correspondent asked to remain red bottom shoes anonymous

Maybe 100 quiet mourners attended the service. Many were grayhaired, the stalwarts who have kept the congregation going in a changing world and michael kors outlet online a changing neighborhood. Mayor Stephanie Miner and other city officials were among those who cyber monday ugg boots gathered quietly in black friday ugg boots the pews.

Sunlight poured through a magnificent stained glass window that portrayed Christ in the garden, a fitting backdrop to the reflections of Elmwood's pastor, the Rev. Shirley Myers.

Gifford, a longtime member of the church, died 10 days ago. on a Saturday when he was attacked by Romeo Williams, 18. Police say Williams knocked Gifford to the ground, kicked him repeatedly, left him motionless on the pavement and then celebrated with his friends.

Last Wednesday, at Upstate University Hospital, Gifford died.

Yet the service at Elmwood emphasized the way he lived. The Rev. Jeanne Radak, a former pastor, joined Myers and Bill Martin, an Elmwood member and a longtime friend of Gifford's, in describing a fundamentally selfless life: How Gifford would show up early for services to make sure the ministers never had to walk to the door alone. How he quietly provided financial help to a young parishioner who was struggling to pay for college. How he volunteered to cut the grass at the church. How he loved to read Scripture in a clear and powerful voice. How he would sometimes pay the fare for travelers at a nearby bus uggs black friday stop who were short on change.

You have to wonder, Myers said, if Gifford's attacker has any idea "how much of good and kindness he destroyed."

With the sunlight burning through the window behind her, Myers said Gifford had lived out the story on which his church was based: Was he not very much like Jesus? Wasn't Christ also the victim of incomprehensible violence and cruelty? Weren't there many who celebrated Christ's death, just as the young men at the 7Eleven supposedly laughed and celebrated after an attack on a defenseless 70yearold man?

And what was the message, michael kors handbags outlet she asked, that Jesus always offered?

Justice must cyber monday uggs 2013 be served, Myers said. But she called on her congregation to remember the distinction between justice and vengeance, and she spoke of love that might someday roll back the cruelty of the streets, and she said the simplest and best way for us to honor Jim Gifford is by examining cyber monday uggs sale his life .

And then by trying our best to live like him.

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The PostStandard who received the following note from a longtime colleague of Jim Gifford's at the Van Duyn Home Hospital, where Gifford worked for almost 40 red bottom shoes years until he retired in 2002. The correspondent asked to remain red bottom shoes anonymous:

I worked with Jim at Van Duyn. Every day, he BROUGHT IT to his job . touching lives, ugg boots black friday sharing laughter, all the while in motion as the mailman for the facility. Jim contributed to humanity on a daily basis, with joy in his heart.

He was quiet, but always smiling. When he retired, I asked him if would do some volunteering with me in a recreation program. He told me, "No, I plan on volunteering for Community General Hospital, where my mother (a nurse) had volunteered ."

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