Not long ago, the team at Fishhook began the process of refreshing our company's website. As part of finding fun new ways to tell people who we are and what we do, we chose to whittle down the content on our site to be super-focused and quickly readable. One of the most dramatic examples of this was in our personal bios. The last version of our site included a page-long series of "get-to-know-me" questions and answers on each team member's personal page. In this new version, we went to just a few short phrases answering these unwritten queries: "Who am I at work? Who am I at home? Who am I in my faith?" I'll let you visit our site to see how all of us answered those questions, but I wanted to explain a little bit about my own.
I'm very much one to "follow the rules", and this plays out in many areas of my life. Certainly I try to adhere to the legal expectations we are given as a society: I want to respect those in authority, and I don't want to suffer the consequences of breaking the law. This aspect of my personality even shows up in the kitchen: my wife is a wonderful cook, intuitively combining ingredients, herbs and spices to make a delicious meal - our joke is that her chicken soup is never the same twice! But she rarely bakes, and this is where I really shine: I can follow, step-by-step, any recipe that you give me, and I will make the same pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving year after year. Not very creative, but still tasty!
So rules are a necessary and good part of life. But this adherence to rules also shows up in other areas of my life, some of them perhaps less commendable. I am very conscious of how my actions will be viewed in social situations, and I try very hard not to offend people by what I say or do. I am uncomfortable in conversations with people who have differing opinions, or in situations where my beliefs are challenged. I have very high expectations of myself, and so have -- often unreasonably -- high expectations of others. I want to make sure we're all "following the rules"... but too often, my focus is on the rules instead of the person.
Today in our little storefront church, we read and discussed the passage in the Bible where Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well [John 4:1-42]. Jesus starts the exchange by asking the woman for a drink of water, but quickly steers the conversation to address her true, spiritual, thirst. This woman was probably not highly regarded in her society: the passage reveals that she has had 5 husbands, and is currently living - unmarried - with yet another man. So even if the woman had not actually broken any laws, she was certainly not meeting the expectations of her highly religious society. She was not "following the rules", and was probably shunned by those around her.
The part of this story that struck me today was Jesus' interaction with her. Not only did he strike up a conversation with a woman of a different cultural region and religious sect, but he reveals to her, in language more clear than he even used with his own disciples, the he is the Messiah - the Savior.
So, rules. Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way, there is good and there is evil -- but more importantly, there is grace. There is forgiveness. Jesus knows everything about the woman at the well, good and bad. He knows how she longs for something to satisfy her thirst. Jesus doesn't ridicule her, or look down on her, or condemn her. He simply says, "I have what you need."
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Friday, December 28, 2012
Invincible
My dad turned 60 this past week, and I was lucky enough to be there with him, along with family and a few of his good friends. My sisters planned and organized a delightful surprise party for him; we enjoyed Italian chestnuts, roasted over a gas fire, inspired by my sister in Italy and smuggled over the border by my aunt and uncle in Ontario, Canada. We shared "the world's best jerky", sent from my aunt in Alberta, who drove an hour and a half to select and ship it herself. We shared birthday cake and music and stories and laughter, and it was wonderful.
After the party and the rest of the weekend in a remote cabin with our relatives, we spent the entire next week leading up to Christmas at my parents house in rural Pennsylvania. This is the house I grew up in, and it's a joy to come home to the farm. There are reminders of my childhood, like the now empty chicken barn and the dusty old pig stall. There are new additions that have been added in the years since I've left, like the beautiful new kitchen and the adjoining patio, complete with bird feeders and an ivy trellis.
As my wife and I spend time in this home with our own children, I am often reminded of my experiences and lessons here when I was the age my son is now. Simultaneously a father and a son in this house, I think back to the impressions I had of my own father as a child, and see those impressions mirrored in my son. I become aware of expectations that I had of my father and of myself, and am sometimes startled to find those same expectations still in place for myself and my son.
