Trinity Lutheran Church LCMS

Willliam (Bill) Bryan Loftis Sr.

Bill passed away peacefully in his sleep at his own home with his family on March 2, 2024 in Scotts Mills, Oregon due to advanced chronic pulmonary failure.

Bill was born December 2, 1938, in Inglewood California. He had an older brother, Kenneth Howard Loftis. His parents were Howard Bryan Loftis and Katheryn Vertress Loftis. He lived a typical happy faith-based childhood going to public school and graduating high school in Lynwood, California in 1957.

On his 18th birthday he joined the US Navy and was assigned to the heavy cruiser USS LOS ANGELES CA 135, on which he completed his tours of duty, mostly in and around
Tawain and Australia.

In1955 the ship pulled into Portland Oregon for the Annual Rose Parade. There Bill met Joyce Sweger, a student nurse who came aboard the ship with girlfriends for a tour of the ship. Bill not only gave her a tour they exchanged address's and were married after their graduation and discharge. That marriage was blessed with two sons, William B. Loftis, Jr. and Kenneth D. Loftis, Sr. and a grandson Kenneth D. Loftis, Jr. and granddaughter Stephanie Nicole Loftis.

After discharge they moved to Molalla, Oregon and Bill began what become a successful forty-year career working for AT&T phone company. He started at the “bottom,” digging holes and planting telephone poles in rural Molalla and ended as a Corporate Systems Engineer in Los Angles, California. After retiring Bill and Joyce moved back to the area they loved and built their retirement home. They were truly blessed by finding their perfect retirement home in "God’s Country."

A graveside service is planned on Friday, April 19, 2024, at 10:00 AM at Willamette National Cemetery, 11800 SE Mt. Scott Blvd., Happy Valley, OR 97086. 503-273-5250.

Joyce Sweger Loftis
April 2024

“Why do we call it good?” Reflection on Good Friday
by Rhoda Schuler, ForingLutherans.org

Several decades ago, one Wednesday evening after a particularly difficult session with a singularly unruly class, the devout lay woman and long-time teacher for fifth- and sixth-grade confirmation instruction at our church had had enough; she quit. Feeling called (reluctantly, like Jonah) to step into the role and finish the school year, I took up my cross and entered the classroom the following Wednesday.

My only clear memory of those weeks as their confirmation teacher was this question posed by Douglas, a pistol of a kid who was rarely engaged in the material and was prone to disruptive behavior: “If it’s the day Jesus died, why do we call it good?” Not one to think quickly in such a situation, all I could say was, “That’s an excellent question, Douglas.” A profound one, indeed. If I were to meet Douglas today, I might answer him with several stanzas from the Holy Week hymn by Venantius Honorius Fortunatus (c. 530-609).
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle; sing the ending of the fray.
Now above the cross, the trophy, sound the loud triumphant lay;
Tell how Christ, the world’s Redeemer, as a victim won the day.
+++
God, in mercy saw us fallen, sunk in shame and misery,
felled to death in Eden’s garden, where in pride we claimed the tree;
then another tree was chosen, which the world from death would free.
+++
Faithful cross, true sign of triumph, be for all the noblest tree;
None in foliage, none in blossom, none in fruit your equal be;
Symbol of the world’s redemption, for your burden makes us free.
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Lutheran Service Book #454, stanza 1; Evangelical Book of Worship #355, stanza 2; Lutheran Book of Worship #118, stanza 4

If I were back in that fifth- and sixth-grade classroom this week, I might point out to Douglas and the whole class the paradoxical nature of the cross, first leading them to an understanding of the cross as symbol of shame and brutal form of capital punishment wielded by the Roman Empire, and then to deeper knowledge of the cross as a “true sign of triumph,” and as a “symbol of the world’s redemption.” I would pray that as Spring brings forth foliage, blossom, and fruit on the many trees lining their streets and in their yards, parks, and orchards, they would compare those to the noblest of trees, the cross, noblest because of the “burden” it bore—the scourged body of Jesus, whose death “makes us free.”

Frederick Buechner (7/11/1926-8/15/2022) The Frederick Buechner Center  Welcome