Words to remember Dad (Bob Benjamin) at his funeral – Charles Town, WV
Friday 19 May 2006 -- Stan Benjamin
I take a few minutes here to remember my dad, your dad, your granddad, your brother,
your husband, your friend, your colleague. I want to remember Dad clearly, as I know
you do also. I want to grieve for his loss fully.
I also want to rejoice fully for Dad as a tangible very great gift from God, and for the
grace of God, for Dad now seeing Jesus clearly, face to face, not any longer through a
glass dimly. In our church in Boulder, Colorado, we sing a song, “Come go with me to
that land, come go with me to that land where I’m bound. There’ll be singing and
dancing in that land. You’re going to meet Jesus in that land. Don’t you know heaven is
that land?” I rejoice now that Dad is in that land. What a great invitation to us to go
to that land.
There are 3 things that I want to remember with you about Dad.
Cheerfulness
-- Dad was cheerful. Proverbs 17:22. A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Dad’s face came to have creases from smiling. Dad was consistently upbeat. Wasn’t
Dad a fairly extraordinary encourager and spreader of cheer?
Curiosity
 Dad was always reading. For the last few decades, he was always carrying around a
big bag of books and notebooks. He was especially curious about other people,
would ask them questions, always looking for some common point. Dad was
curious about everything, from science to people, to art. Dad looked for
connections always, for common points between people, for similarities between
things or ideas that few others would find or even look for. Dad was a perpetual
student.
Trust in God
 Dad had a trust in God forged by a life of experience, sometimes with great pain, to
see God’s ever-presence and constant faithfulness, and God’s ability to transform
what looked like the worst disaster possible into the greatest gift possible. Dad
came to an unshakable grip on his favorite passage in scripture – Romans 8:28.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who
have been called according to his purpose.” This was Dad’s theme since the late
1960s, and certainly through his almost 4 years in the nursing home life. When
there was some justification at the nursing home to give up, Dad didn’t.
 Dad was always ready to pray for us. “Are you weak and heavy burdened, take it to
the Lord in prayer.” Dad did this continually with we adult kids and with Nancy
and probably with lots of you here. Was that not a gift from God to have Dad
always encouraging us to trust God personally with prayer?
Dad’s curiosity, and cheerfulness and trust in God all grew out of the same tree, all
woven together in him. One of the many related trades that Dad was a master of was
“Cartography”.
 Dad loved maps. He made the beautiful maps of the Civil War drawn specifically
for the book that his NSA friend published 10 years ago.
 In March, I visited him and asked him then about what he thought about maps, he
said, “I like maps.” And then, after thinking a little further, Dad said “maps are a
reflection of reality”, to which he added, “mathematics is also a reflection of reality
and so is art” (harkening back to Dad’s 2 diverse majors at Albion College, math
and art). Dad, squinting his eyes more, then looking back at me, went deeper still
and said, “Scripture is also a reflection of reality, like a map, but a further reality. It
is, itself, a further reality.”
Following Dad’s theme: that things that we can touch and sense can be reflections of a
further reality, I finish by reading a poem by Dad’s dad, my grandfather, who I was
named after, from this poetry book that he wrote.
Another Valley - (p.160, the last page in the book, “Through the Years”, by Stanley L.
Benjamin)
I wonder if beyond those far green hills
Whose mist-dimmed heights this vale of ours enclose,
There is another valley like our own,
Where summer breezes, perfumed by the rose,
Blow soft o’er meadows green, and bring repose
To travelers weary from the toilsome road.
I wonder if the friends who said good bye,
And left this valley by that upward road
Have found beyond the hills a new abode,
And there laid down the traveler’s weary load
To rest in sunshine of the summer day.
And as I journey toward that mountain high
That marks so soon our valley’s farthest end,
In the still air, it sometimes seems that I
Can hear afar the brave voice of a friend,
And see, as soft the evening shades descend
Above the hills a friendly guiding light.