I think that father and son both have impressions and expectations of each other, some good and some flawed. As a father, I expect my son to show respect, to listen and obey quickly, to follow my instruction cheerfully. The obvious truth is that my expectations are not always realistic, nor always fulfilled. I'm sure that my dad had some of those expectations of me as well, and I cringe sometimes remembering my resentment of hard work or instruction. As a child, I saw my father as both invincible and impenetrable, and I'm realizing now that, much like my expectations, neither view is fully accurate. My dad could do anything, from felling trees which stocked the basement with firewood, to building new houses from the ground up, to raising 14,000 chickens from day old chicks to market-ready broilers, successfully and with frequent repetition! My participation in all of those activities was often required, and I usually took part only begrudgingly. At the time, I assumed that my father not only excelled at these activities, but thoroughly enjoyed them.
This afternoon, as I again rode along with my dad into the woods adjacent to our house to retrieve logs for the fireplace, I realized that a lot of life is simply hard work. Hopefully, most of us enjoy many parts of our lives, and can spend much of our time doing things that keep us fulfilled and happy. But sometimes it's just plain work. As I look back at some of those times in the woods, on the roof, or in the chicken barn, I'm struck with the understanding that dad wasn't always doing those things because he enjoyed them, but because that was how he loved and took care of his family.
Thanks, Dad.
Happy Birthday.
After the party and the rest of the weekend in a remote cabin with our relatives, we spent the entire next week leading up to Christmas at my parents house in rural Pennsylvania. This is the house I grew up in, and it's a joy to come home to the farm. There are reminders of my childhood, like the now empty chicken barn and the dusty old pig stall. There are new additions that have been added in the years since I've left, like the beautiful new kitchen and the adjoining patio, complete with bird feeders and an ivy trellis.
As my wife and I spend time in this home with our own children, I am often reminded of my experiences and lessons here when I was the age my son is now. Simultaneously a father and a son in this house, I think back to the impressions I had of my own father as a child, and see those impressions mirrored in my son. I become aware of expectations that I had of my father and of myself, and am sometimes startled to find those same expectations still in place for myself and my son.
I think that father and son both have impressions and expectations of each other, some good and some flawed. As a father, I expect my son to show respect, to listen and obey quickly, to follow my instruction cheerfully. The obvious truth is that my expectations are not always realistic, nor always fulfilled. I'm sure that my dad had some of those expectations of me as well, and I cringe sometimes remembering my resentment of hard work or instruction. As a child, I saw my father as both invincible and impenetrable, and I'm realizing now that, much like my expectations, neither view is fully accurate. My dad could do anything, from felling trees which stocked the basement with firewood, to building new houses from the ground up, to raising 14,000 chickens from day old chicks to market-ready broilers, successfully and with frequent repetition! My participation in all of those activities was often required, and I usually took part only begrudgingly. At the time, I assumed that my father not only excelled at these activities, but thoroughly enjoyed them.
This afternoon, as I again rode along with my dad into the woods adjacent to our house to retrieve logs for the fireplace, I realized that a lot of life is simply hard work. Hopefully, most of us enjoy many parts of our lives, and can spend much of our time doing things that keep us fulfilled and happy. But sometimes it's just plain work. As I look back at some of those times in the woods, on the roof, or in the chicken barn, I'm struck with the understanding that dad wasn't always doing those things because he enjoyed them, but because that was how he loved and took care of his family.
Thanks, Dad.
Happy Birthday.
Friday, November 25, 2011
So, how was your Thanksgiving?
I don't mean to be the dramatic one. I don't. Yet, around the conference table on Monday morning, I rarely have the shortest or simplest answer to the inevitable "How was your weekend?". In order to save my poor coworkers some time, I thought I'd write this one out ahead and just point people to their web browsers.
Tuesday, November 22nd
My "weekend" started on Tuesday afternoon (short week with Thanksgiving). My wife called three times during a meeting I was in, and eventually left a voicemail on my phone to let me know that she'd made it home fine, thank you. Apparently she'd run over a sawed-off metal signpost at the edge of the school parking lot where she was picking up our daughter, which did bad things to the tire, and to my pre-holiday mood.
