Easter

Aloha! My name is Tom. I am up here because Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” and Father Chuck Floyd has gone on to claim the promise, hallelujah! You may be seated.

You may not realize it, but I have no business up here. Chuck Floyd was brought up in the church. His father the Reverend Canon Oliver Reed Floyd was Canon to the Bishop in Pittsburgh. Raised with the old prayerbook, Chuck was a traditionalist who believed there should be no preaching at funerals. Why? Because the burial office allowed no sermon or eulogy, and the saying was “Everyone gets the same commendation to God.” 

Chuck and I worked together starting nearly twenty years ago when I was priest at Grace Church and Chuck was here at St Thomas; and again later, the years I was here at St. Thomas after Chuck retired. Officiating many funerals together, we had a standard format: I did the first part and Chuck the second. Chuck was celebrant for Communion and I preached the homily because Chuck would not preach, did not approve of preaching at funerals. - -

So while I speak, if the building shakes, know that Chuck is annoyed.

A man after the heart of Jesus, Chuck Floyd was the kindest, gentlest person you’d ever meet; to his family, the most loving and generous. He was a preacher I admired, because he preached from the center aisle and never used a note. That was impossible for me, my mind wanders, I cannot keep my thoughts together. Chuck said he had not always preached from the center aisle. He said he started after a clergy conference we had at Beckwith years ago. I forget the name of the priest Bishop Duvall brought in to be facilitator, the conference agenda was Preaching - - the facilitator gave a long introduction to his sermons before inviting the congregation to sit down, and then he preached without notes while the whole time shuffling back and forth in a distractingly precise pattern of footsteps. He preached several good sermons for us that clergy conference, but I got more invested in watching his feet.

Anyway, that clergy conference agenda was to encourage us to get out of the pulpit and preach without notes; and Chuck told me that after the conference, Jack Wilhite - - Father Jack was rector here and started St Thomas East, later Grace Church - - I think Jack and Chuck were swapping Sundays back and forth at St Thomas and St Thomas East - - and Jack, who was the boss, told Chuck, “Let’s try it, preach from the crossing or center aisle instead of the pulpit, no notes.” So Chuck did, and mastered the skill. I asked, “How do you do it?” He said, “I practice for hours the night before until I get it down.” 

He said, “Jack tried it a few times, but I’ve kept it up.” Of course, Chuck was an enthusiastic actor who loved singing in musicals, and was good at memorizing his lines for the stage.

Our paths did not cross during the Vietnam War, when I was a Navy commander in a warship, and Chuck an Air Force officer flying, what? B-57s*. He flew with Chuck Yeager, the famous Air Force Test pilot, and he trained many young officers. 

Chuck loved Hawaii, and I guarantee, he’s there now in spirit. When chocolate-covered macadamia nuts showed up here at coffee hour or parish suppers, we knew Chuck had just returned from Hawaii.

Father Chuck and I shared a love of cars over the years. Especially fancy cars, but all cars. A few years ago he bought a Pontiac minivan from Lloyd Pontiac in town. On the back, it had the Lloyd Pontiac sticker, but I looked at it one day and said, “What’s this?” He had scraped off the L and painted on an F and made it Floyd Pontiac. It’s still that way, I saw it in the driveway last week. 

Chuck liked sporty cars, convertibles, a Mustang convertible, a Lexus convertible. A year or so ago he arrived at clergy luncheon driving a BMW convertible with the top down, not a little 3-series either, a classy 6-Series. After lunch I drove it all over The Cove. Sometimes he had half a dozen cars at once, maybe including one parked in the garage waiting to be worked on. USAA probably gave Chuck fits about why one man was insuring so many cars, but he told me he’d long been putting money away so Celia could retire comfortably after he died, and when Celia died first he decided he’d have whatever cars he wanted. Over the years, he had a lot of Lincolns - - and a friend at Bay Lincoln Mercury who called him when a really interesting car came in.

Father Chuck was a family man. Family, he dearly loved you, all of you, you know that, I don’t have to tell you. Your grieving will be missing him, but let your healing be blest memories of one who loved you so. 

St. Thomas was Chuck’s church, I never filled his shoes here and never meant to. Though I loved my five years as vicar at St. Thomas, I was standing in for Chuck because when he retired in 2004 he asked me to come be the priest, and I always told him I would give it up the minute he was ready to take it back.

Which is maybe my last story about Chuck Floyd. Just before he retired from St Thomas, Chuck and Senior Warden Ann Lahan phoned and asked me to come be the priest. Years retired at the time, I was Priest Associate at Holy Nativity Church, and Chaplain & religion teacher on staff and faculty at Holy Nativity School. When Ann Lahan called, I said I don’t think so, it’s so long a drive, and Ann said that’s a good time for prayer and meditation. I said, have you asked the bishop, and they said, no he’s away. I think he was in Ireland (Philip Duncan used to take a church in Ireland a few weeks every summer). So when the bishop returned, I was already in place at St. Thomas and loving it.

At the same time, just as he retired, Father Chuck was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and started long treatment for that. A survivor, he beat the grim prognosis. When I arrived, he faithfully honored the clergy rule that once you retire from a church, you stay away at least a year, you do not come back. But he was ill, unhappy and sad, homesick for  St Thomas. So I wrote Chuck a letter, which every member of the vestry signed, saying, “We love you, we miss you, we do not care about rules, we’ve elected you Vicar Emeritus: get your tail back to St. Thomas on the double.” Celia told me that when Chuck read our letter he broke down in tears.

He came back, and we welcomed him home, a true Resurrection story. The first Easter morning after that, I waited for Chuck and Celia to arrive for the service. As they drove up at the last minute, I met them out on the back sidewalk and told Chuck, “Hurry and get vested, you’re the Celebrant.” Only another priest would understand the surprise, delight and gratitude on his face. We shared as dear friends the five years I was here, and even after I retired from here. Chuck knew we loved him. And he loved us, all of us.

Child of God, brother of Jesus, Chuck Floyd was an easy man to love. Aloha, Chuck! Peace! Happy Easter! Aloha! Alleluia!!

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Homily preached in St Thomas by the Sea Episcopal Church, Laguna Beach, Florida at the funeral for the Rev. Charles R. Floyd, Vicar Emeritus; eleven o'clock, Saturday morning, March 9, 2019. Speaker: the Rev. Tom Weller, onetime vicar of St Thomas.