Out of the Mouth of Babes

Posted on Updated on

I’ve found that “truth” is often spoken from the least likely of people and can catch me off guard. It causes me to pause, or in some instances takes my breath away completely. None-the-less it is still the “truth”. I remember vividly one such moment in our family adventure that rocked my world.

It was a normal Sunday morning when the three older kids were little. I was a part-time associate pastor on staff at our local church at the time. My responsibilities there were varied and shall we say, plentiful. My internal pressure to have it together and be on time was a constant nag. A great stress creator.

We were all getting ready to go to church like usual. The pitch was fevered. The rush was apparent. It was that typical Sunday morning frenzy. So much energy being spent in getting all of us ready. After all it was the “big” event. The chaos was palpable. There were only 5 of us at the time, but it might as well have been 50. Trying to get us all moving in the same direction in a timely manner was like herding cats. It was never going to happen.

I know I’m not the only one to experience this ritual. So many of you reading this know exactly what I am talking about. You could write this post yourself. And here’s the kicker. As those dedicated to the religious it is almost our God given duty to blame this chaos on Satan himself.

“The devil just wants to mess up our day! God has great things for us and Satan is mad about it.” can be a commonly offered rational for the mayhem.  Never mind that my internal pressure is building because I have an over  exaggerated religious sense of obligation hanging over me. After all, we are staff so we have to get this together. People will be watching!

So, all the while as we are “herding the cats” there is a sharpness in my voice, frustrated stares in my eyes, impatience in my posture, all giving off a definite sense that the kids are the problem here. They should know better by now. We go to church every Sunday! This isn’t new!

Come on people. Get it together! This was my state of mind at the time.

Well, in spite of everything to the contrary, we did eventually aim ourselves in the same direction. We headed out the door and up the steps to the mini-van. We’re all getting ourselves situated; strapping in the kids to various car seats and boosters. Snugging down the seat belts and making sure we had accounted for everyone. Martha and I took our seats and did the same. As I started the van I turned and said to the kids over my shoulder,

“Smile everybody.”

And out from the back seat came the reply from our dear sweet Annie,

“Why Daddy? We aren’t at church yet.”

And… there it was in all its unadulterated glory.

In that one simple honest question the truth had been unearthed. The lie had been unmasked. It felt like I was just sucker punched in the gut.  I was teaching my children to be religious. Simply put, what things look like are more important than the truth. Ouch! Having people think we had it together was more important than how I actually was treating my own family. If there was ever a good time to swear, that would have been it.

Truth is truth plain and simple. Its source doesn’t change it, even when it comes from out of the mouth of babes.

This entry was posted in Church Life, Family and tagged , , , , , , , .

Set Depth at 350 Feet

Posted on

“Sonar contact bearing 010. Orders Captain?”

Like a familiar smell that triggers a distant memory those words plunge me back in time. Huddled around a small 14″ color TV hooked up to the 5″ floppy disk drive and in turn to the keyboard, we sat mesmerized. We were guiding our Seawolf class submarine loaded with Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles and a full complement of Mark 48 torpedoes into enemy waters. It was dangerous and required complete concentration. A single misguided command, or worse, a wrong keystroke and we were headed to the bottom. Here we sat side by side for hours at a time; father and  10 year old son shoulder to shoulder searching the ocean for enemy targets.

I’m certain that when author Tom Clancey wrote his novel Red Storm Rising he didn’t have my son and me in mind.  I don’t know if he had envisioned a Commodore 64 based video game  built around his story either. Regardless, this game was the source of endless hours of fun for us.

I can still see us laying on our bellies or sitting cross-legged on Aaron’s bedroom floor while staring intently at the TV screen. I remember us being hunched over the computer when it sat on the desk in our dining room . We peered into that screen like it was going to talk back to us at any moment. We were entranced by a different world.

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to play several video games with my son . Some I liked, some I tolerated, and some I won’t play again. Red Storm Rising however, is different. This game holds a very special place in my heart.

It wasn’t so much the game itself, though it was full of excitement, tension, and moments of sheer panic. It was mostly that we were spending time together and having fun at it. The game controls were complex enough that we had to divide the responsibilities between us. Without knowing it at the time we were having to depend on one another in order to stay safe in those hostile waters. Both of us were busy with our respective duties and yet had to work together to accomplish the mission.

Here in open waters it was more like two friends playing together than it was me being the dad and Aaron being the son. There was no strain in the relationship; just a simple ease we had together as we spent the time.  We would laugh ourselves silly when we couldn’t keep the sub from being sunk . Oh, we would try frantically to keep her afloat, but to no avail. Then we would look at each other with those questioning eyes and eager faces that said,

“Let’s do it again!”  And off we would go on a new mission.

