[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, June 7, 2014

[Paul]

Hello to all of you on this Saturday with the exception of you down there in the South Pacific where it's already the Lord's Day morning.  Hope you are getting ready now to leave your houses and/or apartments to attend your local house of worship, and that you and your fellow congregants will get a good word from the Lord as imparted to you by your pastors and/or Sunday school teachers.  More importantly, I pray that you will apply to your individual lives what you will hear and learn as the gracious Holy Spirit leads, guides and directs.

Anyone here know a writer by the name of Anne Kennedy? I don't think that she is a part of the famous Kennedy clan from Hyannis, MA, but one never knows.  After all, that is somewhat of a popular name around here in the U.S., though by no means the most popular.  Anyway Ms. Kennedy wrote an article some years ago entitled "Someone To Remember:  My Father's Patience," rendered as follows:

I recently completed work on a production of "The Sound of Music," a play wherein the father of seven children is a retired naval officer and runs his household as he would a shipload of unruly recruits.  When cast members discovered that my father was also a naval officer, they conjured images of my brothers and me marching down the steps of our various military quarters, sporting matching sailor suits, and shouting our names when prompted by a staccato whistle or angry bark.  I laughed it off but, looking back, I can see how Dad might have been tempted to follow the Captain von Trapp model.

My father grew up in an environment where planning and preparedness were unquestioned.  My grandfather, a former navy pilot, encouraged his sons to become Eagle Scouts, and both boys subsequently earned ROTC scholarships, joined their father's fraternity, and became officers in the United States Navy.

My father's life is a remarkable testament to the benefits of planning.  I recall cross-country trips when Dad woke everyone before daybreak so we could be "in the stream headed fair" by 6 a.m. and fit in two good hours of driving before breakfast.  At home Dad set all our clocks ahead at intervals.  On Sundays, he shepherded us out of the house before sunup to make the first service at church.  We were early to everything.

Because his job took him out of our lives for long periods, Dad became something of a special-occasion parent who inspired a respectful awe.  He must have been uncomfortable with this distance because, when my brothers were in elementary school and I was only four, Dad announced we would begin a new tradition.  He would take each of us out once a month for a one-on-one date wherever we wanted to go.  These "special times" grew into the foundation of a deeper relationship with our father.

Despite his penchant for planning and agendas, my father developed an incredible amount of patience and enthusiasm for his children's meandering whims.  He was equally accepting of "I want to just bum around the mall and look for skateboard wheels" as he was of "Let's see, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Again!" Whatever we did, Dad followed our lead.  He never filled our times together with probing inquiries or parental advice.  He simply listened.  One night a month, he threw away his planner and we knew he was on our side.

As I entered high school, this fatherly patience only increased.  Dad drove me to school every day on his way to work.  A man quiet by nature, he valued serenity in the morning.  But I had drama to work through, teachers to complain about, and boys to consider.  I also habitually forgot to take inventory of my schoolbooks until we were on the road, and I more than once meekly asked him to return home so I could retrieve "Romeo and Juliet" or my calculus text.  Pulling a U-turn, he would recite the balcony scene as a kind of Three Stooges routine.  When I returned with book in hand, we were ten minutes late, but laughing.  He daily reminded me that I was his priority--getting to work on time was only icing on the cake.

Since I have left home, I have noticed my father's patience in new ways.  When I announced I would major in creative writing and pursue a career in theater, my Dad, the engineer, told me to go for it.  And when I performed in my first college production, a dark, two-and-a-half-hour "Macbeth," he took time off, flew from Honolulu to Seattle, and caught two shows, even though I had no lines and spent most of the show lurking through stage fog, covered in black muslin.  Afterwards, he told me I was wonderful, but wondered why we had left out his favorite line:  "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?"

A friend once told me she avoids calling her father because he invariably peppers her with advice, then demands to know what she is doing with her life.  I remember wondering what makes my father so different.  I am certain he worries about me, as most parents do, but he is confident that if I have an issue I will tell him because, as he often reminds me, "I'm in your corner, Sweetheart."

Last week he was in town for a few days and we arranged to meet at 7:30 for breakfast at a local diner.  At 7:35, I awoke with a jolt and frantically called Dad, apologizing and assuring him that I would be there as soon as possible.

"Don't worry, Sweetheart, I can wait.  Just be careful on the roads.  It's cold out there."

I am who I am.  And my father still patiently loves me.

And there you have Ms. Kennedy's article which I trust was a blessing.  Perhaps your father is or was not Like Ms. Kennedy's Dad (or whatever name she now has if she is married), but if you had a similar father, I hope he was like hers.

Interestingly, this idea about arriving early for an appointment also was one of my Dad's habits.  When I mentioned it to an acquaintance, he said that arriving before you are expected is biblical, but I can't find a place in the Bible that even remotely addresses this subject.  Can any of you shed some light on this? Thanks.

Don't forget that, Lord willing tomorrow we will have our weekly Bible game, this time from the New Testament, so get your thinking caps ready.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul