Have I Seen This Before?
As summer approaches, there is much to look forward to. There is also a little to temporarily miss in the calendar's turning. Our church's Wednesday night supper runs with the school year . This means that, for a few months, we will miss out on the serendipitous and instructive mixing and remixing that this gathering provides.
Sometimes the same faces can present new lessons. In January, my wife and I approached a table to sit with a father and son we did not know. The son, about 10, responded to the approach of my wheelchair by moving a chair out of my way. His dad complimented him out loud on this gracious gesture. He beamed. Fresh from this specific affirmation, the boy responded instantly when his father asked him to move something on the table out of my wife's way. Adult to adult, I went about my usual combination of introduction, interview, and maybe interrogation in order to find out all I could about what the father did for a living. His son tuned in even more intently. Dad's work meant that the two of them were going to be traveling together over the next couple of days, and the son fidgeted with anticipation. The conversation moved on to other things, none of which prepared me for this father's last effort to help us get to know his son better. You know, he said, my son failed his last grade. The boy deflated visibly.
I saw the same father last Wednesday in the same setting. He was kidding around with a child from another family, and the child was clearly very comfortable with him from previous experience. Back at his own table with the son I met in January, the same attentive energy was evident on the son's part. Even through the crowd which separated us this time, the bonds of a healthy relationship were clear. Did I want to see something different after five months had elapsed? Did I want to confirm this father's harshness or thoughtlessness for the purposes of a riveting cautionary narrative my readers might admire? Or, were my expectations filtering how I saw this father for a more serious reason?
Fatherhood has been The Next Chapter for me for many years. People need not identify with every particular of the struggles of infertility and adoption, or even with my biblical language, in order to see an applicable warning. Whatever the Next Chapter we eagerly anticipate, these desires can distort our present perspective. What we long for can perpetually present, as A.W. Tozer said of a Christian's study of future events, the dustbin for everything we don't want to deal with right now. The Bible directly says in Proverbs 13:12 that a dream deferred makes the heart sick. The sick heart which is impatient and is becoming bitter readily, rigidly classifies those who already have what we want.
In watching this father and making my implicit, prideful projections, I suffer from a self-delusion that can infect us whatever we set our hearts on. Forget, I have fed myself steadily, that you can be inconsistent as a worker when comparing the caffeinated optimism of the morning with the lull and cynicism of the afternoon. Forget your inconsistency in marriage while partnered with a consistently lovely and loving woman. In this role preparatory for parenthood, you gyrate wildly between carefully chosen words of affirmation and caustic, venting commentary. Forget the thread of inconsistency which runs through my every chapter and every relationship. I readily convince myself, and perhaps I'm not alone, that The Next Chapter will reveal my perfection. Crucially, that Next Role will make clear my superiority to everyone else who has ever attempted it.
Meanwhile, the self-talk goes, I'll classify. I'll gather evidence of faults. I'll enslave the instincts God gave me as a reader, writer, and counselor, narrative-lovers all. Hypotheses will harden. The obstructed observations of a moment in time can progress on only one course, I adjudicate. Sin brings forth death, after all. God may make room for His grace to intervene between attitude or action and the delay or reversal of its worst possible consequence. He may loose disorderly grace. My selective manipulation of the order He created and the Word He breathed reveal that I don't expect it. I am, ironically, the dad who affixes the label of A failure to A season or area of someone's struggle.
His mercies new each morning present a telling choice. We could take the opportunity to give ourselves a brand-new classification and begin to skew reality to live up to it. Or, we could learn from the pattern of the day before. As I am the same inconsistent man who went to bed last night, and I will take his flaws into whatever shiny novelty this day presents, I might, just might, rejoice in each instance, each inch, of improvement. I might, with a more grace-saturated measure toward myself, rejoice in a dad who is more encouraging than he was five months ago. Such re-framing is worth drafting a new narrative.
Sometimes the same faces can present new lessons. In January, my wife and I approached a table to sit with a father and son we did not know. The son, about 10, responded to the approach of my wheelchair by moving a chair out of my way. His dad complimented him out loud on this gracious gesture. He beamed. Fresh from this specific affirmation, the boy responded instantly when his father asked him to move something on the table out of my wife's way. Adult to adult, I went about my usual combination of introduction, interview, and maybe interrogation in order to find out all I could about what the father did for a living. His son tuned in even more intently. Dad's work meant that the two of them were going to be traveling together over the next couple of days, and the son fidgeted with anticipation. The conversation moved on to other things, none of which prepared me for this father's last effort to help us get to know his son better. You know, he said, my son failed his last grade. The boy deflated visibly.
I saw the same father last Wednesday in the same setting. He was kidding around with a child from another family, and the child was clearly very comfortable with him from previous experience. Back at his own table with the son I met in January, the same attentive energy was evident on the son's part. Even through the crowd which separated us this time, the bonds of a healthy relationship were clear. Did I want to see something different after five months had elapsed? Did I want to confirm this father's harshness or thoughtlessness for the purposes of a riveting cautionary narrative my readers might admire? Or, were my expectations filtering how I saw this father for a more serious reason?
Fatherhood has been The Next Chapter for me for many years. People need not identify with every particular of the struggles of infertility and adoption, or even with my biblical language, in order to see an applicable warning. Whatever the Next Chapter we eagerly anticipate, these desires can distort our present perspective. What we long for can perpetually present, as A.W. Tozer said of a Christian's study of future events, the dustbin for everything we don't want to deal with right now. The Bible directly says in Proverbs 13:12 that a dream deferred makes the heart sick. The sick heart which is impatient and is becoming bitter readily, rigidly classifies those who already have what we want.
In watching this father and making my implicit, prideful projections, I suffer from a self-delusion that can infect us whatever we set our hearts on. Forget, I have fed myself steadily, that you can be inconsistent as a worker when comparing the caffeinated optimism of the morning with the lull and cynicism of the afternoon. Forget your inconsistency in marriage while partnered with a consistently lovely and loving woman. In this role preparatory for parenthood, you gyrate wildly between carefully chosen words of affirmation and caustic, venting commentary. Forget the thread of inconsistency which runs through my every chapter and every relationship. I readily convince myself, and perhaps I'm not alone, that The Next Chapter will reveal my perfection. Crucially, that Next Role will make clear my superiority to everyone else who has ever attempted it.
Meanwhile, the self-talk goes, I'll classify. I'll gather evidence of faults. I'll enslave the instincts God gave me as a reader, writer, and counselor, narrative-lovers all. Hypotheses will harden. The obstructed observations of a moment in time can progress on only one course, I adjudicate. Sin brings forth death, after all. God may make room for His grace to intervene between attitude or action and the delay or reversal of its worst possible consequence. He may loose disorderly grace. My selective manipulation of the order He created and the Word He breathed reveal that I don't expect it. I am, ironically, the dad who affixes the label of A failure to A season or area of someone's struggle.
His mercies new each morning present a telling choice. We could take the opportunity to give ourselves a brand-new classification and begin to skew reality to live up to it. Or, we could learn from the pattern of the day before. As I am the same inconsistent man who went to bed last night, and I will take his flaws into whatever shiny novelty this day presents, I might, just might, rejoice in each instance, each inch, of improvement. I might, with a more grace-saturated measure toward myself, rejoice in a dad who is more encouraging than he was five months ago. Such re-framing is worth drafting a new narrative.
A lot to think about on a lot of levels. Home run
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