dad learned to sing the difficult Song of Christ’s suffering ... he chanted the hymn of the Cross in his own body, finally succumbing to the quiet cadence of death.
When Dad’s dear friend, Ben Williams, died, Dad stood next to the coffin, blew his pitch pipe, waited a moment, and then said that he knew that Ben must be dead, because he didn’t get up to sing. Dad asked us to perform that ritual for him as well ... and so, on Tuesday, before we said good-bye, we took the pitch pipe from his hand, agreed on the pitch, found that E-flat he loved so much, and blew. We could not hear him sing back, and knew that he was gone from us, so we put the pitch pipe back in his hands, and made our farewell. But while he did not sing back to us, we do not believe that the Dad’s song is over ... rather, it has been transformed.
The poet, Mark Doty, wrote this about the death of a friend: “I believe with all my heart that when the chariot came for him, green and gold and rose, a band of angels swung wide out over the great flanks of the sea, bearing him up over the path of light [that] the sun makes on the face of the waters. I believe my love is in the Jordan, which is deep and wide and welcoming, though it scours us oh so deeply. And when he gets to the other side, I know he will be dressed in robes of comfort and gladness, his forehead will be anointed with spices, and he will sing -- joyfully -- into the future, and back toward the darkness of this world.”1
We believe with all our hearts that Dad is now learning the song of the Lamb, the hymn of the resurrected Christ and -- united with him for eternity -- is now singing back toward any darkness that dwells in our hearts .. singing back toward whatever darkness hovers over our world. His voice has been joined to the 144,000 ... and he, with this mystical chorus, is singing our future song. It is a tune we have yet to learn ... for we still dwell on this earth. But though we cannot learn it fully on this side of the jordan, even here we are yet invited to rehearse the hymn of Christ in our lives, we are cajoled to tune ourselves to the aboriginal harmony of the Trinity, and we are challenged to forge a new song of justice and tolerance and peace in a world so desperate for true harmony.
And in this interim of grace ... no matter how long or short it may be before each of us begins to learn that song revealed in our own dying and rising ... we hold ourselves a grateful people ... grateful for the ultimate revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ, and grateful that in that same love, God sang Dad into our lives. And as we give thanks for Dad’s life and death, we also pray ... that the resurrection song he so often sang may now be eternally realized in and for him ... or, in the words he so often sant, that the music will play as long as there’s a song to sing, and that he will be younger than spring.
[there followed the recording of the Four Renegades singing “This is all I ask”]
1 1 Mark Doty, “Sweet Chariot,” Wrestling with the Angel, ed. Brian Bouldrey (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995), 9-10.
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