. Eclectic blogs by theDaddy!

 

GRAVITATIONAL PULL

One of the few original thoughts of David L Lewis

There are very few times when this writer takes credit for having an original thought. Do feel justified to do so here largely because I have so few such thoughts:

No one ever completely escapes

gravitational pull of their own childhood

There is a current series of TV commercials based on principle that sooner or later we all become our parents. Not exactly a new idea; nature vs. nurture has been a conundrum since birth of psychiatry. As with most such ideas, there is good and bad in the message...

.....On the one hand, it is no secret the greatest influences on my life were my father and mother. There probably has not been a week go by in past 60+ years when I have not remembered something one of them said. Standing at their grave I told our children that all that may be good in me – and therefore all that is good in my children – is because of my parents.

.....On the other hand, as previously chronicled, the perceptions of a child are the perceptions of a child. Sometimes the gravitational pull of what we learned is not at all what our parents, or we as parents, meant to teach.

Recognizing the world we see is the world we see, these are some of the gravitational pulls of my childhood as I now see them.

The Beneficial

Fluency

When anyone says I ‘write good’ I know where it comes from. I was exposed to an expansive vocabulary and love of the English language. From daddy came Shakespeare, from mother King James Bible. Incorporated into me daily as a way of life was choosing and using words correctly so as to be understood. Really learned to write in 5th grade when my father was upset about something I wrote. I realized wrong punctuation changed meaning from what I wanted to say! If I have nothing to say, at least my parents left me saying it proper-like.

Gentlemanly

“A gentleman avoids even the very appearance of evil.”
“A gentleman never knowingly causes harm to another”.
“A gentleman judges no man until he walks in their shoes.”
“A gentleman never says ‘you said’, gentlemen say, ‘I heard.’”
“A gentleman treats women with kindness, dignity, and respect.”
How am I doing, daddy?

Hospitality

An attribute of Christian living our parents certainly showed many times was entertaining strangers. Throughout childhood my bed was loaned to visiting missionaries and/or traveling evangelists. My sister gave her ‘she’s a girl’ room first to a homeless domestic violence victim and then to three of our grandparents in turn. Kay and I have not had as many opportunities to ‘entertain angels’. But, we did our bit more often than space here allows because that’s what Christians do.

Agape Love

Agape is Greek word for God’s love for His children, and of the love we are to have one for another. It is the love which our parents showed for each other and for their children. Our parents demonstrated Agape is honest in all interactions, assumes virtue until evil shows it’s head, gives unsought encouragement, speaks positively where speaking is constructive, keeps silent when truth can only cause hurt, shows affection Agape brings forth. For more complete definition of Agape see NOTE below.

The Nebulous

Empathy

I learned two things from our parents about being emphatic.

First, to never say “I understand what you’re going through” if I have never gone trough what someone is going through. But, if a person is hurting, identify with pain and care they are in pain.

• The second attitude produced in me is that if I see a problem I want to solve it, and not simply complain about there being a problem. Offer help when needed, gracefully appreciate unsought help received whether needed or not.

In retrospect, though, often pain must await the healing of time, and my caring only adds to my pain. And, sometimes, really quite often, the problem is not mine to solve and I should leave it lay.

Conflict

If my parents ever disagreed on anything I am to this day unaware of what it might have been. Surely they did. It was just not an attitude they wanted to reproduce in their children. Looking back at my life, though, it not so clear this was all that helpful in navigating the world in which we actually live.

Worldview

It is hard to find the right words to describe world to which my parents opened my young mind to appreciate even when no one else saw the world thus. The worldview I incorporated comes down to, but not limited to...

• Curiosity about all the good and bad of life,

• appreciation of beauty for the sake of beauty,

• love of music for what music brings to soul of man,

• never ending search for knowledge for sake of knowing,

• openness to the Romantic, Abstract, Nostalgic, Humorous.

The drawback of such worldview, if that it be, is seeing a world for what it could be, and not always as it is.

Just writing for every generation limited, or liberated, by the gravitational pull of their own childhood.

theDaddy!

NOTE on Agape: Perhaps in hopes of reflecting their love of Jesus and each other our parents had us memorize I Corinthians 13…

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,

but have not love,

I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy,

and know all mysteries and all knowledge;

and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but have not love, I am nothing.

And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,

and if I give my body to be burned,

but have not love, it profit me nothing.

Love suffers long, and is kind;

love envies not; love vaunted not itself,

is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly,

seeks not its own, is not provoked,

takes not account of evil;

rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails:

but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away;

whether there be tongues, they shall cease;

whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 

but when that which is perfect is come,

that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child,

I felt as a child, I thought as a child:

now that I am become a man,

I have put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, darkly;

but then face to face:

now I know in part;

but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

But now abides faith, hope, love, these three;

and the greatest of these is love.