For All the Saints - The Story of Ben Bohmfalk

Lampasas, Texas - Last Friday, I awoke early and traveled to Texs to attend the memorial service for The Reverend Ben H. Bohmfalk, known far and wide simply as Brother Ben. At and hour and half, his service seemed woefully short. By any other standard, that would be a long service. But not for Brother Ben.

You see, Brother Ben was 103 years old.

I got to know Brother Ben as a child growing up in the First United Methodist Church in Lampasas, Texas. I always had a skewed sense of who Brother Ben was because he was 75 years old when I was born. To me, he was always old. I had no concept of what a young Brother Ben would have been like. All I can do is read about his exploits and hear stories.

Brother Ben was born in April of 1907 during the second Teddy Roosevelt administration. He was ordained as a deacon in 1933. His first ride in a car was a Model T. He lived and preached the Gospel all over the country from Texas to Maine. He was in his thirties when World War II broke out, and he served as a chaplain on military transport ships and all the way to Guadalcanal in the Pacific Theater. He lived an epic life, in measure, when you consider not just how long he lived, but when he lived. His life criss-crossed an era of the American story that the rest of us read about only in history books. Also, unbelievably, Brother Ben was older than the states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii. When he died, he was a week past 103 years old.

I did the math. If you read the entire book on American history, it would cover 234 years. At 103, Brother Ben had lived through and seen with his own eyes 44.1 percent of everything that could ever be considered American history.

That's epic.

Beyond American history, Brother Ben's life covered the Methodist Church history as well. The United Methodist Church was formally created in 1968, when Brother Ben was 61 years old. Brother Ben was good friends with my grandmother Dorothy Payne, who died in 2004 at the age of 96. "Mimi" was a devout Methodist as well and had been teaching Sunday school since she was 15 years old. She is the only person I knew of, aside from Brother Ben, who had formally taught the Gospel for eighty years.

Mimi and Brother Ben came from a different era that no matter how hard we try, we can not fully appreciate. I remember Brother Ben was always dressed formally, even in the summers when I would go with Harry Hollister to his house at nine in the morning. It modern slang, he was "old school." They experienced examples of the rich Methodist history that we never really will, like outdoor revivals and encampments by the river, hearing the Gospel under a shade tree, and being born in an era, unimaginably, when horseback was still the preferred method of travel. During the funeral, I found myself crying more than expected, I think in part because of an incident that happened when Mimi was dying in 2004. Brother Ben, who was 97 at the time, traveled to see Mimi, knowing she was slipping away. There they were, him at her bedside, two aged saints of the faith, professors of the Gospel, and I wondered what they would say to each other. Mimi turned to Brother Ben and with a concrete faith said "I will see you in the Glorious Program." She died several days later.

It was simple, and profound. They both new they were on this side of death, not long to be on the other. That scene has stuck with me for years and I relived it again Friday. I thought about Mimi and Brother Ben together again in the Glorious Program. It is a generation of old, gone forever and it conjures up all kinds of emotions in me, the least of which is an infinite sadness lessened only by the undeniable shoring up it gives my faith.

At the service, the first song they sang was an old Methodist hymn. I feel obliged to include the entire hymn because Brother Ben's wife of seventy years, Rubye, really thought it was not fair to leave out a verse of a hymn. (She would say, "Why are you leaving out the third verse? How would you like it if you were the third verse?")

For All the Saints

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Apostles’ glorious company,Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;The saints triumphant rise in bright array;The King of glory passes on His way.Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:Alleluia, Alleluia!

Brother Ben was full of suprises, like at the age of 100 when he could still rattle off the Twelve Tribes of Israel faster than I could say "I don't know even ONE of the Twelve Tribes of Israel." Brother Ben even surprised me once when he showed up at my college graduation in San Angelo in 2004 with Harry and Dorothy Hollister. I guess he just wanted to go on a road trip. He suprised me again when he started speaking in German to one of my classmate who was a foreign exchange student from Germany. It was that spirit of adventure and willingness to go and do which I believe made his life all the more amazing. When I received news that he had died, I remembered that Brother Ben was willing to travel for me, so I thought I would return the favor. You know, come to think of it, I never thought he would actually die.

Like I said, he was full of surprises.

Before he passed away, Brother Ben said he had more friends in Heaven than he did on earth, and that he wanted to see Rubye and many of the other loved ones he had said goodbye to along the way. He died on April 17, 2010, having fought the good fight and lived a remarkable life. Brother Ben's life's meaure was a simple one, I think. Live well and preach the Word of God to anyone who would listen.

Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done.