My Friend Wayne

Something from the tackle box:

       Be sincere in your love for others.  Hate everything that is evil and hold tight to everything that is good.  Love each other as brothers and sisters and honor others more than you do yourself.  Never give up.  Eagerly follow the Holy Spirit and serve the Lord.  Let your hope make you glad.  Be patient in time of trouble and never stop praying.  (Romans 12:9-12 CEV)

Wayne in the back of our boat

       My good friend, parishioner and fishing buddy, Wayne Swiler, passed away yesterday morning.  He bore the onslaught of his cancer over its last and terminal stages with more strength, dignity and quiet grace than most folks I know would, far better than I ever could I am quite sure.  Wayne was an inspiring model of patient Christian faith and peace over this last year of his illness.  It seemed that as his body decreased in strength his spirit increased so, a fact taken note of by many who knew him well.  His inner strength notwithstanding, yesterday morning death claimed another temporary victory over one of God’s Saints, or at least over his body.  Wayne’s death leaves, at least for now, a big hole in several aspects of my life.  My social life, my church life, and my fishing life, will not be the same without Wayne.

       Wayne and his wife Pam started attending the church I work at quite a few years ago now, not too long after that church had brought me in as pastor back in 2003.  They had heard something from someone about our church, and they were checking it out as a possible new spiritual home base.  Pam seemed to love being a part of us right off the bat.  Wayne – not so much.  He really preferred a much more upbeat and contemporary style of worship, he told me back then, but, if Pam liked it so much, he allowed that the preaching was acceptable – and he could tolerate attending church here – at least for the time being.  It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. 

       It was not long before Wayne was as beloved a part of our church family as anyone there was, on an equal footing with those who were by far his elders in membership, and even on a par with those who had been born into our circle, which is an unusual and amazing thing to see happen in an old-line small town church, believe me.  This was in no small measure due to his infectiously good personality, brimming over with good natured, good humored, goodwill towards everyone.  Just plain old goodness will do that for you.  That and the fact that, right from the get-go, Wayne stepped forward to take part in doing so many of the things that need to get done to keep a church building up and running, and even improve itself, right up and into the last year of his life.  A whole lot of “upkeep” got done at the church by Wayne Swiler and Company, and that is going to be hard to replace.

       Oh, maybe this would be a good place to mention that Wayne dealt with pretty severe arthritis for much of his life.  I’m talking about the kind of arthritis that presented the world with legs that didn’t look right when he strode towards you, and very crooked fingers to navigate your way around when he reached out to shake your hand with that big smile on his face.  It was bad.  But note that I say he dealt with it, not that he suffered from it, or even that he was afflicted with it.  Perhaps those descriptions were true.  I suspect that they might have been in some ways.  But if they were, Wayne never let on to anyone else.  He just went ahead and did everything that he wanted to do as best he could do it.  Hunt, fish, chop wood, run tractor, play with the dogs, he did it all with a smile on his face over the fact that he was doing it at all.  If he had to use a slightly unorthodox technique for handling an ax or casting bait with a fishing rod, what was that compared to the joy to be found in doing it at all?!

a good day on the lake

       Which does bring me around to the fishing, which is where I got to know Wayne the best, and grow the closest to him.  Which, I’ll admit, is a funny thing for a pastor to say about someone in his flock, but truth nonetheless.  We did plenty of other things together, church functions, conversation over coffee and sweets after church, card playing at both Euchre (the game he loved) and cribbage (the game I love), among many other things, but fishing is different than all of that. 

       For some people, like Wayne and I, fishing is to be in this world – at the same time as you reach out and touch existence in the next.  Or maybe it reaches out and touches you. Probably both of those things happen at once.  Who can know?  But, for some of us, there is deep truth to be found pondered in the ancient Babylonian proverb, which states that God does not deduct from a man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing. 

       Now, not everyone who fishes gets this point.  As in any other inherently spiritual pursuit, uncritical and self-absorbed fisherman abound, those who fish, as they generally do everything else in life, without an open heart towards that other realm right there in front of them.  As Henry David Thoreau famously said; “Many men go fishing all of their lives without ever knowing that it is not fish they are after.” 

       But for those who do get the point, a fishing boat can become very sacred space.  And to share that space with another person who recognizes the gift of that perceived nearness of God in the pursuit, just as much as you do, is to share a deep and special bond with that one.  This was a bond that Wayne and I shared, I do believe. 

