Funeral Sermon for Garen Gideon – (1989-2007)

Garen Lee Gideon came into this world on February 11, 1989. He was the firstborn son of Shawn and Renee’ Berkley Gideon, and the first grandchild on the Gideon side of the family. Later he was joined by his sister Shanee’, on the 4^th of July of 1990. And not long after his 7^th birthday, his youngest brother Gentry came into the world – this on February 23, 1996. Then the Gideon family was complete.

Garen lived all of his life in the northeastern portion of Wabaunsee County. He went to grade school in Maple Hill, and later to the Paxico Junior High School. From there he went on to Wabaunsee High School.

Garen was raised in the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church with his family. He and his sister Shanee’ became official members of the church in the spring of 2005, after going through confirmation class.

For as long as I knew him, Garen was a member of the Maple Hill Hustlers 4-H Club. He became a certified rifle instructor, and qualified for and attended multiple national level events in competition. He also served on the Kansas 4-H Shooting Sports State Match Committee. Additionally, Garen was involved in kids wrestling and Midwest Martial Arts. And he was a member of the FFA.

Garen was a recent graduate of Wabaunsee High School – participating in this last May’s commencement ceremonies in this room. He went on to attend Kansas State University at Salina, and had recently enrolled at Washburn University for the spring semester. Garen was looking forward to getting started in school there.

Garen’s loves in life were the following (and not necessarily in this order): fishing, hunting, shooting, cruising the backroads of Wabaunsee County, cruising Wanamaker Road, playing pool, making people laugh, and romance.

Some of these interests converged at a 4-H camp Garen was at several years ago, as a teenager. Garen went there as a counselor, and he earned a nickname from the campers: “Buddy”. It was said to be a well-deserved nickname. Garen had a little bit too much fun at camp that year, and wasn’t invited back the next year.

But what was significant was what he brought back from camp – a new girlfriend: Missy Traskowsky. Garen and Missy dated for awhile, and eventually they split up. But as Garen’s grandfather Arnold said, “He had an uncanny ability to change his relationships without intimidating anybody.”  There was some initial awkwardness, but Missy was unofficially adopted into the Gideon family, becoming one of Shanee’s best friends, and coming to see Garen as like a big brother.

One of Garen’s best friends was Sam Ervin. Sam said that the cool thing about Garen was that he didn’t really care. He was true to himself. He was a straight-at-you kind of person.

This was apparent in the way he described himself. I’m going to share his self-description that was posted on facebook. (I’ve cleaned up the vocabulary here a bit to make it appropriate to read from the pulpit.):

I like to live life, but if I don’t [mess] up at something then just give me a little while and you will see me [mess] up bigger than before. I’m a country boy. I drive too fast. I probably chew more than I should. I hate city [chicks]. I hate lowered trucks. I hate cars that dog leg. I hate riding with people that can’t drive. I love taking the four-wheeler out and running pasture. I love wheat harvest. I hate city life in general. I’m a hick and no one will take that from me. I love being with my girlfriend. I love loud stereos. I love my alcohol but some sacrifices have to be made so I’m cutting back on my consumption. It’s for the better even if it does kill me.

I’m a social chameleon. (That was a phrase he learned from his uncle Dean.) I can wake up and be in boots and wranglers and work cattle all day… By evening time I can be in formal wear and go to nice dinners… And after that I can change into whatever clothes suit the atmosphere I’m going to be in the rest of the night.

That part about his dress is definitely true. One thing he didn’t mention in that statement was that he always wanted to be wearing a hat. Gentry said that he “felt naked with out it, and he said he could wear nothing but a hat and feel absolutely fine.” With this Shanee remembered that a lot of stuff he wore was white: white shoes, a white hat, white shirts, etc. – and that he always kept them clean somehow. A couple of years ago Garen told me that he believed in dressing up a notch. It was something he had learned from Dean; he knew that it could get you places in life.

Knowing Garen, probably one of his incentives was romance. Romance was one of Garen’s great passions in life, and he was just relentless. His interest in girls showed even when I first met him as a ten-year-old kid, and continued throughout the rest of his journey on this side of eternity.