Unfortunately, our minivan's spare tire used to be stored on the underside of the vehicle, held in place by a cable that could be raised or lowered for access. That cable had rusted through years ago, presumably leaving its remains, and our spare, on the side of a distant highway. Thoughtfully, I had also removed the van's jack and lug wrench kit before some previous long-distance traveling, possibly to lessen the risk of hurtling loose metal objects within the car in the event of an accident.
After consulting my mechanic and sheepishly admitting my lack of proper resources or forethought, I quickly swung by the house, grabbed the jack from a pile of similarly discarded refuse in the garage, and valiantly returned to the parking lot, intending to remove the wheel and get it to the garage in short order for replacement.
Two of the five lug nuts wouldn't come off.
Hoping that the chintzy fold-up wrench that comes with the jack kit was at fault, I dashed to my nearest auto parts store and purchased a shiny four-headed stainless steel lug wrench. Assuming that a tool crafted specifically for the task at hand might do a better job than what felt like a toy wrench made from tightly-wound aluminum foil (seriously, I could probably bend it with my bare hands), I headed back to the van. Did I mention that November evenings in Indiana get dark around 5:30? Oh, and it was raining.
The shiny four-headed stainless steel lug wrench did not live up to its reputation. After spewing a carefully-crafted stream of expletives towards franchise auto repair stores, their mediocre products, and automobiles in general, I looked up and locked eyes with a late-staying student being escorted to a car by a man I could only assume to be his father.
I waved.
Wednesday, November 23rd
At 7:00am, I called the mechanic again and explained, haltingly, that I had been unable to remove 2/5 of the bolts holding the wheel in place. His sage advice, generous for the hour, was to secure a socket wrench to the offending nut, then hit it really hard with a big hammer. If that didn't work, he'd come and tow it to the shop.
Perhaps my hammer wasn't big enough.
After what I felt were significant blows to my socket wrench (not to mention my pride) with little success, I called the mechanic once more and inquired as to the availability of his towing truck. "Just swing by the shop and leave me your keys, then you won't have to wait for it. I'll call you when it's ready." That sounded just fine to me. Oh, by the way, the front tire on my car is starting to feel a little funny, can you see if there's a nail in it or something? Wouldn't want TWO vehicles out of commission, would we?! They found a nail in the tire and plugged it. "Let's just add it to the charge for the van when we're all done."
Another disaster avoided? Oh, hardly -- it gets better. For you, good emotionally detached reader.
Leaving the van in better hands than mine, I attempted to work from home for a couple hours, until the wife and I could go get the van. On a lark, with repaired vehicle (figuratively) in hand, we decided to see a movie. Why not? It's "Thanksgiving Eve", our car troubles are "over", and the kids are out of school. Because we had both vehicles at this point, I followed LaDonna to her gym, parked my car in the lot, then rode with them to the theater.
The Tower Heist. Good movie; funny in parts. I can't tell if Casey Affleck is a really great actor, or just has a weird voice.
On returning to the gym to caravan home, we discovered that now the tire on MY car was completely flat. Judging from the chunk gouged out of the sidewall of my tire, I had probably grazed the same severed signpost while trying to angle my headlights to illuminate my feeble efforts the night before, albeit with less immediately obvious results. The garage fell for the nail puncture's red herring, but had missed the true source of the slow leak. You know what, I don't have a spare for the car either. It's 11:30 at night. I'll come back for the tire tomorrow.
Thursday, November 24
Thanksgiving Day was wonderful. I made a pumpkin custard that went over well with the kids, and very well with those who'd had a number of margaritas by that point. Now where did I leave my car keys?
Friday, November 25
Having left the car sans front-passenger-side wheel in favor of football and cornbread stuffing the day before, I awoke early this morning eager to replace the second tire in three days, and return to something of a normal waking life. However, rushing out the door to drop LaDonna at work had left me without sufficient time to find my suspiciously missing keys. In something of a desperate gamble, I deducted that I must have left the keys in my car in a late-night, Casey-Affleck-induced stupor, and headed back to the gym bearing a sound tire, a somewhat banged-up socket wrench, and the wide-eyed hope of someone who obviously needed more sleep.
