Thanksgiving Thoughts

I don't remember the year exactly, but it was in the early 70's that my maternal grandfather died. I know I was driving my 1970 Olds Cutlass that I had bought brand new; and I don't think I had owned it more than a year at the time. On this rather strange occasion, I had gone home to visit my family - especially my Mom. My maternal grandmother had died the previous year, so on this trip, I decided I would drop in and see my grandpa on the way home.

The experience was shocking. When we pulled up to the old house where he lived, there were a few cars there already. Grandpa never had a car, never drove as far as I knew. So, he obviously had company. But this was in the daytime and on a weekday. At the door, I was greeted by an aunt who invited us in. The cars belonged to aunts and uncles I quickly learned. The news came fast. "Pop died this morning."

The body had just been discovered by one of the aunts early that morning. Grandpa was just sitting on his couch - dead - when she came in. The authorities had already come and taken his body away. All the aunts and uncles that were physically close were notified and assembled at the house. My Mom had not been notified.

It was a shocking experience to learn that Grandpa had already died. But there was something more shocking. Grandma and Grandpa had 11 children. Grandpa was an alcoholic; well, I guess I should say he was a drunk since he never went to any of those blasted meetings. He was not a heavy drinker all the time. He was more of a monthly binge drinker. He would get his Army pension check on the 1st of the month and he would routinely drink a good part of it away.

They were very poor people. They lived in a small four-room house on a large lot right beside the railroad track that ran through town. Somehow they had gotten water plumbed into the kitchen sink; that was all. And the water there was only cold water. The house had no water heater. The old house was heated with a large coal stove in the living room. An outhouse near the alley in the back was the only bathroom facility. And this was the way it was the day Grandpa died.

The most valuable possession they had was a television. And it was nothing spectacular.

So what shocked me more than learning that Grandpa had died was watching my aunts and uncles interact. They were arguing over who was going to get what. I cannot describe the disgust I felt. Grandpa's body was barely down to room temperature and these jerks are arguing over his stuff. I was in my mid 20's at the time and I had more stuff than what was in that house. I listened to the bickering for a few minutes and I had all I could stand. I told them so, in no uncertain terms.

One of my uncles, whom we had visited several times in prison when I was a kid, responded to my rebuke with a threatening one of his own. He said something to the effect of "If you know what is good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut, Nonie" (I guess that's how you spell it; I never saw it in writing; it was just what a lot of family called me back then. It was pronounced "NO-knee".) Since I never knew what this uncle was in prison for, I quickly shut up and left the premises. I have had no desire to be around any of them since. I have seen a couple of my aunts and an uncle that were not there that day.

Maybe Grandpa deserved kids like that. Maybe not. Though I heard plenty of stories about his alcohol abuse, I never saw him either drinking or drunk. He was always really nice to me. I liked him and he liked me. I don't like most of his kids though. I choose better friends than that.

I am very thankful for one of his children, my Mom, the second of the 11. This is my first Thanksgiving without her. I wish you were here. I'm glad you're not here anymore.

My Mom Died

This morning I received a call from my brother, Terry. It is not usual that I get a call from him, especially in the morning. When I saw his name on the caller ID, I thought I was in for news about Mom. I thought she might have died; I thought something might have happened and she had been taken to the hospital. I was right.

The nursing center had just called him to say that our mother had passed from this life. She had been declining substantially in her mental functions in recent weeks. So I was not surprised.

I called my sister to inform her. She had the same experience as I; seeing my name on the caller ID, she was braced for what I had to tell her.

We both took the news well, at least initially. I shed some tears an hour or so later, after talking with Mom's nurse. She assured me that Mom had had a pleasant morning, ate a nice breakfast and slipped away peacefully between 10:30 and 11:00 after finishing her mid-morning snack. It was just exactly what I have prayed for, that she would go quickly and peacefully.

Thank you Jesus for my Mom and the hope I have of seeing her again - but in perfect health next time. I hold onto this hope, not just a hope of seeing my mother again, but seeing her fully healthy and fully satisfied.

