Father's Day Reflections

My Dad and I got off to a shaky start in more than one way.  I was born in 1945 when he was still in France.  World War II ended in time for him to come home for Thanksgiving when I was 7 months old.  This delay in bonding wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that there was a second and larger problem.  My Dad had no idea how he negatively impacted my concept of myself as I began to develop.

Dad did not know Jesus as his personal Savior until I was 7 years old.  Even after he made a commitment to follow Christ and gave up some of his unsavory habits, he did not understand the hurtfulness of things he said to me.  Although there was a level on which I was sure he loved me, I was wounded by frequent comments that I was fat or stupid or a “sukie.”  That was his word for someone who lacked courage.

Right up through my teenage years, I could not reconcile my excellent grades and the admiration of my intelligence by some family members with my Dad’s comments that I was stupid.  I was always surprised with the high scores I received on standardized tests.  How could I be stupid and score in the top 1 or 2 percent?  I know it sounds ridiculous, but one tends to believe what a parent says.  I remember hearing Dad say that there was no point in educating women.  I knew I wanted an education and had no idea how this would happen.

Having him call me “fatty” was part of what made me feel awkward and uncomfortable about my body.  There was a time in my childhood when illness caused me to become too thin and other times when I was too heavy.  I always felt uncomfortable in my skin.

Dad was very proud of my singing voice.  He would tell me that I sang like a bird.  But, he caused me to be terrified the very first time I sang a solo.  I was only about 8 years old.  The title of the song was “I’ll be a Sun Beam.”  He teased me unmercifully that I was going to get up and sing, “I’ll be a bum seam.”  He thought this was funny.

It was a wonder I learned to drive.  He had no patience and was given to yelling even when I was behind the wheel.  I remember one occasion when we were in city traffic, and he got so nasty, that right out in the driving lane, I put the car into “park,” got out and moved to the back seat.  The only reason I persevered in getting my license was that my mother had never learned to drive, and I refused to be as dependent as she was.

I have no idea how I had the courage to attend a college out-of-state and hundreds of miles from home, but it was a God-inspired decision.  I learned that I could not be timid, that a certain amount of self-confidence was right and good and necessary for survival.  It was not sinful to figure out what gifts God had given me and to determine to use them with His help and for His glory.  I lost weight, got contact lenses, figured out how to wear make-up, became a nurse, put myself through college AND forgave my father, and all of this was by the grace of God.

After my Mother’s death, Dad lived with us for about 8 years.  We did not always get along or see eye to eye, but we did live together in peace the vast majority of the time.  I tried once during those years to talk to him about the hurt…to get it out in the open.  I thought I would start by telling him that it was hurtful to me that he had helped my brothers with their college education.  He had helped me with nursing school, the entirety of which was equivalent to about one semester of college, and after that I was on my own.  I had to work hard to pay for my college expenses, and I had not been able to participate in extra activities on campus.  His only comment was, “Well, you didn’t come out with any debt, did you?”  Actually I had come out with some debt, although minor.  But, his rather defiant tone and facial expression made it clear that he was not able to understand.  I gave up on trying to express my feelings.  I just forgave him again.

I loved my Dad.

I am not perfect either….some of his rough edges may even live on in me.

One of the things we must do as Christians is to lovingly forgive each other for being frail and imperfect. 

God, our heavenly Father, does.

Let There Be Light

Millennia ago man did not know that E=mc².  He did not know that matter and energy were interchangeable.   Nor did he know that photosynthesis was capturing the energy of the sun and embedding it into green plants to be released later as the vegetation was eaten or turned into fossils fuels.  Our total dependency on the sun as an energy source or even our need for an energy source was unknown to man. 

And yet….Genesis relates that God said, “Let there be light.”

The “wisemen” of this age would have us believe that there is no God, and that the creation story is a myth.  I want to know, if that is the case, how of all things did a mere mortal (and a primitive one, at that) decide that the beginning of it all was the statement, “Let there be light.”  Why did he not say, “And one of the gods took a lump of clay and rolled it into a ball, and it became earth.”

NO!  The creation story begins correctly and accurately, because God Himself revealed the truth.  The energy source had to come first.

