Ricky Brooks

Eulogy for Rickie Brooks By Lonie Hinton Jr Opening Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3. 1-12 Title: Creating a Legacy - (A life that becomes an endowment) “ We get one chance to impact and leave apart of ourselves behind in this world.” There’s a story of a boy who wakes up one morning wanting to search and find God! He goes to his refrigerator with his backpack and grabs two bottles of juice and two sandwiches and tells his mother He is leaving to find God of which she says to return by dinner time! He catches a city bus and a subway and enters into a city park to find a homeless women sitting on a bench. He rest and begins drinking some water, the lady looks at him and he gives her the other bottle of water and they both drink while talking and laughing, he takes out his sandwich and gives her the other sandwich and they both begin eating and drinking, smiling and being filled with laughter. The boy then leaves and goes home, when entering the house the mother ask Did you find God today! And the small boy replies “ God is a lady sitting on a park bench with the most beautiful smile” ________________________________________________________ The God that we see is vested in who we are able to touch, that’s our legacy, not merely what we read in a book, not merely from historicity, religiosity or methodologies. We are effective to the extent of how our lives touch others, what lasting impartation from out of ourselves, do we freely give everyday within our world. Within our family, amongst our friends, a seed out of our souls that adds purpose to life that outlives our fragility. Rick left a legacy and used every moment as a teaching opportunity from a young child, to a senior at a store, from his family to anyone He would met. No one was a stranger, thus He has imparted of himself into the lives and memories of anyone that would listen…. Our lives have to be an illumination! The great Menahm Mendel of Kotzek stated: Our work [ In this world ] is only to Illuminate what is hidden within man. Our purpose is to live a life that leaves a legacy that outlives our days and illuminates the good that is within mankind, to perfect the world, leaving it better than it is was before our souls were placed within this world. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Helen Keller said: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt…… Lionel Richie stated: I think the whole world is dying, to hear someone say I love you. I think that if I can leave the legacy of love and passion in the world, then I think I’ve done my job in a world that’s getting colder and colder by the day. Patti David said: That is your legacy on this earth, when you leave this earth: How many hearts you have touched. William James said: The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. Galatians 5.22 teaches us in a more literal sense, the fruit ( The es sense of life) of our spirits, from out of our being is to bring love, joy, peace, forbearance, goodness and faithfulness- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This being in a literal sense-The fruit of our doings- Its essence, its balance is to live outside of ourselves to the greater purpose of stabilizing the world and those who we love through the examples, we impart from the souls of our own legacies, our lives heirloom, out of the depths of our breathing, do we bequeath life from our ancestors to our predecessors throughout our generation and propagation that outlives us. It is a time to write out our own visions for our generations, to leave behind a tangible evidence of ourselves that shares, guides, invest, develops, enhances, motivates and substantiates what love and joy and peace and forbearance and faithfulness is through our own life's stories when we can no longer speak of them for ourselves. The fruit of our existence is materialized in the good we leave behind, in the lessons seen from how we lived, verses what we said… Someone sees us, watches us, models after us….. ( The writer, Author) Lee Ann Taylor said: We are all butterflies, earth is our chrysalis (Development)….. Shannon L. Alder stated: Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones, a legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you….. Albert Einstein stated: Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. There is one thing we do know definitively that we are here for the sake of each other. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner self is built upon the labor of others, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving. Helen Keller said: I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I still can do something, I will not refuse to do the something I can do! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Someone anonymously said: Our prayers are answered, not when we are given what we ask for, but when we are challenged to be what we can be…. I encourage us not only to remember the life of my brother Rick and the legacy He left behind but to ask ourselves as we stand and sit where we are, what legacy shall we leave behind? What will be said when someone does our eulogy? How do impact our generation and the people we see and serve one way or another, what of ourselves do we give that implants purpose and direction…. Talmud Shabbat 31A. Rabbi Hillel said: What is hateful to you, never do to another: That is the entire Scripture; all the rest is commentary