Glen Wayne Thomas (1933-2016)

Glen Wayne Thomas was born December 18^th, 1933 , to William and Opal (McManime) Thomas of Missouri Valley, Iowa, one of seven children.  The family moved to Arlington Nebraska, where he graduated from Arlington High School in 1951. 

After graduation he lived in California with his brother Harold and worked for Lockheed Corporation building aircraft.  He served in the United States Army.  He was stationed in the US and served as an army cook during the Korean War.

On November 16, 1956, Wayne married Marian Grant of Fremont Nebraska.

Wayne worked at the Gamble’s Department Store warehouse when he met and married Marian.  Then he took a job at the Warehouse Market Grocery store in Fremont, rising to the position of Store Manager.  In 1977, Wayne moved to Sioux City Iowa as a co-owner of KenWay Distributing company, where he worked until retirement. 

Wayne was baptized and confirmed in the faith at Sinai Lutheran Church in Fremont Nebraska.  Throughout his life, he was an active member of his church, filling in a number of responsibilities including teaching Sunday School and Council Member.  He belonged to various civic organizations such as the Optimist’s club.  He was a 32^nd degree Mason and Worthy Patron of the Eastern Star. 

Wayne was known for his friendliness, his generous spirit, his openness, honesty and hard work.  He had a quick and infectious laugh, and brought a smile to everyone he met.  He was always helpful when needed, and would do anything for anyone.  His last act in this world was weeding in a community rose bed, which was not his job, but something he could do for someone else, which was just the kind of man he was.  He mostly loved spending time with family and friends, especially over a game of cards or cup of coffee or a beer. 

He will be remembered for his occasional antics, for wonderful family vacations and camping trips, for his devotion to the Cubs and his beloved Huskers.  He was the very definition of a good man, and leaves a legacy of decency and integrity that will very much be missed. 

Wayne goes now to join his parents, his brothers Harold and David, and his sisters Jane and Louise. 

He is remembered by his wife of 59 years Marian, his daughter Denise and her husband Kevin Hyde of Omaha, Nebraska, his sons Glen William and his wife Lorie of Omaha Nebraska, and Joel and his wife Dee of Danville Illinois, his sisters Norma and Judy, his grandchildren Amanda (John) Kloke, Justin (Aja) Hyde, Aaron (Maegan) and Zachary Thomas, Glen Wayne II and Grant Thomas, Devin, Destinie and Danessa Thomas, and great-grandchildren Owen and Jackson Kloke. 

Glen Wayne Thomas began his new life in the Lord on Wednesday, August 17^th, 2016, at the age of 83. 

God, the generations rise and pass away before you. You are the strength of those who labor; you are the rest of the blessed dead. We rejoice in the company of your saints. We remember all who have lived in faith, all who have peacefully died, and especially those most dear to us who rest in you.... Give us in time our portion with those who have trusted in you and have worked to do your holy will. To your name, with the Church on earth and the Church in heaven, we ascribe all honor and glory, now and forever.  Amen.

Lost

I know that I’m a bit of an academic. 

I don’t mind.  I think there is a little too much unlearned opinion running the world today, and that the we would all be better served by more knowledge and better reflection.  I abhor the anti-intellectualism that passes for social and political discourse.  I think it is to our detriment.  So spending my summer deep in book and thought and writing has been a wonderful and pleasant indulgence for me. 

Unfortunately, reality has a way of interrupting such exercises.

My sabbatical project has brought me again and again to the concept of, the experience of, exile.  I think that dramatic social change in the world today is creating an experience of exile, a sense of leaving behind what is usual and certain in order to make way for God to do something new.  I have been exploring from various angles the biblical, theological and ecclesiastical implications of these ideas.  And I have missed out, in great part, the very real and personal ones. 

Until something in my own life forced me into that same kind of place so I might learn.  And maybe grow.

We have been dealing with a significant crisis in my family this week, one that is particularly defined by helplessness.  We have faced a challenge that we could not solve, one that, frankly, we should not solve.  We have been forced in a place of waiting and watching, of separation and anxiety, of not knowing what is ahead, fearful to allow ourselves to become victims of our own expectations, only able to hope without even knowing what to hope for.  We have been in exile, far from anything usual or certain. 

I thought I knew how hard this is.  I didn’t. 

There has been a constant groping for signs, for clues, for clear information, but there has been little or none.  There has been a constant turn to prayer, but even then the right words have been elusive.  I have experienced, not for the first or last time, that sense of being totally lost, in a strange and foreign place, with neither direction or expectation.

And here I have been reminded of faith. 

I was raised to believe that faith was all about usual and certain, about indisputable truth and the weight of history and tradition.  We should have known better.  Faith, as it is written, is hope in what is not seen, what is not known, what is uncertain.  Faith is the risky leap into what cannot be proven, what should not be proven.  Faith lives in that dark and uncontrollable place, the Saturday between the terrible Friday that was and the beautiful Sunday we have been promised. 

But that is its power.  Faith matters because it lives in the void, in the lost places, in the fearfulness where religion abandons and where certain and usual cannot be found.  When words and doctrines and clichés fail, faith is all we have left.

And then we have it. 

Faith is not us, it is not ours.   We do not create it, we do not control it.  We cannot summon it like a superhero of yore, we cannot demand it as payment for debt.  It must come to us, unbidden, a thief in the night, catching us unaware and undefended.  It must come from without that it might possess us, transform us, take us.  Hold us.  Save us.

I have found faith here.  I have felt the prayers of far away friends, neighbors, even strangers.  I have found peace where and when the usual allies of words and knowledge departed.  And I hope for you, when your life goes off of the map and into exile, that faith will come to you there and save you too.