We sing this song in church sometimes, and I think of it as my personal prayer to God. It goes something like this: "the fatherless find their rest in your Great Name...Jesus, worthy is the lamb who was slain for us...son of God and man..." So there in a nutshell is my theological belief: the very personal Jesus who has been my comfort and rest in all of these years of being fatherless. He is God who entered my world and felt the same pain I feel by being separated from his Father the same as I am temporarily separated from my father. There is something supernatural at play. There is a veil that makes my understanding of Kingdom-life cloudy. Sometimes I get a glimpse of understanding of the strength and power Jesus brings to my life. He has helped me weather some hard times, self doubt, and He has given me a new life of trust and confidence in him, still imperfect, yet evident. Though death is separating us now, my hope is in a future shared with my earthly father and with Jesus. He who will lift the veil of my understanding and give me new eyes to see and ears to hear.
I wonder quite a lot what my father understood about Jesus. I think he had faith in Him. I remember that he took us to church and I remember his preferences in certain preaching. I think he chose churches based on the preaching, perhaps Wesleyan theology, but wasn't involved (at least later in life) in the administration of the church during my lifetime. I was told that at one time he was a good Sunday school teacher, but I think before I was around. When I was going through some papers I found this scripture in his handwriting: Proverbs 25:2-3 which says, "it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, to search out a matter is the glory of kings. As the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the hearts of kings are searchable." This has come to be one of my favorite verses. I wonder if it encapsulates his own belief and how he came to choose it to write down.
I think he modeled the fruits of the spirit: peace, love, joy, goodness, faithfulness, self control (in most areas but not in regards to smoking cigarettes and an occasional cigar) patience, and gentleness. I want to think more about how he reflected these in later posts.
6.12.2014
Memories
Yesterday I spent the day at the Allen County Public Library researching some genealogy. One of the things I remember about my dad was that he liked history and doing genealogy research. I think he was accepted into the Sons of the American Revolution as a result of his research, but joining selective groups isn't the reason I am interested in family history at all. What interests me are the stories. I have been able to uncover real life stories of people who were born as far back as 1795, finding things I am sure he did not know. Some of the stories I've uncovered aren't heroic or patriotic--although some are-- but rather the opposite. Just as there are people who are selfless and heroic today, there are others whose character is based on selfishness and weakness. People have the same nature, passions and desires no matter what generation. I am discovering stories of real people that I want to write about as part of my sabbatical.
But for the blog I am thinking of memories of my dad. I don't think of him as a hero, but I don't think of him as selfish or weak either. If I could use words to describe him they would be balanced and faithful. I think he was faithful to hard work, family, community and he was grounded as a man of Faith. He was balanced because he was interested in a lot of things. Golf, basketball, current events, Sunday night tv (Ed Sullivan), history, and travel come to mind.
I was thinking of one memory when he signed me up to be a page in the Indiana Legislature in Indianapolis. He was working in Indianapolis at the time, so I went with a girlfriend and it was her father who drove us to Indianapolis for the day. I was about 10 or 11 years old at the time, just beginning to become aware of things outside my narrow Royerton Road window. On that day we went to Block's Department store for lunch and then on to the Genealogy Department of the Indiana State Library. That small event must have made an impression on me because later I would work in that very Division as my first job as a librarian. One day when I was working there I dug out the daily registers hidden in the dark recesses of the storage area. I found the January 31 entry to see his name as he had inscribed it there. There is a memory in that. Years after he had passed away that signature gave me something physical to remember him by.
I inherited the research and papers that my father had collected and then some more. I've probably quadrupled the amount of information, a benefit of the ease of access to online resources and a few skills I learned in the profession. So that day, just one moment in time, ended up being a significant force in my future. Little did know at the time. I have come to love to research. I love it more than writing, although writing is what my sabbatical is about.