My mom had a decent life in America, but a life of struggle. My dad was not a good husband, to say the least. After divorcing him, she never remarried. Though she loved her children dearly, we were busy with our own family lives in adulthood. I'm sure she battled a lot of loneliness. She struggled with health issues of various kinds. At least a couple of decades ago, she had a viral infection that destroyed her sense of smell. This largely impaired her enjoyment of food. Her brain had been deteriorating in recent years - short-term memory almost non-existent for the past two years. Thankfully, she knew us kids to the end, though she could hardly communicate in recent weeks. So, my hope is that Mom is in that place where she is whole and there is no distraction from the joy of Life.

Courageous- A Movie Recommendation

I didn't wait till it played the dollar theater on purpose. I've been busy. When I saw the first trailer for Courageous, I intended to see the movie. I expected it to be good, just not quite this good.

Yesterday, my wife and I went to see this movie. It easily gets a place among the best movies I have ever seen. In a day when families fall apart more often than they stay together, in a day when too many children grow up without the benefit of an involved, loving father, the message of this movie is so needed.

I want to publicly thank the people responsible for creating this movie. God bless you. And I want to encourage every man to go watch this movie - if for no other reason than you can passionately encourage other men to see it. And if you are a father still raising your kids, please make watching this movie a priority. I can't imagine that something in this movie wouldn't speak to your heart - powerfully speak to your heart. I plan to include this DVD in my library to loan.

Kudos to President Obama

I don’t agree with President Obama very often. His idea that it is the federal government’s job to provide healthcare for everyone is certainly a point of disagreement. His idea that it is government’s job to “spread the wealth around” is another point of disagreement. In spite of strong, serious disagreements with the man, I recently read a quotation of our president that made me want to give him a standing ovation.

In a recent article on Time.com, entitled Is there Hope for the American Marriage?, author Caitlin Flanagan quoted our president. She stated that Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, holds strong views of supporting marriage. This is likely due to mounting evidence that divorce generally harms children. Divorce always disrupts the relationship of children with their parents to some degree. It often disrupts the relationship of fathers with their children profoundly. Here is what she said Barack Obama said regarding the need of fathers in the lives of children: "We need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one."

It is true that many fathers choose not to be involved in their children’s lives after divorce. Sometimes that diminished involvement is chosen for them. That is, many mothers do not want anything to do with the father of their children, and therefore, assume that their children feel the same or will come to feel the same in time. We really need mothers and fathers that will work at being husbands and wives. We need couples who realize that their real task begins after the wedding, after the honeymoon. And they must have the courage and skills to build a strong marriage. Sometimes, they need the humility to admit that they don’t have the skills necessary to do this.

Fix the Family

One day I was listening to the Glen Beck radio program. Here is what I heard Glen say that day, “Fix the family and you fix almost everything that is wrong with America.” Glen often jokes about having A.D.D., and it may not be a joke. At any rate, within a sentence or two, he was off to a different subject. My mind, however, was fixed on that insightful comment.

My oldest son turned 40 this past week. Yes, that makes me feel my age. Through Steve’s whole life, the institution of the family has been under assault in America. First, divorce has broken most marriages in his lifetime. And most of these broken marriages involved children. Many, if not most, of the people from the broken marriages with children eventually remarried. Thus, blended families (made up of children that are yours and mine, or yours, mine, and ours) have become commonplace over this 40 years.

Add to this social change the massive move of women into the workplace. When I grew up, it was common that moms were at home when the children were there. For the past decade or more, that situation has reversed. Now it is the exception rather than the rule that there is a stay-at-home parent. Don’t get me wrong here: I intend no assault on women who choose a career and children. Some parents juggle the responsibilities of two careers and family life pretty well. I personally know some who do. Still, it is no small challenge; and frankly, a high percentage of parents in these situations fail to adequately address the needs of their children. As a result, these children muddle their way through childhood and carry the damage of emotional malnutrition into their adult lives.

