Words of The Lamb

by Tim Stiles
_{^{For Barbara Stiles}}

She went forward, in the world, but not of the world,
on road after road, in church after church,
heart open and optimism enduring.

She was a lesson in perseverance–no one but the preacher’s wife has to carry on:
Now batting fourth and playing in her 9,360th game…
And carry on she did, with grace, class, determination, wit, verve and intelligence.

There’s a slot in Glory, for the ardent, for the true,
and I pray the Saints noticed how she steadied the pillars
and made each Sunday’s altar stay fixed on her back.

The roots she put down in each location each grew to prosper:
oak trees of friendship, sunflowers of kindness, lilies of convivial rapport.
No one ever disliked my mother. Period. Full stop.

Her 4 children will remember her meatloaf, her cookies-n-cream, her egg casserole, her chicken divan.
We will remember her cupcakes, her fudge, her Meyer’s lemonade from that bush in Vallejo.
We will remember her rye bread, her cardamom bread, her cinnamon-raisin bread, her wheat bread.
We will remember her bread. We will remember her bread.

We will remember her bread.
We will remember her reading C. S. Lewis to us at breakfast.
We will remember her looking so pretty on Sunday.
We will remember having to stop to read the text on every statue we ever passed by.
We will remember her singing hymns for God.
There is not enough space on this page to delineate all we will remember,
but we will remember this most:

There is no greater love than the love between my parents, Francis and Barbara.
There is no greater love than the love between my parents and our Lord.
There is no greater love than the love between my parents, Francis and Barbara.
There is no greater love than the love between my parents and our Lord.

There is no greater love. There is no greater love. There is no greater love.