Garen’s Dad, Shawn, said that he had a way of “taking everything, no matter how small, and turning it into a memorable event.” This was one of his keys, and it was seen most visibly in the fishing trips that Garen organized. Sometimes it was with big groups of people. Garen is remembered today as “an organizer of people – and partly and entertainer”. This was his persona.

But sometimes these fishing trips were with individuals – like Kelsey Rezac. Kelsey’s mom, Deb told me that neither set of parents ever saw any fish from these fishing trips. So they served more of a social function. Back in May Garen wrote me about this ongoing romantic ambition of his…

Then I have this whole girl problem. lol  (That means “laugh out loud” if no one’s told you that yet.) This girl means the world to me and I would do anything for her but she doesn't realize that yet. Hopefully she'll see that I do care about her and that I can make her the center of my everything.

I wasn’t clear who this girl was, so I asked some questions and he wrote me back a couple days later…

This is a girl from Onaga that I have literally been attracted to for 2 1/2 years now. I saw her tonight at a dance with over 5,000 kids!!! It was insane. Things seem to be looking up with her and I. She's coming to go fishing with me on Friday so I’m hoping I can call her my girlfriend by the end of the weekend. lol

After reading that I kind of braced myself to be in a pastoral, consoling mode – expecting some kind of a letdown. “There, there – it’s OK. Sometimes the girl you want doesn’t have the same interest. It’s all a part of growing up.” Because I figured that if he’d been pursuing her for three years something would’ve happened by now if it was meant to be. But I have to hand it to Garen – he was persistent. Shanee’ said, “He wouldn’t take no for an answer, especially when it came to Kelsey. He was trying to get her for 3 years.”

And so, gentleman, the moral of the story is that persistence pays off  - or at least it did in Garen’s case. In June Kelsey did become his girlfriend, and he fit into her family quite well. Deb (Kelsey’s mother) told me about his going dinners with the clan at the El Cazador restaurant in Topeka. She said he was just like another one of her kids. Renee’ mentioned that Garen had purchased a promise ring for her for Christmas. “He would’ve done anything for her,” she said.

There are many other things that come to mind when we think of Garen today. Some of the things his family named were his smile, his ability to make everybody laugh, the fact that he reached out to people, his ability to make friends, etc.

Garen’s good friend Sam Ervin described to me what it was like to have Garen as a friend. He said, “He showed me how to have a good time… He always had advice for me [because] he had been through everything a bit before me.”  Sam said, “If there was someone that I needed to talk to, to get away from everybody, it was definitely Garen.” And Garen was enough of a people person that I sense that he made a lot of people feel like they were really good friends with him. I bet a lot of you here today feel that way.

I think much of this was related to Garen’s ability to make people laugh. I spent hours this past week online reading stories about Garen – most of them inappropriate to read from the pulpit – and yet hysterical. Sometimes laughter is good medicine for a saddened soul. Garen enjoyed both getting laughs himself and bringing laughs to others.

Garen, like a lot of teenagers, went through a difficult adolescent phase where he had to learn to respect the wisdom of his elders. Sometimes this doesn’t come easy. But through it all he maintained a basic level of decency that he had been taught. He had respect for people – for everybody. People told the family about what good manners he had. His paternal grandparents talked about how considerate he was. And his maternal grandparents remembered the time took them to family reunion in Tescott, Kansas. Garen was one of the few young people there, but he was able to enjoy himself. This was partly because he related to people of all ages so well. Shawn said, “He could talk to adults a well as young people. He excelled in his relationships with adults. He seemed to be able to interact at a very effective level.”

Early this past summer Garen sent me a message that included the following words: “I'm feeling like I'm figuring things out about myself that I never knew before.” Garen was kind of learning and growing. He was replacing a naïve adolescent spirit with a more mature one as he was emerging into adulthood. And his latest writings about himself on facebook indicated that he knew some of his past attitudes were wrong. He was understanding the mistakes he’d made and was learning where to change. The Christian word for this is called repentance.