Thus, woefully ill-prepared for the challenges of marriage and parenting responsibilities, these young adults try to build their own families nonetheless. The adults from my son’s age down are generally skeptical about marriage. They have seen too many marriage vows broken, if not by their own parents, by aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and others. The state of family in America is worse than even divorce statistics suggest. We speak of the awful 50% divorce rate that has remained pretty steady for the past two or three decades. These divorce statistics do not factor in this fact: more and more people have chosen to just cohabit through these recent decades and the rate of demise of these relationships is not factored in (when there is no marriage, there is no divorce).

Consider another dynamic of the breakdown of families over these recent decades. The children from these broken homes were often given “stuff” by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles to compensate for the fact that they weren’t given what they really needed – a secure, loving home. Many of these young people have been conditioned to be materialistic in this process. Contrary to the words of Jesus, these people actually believe that life does consist in the abundance of things.

All of these circumstances have become so common that a high percentage of young people are directly affected. Because of that high percentage that are directly affected by family breakdown, most young people are indirectly affected. That is, even in solid families where divorce will not likely ever occur, children may experience fear that their parents might divorce. If Mom & Dad had an argument and are still not happy with each other a day or two later, divorce is not a bizarre thought for their child. So, I assure you that the security of what are in fact secure homes has been shaken by the fact that most of us have seen people divorce that we never thought would.

We have also witnessed an alarming rise of youth gangs. Though we don’t often hear it mentioned, this is a result of family breakdown. Many kids don’t feel like they belong at home, so gang membership seems to offer what they need but can’t find at home. Many of these kids have little or no relationship with their dad. They live with an exhausted and frustrated single mom. These kids may feel unloved and unwanted at home. Sometimes, they feel like a burden to the people who have to provide for them. They easily resent the adults who seem only to have demands of them, but are prepared to give very little of what matters most to the kid. Many kids from broken homes feel like nothing more than a poker chip in a hostile game between the parents.

The woes of public education are related to the breakdown of families, too. Politicians and educators like to tell us that the educational system needs to be fixed and that with more funds, but I tell you that it is the family that most needs to be fixed.

It is true that some students from strongly dysfunctional families actually flourish in the world of academia. These are some of the intellectually gifted kids who find in the school environment a place to shine and gain affirmation via performance. It is not unusual to find some of these kids named valedictorian or salutatorian of their classes. In contrast to these high-performing kids, however, are many other kids from these chaotic and painful families who struggle in the school environment. They struggle in both performance and motivation. I can tell you from personal experience that it is difficult to care about and apply oneself to the work required at school when you are stressed by stuff happening at home. Trust me, our schools are heavily populated with kids whose home-lives are so drama-filled that they have little motivation to do what, for them, naturally requires extra effort. We can keep throwing money at our schools, but we shouldn’t expect to see much positive change until we get as serious about fixing the family as we are about fixing the schools.

To “fix the family” in America is a huge task, in fact, too huge for you and me. It seems sufficiently challenging for me to “fix” my family. The task is beyond the role of government, too; although government certainly has a role in fixing the family. They could start by ceasing doing stuff that messes up families and perpetuates messed up families. For instance, they could stop siding with the people who want to make our public schools religion-free zones (except for secular humanism). They could allow students to be exposed to ideas like creationism and intelligent design. They could actively oppose the idea that men are only needed for their seed and their funds.

Fixing the family in America is a God-sized problem. What really is needed is a great revival among young people, a serious turning to the Lord and His ways. I keep hoping to see a host of young people who are ready to say “enough” with the social experiments of secularists. These would be young people who renounce the lie that all sex between “consenting adults” is acceptable. They would take courting very seriously, and marital vows even more seriously. They would seek godly wisdom for making a marriage and family work. And they would depend on God for strength to implement wisdom as they attempt to build a wholesome family. Fixing the family in America is really done one family at a time. I pray that you will invite God to help you build or rebuild a strong family. If America does not fix the family institution, at least you can participate in fixing of yours. And, if America does not fix the family, things will get worse in our land; but you will engage those worse things better in a better family. And therein lies real hope.