       Our fishing together started quite a few years back.  After Wayne found out that his pastor was an enthusiastic angler, he invited me out to a relative’s cottage on Saddlebag Lake to fish that body of water off a pontoon boat along with his brother-in-law, Jerry.  After that things escalated.  A number of trips to Sessions Lake and Morrison Lake, to fish out of Wayne’s fold-a-boat, would be the next chapter.

       Have you ever heard of a full sized two man fishing boat that you could fold up and lay flat in the back of your truck when you were done fishing?  Neither had I!  Even though the idea never caught on really big, I learned that the fold-a-boat had been around for over forty years, and Wayne, ever willing to try anything that might make going fishing a little bit easier, had one!  It’s a funny looking thing, and I have to admit that I was kind of leery about stepping off the dock down into it that first time, what with its soft looking bottom and sides.  Wayne just laughed and told me to get on in and I would love it.  And I did!  It turned out to be one of the most comfortable and stable feeling small boats I’ve ever fished out of.  Wayne and I have caught a lot of fish together – out of a fold up boat.  Go figure.

       But then, the special bond started when we bought a boat together.  I have an old friend I used to work with before I came to Lake Odessa, who called me up one day to let me know that he wanted to sell his 12 foot Martin flat bottomed rowboat for $100.  I had always liked that boat, and the price was right, but I didn’t really know where I would keep it at the parsonage if I bought it.  I told Wayne about my misgivings, and he suggested that we go in on that boat together and just keep it right at the dock of a friend who lived on a small private lake in the area.  I knew the lake Wayne was talking about.  He had access to it through this friend, and he had taken me out there a couple of times to help get the fold-a-boat in and out of the water for an morning’s fishing.  This fishing hole is phenomenal!  You can haul out big ol, slabber bluegills by the bucketful some days!  Needless to say, I was very interested. 

       And so that’s what Wayne and I did.  Soon, morning trips over several miles of dirt road in Wayne’s ATV, or his pick up truck, to get to that pot-hole and fish together in our boat, became pretty routine. We had a couple of summers of contemplating the blessings of living life in the palm of God’s hand together in that boat.  I count every one of those trips to be among the better spent days of my recent life, and Wayne always seemed to enjoy them just as much I did.  And more than a couple of big fish dinners came of it too, which only added to the blessings.   

       But, two summers back now, as good as the fishing was, Wayne was starting to have a harder time getting in and out of the boat when we went out there.  The smiling joy-filled willingness was all still there, but I had to help out with more than I used to have to, and Wayne and I both knew why. 

       This past summer we didn’t go fishing together at all.  Our boat sat in his barn as Wayne’s body progressively refused to do the fishing that his spirit willed that he could.  In the fall Wayne had a sportsman’s garage sale.  Friends came from far and wide to buy fishing and camping gear that we were all wishing he would just keep to use next year, but which we all also knew he wouldn’t be using again.  Better that we had it than some strangers, I guess.  Fishing friends and neighbors hung around and talked together for hours.  Wayne was happy with that. 

       Wayne and I still spent some good time together this past year, at church, and over cards or a meal, until his body, late in the game, refused to cooperate with even that much activity.  Earlier this month my wife and I took a drive around the countryside with the Swilers so that Pam could try out driving in Kathy’s Subaru and see if she liked it.  Wayne wanted to take her car shopping. 

       It was only the last couple of weeks that Wayne didn’t get out of the house at all.  Yet, even then there was the smile for all who came to see him.  It was the smile of love.  Love of family, love of friends, love of neighbors, love of God.  The Spirit’s love for life, and all the blessings that life holds for those who embrace it, never gave up in Wayne.  I don’t believe it has given up in him yet. 

Something to take home in your creel: 

       Wayne was a man of strong Christian faith and convictions.  He was never pushy about that, he just let it shine out of his life like a welcoming beacon.  He was more than willing to be and remain your friend or fishing buddy even if you didn’t care to share his beliefs, but make no mistake, he did have them.  He lived by them.  Wayne loved all of his friends, and he wanted to know that he would see them again some day, on the other side, in the Promised Land. 

       Now, I’m not sure if there will be fishing in the waters of the New Heaven and New Earth after Christ returns, but we are told that there is a river that will flow out of the New Jerusalem.  And, since the resurrected Lord did eat fish with his disciples on more than one occasion in the gospel accounts, – who knows!  Wayne and I may have a boat together again some day, on that further shore.  That would be nice.