remembering an annointed friend

The following text is something I wrote about a friend who left this planet 32 years ago. I had been asked by an old camp acquaintance Marsha Scarborough to gather some information about Emory for a scholarship they are beginning this summer to honor him at Bethlehem Camp down in Bonifay, FL. Last week Marsha emailed and asked if I would send her Emory's birth and death dates for a plaque she is having made. I couldn't recall so I asked my mother last Friday if she remembered the dates. She in turn asked my sister Florrie who has an incredible memory. Today my mother handed me the dates written on a piece of paper. Right after she handed it to me, it dawned on her that Emory's death was exactly thirty two years ago today. Sure enough, on the paper it read March 19, 1975. God winks.

...I was just a kid, the youngest member of the fellowship at the time. I have asked Irene Elrod, Brooky Finlayson, Don and Jennie Rakestraw to correct me if I am wrong with any of the facts. No one to date has really made any major corrections to this telling. The following is my eulogy for Emory. It took me well over twenty years to finally come to a place where I could write it.
Emory Lloyd Boggs
Born: August, 16th, 1952
Died: March 19, 1975

Emory Boggs' death was a blow to us all. I still to this day have a difficult time sorting through the debris of memories. I remember walking down the halls of Emma Samson in a daze after mother phoned with the news that Emory was dead. I remember passing classroom doors, hearing the dull drone of teacher's voices, rustling paper and the sounds only a school desk could make on a dirty tile floor. Each room was like a capsule filled with life, unaware of my surreal reality caused by a terrible grief. I paced down those long halls, and leaned into drab green walls that kept me from crumbling to the floor. Emory was dead. Emory was dead.

It's a shame that he suffered such a violent end. A life so good, so sweet does not need be remembered with such bitterness. Emory got the Zippy Mart job so he could work his way toward seminary, become a preacher and marry my sister Irene. The seventeen year old black kid didn't know that. Who knows why he threw gas on Emory and lit a match. This was long before Rodney King, the L.A. Riot, and so called Black Rage. It was during a time when an incident of this nature still shocked people. The boy said he was just trying to scare the clerk. He said that he didn't think the fumes would ignite. He said he didn't mean to. It still grieves me to think what Emory must have gone through during those hours left alone and in pain on the cement floor of that back room. Sometime during the early morning hours he crawled to the middle of the store where his cries could be heard and he could be seen. Later in the morning, as the sun rose, a young woman discovered Emory’s charred body and called for help.

Mom woke me up with the news that Emory was badly burned and had been sent to the Birmingham Burn Center. It sounded bad but I was an optimistic kid. I wasn't expecting to be called out of class. I wasn't expecting the telephone call waiting for me in the school office later that day. My brother Brooky rode down with Emory in the ambulance. He could tell the story better and with greater accuracy.

Emory lay talking and praying. Brook said that Emory was very calm and talked to Jesus as if he were sitting beside him . . . I believe He was. He said. "Lord, please don't hold that boy accountable for doing this. Please don't hold this against him." It was a sad yet beautiful thing. That black, charred, unrecognizable twenty two year old man who could love as Christ in his final day. It was Jesus saying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." You had to know Emory. For Emory, that was not a hard story to believe. His prayer kept me from hating the kid with the match. It kept me from years of hard feelings. If Emory could love and forgive his murderer, I could too. Here, the very essence and compassion of Christ bled through as Emory's final witness.

I remember my dad not liking Emory around the house at first. He didn't like the idea of that long hair rock and roll hippie hanging around his precious virgin daughter. Personally I thought Emory looked more like a bubble gum Bobby Sherman type but to my dad's generation they were all pretty wild looking. Things changed dramatically one week when Emory tagged along on a family trip to camp meeting. He went along to spend time with my sister Irene. He thought he would spend days romantically romping along the shores of Florida with her. I think everyone mis-perceives their first experience of camp meeting. Emory had never been to a holiness camp before, the sinners spiritual death-camp. Two hours into the first day and you're dreading the next nine.

Call it love or call it stranded, but Emory stayed and was eventually and dramatically saved. Emory testified later that God literally pushed him out from among the pews and into the aisle during the alter call. I can attest to his testimony because I was sitting in the pew behind him. The neat thing about his salvation experience is that he gave everything to the Lord. He really did. Most of us (myself included) hold onto crap that we think we can't live without. Emory did what few people do. He took God's Word literally. He was truly born again. He got rid of the old wine skins. He took up his cross and followed. It made perfect sense to him, that if he was to be saved, he had to empty his cup completely in order for it to be filled by the Holy Spirit completely. God didn't straighten Emory out, He bent him forward.

When Emory's life changed, so did the world around him. Emory had a desire to know everything he could about his Savior. He wanted everyone around him to experience the forgiveness and compassion from God that he had experienced. It wasn't long before Emory was called to preach. His sermons were as sincere and simple as his daily walk. I am sure that he would be the same fellow if he were alive today. Emory would've kept his faith real and warm. I never knew anybody that could love folks into the kingdom like Emory could. He loved people everywhere he went. People seemed to gravitate toward him.

My father quickly grew close to Emory. He was eventually loved as a son, and in death he was mourned as a son. The whole family loved him for that matter. He became my other brother and it took years to deal with his loss. So many lives touched in that short time. His coffin was surrounded by so many strange faces. It amazed me that this young man could touch so many lives within such a short span of time. If it were not for immediate family, I would have thought I was at the wrong service. The multitude present bore witness to the fact that it was not just I who thought this life precious.

The last fragment I'll write is this. Emory was part of a fellowship. We had a coffeehouse that he helped start and named F.R.E.E House. It was a coffeehouse that strangers came and got loved on in Jesus’ name. I remembered some of his friends sitting around consoling each other. There were less than a dozen that day. We were talking about him and I remember a friend saying something to the effect that "God knew Emory would die young and that's why God gave his life such an unusual faith." I disagreed. I told her that I thought Emory had such a simple theology of letting go completely . . . so God could do His work completely. Do we not all have that very potential when we are surrendered as instruments?" To say that it was impossible for me to live and die the same way was something that I would not accept. I won't let anyone take that hope from me.

His death was over twenty five years ago and he still steps into conversations from time to time. A few weeks ago I was treating my nieces to pizza when they asked me about him. I was around their age when he was killed and thought it neat that he was being remembered by those who had never met him. I was surprised that they knew almost as much as I did. There wasn't much that I could tell them that they didn't already know. They, I think, remember Emory mostly because of the tragic story of his death. I think those who knew him could agree to the following thought. Here is a great example of what God can do to a surrendered heart. If we can let go, our lives would be as fragrant too.

-David B. Finlayson