On Legacy
I don’t think legacy is something you craft, I think it’s something that emerges, I think it is a found thing, like an artifact at an archeological dig site. Of course that doesn’t stop us from trying, the globe and history are littered with mankind’s attempts to build our way out of oblivion through conquest, statues, and grand gestures. But a legacy, by definition, cannot be discovered by the one who leaves it and is therefore unearthed and, this is the really hard bit, interpreted by those who come after.
If you’re of the serious and sober minded type I would point to the time capsule records carried aboard the spacecrafts Voyager 1 and 2. Launched in 1977 and containing a very limited assortment of media and instructions out into the void as far as humanity could reach. They carry the fingerprints of an age and through them reveal what the world as it was in 1977 deemed the most important things that could be said about us. A distillation of the best we had to offer pressed into the grooves of a golden disc.
If, perhaps, you are of a more absurd humor bent I may point you to a different example, Parks and Recreation season 3 episode 3. Wherein the intrepid Leslie Knope decides to invite the good people of Pawnee to participate in creating a time capsule to capture their towns moment in history for future generations. There are many great sequences in that episode, all of them hilarious. But as with all great comedy what makes the laughs so hearty is the underlying truths the absurdity points to. The townsfolk come up with a great many ridiculous items, but seemingly none more so than the wild man who handcuffs himself to a bench in Leslie’s office to demand a copy of the pulp fiction novel “Twilight” gain inclusion.
As the episode moves along, however, something strange happens. The crazy man becomes the sane one. Spoiler alert, his reason for the books inclusion turns out to have real stakes and an even bigger heart. An estranged teenage daughter, pushed away by a painful divorce. He doesn’t really care about the book or the story it tells he cares about the person who cares about the book. If he can just get “Twilight” in the capsule maybe that will be enough to melt the ice between them. And this reveal recasts everyone involved in the episode. The ridiculous list of items presented include, David Lee Roth's autobiography and the remains of a turkey. And suddenly the twilight book is the most sane suggestion. Why? Because it’s not an item, it’s a key to a relationship.
How could you possibly truly capture what is most important to a person in a pile of objects or a collection of tiny waveforms pressed in gold? None of the stuff matters, not really. An observer who cannot comprehend what the chaotic, noisy, complicated, painful, beautiful, joyous space between us feels like cannot possibly find interest in the talismen that represent that space.
The twilight book is not a twilight book, it’s the hope of a relationship with a beloved daughter after a hard rain of suffering. The music hurtling through the cosmos is not a jumble of sound waves frozen in metal hoping to find some being with the capacity to craft an appropriate decoder ring, they are the sounds of our souls crying out to be heard.
A legacy is not a forced arrangement of decisions and carefully curated image making, it is the distillation of a million million interactions, and the residue left on all those souls rise up to meet one another and reform a life in post-living color.
So, how do you build a legacy worth having? Stop building and start living. Pastor John Haynes was one such person who understood this. He didn’t have an eye on the legacy, he had both eyes and an entire formidable spirit focused on the prize in front of him, the soul within arms reach. And into such souls he poured as much fierce love and loyalty as could be held, and then kept pouring until it overflowed.
In such a way he built a chorus of time capsules, each a recording of his compassion and calling, his tenacity and tenderness, his grace and courage.
So that today, when the dust of his life is brushed away it reveals a glorious find. The sparkling and radiant legacy of a man who did not care to be lifted up but instead chose to lift another up so that all men may be drawn unto Him, to Jesus. He chased men through prisons, drew in the very best of sinners and ruined them for the world, he invited whoever would come alongside to walk the winding, broken path even if they stumbled their way through it. And person by person, piece by piece he built a life lived well. Up to today, where I stand, as do so many of you, as one in his legacy. Late to it, arriving in the twilight of his brilliance, and yet standing here still, deeply moved, and powerfully convinced of God’s love for me because of the legacy of Pastor John Haynes.
Well done good and faithful servant, we’ll see you again soon enough and until we do we will miss you fiercely.
If you’re of the serious and sober minded type I would point to the time capsule records carried aboard the spacecrafts Voyager 1 and 2. Launched in 1977 and containing a very limited assortment of media and instructions out into the void as far as humanity could reach. They carry the fingerprints of an age and through them reveal what the world as it was in 1977 deemed the most important things that could be said about us. A distillation of the best we had to offer pressed into the grooves of a golden disc.
If, perhaps, you are of a more absurd humor bent I may point you to a different example, Parks and Recreation season 3 episode 3. Wherein the intrepid Leslie Knope decides to invite the good people of Pawnee to participate in creating a time capsule to capture their towns moment in history for future generations. There are many great sequences in that episode, all of them hilarious. But as with all great comedy what makes the laughs so hearty is the underlying truths the absurdity points to. The townsfolk come up with a great many ridiculous items, but seemingly none more so than the wild man who handcuffs himself to a bench in Leslie’s office to demand a copy of the pulp fiction novel “Twilight” gain inclusion.
As the episode moves along, however, something strange happens. The crazy man becomes the sane one. Spoiler alert, his reason for the books inclusion turns out to have real stakes and an even bigger heart. An estranged teenage daughter, pushed away by a painful divorce. He doesn’t really care about the book or the story it tells he cares about the person who cares about the book. If he can just get “Twilight” in the capsule maybe that will be enough to melt the ice between them. And this reveal recasts everyone involved in the episode. The ridiculous list of items presented include, David Lee Roth's autobiography and the remains of a turkey. And suddenly the twilight book is the most sane suggestion. Why? Because it’s not an item, it’s a key to a relationship.
How could you possibly truly capture what is most important to a person in a pile of objects or a collection of tiny waveforms pressed in gold? None of the stuff matters, not really. An observer who cannot comprehend what the chaotic, noisy, complicated, painful, beautiful, joyous space between us feels like cannot possibly find interest in the talismen that represent that space.
The twilight book is not a twilight book, it’s the hope of a relationship with a beloved daughter after a hard rain of suffering. The music hurtling through the cosmos is not a jumble of sound waves frozen in metal hoping to find some being with the capacity to craft an appropriate decoder ring, they are the sounds of our souls crying out to be heard.
A legacy is not a forced arrangement of decisions and carefully curated image making, it is the distillation of a million million interactions, and the residue left on all those souls rise up to meet one another and reform a life in post-living color.
So, how do you build a legacy worth having? Stop building and start living. Pastor John Haynes was one such person who understood this. He didn’t have an eye on the legacy, he had both eyes and an entire formidable spirit focused on the prize in front of him, the soul within arms reach. And into such souls he poured as much fierce love and loyalty as could be held, and then kept pouring until it overflowed.
In such a way he built a chorus of time capsules, each a recording of his compassion and calling, his tenacity and tenderness, his grace and courage.
So that today, when the dust of his life is brushed away it reveals a glorious find. The sparkling and radiant legacy of a man who did not care to be lifted up but instead chose to lift another up so that all men may be drawn unto Him, to Jesus. He chased men through prisons, drew in the very best of sinners and ruined them for the world, he invited whoever would come alongside to walk the winding, broken path even if they stumbled their way through it. And person by person, piece by piece he built a life lived well. Up to today, where I stand, as do so many of you, as one in his legacy. Late to it, arriving in the twilight of his brilliance, and yet standing here still, deeply moved, and powerfully convinced of God’s love for me because of the legacy of Pastor John Haynes.
Well done good and faithful servant, we’ll see you again soon enough and until we do we will miss you fiercely.
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This man, this family, poured into my life for over 40 years! They were there for me in the deepest of valleys and celebrated with me on the mountain tops. Too many examples of when the Holy Spirit worked through them for me & my family. Praise God John was obedient and led my Dad to the Lord August 23, 2000. Like John said, it was close, but he made it! Until we meet again ?