Help in our time of need. May the peace of god be with you all. Good afternoon. Friends, we have gathered together today to celebrate the life of jim lehrer and to offer comfort to his family who have called this church their home since 1977. On behalf of the congregation of National UnitedMethodist Church, welcome. And its my privilege to welcome and to introduce john obrien. Good afternoon. On behalf of the family, i would like to welcome everyone here today. Id first like to express the family familys gratitude and appreciation for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the last week. Your calls, your cards, the visits, your beautiful flowers, the food, your support and condolences have meant so much. Knowing the sense of loss is felt by so many relieves the burden and is truly a comfort. Thank you. I want to thank those of you who have traveled from outside d. C. Knowing that you dropped everything to be here with us to celebrate jims remarkable life is greatly appreciated, especially if you came by greyhound bus. We want to acknowledge family members and friends who couldnt be here today particularly jims older brother fred. For many traveling to washington wasnt easy or possible. Just to know that youre all with us in spirit is enough for us to feel grateful for your presence in our lives. We also want to remember jims parents, fred and lois lehrer, their enduring optimism is a signature trait that has been passed on to generations of lehrers, thank you. We want to acknowledge the literally thousands of thoughtful messages and remembrances that have been posted on various Media Outlets over the past week. It has been incredibly touching to read stories from people who didnt know jim personally but felt connected to him through his work, for those many tributes to jim, we thank you. We want to acknowledge the news hour family and thank you for your support over these last days. For jim, daily interaction with news hour colleagues mattered deeply. He valued each and every one of you and your endless dedication and commitment to the highest standard of journalism. Grinding through each day to produce a program that reflects your shared values and extraordinarily high professionalism, its a team effort and jim was so proud to have played on the news hour team. Thank you. We want to thank the staff of the National UnitedMethodist Church, this beautiful venue. We are so grateful for their kindness and assistance in helping us to arrange todays service. Thank you. Wed like to extend a very special thank you to the marine corps for their participation today. Anyone here who knew jim knows how proud he was to have been a marine. The honor that these men and women are bestowing on jim today would have meant the world to them. We want you to know how we appreciate the service to our country and kindness and thoughtfulness to our family. Finally we want to say thank you to jim, whether husband, father, grandfather, fatherinlaw, friend, colleague, marine, he led by example. Every person here was touched by his warmth, his humor, his high standards, his integrity, his decency. His generosity, his capacity for true friendship, and for those of us closest to him, his deep and unquestioning love and support. Jim, through all that you gave us, for all that you accomplished, for all that you were, we thank you. Of course on the news hour my dad was serious, serious about things that matter, as he would say. But in fact, he had such a merry spirit. He was quick to delight and it showed instantly in his eyes and smile. One of his gifts was the way he could express emotion and so plainly tell his family and his friends how much he loved us. And he was able to fully receive our love as well. Today we are left with these huge feelings of love for him and from him and its hard right now to know where to put all that love. So i was drawn to this reading from the meditations before cottage which i would like to share with you now. When i die give whats left of me away to children and old men that wait to die. And if you need to cry, cry for your brother walking the street beside you, and when you need me, put your arms around anyone and give them what you need to give me. I want to leave you something, Something Better than words or sounds. Look for me and the people i have known and loved and if you cannot give me away, at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind. You can love me best by letting hands touch hands and by letting go of children that need to be free. Love doesnt die. People do. So when all thats left of me is love, give me away. My grandfather has always been a large presence and a source of love and inspiration my grandfather has always been an omni present of love, within the sadness i felt i kept thinking of how grateful he got to see my older brother join marine, and where he is today. Reminding me of a moment i many siblings and i shared with granddaddy several years ago. I feel that it capturing some of the things that makes our relationship with him so special which is why i want to share it with you today. When i was younger, my granddaddy came to visit us in raleigh. We were all sitting around in the kitchen when he got up and told my brother, sister and i that he was going to teach us to march like marines. We jumped up immediately and started to follow him. He shouted out his march cadence as we trailed behind him in as straight of a line as three kids can manage. I remember stretching my legs and listening intently to try and match his stride. I was so little, it took me two steps to match his one, and every time he called out for me to stop with my left foot, i would land on my right. My neck was strained all the way back to look up at him. Being 7 years old, when i realized i couldnt match him personally, i started to jump and fall out of lun. He continued to march with my siblings in circle until i fell back into step. While this may feel like a small moment, as i look back, it exemplifies how generous he was with his time. He had to make sure we all knew how to march. More importantly he knew i knew never to give up, even if i couldnt match his stride at first. It embodies the steady guidance he provided and will continue to provide to everyone at the front of the family, with unwavering purpose. It shows how much i learned and will continue to learn from him, and how much i look up from him. Though ive grown from the small boy, my head will never move. It will forever be looking up to him. I will miss you so much, and we love you grand dad. Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me i once was lost but now am found, was blind but now i see twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved how precious did that grace appear the hour i first believed through many dangers toils and snares we have already come twas grace that brought us me safe thus far and grace will lead us me home and grace will lead me home first of all well, first of all, bravo for the bari tone, i think you should volunteer for the Washington National opera. I do believe Amazing Grace is one of the great hymns of the Methodist Church, and the methodists have the best hymns, it is lovely to be here in this beautiful Methodist Church, it reminds me of one of jims most remarkable novels called a special prisoner, a methodist bishop of San Antonio Texas who comes to no good end. I did pull it off the shelf. I have all of jims books, and this is dedicated to megagreenfield who we all still remember and james, that must have been james nash, the elegant man we just heard from. Everybody loved jim lehrer, and i think the reason is this, he certainly for me confirmed something i have always believed and wanted to believe and that is that nice guys finish first, and jim wasnt a quintessentially nice guy. We bask in the interest that he lavished on the people around him and the effort he made to make sure that everything was absolutely right for everybody and the appreciation he also showed for everything that was done for him. In his early years in dallas, jims so called newsroom and if you called him in the morning with a story idea for that night, he would be absolutely thrilled. It was as if he had been offered tickets to the super bowl. He made you feel wonderful about the work youve done for him, so you wanted to do more work. Now, i think james is right, he certainly wanted that staff marching on a step behind him, which of course wouldnt do that. I think he could be a tough task master, being a marine, but the guys on this show were always testing him, particularly early on, pushing him to see how far they could go, and one of them said what is your policy for breaking news, he said you tell me the story, and ill tell you the policy. So they didnt get far trying to push jim around. Of course there was something more than that at work, i am convinced. I know of no one who had a firmer sense of what is right and what is wrong than jim lehrer. It was obvious to him what had to be done, so he did it. No more questions about it. Lets just say he was disciplined without overdoing it. He was ambitious without amorous, he was gifted without guile. He was a golden boy who had no goose to lay golden eggs for him, but he was selfmade. He was never selfconscious. His energies were always focused outward. The zen buddhist idea of not too much, not too little was foreign to jim. It was as foreign to him as the rock garden no matter how much he may have admired it. Jim always gave 25 times more than necessary to the people and projects, i think thats why he checked himself into hospitals every now and then for procedures that enforced rest. The truth is jim had a very big heart, it carried a lot, wars that never should have happened, suffering inflicted in times of good and bad. All of these things weighed on jim, and he had a real feeling about them, never for once, never for a moment were they merely grist for thhis program. This is why he loved literature so much. For him it was a place of retreat, and pose and restoration, and assimilation, for pleasure he read the novels, and certainly novels by all of you, roger and robin, kate, books of tom brokaw, a lot of good books produced by members of this congregation. Once he was going to meet eudora weltley, there was a problem because he and robin were going to do the federal budget and jim had to miss that program. This was unfortunate because jim and robin thought the budget was the basis of government, too seldom covered in the media, much less understood by the voters, but you remember this, robin told him dont worry about this, there will be many chances to do the budget. Only one to meet eudora weldley. More than a muse, she was an alley, she was a compatriot, and to gather, they fashioned a philosophy of journalism that elevated the profession for three generations of americans. Others were important of course but they were in the vanguard. Texas has sent many people to serve the nation, some more happily received than others, ill grant you that, but some have made very important contributions. It must be said on the list of those at the very top, among those who matter the most must go James Charles lehrer and someone else written in certain for a phrase i could find nonto stand beside his name. And now to make l, i know he has michael bechloff, i know he has a wonderful history to tell us this afternoon. Michael. One of the most importt National Figures in american for 40 years, jim lehrer was one of the most important National Figures in life. As we all know he was a great man and a great leader, and a wonderful person. There is no doubt why so many millions of people trusted him so much. And ive never seen a closer family than the astounding kate lehrer, jamie lucy amanda, john, lou, richard and their children. It reminded me of what george h. W. Bush once said. The thing that he was proudest of was that his family still wanted to come home. After ve day in 1945, Dwight Eisenhower went to london and said i come from the very heart of america, his fellow kansasn jim lehrer knew what that meant, coming from kansas and texas grounded in, he had national optimism and idealism, great modesty and decency. When he was reporting on some washington controversy from his background he could take solace from the fact that he knew that much of the country couldnt care less