Remembrances of My Dad, Nicholas J. Huizenga

at Church of the Servant, 22 June 2016

Nicholas J. Huizenga

REMEMBRANCES by Timothy, Ruth, and Susan Joy from the Memorial Service, 22 June 2016

by TIMOTHY HUIZENGA

My Dad lived both a conventional and unconventional life. He remained faithful to what he saw as the best parts of his tradition while sometimes pursuing a different path.

Conventionally, he remained a lifelong member of the Christian Reformed Church and maintained devotion to Joan, the one true love of his life. He sent his children to Christian schools and devoted his life to the cause of Christian education. He went to church twice on Sunday (as long as churches held two services) and encouraged his children to do the same, and he always wore his Sunday best. When his tradition told him to observe the Sabbath by not mowing his lawn or allowing his son to play baseball, he followed those rules.

But sometimes he departed from convention. He was a lifelong Democrat when most in his faith community voted Republican. He was an early supporter of civil rights when many in his community were not. He broke with tradition by advocating for inclusion of women in leadership in the CRC, and in recent years he support full participation for gays and lesbians in the life of the church.

My father saw the value in maintaining traditional values and beliefs while at the same time being open to new ideas. He did not just adhere to Christian ideas because he was raised in them. He embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ and the vision of the Kingdom of God with his whole being, and his life reflected the passions of his heart. My Dad and Mom found a home here at COS and I am grateful to the faith community for the challenge and nurture they have experienced here.

I could tell many stories which illustrate my Dad’s many fine qualities, but he was not in favor of lengthy memorial services — so I will tell just one. Near the end of my senior year in high school I was suspended from school due to an impetuous though rather mild protest. My Dad should have got really mad at me. Here he is — principal of a Christian junior high school and his son is suspended from the senior high school — a major embarrassment to him. Well, he did get mad at me, but only a little bit. He did not care about his reputation but he did care about me. He was a forgiving parent.

Anything good I have done in my life is due in large part to the influence of my Dad — and you cannot ask for more than that of a father.

by RUTH EVERHART

I’m Ruth, one of Nick’s four daughters. Even though he’s gone, I’m still one of Nick’s daughters.

I’m a writer — it’s one of the qualities I inherited from my Dad — so I find myself searching for the right words to describe him. How would YOU describe Nick Huizenga? One of the folks from Church of the Servant told me he was: Funny. Opinionated. Kind. Three words I might add are: Impatient. Adventurous. Generous. I hope you’ll share three more words with me, and with each other, perhaps at the lunch after the service. I’d love to know how you saw my Dad. Because people are so complex, aren’t they? You know a person your whole life, and discover you hardly knew them.

I can say this much about my Dad: He was a man of single focus. The subject of the focus might shift, but for that moment, one thing was all that mattered. It might have been something he was reading about, something that caught his fancy — a historic building, say, or better yet — a historic church. It might have been the game of pinochle he was playing — which he undoubtedly thought was dragging just a bit. RAP RAP RAP “Whose turn is it?” That might be what I hear him say in my dreams.

This past week while my Dad was in the process of dying — a time that was the perfect length, by the way, and an incredible blessing — while he was in the process of dying, one of my nieces, Meg, posted on Facebook: “Grandpa always sought the truth even when it meant revising his previous opinion.” I was glad Meg knew that about her grandpa. Because she’s absolutely right— my Dad was always on a quest for truth.

My earliest memories — the 1960s — include hearing him debate issues of racial justice. Dad had roots in the Chicago suburbs and as “white flight” negatively affected the Christian schools in that area, he saw it as more than a school problem. He saw it as a justice problem.

In the 1970s the Christian Reformed Church was tearing apart over the role of women. On that subject, Dad was open-minded to a degree that shocked many. His views got him in some trouble. He only strengthened them over time.

In later years, he had surprisingly progressive ideas about homosexuality. A decade ago — perhaps even longer ago — it made sense to him that if a Christian loved someone of the same sex, they should have the opportunity to be in a covenantal relationship. Amen!

The truth is that Nick had a generous spirit — and all the other complexity of him seems to gather under that one truth. Perhaps a better way to express that is to call it moral courage. My Dad had tremendous moral courage.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: Whatever you do to one of the least of these, you do also to me. My father took Jesus’ words to heart and applied them broadly. I know that the outreach ministries of this church were one reason my parents joined Church of the Servant in 1987 when they moved to Grand Rapids in retirement. I am so grateful to this congregation for giving them a church home. Everyone needs a place to belong, and this was their place.

I myself left the Christian Reformed Church some thirty years ago. When the attitude about women in leadership loosened up my Dad would say: Why don’t you come home to the CRC? I told him that if I could attend a church like COS, that might be possible. But I have a new home now. I feel a bit guilty saying this out loud in this place — do I dare say it? I’m a Presbyterian.

Recently I’ve written a memoir. It’s largely about that journey of me finding a new home. The memoir begins with a traumatic event that shaped all the events that followed. Because of that traumatic event, some parts of the memoir are difficult to read. As I wrote it, I worried that publication would cause pain to my parents. In addition to the trauma, there are passages that shed a less than flattering light on the CRC. And Dad was attached to his denomination. Dad loved God first, and he loved my mom, Joan, with all of his heart — she was absolutely the love of his life. And he loved us children. But he also loved the Christian Reformed Church.

Even so, he found the space to support me in writing the memoir. That’s what I mean when I say he was generous. I don’t mean he tipped well. After all, he WAS Dutch.

Sunday June 5, turned out to be the last time my father attended worship. Jack Roeda had read an advance draft of my memoir, and on that Sunday, his sermon on the healing of the Centurion included reading a passage from my memoir. My parents were in their usual spot in the front row — and I have no doubt that they shed some tears as Jack preached. They esteem him highly — so for him to use MY words in a sermon was perhaps the most affirming thing that could possibly have happened. It was a gift from God to my Dad and Mom and me — bringing my story full circle.

There were many other gifts this past week — it was a week of final gifts. I could tell you about the gospel choir that another niece, Sarah, brought into my parents’ living room as my father lay in a hospital bed. I could tell you about the opportunity for some of my siblings and me to be at our father’s bedside as he took his last breath. I could tell you about the ways we have supported our mother, and she has supported us.

But mainly I wanted to testify to my father’s generosity of spirit and moral courage —so that you can be inspired by those things, as I am. I am grateful to God that I have been, and always will be, one of Nick’s daughters.

by SUSAN JOY CLEVELAND (to be added)

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