An infinite God, who is Himself “light,” could give of Himself without diminishing Himself.  He is the ultimate and only necessary source of light.  When this world passes away, and the sun and moon disappear, He tells us in Revelation that there will be no need for them, because He will be the Light.

When God stepped into human history in the form of Christ, He said, “I am the Light of the world.”  Many places in the Bible repeat this theme.  We are told that some men choose to walk in darkness, because they mistakenly think it will hide their evil deeds.  We are told that some are blind in a spiritual sense, just as some are physically blind.  Light and the ability to see which is dependent on it are persistent themes.

It all began with Light!  It will end with Light.  We are sustained by, live and move and have our being in that Light.  Any man may choose not to believe this.  He can refuse Light in a spiritual sense, but He cannot refuse it in a physical sense.  Even the atheist is dependent on the Light….he just doesn’t know that God is the source.

A Miss is as good as a Mile...well, almost

My granddaughter called last evening and asked if she could come to church with us today, and then if I would take her grocery shopping afterward.  She doesn't have a car, and the grocery store with the best prices is on the other side of town from her apartment.

We finished the shopping, loaded in the groceries, and started home along the busy 4-lane, plus center turning lane, street which passes by most of the grocery stores, plazas and fast food joints in town.  I'm not sure why the city allowed that street to over-develop in such a fashion, but that's another story.

The Burger King is on the corner of a dead-end side street which does indeed have a stop sign.  As we approached it, a car with a young male driver came tearing out of the side street, did not stop at the stop sign, and did a U-turn through my lane and into the BK parking lot.  I slammed on the brakes and pulled a bit to the left, but couldn't go very far in that direction, because there was a lane of traffic on my left.  I came to an abrupt halt just missing the offending vehicle whose driver was looking to his right and seemed to be totally oblivious to what he had just done.

Everything in our car shifted.  The thought flashing through my mind was that I have only owned this nice new car for a month.  My granddaughter, who is a potty-mouth, said, #%*@!!!
Then she said, "You idiot!  You made me swear in front of my grandma!"
So much for personal responsibility for one's conduct.

The miss would have been as good as a mile, except that today was a Coffee Hour at church, and the remains of a rhubarb cake with crumb topping were on the back seat.  The abrupt stop sent the dish sailing onto the floor.  There are now cake crumbs all over the floor of the back seat area.  Looks like I will be getting out the vacuum cleaner.

Macbeth Revisited

Fifty-one years ago, when I graduated from high school, I used a passage from Macbeth as the jumping off point for my graduation speech.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.  It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

I used this passage, because it demonstrated such a contrast to what I believed about life then, and it still does today after 50+ more years of life.  I have pondered it again recently, because two students I am tutoring are reading Macbeth.

How did Macbeth arrive at this point of bitterness and despair?  My answer is that he accepted no moral absolutes and believed that he could manipulate events to achieve his destiny.  He was unwilling to leave his future in the hands of either God or fate.  I know some people like that!  They may not be murderers, as Macbeth was, but they certainly do try to manipulate outcomes and do not concern themselves with what is “right” or “wrong” in the process. 

The solution is to:

1.        Agree with God about what constitutes right and wrong.

2.       Acknowledge that it is impossible to be “good” on one’s own.

3.       Believe in the redemption offered through the death of Christ.

4.       Put the future in God’s hands.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge him,

And he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3: 5-6 (NIV)

This does not guarantee smooth sailing in life.  If my future had been revealed to me on that graduation day, I would have been sure there was some mistake.  “Hey, that can’t be my life….you’ve got me mixed up with someone else!” 

But, what this approach to life does is to give one a means of dealing with both the agony and the ecstasy.  It removes a great burden of anxiety over the future.  It is still OK to have long term and short term goals, and to make plans, but it is done without attempts at manipulation of people and events.  It avoids the temptation to rage when circumstances don’t fall into place in the desired fashion.

Life is not meant to be “a tale told by an idiot.”

I am come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Jesus Christ in John 10:10

Helen by Euripides

Soooooooo…..after reading all of these plays in which the Trojan war is described, and Helen is blamed for it, we are now supposed to believe that she was actually in Egypt the whole time, and it was a phantom Helen that ran off to Troy with Paris.