Because seriously, even if the keys HAD been in the car, how would I have driven two vehicles back home by myself. Right? (That's almost a direct quote from the gym's security guard to me, while watching me remount the wheel, who had guarded my vehicle against angry BMW-driving gym members who don't pay their monthly sauna fees to put up with a crappy Buick with three wheels in their parking lot for three full days, and local police officers who were more than willing to tow the junk heap to the nearest landfill. Thanks, Boss)
Finally, the end is in sight. After securing the wheel in place with four sturdy lug nuts (the fifth had broken off while trying to remove the flat, but at this point that inconvenience is like a mosquito bite on a rhinoceros, or something), I ran back home, recruited a friend to drive me BACK to the parking lot, and drove my car into the sunset.
Actually, I drove to Target to buy my daughter a doll for Christmas. It's Black Friday, people! Why are you still sitting here?
Tuesday, November 22nd
My "weekend" started on Tuesday afternoon (short week with Thanksgiving). My wife called three times during a meeting I was in, and eventually left a voicemail on my phone to let me know that she'd made it home fine, thank you. Apparently she'd run over a sawed-off metal signpost at the edge of the school parking lot where she was picking up our daughter, which did bad things to the tire, and to my pre-holiday mood.
Unfortunately, our minivan's spare tire used to be stored on the underside of the vehicle, held in place by a cable that could be raised or lowered for access. That cable had rusted through years ago, presumably leaving its remains, and our spare, on the side of a distant highway. Thoughtfully, I had also removed the van's jack and lug wrench kit before some previous long-distance traveling, possibly to lessen the risk of hurtling loose metal objects within the car in the event of an accident.
After consulting my mechanic and sheepishly admitting my lack of proper resources or forethought, I quickly swung by the house, grabbed the jack from a pile of similarly discarded refuse in the garage, and valiantly returned to the parking lot, intending to remove the wheel and get it to the garage in short order for replacement.
Two of the five lug nuts wouldn't come off.
Hoping that the chintzy fold-up wrench that comes with the jack kit was at fault, I dashed to my nearest auto parts store and purchased a shiny four-headed stainless steel lug wrench. Assuming that a tool crafted specifically for the task at hand might do a better job than what felt like a toy wrench made from tightly-wound aluminum foil (seriously, I could probably bend it with my bare hands), I headed back to the van. Did I mention that November evenings in Indiana get dark around 5:30? Oh, and it was raining.
The shiny four-headed stainless steel lug wrench did not live up to its reputation. After spewing a carefully-crafted stream of expletives towards franchise auto repair stores, their mediocre products, and automobiles in general, I looked up and locked eyes with a late-staying student being escorted to a car by a man I could only assume to be his father.
I waved.
Wednesday, November 23rd
At 7:00am, I called the mechanic again and explained, haltingly, that I had been unable to remove 2/5 of the bolts holding the wheel in place. His sage advice, generous for the hour, was to secure a socket wrench to the offending nut, then hit it really hard with a big hammer. If that didn't work, he'd come and tow it to the shop.
Perhaps my hammer wasn't big enough.
After what I felt were significant blows to my socket wrench (not to mention my pride) with little success, I called the mechanic once more and inquired as to the availability of his towing truck. "Just swing by the shop and leave me your keys, then you won't have to wait for it. I'll call you when it's ready." That sounded just fine to me. Oh, by the way, the front tire on my car is starting to feel a little funny, can you see if there's a nail in it or something? Wouldn't want TWO vehicles out of commission, would we?! They found a nail in the tire and plugged it. "Let's just add it to the charge for the van when we're all done."
Another disaster avoided? Oh, hardly -- it gets better. For you, good emotionally detached reader.
Leaving the van in better hands than mine, I attempted to work from home for a couple hours, until the wife and I could go get the van. On a lark, with repaired vehicle (figuratively) in hand, we decided to see a movie. Why not? It's "Thanksgiving Eve", our car troubles are "over", and the kids are out of school. Because we had both vehicles at this point, I followed LaDonna to her gym, parked my car in the lot, then rode with them to the theater.
The Tower Heist. Good movie; funny in parts. I can't tell if Casey Affleck is a really great actor, or just has a weird voice.
On returning to the gym to caravan home, we discovered that now the tire on MY car was completely flat. Judging from the chunk gouged out of the sidewall of my tire, I had probably grazed the same severed signpost while trying to angle my headlights to illuminate my feeble efforts the night before, albeit with less immediately obvious results. The garage fell for the nail puncture's red herring, but had missed the true source of the slow leak. You know what, I don't have a spare for the car either. It's 11:30 at night. I'll come back for the tire tomorrow.
Thursday, November 24
Thanksgiving Day was wonderful. I made a pumpkin custard that went over well with the kids, and very well with those who'd had a number of margaritas by that point. Now where did I leave my car keys?
Friday, November 25
Having left the car sans front-passenger-side wheel in favor of football and cornbread stuffing the day before, I awoke early this morning eager to replace the second tire in three days, and return to something of a normal waking life. However, rushing out the door to drop LaDonna at work had left me without sufficient time to find my suspiciously missing keys. In something of a desperate gamble, I deducted that I must have left the keys in my car in a late-night, Casey-Affleck-induced stupor, and headed back to the gym bearing a sound tire, a somewhat banged-up socket wrench, and the wide-eyed hope of someone who obviously needed more sleep.
Because seriously, even if the keys HAD been in the car, how would I have driven two vehicles back home by myself. Right? (That's almost a direct quote from the gym's security guard to me, while watching me remount the wheel, who had guarded my vehicle against angry BMW-driving gym members who don't pay their monthly sauna fees to put up with a crappy Buick with three wheels in their parking lot for three full days, and local police officers who were more than willing to tow the junk heap to the nearest landfill. Thanks, Boss)
Finally, the end is in sight. After securing the wheel in place with four sturdy lug nuts (the fifth had broken off while trying to remove the flat, but at this point that inconvenience is like a mosquito bite on a rhinoceros, or something), I ran back home, recruited a friend to drive me BACK to the parking lot, and drove my car into the sunset.
Actually, I drove to Target to buy my daughter a doll for Christmas. It's Black Friday, people! Why are you still sitting here?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Howard Bauman, Remembered
 |
| L-R: My mother Lucy, my grandfather Howard, holding my little sister Bethany. |
We also sing a lot of hymns.
My grandpa Bauman (my mom's dad) passed away last week. While his health was gradually failing over the last few years, he remained mentally sharp, just a few weeks from his 91st birthday at the end of this month. Grandma Bauman (94) is a petite woman, full of grace and quiet compassion. And while my grandpa was very capable of loudly voicing his opinion, be it from the pulpit or to the Rogers Cellular customer service agent, he too held himself with a humility that feels almost foreign in our modern age of individualism and self-promotion.
I will miss you, Grandpa. But I will find your laughter in the jokes my uncles tell, your compassion in the caring hugs of my aunts, your gentleness in my cousins stories, and your faith in my mother's prayers.
I love you, Grandpa.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
On Fathering
I used to think I'd had the perfect childhood.
I grew up in a home with two parents who loved God and loved their children. I would look at my father, a gentle man who laughs quickly and cries easily, and think that he did not struggle with finances, or argue with his wife, or feel any pain at all. I never saw him yell at my mother, rarely heard him raise his voice to me or my two sisters. That model was how I’ve judged my own performance as a husband and father -- and I've been found wanting. I've fallen far short of the standard I'd expected of myself. I’ve failed.
It's in more recent years that I've started seeing my father through the lens of my own parenting, and began forming a different idea of who he is, and ultimately of who I am. I've looked back at the times when I worked beside him and felt hopelessly inept, occasions when he did lose his temper, when I've heard the frustration in his voice. I can remember vividly a moment of my childhood that defines that feeling for me:
My father is a carpenter who builds houses for a living. When I was growing up, he also had a barn that held over 14,000 chickens at a time, and it was the absolute bane of my young existence. Every couple months, we would get a fresh batch of day-old chicks, shipped in crates on a trailer truck, which my father and I would literally dump out onto the fresh sawdust of the barn floor. Six weeks later, those chicks were full grown and ready to be shipped out for slaughter, which then left us only a few days to clean out the barn and prepare for the next round.
On one of those occasions, when I was probably 10 years old, I can remember my dad hooking up a plow to his old orange Allis Chalmers tractor in order to push the manure out of the barn, where it could then be loaded onto a spreader for a local farmer to use on his fields. It was my job to shovel out the corners, to follow behind and get the spots that couldn't be reached with the plow. The ammonia stench of raw chicken manure is eye-watering - we would wear paper air masks over our nose and mouth to help filter the dust and smell. We wore unwieldy gloves to prevent blisters, and sometimes plastic goggles over our eyes that would immediately fog up with sweat and condensation. It was miserable work. On that day, I simply remember that at any point in which my father was not within sight of me, I would quickly put down my shovel and start walking towards the house. This happened numerous times -- once, I had gotten far enough to touch the handle of the front door. Inevitably, he would call me back, with anger mounting in his voice, and with the anguish that only a 10-year old can truly express, I would go back to shoveling the bird shit into the path of the plow.
There are other examples, when I was older and working with him in construction, that would often leave me feeling inadequate, more nuisance than helpful. I would drop a hammer off the roof, or forget how to cut a shingle, or be unable to find a box of nails. "If it was a snake, it would bite you in the boot," he would yell down impatiently, clearly unable to fathom my ignorance. When I recall the times that my dad was angry or upset, I have always seen those moments as responses to my own shortcomings as a son. I'm starting now to see that those moments were not my failures, or even HIS failures, but the truth of his struggle: children are annoying! Parenting takes time, and repetition, and patience, and consistency, and so often our own lives and expectations and time-lines get in the way.
My family (my parents and sisters) do not have a history of talking easily about difficult things. It has been our nature to avoid conflict, to find something more comfortable to talk about -- to get along. And while that may look "perfect" on the outside, it is not enough to build a life on, nor is any life that simple or one-sided. Certainly, there is laughter and joy in raising children. But there is also uncertainty, and sorrow, and fear. There are mistakes, and tears.
I am not giving my children a perfect childhood.
I yell at my wife. I yell loudly and often at my children, and I can see that my own fears and frustrations are being put onto them, that they're carrying far more than their share of guilt.
In many ways, being a father has given me the opportunity to completely break apart and examine my own person -- to see parts of myself that would never otherwise see the light. Many of these parts are ugly, and wounded. For all of my life, I have wanted to avoid those pieces of me, to hide them, and hide from them. Being a husband and father no longer allows me to do that. As I encounter every day the ugliness of my own heart, I realize that there is no other way to begin changing it than by acknowledging those selfish habits and desires. The pain and difficulty of confronting my own failures, of breaking down unrealistic expectations, is also the only way to take the first step towards bringing healing to myself and my family.
The other day, my son and I were doing housework together. I was downstairs mopping the kitchen floor, and he was upstairs cleaning his room: putting away books, picking up toys, making his bed. After not nearly enough time, I heard the front door quietly click shut. I put down the mop, found my son on the front porch, and redirected him back to the job I'd asked him to do. And with the anguish that only an 8-year-old can express, he went back to folding laundry.
I grew up in a home with two parents who loved God and loved their children. I would look at my father, a gentle man who laughs quickly and cries easily, and think that he did not struggle with finances, or argue with his wife, or feel any pain at all. I never saw him yell at my mother, rarely heard him raise his voice to me or my two sisters. That model was how I’ve judged my own performance as a husband and father -- and I've been found wanting. I've fallen far short of the standard I'd expected of myself. I’ve failed.