I hope this blog will prime me for writing about those stories. I have heard time after time that to be a writer you have to write. So this blog is my warm up exercise. I don't think what I say is profound or deep but it is personal. Writing that is personal is risky and cuts open deep gashes of the past. In that writing I hope it will heal those gashes.
But for the blog I am thinking of memories of my dad. I don't think of him as a hero, but I don't think of him as selfish or weak either. If I could use words to describe him they would be balanced and faithful. I think he was faithful to hard work, family, community and he was grounded as a man of Faith. He was balanced because he was interested in a lot of things. Golf, basketball, current events, Sunday night tv (Ed Sullivan), history, and travel come to mind.
I was thinking of one memory when he signed me up to be a page in the Indiana Legislature in Indianapolis. He was working in Indianapolis at the time, so I went with a girlfriend and it was her father who drove us to Indianapolis for the day. I was about 10 or 11 years old at the time, just beginning to become aware of things outside my narrow Royerton Road window. On that day we went to Block's Department store for lunch and then on to the Genealogy Department of the Indiana State Library. That small event must have made an impression on me because later I would work in that very Division as my first job as a librarian. One day when I was working there I dug out the daily registers hidden in the dark recesses of the storage area. I found the January 31 entry to see his name as he had inscribed it there. There is a memory in that. Years after he had passed away that signature gave me something physical to remember him by.
I inherited the research and papers that my father had collected and then some more. I've probably quadrupled the amount of information, a benefit of the ease of access to online resources and a few skills I learned in the profession. So that day, just one moment in time, ended up being a significant force in my future. Little did know at the time. I have come to love to research. I love it more than writing, although writing is what my sabbatical is about.
I hope this blog will prime me for writing about those stories. I have heard time after time that to be a writer you have to write. So this blog is my warm up exercise. I don't think what I say is profound or deep but it is personal. Writing that is personal is risky and cuts open deep gashes of the past. In that writing I hope it will heal those gashes.
6.10.2014
Father's Day Reflections
I created "The Readster" for the purpose of reviewing books and movies, but I shunned the notion of sharing anything deep and certainly nothing overtly personal. I had thought ---and still think---there is too much blatant self-promotion and indiscriminate self-disclosure on social media. I suppose I contribute a bit of that on Facebook. I have a Twitter account that I don't use. And I rarely blog. This post turns all that on its head. As I am trying to write for publication (my sabbatical project is an article/novel after all. ) I began to think that all writing is, in some form, self-disclosure. So I am going to try my hand at writing reflectively in this post. It is for all the world to see--or at least the world that happens on to it. This post is great departure from my use of social media so a toe in the water, so to speak. We'll see how it goes. It might be the last or it might be the start of a new day. That remains to be seen.
Father's Day is fast approaching. Honestly, I haven't thought much about Father's Day since I was a teenager because my father died when I was 15. For the record, I think Mother's Day, Father's Day and Valentine's Day are Hallmark holidays, vastly overrated, and consumer driven. I generally do not celebrate them or in the case of Mother's Day try to keep it pretty low key. I take my mother out for dinner at Red Lobster or Seasons 54 and that's about it.
For some reason just recently I started thinking more intentionally about my father, or what I remember of him. The trigger might have been the fact that I ran into one of my fellow professors and his wife the other day while getting ice cream at Ivanhoe's. A few years ago that colleague spent his sabbatical project discovering and researching his mother who had died when he was a boy. His project report was emotionally moving and touched me in a way I haven't forgotten.
We share some of the same scars, although I have some snippets of memory of my own father that he did not have of his mother. It is probably a truism to suggest that we tend to venerate parents who have been gone for a long time. Time has a way of magnifying the saintly characteristics while diminishing the human or less honorable ones. I have tried hard not to do that in my thoughts of him. I have tried to recreate the memories in my mind realistically. But time has a way of playing with our memory. I want to keep my thoughts and writings of him in balance.