Helen opens this play with a monologue about her woes.  She was a good and true wife to Menelaus, but Zeus was looking for a way to decrease the population of mankind, and Cypris was looking to make trouble, so Paris was enticed by Helen’s beauty into coming to Sparta to try and win her.  He believed he was carrying her off to Troy, but it was really only a pretend Helen… "an image out of the breath of heaven.”  The real Helen was whisked off to the home of Proteus in Egypt, because he was the most virtuous of all men and would keep and protect her until she could be reunited with Menelaus.  

Menelaus and the hosts from Sparta pursued Paris and many years of war ensued in the attempt to retrieve Helen.  Many men died on both sides, so Zeus accomplished his purpose of population control.  When the war was over, Menelaus thought he had won Helen back and set sail for home, only to wander about having trouble for many more years….and of course, he only had the phantom Helen.

Meantime, Proteus died and his son Theoclymenus, instead of protecting Helen decided that he wanted her for himself.  But, Menelaus and his men are shipwrecked on the shores of Theoclymenus’ kingdom.  Theoclymenus will kill him if he figures this out.  Helen and Menelaus meet and hatch a plan for their escape, but it requires enlisting the help of Theoclymenus’ sister Theonoe, who is a prophetess.  They convince her that helping them is in keeping with the gods’ wishes, so she agrees not to tip Theoclymenus off as to what is really happening.

Menelaus pretends that he is arriving with news of the death of Menelaus.  Helen convinces Theoclymenus that she will be a true wife to him once she has been allowed to bury her previous husband Menelaus at sea.  Theoclymenus is talked into giving her a ship and the other things she needs for the proper burial rituals.  But, Menalaus’ men, who have been hiding in a nearby cave, join him on the ship and overpower the crew.  Helen and Menelaus and the Spartans make good their escape.  Theoclymenus is talked out of pursuing them by the appearance above him of Castor and Pollux, who are brothers of Helen, and who tell him that it is the will of the gods for Helen and Menelaus to be reunited.

Interesting quotes:

*Helen bemoans her beauty as a curse.  Would God I could rub my beauty out as a picture, and assume hereafter in its stead a form less comely…”

*She ponders suicide rather than an unhappy marriage.  …when a husband she loathes is mated with a woman, even life is loathly to her.  Best for her to die; but how shall I die a noble death?

When Menelaus arrives shipwrecked and in rags…This is the crowning woe in all my misery, to beg the means of life from other princes, prince though I be myself; still needs must I.  Yea, this is no saying of mine, but a word of wisdom, “Naught in might exceedeth dread necessity.”

Helen tries to get Theoclymenus to behave as nobly as his father Proteus would have….reflect thy father’s justice; for this is the fairest ornament of children, when the child of a virtuous sire resembles its parents in character.

Conclusion of the chorus:  Many are the forms the heavenly will assumes; and many a thing God brings to pass contrary to expectation; that which was looked for is not accomplished, while Heaven finds out a way for what we never hoped; e’en such has been the issue here.

My conclusion…..All that Trojan War fuss over a phantom Helen?!?!?!?!?

Awake at Night

Running down the corridors,

Drifting ‘round the room,

Creeping o’er my coverlets,

Silent as a tomb.

Grisly, ghost-like images,

Tangled webs of thought,

Meaningless, nonsensical,

With feelings overwrought.

Why does sleep elude me,

Why visions strange appear,

Unbidden torrents sweep about

And produce unholy fear?

Where is that blissful rest?

Have I not earned the peace,

Of sweet, secure oblivion,

A respite from life’s griefs?

But fitfully I toss,

Barely submerged in gray,

And too soon dawns the clarity,

Of the sunlit, breaking day.

Narcissus

Delicate white petals

Surrounding a smile of gold,

Balanced on a stalk,

Slender and green.

Narcissus

Handsome youth

With golden smile

Balanced on the brink

Of glassy pond.

Narcissus

Self-absorbed youth,

Arrogant smile,

Teeters on the slender edge

Of inevitable disaster.

Narcissistic