Remembering my Late Mentor, the Rev. Dr. Jesse Brown:

Three years ago today, my mentor the Rev. Dr. Jesse Brown passed from this Earth.  

I was alone with him at the time in his room at the Hospice House.  As I sat at the foot of his bed praying over him, I heard his breathing change, and I looked up and watched him take his last several breaths in this world.  I took his hand for a moment, and then went out and told the nurses that I believed he was gone.

As the nurse checked his vitals, I knelt by the bed with his hand in mine and prayed a prayer of celebration for my beloved friend's birth into Heaven.  His family came and gave their respects, and then left again, to go home and mourn.  They were donating his body to science, and I suspect they couldn't bear to actually see the body taken away.

I sat alone again with Jesse, and waited until the University Med Center showed up to take him.  I watched them load him on the gurney, and followed them down the hall and out the door. Only after the door on the van closed and they pulled out of the parking lot did I go home.  

I had attended a conference on the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' with Jesse, and gone out to dinner with him only 10 days prior.  

Year 2 Remembrance
Year 1 Remembrance

I shall always miss my dear friend Jesse, but thankfully he left me with the memory of his friendship, as well his considerable guidance and direction in my faithwalk.  It was a rare honor and privilege to have the chance to study, and converse with somebody like Jesse, and I shall always cherish the friendship that we had in this world.  But I rest assured that someday, I will see him again in heaven, and we can pick up on some old and unfinished conversation, the only difference will be we'll actually fully know and understand the answers.

It is my confirmed conviction that even after a loved one has passed, we can maintain a relationship with them.  If we remember that individual and process our world through the influence that they had upon us, there can be no doubt that in some small way they are with us still.  In the last three years I've had countless conversations with Jesse concerning things that I have read and heard.  These conversations of course are mental exercises, and consist of me as I said, processing things that I encounter through the lens (the way that I see and understand the world) that Jesse helped me grind for my personal understanding of God and religion.

In all honesty, this is much the same as the way that we have a relationship with the risen Christ, with God, and with the Holy Spirit.  Let us always remember the set of lens that Christ prescribed for us are to "Love God", and to "Love our neighbor as ourselves".  If we always process life through these lens, we certainly will not stray far from Christ himself.

Please continue to pray for my friends Lowell & Connie and family (for comfort, strength & understanding), Edsel and family (for peace, strength & understanding), for the Hunzeker family (for peace), for my mother in law Mary (for healing & recovery), for my uncle Don (for healing & recovery) and remember to pray for yourself as well.  God Bless!

I'll just end this blog post with some random photos of my library.  Many of these books are ones that Jesse left to me after his death.  They are very precious to me and I shall cherish them for the remainder of my time in this world.

God's Absolute Love & Grace to you all.

In Christ,
Roy