Garen was raised as a Christian and showed various signs of faith throughout his life. Sometimes this would run into tension with his rugged, wild side – and Garen was dealing with this as he was growing up and maturing. As I said before, he was always a straight-at-you type of person. There are some people who try to put on a holy-cover for the preacher – but this wasn’t really much the case with Garen. He generally owned up to his descriptions of himself – even the ones I wouldn’t want to say from the pulpit – while recognizing the tension that was there and, in different ways, seeking to draw closer to God. Garen’s rugged, wild side certainly didn’t mean that he did not have faith. For him it was all part of who he was.

My very first memory of Garen was back when I had just moved into the parsonage in Maple Hill, back at the start of 2000. A 10-year old version of him was running around the church yard with his sister. He saw me in the driveway and yelled over to me, “Hello Mr. preacher man!” We started talking instantly. He was always very easy to socialize with.

My final memory of Garen was less than a week ago. He was in church this past Sunday – out of his own volition. He had just told his folks he was planning to move back with them and go to Washburn next semester. Perhaps this was a faith-response accompanying some of his maturing that he was going through. Either way, none of us could’ve guessed that it would be Garen’s last time with us in worship.

Life is fragile, my friends. Sometimes youth can lead to feelings of invincibility; that’s why it’s been said that the military is a young man’s thing. But it’s something all people grow through. Sooner or later all of us have to face up to the fact that we are vulnerable – that our lives are fragile. And our time can come at any minute, with little or no warning.

In some ways Garen’s parting seems completely in line with how he was – almost appropriate. He had been with Kelsey that night – his dream girl – one last time before he dropped her off. Driving his car back, he was happy. He was smiling. He was laughing. He was having a good time. And then it all ended suddenly, just south of Onaga.

A very natural question comes up in times like these: Why? Why did this have to happen? It’s so natural when older folks die. Quite often it’s a thing where death comes as a friend. But it’s not supposed to happen with young people – especially the ones who bring such life to an otherwise gloomy world.

I’ve had to wrestle with this question too – and I don’t have an answer. But it does help me to know that Jesus had a why question too, one that He cried out as He was dying on the cross. He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Of course there are all sorts of answers to that question if you comb through the scriptures and reason through it – but I think it’s significant that God didn’t shout an answer from the sky. Nor did He repudiate His son’s question. Rather, He arose Jesus to new life in the resurrection. And if God did not disdain His son for struggling with such questions, my friends, then I don’t think he will disdain us either.

I also struggle in my sadness on this occasion. Knowing Garen, I don’t think he would’ve wanted any of us to cry for too long. He was an entertainer – someone who brought laughter to life. He would want us to be happy. Yet at the same time I don’t think I can be honest with myself if I don’t acknowledge my sadness. Mourning is a very natural part of life when something like this happens. Bottling up our feelings inside will only hurt us in the end. It does no good to put a mask over our pain, or to paint a happy face on ourselves when we feel otherwise.

But neither should we fail to see the larger picture – the light at the end of the tunnel. We will mourn for Garen because our lives were changed by him – in being around him – in experiencing his unique personality. But just as he was maturing through life, so we will mature and seek to live out the things that God has in store for each of us.

Here is something I firmly believe, my friends: so long as we are alive, God has a plan and a purpose for us being here. If God wanted any of us up in heaven with Garen and all the others, He could’ve brought us there by now. But He has chosen to leave us here. He must have something in store.

Let me close with one other observation about Garen. His father Shawn said, “Garen had very high standards for everybody, but (somewhat in contradiction to that) He was very accepting of people as individuals.” That is a wonderful trait, because I believe it describes how Jesus looks at each of us. On the one hand, He has high standards for us. He calls us to practice forgiveness, love our enemies, do good of every kind, store up our treasures in heaven and not on earth, etc.

But He also accepts us as individuals. We are saved by God’s grace, His goodness, and not by any good deeds we have done. And Jesus is not the type to kick us when we fall down, but rather to offer forgiveness and to help us up on our feet.

And so my friends, with thankful hearts for the life of Garen Gideon, and with our minds focused on eternity, let us go to the Lord in prayer…

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If there is anyone who wants to speak right now, the family would welcome some stories or memories of Garen from the people who were closest to him.