about what the city was so obsessed with. No matter how eminent he became, jim never really changed. He always had that wry sense of humor hinged on fact that especially in politics people do and say strange things. Watching him on the news hour in a serious discussion, if you look closely, you could sometimes see the two corners of his mouth turn up just slightly. He was authentic. When people would ask me what jim lehrer was like, i would say exactly as you see on the screen. He thought of himself largely as a marine. It was no accident he was moved when he was asked to speak at the u. S. Opening of the marine museum. One of his computer passwords was semper fie, he was always someone to be in a fox hole with during a crisis. Jim had perfect manners. He was always quick with a handwritten note. At a party, he was often the first to draw out the quietest person in the room. His interest in buses went back to his early life and showed that he remembered where he came from. He wrote about it in his heartfelt family memoir, we were dreamers. Last week, the museum of bus transportation in hershey, pennsylvania, put up this notice on facebook. Quote it is with Great Sadness we share the news of the passing of jim lehrer. Mr. Lehrer was a great friend to both the bus industry and the museum. He and his brother fred gave money and time to support us and the yellow flexible clipper bus was donated by him, painted in the colors of the small bus line that his family operated after world war ii. End quote. The most important moment in history jim ever witnessed firsthand came when he was a reporter in dallas and was asked to go to love field to watch john and Jacqueline Kennedy arriving in november of 1963. You can see him in the newsreels wearing a pale raincoat. He studied the events of the day for the rest of his life and wrote about them in his novel top down he was endlessly creative, writing plays and noefrls. He wrote so many, once he and robin did a joke video with robin sitting at his desk waiting for the arrival of one manuscript of a new book jim wants him to read. Instead, the delivery man brings one lehrer manuscript after another, and they begin piling up. He was prolific. Together with robin, jim built two Television Programs that are a monument. And when histories of the 20th and 21st centuries are written, he will stand out for moderating all those president ial debates, more than anyone else with such ability and providing americans night after night with the facts and arguments that allowed them to function in what harry truman always called their most Important Role which is citizen in a democracy. Thats what future generations will recall about our beloved friend. They should also remember his mind, his humanity, his bravery, and that great heart. Me and my sister have a reading from chapter 11 from our grandfathers book, we were dreamers. I was 13 on may 19th and turned out to be the best birthday i ever had. I thought so then, and i still do. Our circumstances being what they were, it should have been just the opposite. Like christmas there would be little if anything in the way of gifts. Mom ignored her birthday in january and pop his in march except for a good meal and special playings of alex walk alone. It would be same for me and freddy on june 23rd when it was his turn. Because of the situation it had to be that way. The day began as i expected, all three of them were up before i was and they stood at the foot of the bed and sang happy birthday to wake me up. Freddy brought my clothes as if he were my servant and insisting i use the bathroom. We walked down to mary annes and i had the skys the limit breakfast. I was nearly through when papa started, well, son, how does it feel to be 13 years old. Great, particularly since im a year younger than freddy, just for a month said freddy quickly and on cue. It was our annual birthday joke. That out of the way, pop cleared his throat as if he were about to make a speech, in fact, he was. As you probably have guessed, we dont have anything. Hey, thats okay pop. You dont have to explain. I understand. Its fine. It really is. Next year everything will be all right again. Pop was smiling, there wasnt a hint of remorse or apology in his voice, it was the lead into Something Big and i suddenly realized i should not have interrupted him. As i was saying, we dont have anything physical to give you, not like the glove or the bat. I always got baseball equipment for my birthday because it fell right at the beginning of the season. But we do have something for you. I looked around at freddy. He was grinning real big, so was mom. Pops eye was twinkling and twitching like crazy. What in the world. Tgs not gift wrapped or in a sack or a box. You cant touch it or play with it or throw it or put it on. What in the world. Its a promise. A promise . Yes, son, a promise. A promise that next year, i will take you to brooklyn to see the dodgers play at ebbetts field. I leaped out of my seat, raced around to the other side, and grabbed him and hugged him and hugged and kissed mom. They were both in tears, and so was freddy and so was i. Ebbetts field was hallowed, mysterious, to be able to see pistol pete and peewee, and all of them actually play in person at ebbetts field, well, it was the number one goal in my nonkansas central life. Now, it was going to happen. Pop had just said so. It was a promise. Not a hope. Not a maybe well, not a dream, night or day. It was real. A promise. Only my father could have thought of Something Like that. It takes a dreamer to know one. We stood on the verge of bankruptcy waiting desperately for somebody to come along and bail us out, our futures uncertain and unattractive as any could be, and he was promising to take me to brooklyn, new york, to see the dodgers play baseball. Even in my joy, im sure i must have known the chances of it really coming off were slim indeed but that didnt matter. It was the promise that counted. James baldwin said James Baldwin said one or two earn ones death by confronting with passion the conundrum which is life. I met jim seven christmases ago and his daughter lucy invited me to the family dinner. He drove out to