December 30, 1924-October 4, 2018
Instrument of Peace
All of you gather here today know that your picture is featured in one of the many family portraits hanging in Gene Wan and Sue Choy’s home in Hayward. The most recent and perhaps Gene Wan’s favorite would be the one above the mantle. Gene Wan is in the front while all of you are gathered around. He is the one who has united this family and he is the one today whom we have come to celebrate a life well lived.
Living in the Bay Area, it’s necessary to cross bridges to go anywhere. We label these different places to know from where we are coming to where we want to go. To make a complete clock-wise circle from Marin across the San Rafael Bridge to the East Bay to Hayward, from Oakland on the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, from San Francisco on the Golden Gate Bridge back to Sausalito only costs one bridge toll of $5. When Gene Wan was driving his old 1954 Ford pickup; there were no GPS to give him directions. But he always crossed the right bridge to make a full circle and found his way home. He was the bridge that united all of you.
Gene Wan knew that he came from challenging and possibly life threatening circumstances. But he did not allow those limitations to hold him back from serving as a bridge to the promises of a productive and meaningful life. He was a bridge between his fellow Chinese bachelor workers at the Bowman Ranch and the rest of the world. In his military service during World War II, he was a bridge to the Philippines where he returned afterward to enjoy these islands during his life. He was constantly making new friends wherever he went bridging the gap between strangers in order to bring people together as friends.
Gene Wan was a machinist by day and a farmer by night and weekends. Work for him was simply a means to a worthwhile end—providing a strong and loving home for his family. In his garage workbench, he invented widgets with his lathes and table drills. Even the big warehouse stores like Home Depot where there seems to be something for everything, sometimes there is still a need to fashion a unique tool for a very particular purpose. Gene Wan was able to do that. He was a member of a fading generation who were able to create something unique. He was a skilled and inventive instrument to make something to which we all admire. Like the unique, one of a kind widgets he invented, Gene Wan was a unique instrument for a greater purpose.
From his workbench to his garden outside, Gene Wan continued his life’s purpose of serving as an instrument. He knew how to prune fruit trees to produce large and sweet fruit to share with his growing family. Like an artist, he knew how to grow orchids to bloom again and again to bring beauty to his surroundings and to provide nectar for the hummingbirds and bees. We delight in the harvest Gene Wan was able to produce and today we celebrate the important role that he played in making all of that happen.
Most of us know the Prayer of St. Francis. It goes like this:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Gene Wan was an instrument of peace showing us that in the face of life challenges, there are opportunities. In solving a problem of making things work to their highest potential, there is always a widget to fashion; in the fallowing of trees during the gray winter months until the summer, there will be delicious and juicy fruits to share with grand and great grandchildren to eat. Like St. Francis, Gene Wan protected a pair of doves and their eggs from chicken hawks.
Jesus taught us “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) Throughout Gene Wan’s long and faithful life, his light shone before you and many others. And when you saw his commitment in being an instrument of peace, we can only confess that there was “no thorn in his heart” but only the love of God.
In John 14:6, Christians proclaim Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Many of us have come to God through the saving grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ himself was both God and an instrument for our Father in heaven. From Jesus’ life and ministry that we find in the Bible, we have the invitation to come to believe in the Lord and his sacrifice on the Cross so that we may have eternal life.
It was and still is God’s love for the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes will have everlasting life. We believe that God’s love goes beyond our human ability to comprehend his expansive grace. Inasmuch as we see the miracle of an apple on a tree or the birth of another great grandchild or the miracle of Gene Wan’s gift to fashion a widget that no one else in the world has ever thought about and even have the ability to make it, we believe that God’s gracious and mighty love is abiding with Gene Wan today. Imagine Gene Wan is now sitting on one of those small wooden stools he made at the feet of our Lord.
In Psalm 8:3-9, we read,
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than angels,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
You have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
When Gene Wan taught his children about setting a good example from the work that you did and said to you, “Let the quality of your work speak for itself,” he set the standard of quality of being created just a little lower than the angels. He used his hands to fix things by disassembling and reassembling in order to fully understand the meaning of acting on behalf of God’s creation in the world. I believe that when the Psalmist wrote about God’s majesty and grace, he was describing Gene Wan Choy.
In reading the many reflections that have been expressed, one prevailing memory that you have is the mischief Gene Wan did throughout his life. He liked joking around. He would compliment a burp and say, “That’s a good one!” He teased you about the friends you kept with the goal of encouraging you to choose wisely. He played hide and seek when picking you up at Capwells with his farm-dirt pickup. Gene Wan enjoyed a good laugh and he had a hearty laugh accented with a slap on his leg.
We know that when you smile, you would use fewer muscles on your face than if you frowned. We know that when seeing a smile, it’s natural for you to smile back. Against tribulations and hardships, Gene Wan always had a smile on his face because he knew in his heart that life is good and that God was watching over him. All of you who have received the amazing and wonderful blessings from Gene Wan’s life can proclaim that he has been a faithful instrument of bringing peace, love, pardon, faith, hope, light and joy into this world.
Again, St Francis wrote:
Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Gene Wan consoled you when you made mistakes like crashing his pickup or having too many drinks when he hardly scolded you. He understood true love between you goes beyond race and economic barriers; there is no such thing as a “wrong complexion.” He loved his wife Sue since the beginning when he picked her out in high school over 70 years ago. He gave generously to all of his many grandchildren and great grandchildren and especially he modeled life’s wisdom to live by. He pardoned and forgave those who may have taken advantaged of him because he knew that someday he would seek pardoning for himself too.
In the passing of Gene Wan Choy, we have confidence in the gracious Lord God that he is now born to eternal life.
Prayer
Creator God, at this time of all times, we thank you for the precious gift of life made evident to us in the life of Gene Wan Choy.
We thank you for our health and for the skill and compassion of those who care for us when our health falters and fails.
We thank you for home, for the roof over our heads, the provisions in our kitchen, the conversations in the living room and the bedroom where we stretch out to renew our strength in sleep. We thank you for loved ones who make the roof and all the rest into a true home.
And we thank you for hope, the hope for the pursuit of the next goal when one goal has been reached, hope for recovery and a fresh start when a goal has eluded us, hope at the last, when all hope seems lost, except for the one shining hope set before us in your raising our Lord Jesus Christ from death. In his holy name, we pray. Amen.
Donald Ng/10.22.2018