The fact is that while our culture reveres holidays like Father's Day, I have paid little mind to it. Over the years I would say Father's Day has passed by more often than not without thought of my father. Maybe because memories are still a little painful and raw. Maybe my feelings are still unresolved. Or maybe I have focused on those people who immediately surround my life.
The truth is I have this gaping and vacuous hole when I start to think about my dad. The conversation I have with myself often begins: "I wonder what he would have thought about...x or y or z." And I wonder what kinds of conversations we would have had as adults. I wonder what kind of person I would have become had he lived to influence my choices: college, boyfriends, books, political persuasion, philosophy of life, or theological beliefs. Would I spar with him intellectually? Would we have respectful conversations? Would I have been a rebel and challenge him or would we have similar ideas? I always seem to think of these questions when I am in the car. (One of my strongest memories is that he loved to drive. Or maybe he was like me and enjoyed the fresh air and the momentum of going and returning. Did I get my love of travel and adventure from him? ) I can get quite a bit of mileage out of those questions. When I get lost in my reverie of imaginary conversations with my father time speeds. Before long I realize I have traveled from Upland to Chicago or Grand Rapids or wherever I am going.
I guess this is long enough for this post. If you have read this far I welcome your feedback. I have been thinking about reflective writing as I prepare to lead a workshop on Writing As Healing. In then next few days and weeks I hope this post puts into practice the very thing I am going to talk about. So here is my first stab at it. So let me know what you think.
Father's Day is fast approaching. Honestly, I haven't thought much about Father's Day since I was a teenager because my father died when I was 15. For the record, I think Mother's Day, Father's Day and Valentine's Day are Hallmark holidays, vastly overrated, and consumer driven. I generally do not celebrate them or in the case of Mother's Day try to keep it pretty low key. I take my mother out for dinner at Red Lobster or Seasons 54 and that's about it.
For some reason just recently I started thinking more intentionally about my father, or what I remember of him. The trigger might have been the fact that I ran into one of my fellow professors and his wife the other day while getting ice cream at Ivanhoe's. A few years ago that colleague spent his sabbatical project discovering and researching his mother who had died when he was a boy. His project report was emotionally moving and touched me in a way I haven't forgotten.
We share some of the same scars, although I have some snippets of memory of my own father that he did not have of his mother. It is probably a truism to suggest that we tend to venerate parents who have been gone for a long time. Time has a way of magnifying the saintly characteristics while diminishing the human or less honorable ones. I have tried hard not to do that in my thoughts of him. I have tried to recreate the memories in my mind realistically. But time has a way of playing with our memory. I want to keep my thoughts and writings of him in balance.
The fact is that while our culture reveres holidays like Father's Day, I have paid little mind to it. Over the years I would say Father's Day has passed by more often than not without thought of my father. Maybe because memories are still a little painful and raw. Maybe my feelings are still unresolved. Or maybe I have focused on those people who immediately surround my life.
The truth is I have this gaping and vacuous hole when I start to think about my dad. The conversation I have with myself often begins: "I wonder what he would have thought about...x or y or z." And I wonder what kinds of conversations we would have had as adults. I wonder what kind of person I would have become had he lived to influence my choices: college, boyfriends, books, political persuasion, philosophy of life, or theological beliefs. Would I spar with him intellectually? Would we have respectful conversations? Would I have been a rebel and challenge him or would we have similar ideas? I always seem to think of these questions when I am in the car. (One of my strongest memories is that he loved to drive. Or maybe he was like me and enjoyed the fresh air and the momentum of going and returning. Did I get my love of travel and adventure from him? ) I can get quite a bit of mileage out of those questions. When I get lost in my reverie of imaginary conversations with my father time speeds. Before long I realize I have traveled from Upland to Chicago or Grand Rapids or wherever I am going.
I guess this is long enough for this post. If you have read this far I welcome your feedback. I have been thinking about reflective writing as I prepare to lead a workshop on Writing As Healing. In then next few days and weeks I hope this post puts into practice the very thing I am going to talk about. So here is my first stab at it. So let me know what you think.
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