It's in more recent years that I've started seeing my father through the lens of my own parenting, and began forming a different idea of who he is, and ultimately of who I am. I've looked back at the times when I worked beside him and felt hopelessly inept, occasions when he did lose his temper, when I've heard the frustration in his voice. I can remember vividly a moment of my childhood that defines that feeling for me:
My father is a carpenter who builds houses for a living. When I was growing up, he also had a barn that held over 14,000 chickens at a time, and it was the absolute bane of my young existence. Every couple months, we would get a fresh batch of day-old chicks, shipped in crates on a trailer truck, which my father and I would literally dump out onto the fresh sawdust of the barn floor. Six weeks later, those chicks were full grown and ready to be shipped out for slaughter, which then left us only a few days to clean out the barn and prepare for the next round.
On one of those occasions, when I was probably 10 years old, I can remember my dad hooking up a plow to his old orange Allis Chalmers tractor in order to push the manure out of the barn, where it could then be loaded onto a spreader for a local farmer to use on his fields. It was my job to shovel out the corners, to follow behind and get the spots that couldn't be reached with the plow. The ammonia stench of raw chicken manure is eye-watering - we would wear paper air masks over our nose and mouth to help filter the dust and smell. We wore unwieldy gloves to prevent blisters, and sometimes plastic goggles over our eyes that would immediately fog up with sweat and condensation. It was miserable work. On that day, I simply remember that at any point in which my father was not within sight of me, I would quickly put down my shovel and start walking towards the house. This happened numerous times -- once, I had gotten far enough to touch the handle of the front door. Inevitably, he would call me back, with anger mounting in his voice, and with the anguish that only a 10-year old can truly express, I would go back to shoveling the bird shit into the path of the plow.
There are other examples, when I was older and working with him in construction, that would often leave me feeling inadequate, more nuisance than helpful. I would drop a hammer off the roof, or forget how to cut a shingle, or be unable to find a box of nails. "If it was a snake, it would bite you in the boot," he would yell down impatiently, clearly unable to fathom my ignorance. When I recall the times that my dad was angry or upset, I have always seen those moments as responses to my own shortcomings as a son. I'm starting now to see that those moments were not my failures, or even HIS failures, but the truth of his struggle: children are annoying! Parenting takes time, and repetition, and patience, and consistency, and so often our own lives and expectations and time-lines get in the way.
My family (my parents and sisters) do not have a history of talking easily about difficult things. It has been our nature to avoid conflict, to find something more comfortable to talk about -- to get along. And while that may look "perfect" on the outside, it is not enough to build a life on, nor is any life that simple or one-sided. Certainly, there is laughter and joy in raising children. But there is also uncertainty, and sorrow, and fear. There are mistakes, and tears.
I am not giving my children a perfect childhood.
I yell at my wife. I yell loudly and often at my children, and I can see that my own fears and frustrations are being put onto them, that they're carrying far more than their share of guilt.
In many ways, being a father has given me the opportunity to completely break apart and examine my own person -- to see parts of myself that would never otherwise see the light. Many of these parts are ugly, and wounded. For all of my life, I have wanted to avoid those pieces of me, to hide them, and hide from them. Being a husband and father no longer allows me to do that. As I encounter every day the ugliness of my own heart, I realize that there is no other way to begin changing it than by acknowledging those selfish habits and desires. The pain and difficulty of confronting my own failures, of breaking down unrealistic expectations, is also the only way to take the first step towards bringing healing to myself and my family.
The other day, my son and I were doing housework together. I was downstairs mopping the kitchen floor, and he was upstairs cleaning his room: putting away books, picking up toys, making his bed. After not nearly enough time, I heard the front door quietly click shut. I put down the mop, found my son on the front porch, and redirected him back to the job I'd asked him to do. And with the anguish that only an 8-year-old can express, he went back to folding laundry.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Emotional Autobiography
My psychiatrist would like me to create an "emotional autobiography" -- a record and recollection of the events and patterns in my life that have significantly affected me emotionally. Specifically: how have those events determined my responses, intentions, and actions in my present life? What do I wish had happened that didn't, or what I wish hadn't happened that did. How did it make me feel at the time; how do I feel about those events, people and my responses now?
We'll see how it goes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)