Those years are gone now. The game for the most part is ancient history. What isn’t gone is the ease we still have when we are together. I’m grateful for that. All that time spent on his bedroom floor has helped pave the way for our relationship today.

Aaron is a grown man now with a wife and baby daughter. Yet in spite of all our current adult responsibilities and life challenges there’s still that little twinkle that comes into our eyes when we hear,

“Sonar contact. Orders Captain?”

“Son… set depth at 350 feet,”

What’s a favorite time you’ve spent with your children?

This entry was posted in Aaron, Family and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Real People Trapped in Little Bodies

Posted on

Copy of Griffin-Service-Wanzek-1701   Reflection can be a powerful tool. Being born in the late 50’s my grammar school years, as they were called back then, were in the decade of the 60’s. This was the era of the original “Hot Wheels Cars” and full size “G.I. Joes”. Real metal “Tonka” trucks ruled the world. Cartoons like Yogi Bear, The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour and Space Ghost were some of the choice Saturday morning TV offerings.  It was also the era of “children are to be seen and not heard.”

It’s ironic how as children we’ll “pick things up” without even realizing we did it. Often its not until later in life we begin to see what we picked up and are confronted by it, sometimes rather starkly. It was here in one such moment that the wisdom of the 60’s crashed headlong into the heart of Jesus.

Annie, our first-born, was three-ish. This made Aaron our second born infant-ish. We were out on a family excursion with the intent to buy Annie a new pair of shoes. Now this was nothing new or unusual, we had bought shoes for the kids before. What made this outing different was that Annie was involved in picking them out for herself. A fact I truly became aware of only too late.

Annie and Marm (Martha’s nickname given to her by her nephew when he was little) were having a ball. They were jabbering together about this shoe and that one while moving freely up and down the aisle. Boxes littered the floor. Most had one shoe teetering sideways within while the other one was laying where it had been dropped some 2 to 3 feet away.  This was shopping at its finest for Annie. She was having a blast.

I too was shopping, but with much less enthusiasm. I was thinking more along the line of finding an appropriately sturdy pair and then going home rather soon. She was, after all, only 3 so it really didn’t matter too much which pair we bought. This should be simple. I walked over to the girls with Aaron in tow in the stroller  and showed the ladies my offering. Annie wrinkled up her nose  without hesitation. These definitely were not for her. I was insistent about my choice and foisted them on them both rather sternly.

“ These are good shoes,” I insisted. “ They will wear well and are a nice brown color too.” This all seemed more than reasonable to me. I was having a  hard time understanding all of the fuss.

“They’re ugly!”, Annie stated flatly, “and I don’t like them.”

I looked at Marm for the obvious support I thought she should lend me, but was startled by the look I saw in her eyes. Now I was really confused and was becoming more frustrated. I was thinking to myself that this isn’t that hard to do. Just pick out a pair, show them to Annie, she’ll be grateful and like them, and we all go home.

I expressed these sentiments to the both of them and was once again met with resistance. Annie wanted a different pair she had selected herself. In fact she was actually trying to decide between two different pairs she had picked out. By now I was getting hot around the ears. I thought we had come to buy shoes, not shop for them.

I certainly wasn’t thinking that Annie actually had an opinion about them herself. And, as painful as it is to say, that what she wanted was as important as what I wanted. I was turning the outing into a misery. I was crushing the joy out of my daughter. I could see it in her face, and I was lost as to what to do next. My default setting from the sixties was failing me badly.

It was here that Marm pulled me aside and gave me that look a wife gives to her husband when he’s being dumb. Then, thankfully, she brought me up to speed. Even though my daughter was only three at the time, she certainly had opinions and desires like everyone else. “Everyone else” meaning adults. Those opinions and desires  MATTER.  Sadly, I had left no room for Annie to be Annie. No room for her to make her own choices. I wanted what I wanted plain and simple. I wanted her to be seen but not heard.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know better at the time, and honestly,  it didn’t take too long for me to remember that this was not the heart of Jesus when it came to kids. Jesus told the adults of his day to let the children come to him and to stop hindering them. In other words; back off people, the kids count too. The lesson learned that night was simple, and it laid the groundwork for a statement that Marm and I use often in regard to children.  They are indeed … “real people trapped in little bodies.”

This entry was posted in Annie and tagged , , , , , , , , , .