The Deal

I once saw a cartoon where the first frame showed a mother and teacher talking. The teacher is explaining how tears are to be expected on the first day of school. The second frame showed the student walking into school as her father, on his knees clinging to his child, is bawling. It was a cartoon shared with me after we sent our son off to kindergarten and I behaved much like the father in the cartoon. Today, we took our youngest to college, and I was surprised to have all those feelings again.

Such moments bring thoughts about the past, present and future together like atoms colliding into an emotional nuclear explosion. 

·      I thought about the day we brought her home from the hospital, the way she and I would play in the car as we waited for the preschool doors to open, nights cuddled on the couch watching Disney movies, watching her on stage in many theater productions, her delivering a sermon in eighth grade, and her many accomplishments in the classroom and on the soccer field and tennis court. 

·     She’s made it to this moment and wants to be a teacher. She has the heart for such a vocation, which is the one thing that can’t be taught, and now has found a place where she can learn the tools she’ll need. Her present is ripe. 

·     But as exciting as her future may be, the fact is she will never live at home full time again. College vacations will usurp family ones, and, yes, there will be a boy in her future who will matter more to her than her father.

Boom!

The thoughts and emotions collided as I drove to the campus. Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, I was lost in the sunrises and sunsets of our life together. Like Steven Curtis Chapman, I longed to dance with Cinderella, holding her tight and never letting her go. 

Then, it was time to leave . . . 

The pain is stirring within me as I write, and I’m reminded of a poignant scene in Shaddowlands when Joy Gresham, the wife of C. S. Lewis who is dying of cancer, looks at her husband after a wonderful walk in the countryside and reminds him that the pain to come is part of the present joy. The two are intertwined like threads and, as hard as we might like to separate them, there’s never one without the other. “That’s the deal,” she says.

Dropping a child off at school, whether at kindergarten or college, is such a moment. There are many others. The joy of such moments is made more pronounced when placed beside the sadness. For a long time, I tried to have one without the other, but it’s impossible. So, holding in my grateful hand all that we’ve had, and celebrating all she’s become, I walked away and offered her to the one I trust with such things, praying I might make it to the car without bawling.

Extra Credit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrWMBC6yoM

The Gospel According to Mountain Biking.

In a spontaneous moment driving through Colorado, I stopped at a ski resort and signed up for a mountain biking lesson. I’d done something similar years before, but that time we rode casually down the gradual wide CAT roads to the bottom. This time, I was taken into the trees to a small twisty trail where I had to navigate rocks, roots, and hairpin-turns. I lived to write this, but what stuck with me along with the aches and pains was something my instructor said before we began a particularly difficult patch: “Keep your head up, and pick a good line.” 

When making your way down a mountain, there are countless things over which you must ride: rocks, roots, holes, branches. The turns are sudden, the incline, at times, excessively steep. Keeping your head up means looking ahead. If you ride with your head down, you will focus on the rock at your wheel and not the turn up ahead. It’s hard to lift your head and look ahead, but each time I managed it, I rode smoothly down the trail. When I didn’t, I struggled and, yes, fell.

On the trails, there were different ways to go. On the left side, it could look smooth but a root or two might jut out to test you. On the right, there could be exposed rocks from a recent downpour. And in the middle, there might be a small gravel stretch that, if you hit it, would get you down effortlessly. You’d make it down whatever line you picked, but not all routes were equal. There were better lines, and the trick was to pick a good one and go.

As is my nature, I sat at the bottom of the mountain thinking about the life lessons to be found in mountain biking. His advice was easy to apply to my life. I could remember many times when I focused on the rocks and roots and did not keep my head up. I was so focused on the immediate challenge I did not look ahead. I also have many scars, bumps and bruises from not picking the best lines. I’ve made it down, but the line I chose was often more difficult than it had to be. 

Maybe my recent lesson will help me navigate what trail I have left more successfully. Maybe I’ll keep my head up and look ahead and pick good lines. I sure hope so.

Unique Works of Art

”Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
-From “The Summer Day“ by Mary Oliver

At the school whereI began my teaching career, they encouraged us to use the mimeograph machine rather than the xerox machine in an effort to save money. For those too young to have ever heard of such a thing, the mimeograph machine takes an original piece and then makes copies from the original as it circles around a drum loaded with ink. It was cheaper than the copy machine, but with every copy the ink was lighter, the words more faint. If you made enough copies, I suppose, eventually the words would be too faint to read.

It was not unlike my approach to painting when I started out. I took someone else’s work and tried to copy it. Because I was not very good, my version was nothing like the original so there was no worries of plagerism, but, like the mimeograph machine, the spiritual lesson was sitting on the canvas for me to discover.

Each of us was created unique, a one of a kind work of art. It’s one of the most basic and wonderful spiritual truths that we so often forget, or choose not to embrace. Instead, we spend our lives trying to be like other people. Maybe it’s a father or mother, teacher, or friend. We see someone we admire and set out to be like them. Following the examples of others can be a wonderful inspiration, but not when it comes at the cost of who WE are. If we try to imitate others, our uniqueness becomes more faint with each turn of the drum. The words of our own life become too faint to read.

I remember the story of a devout Jew named Isaac who died and, when at heaven’s gate, tried to explain how hard he tried to be Moses. God shook his head and said he was kind of hoping he would be Isaac. 

I am guilty of trying to be someone other than who I was created to be. In the shadow of an amazing father, I thought it was my job to carry on his life through mine, as a teacher I tried to be like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, and as a father I always wanted to be Atticus Finch as played by Gregory Peck in the movie adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. In each case, and countless others, I’ve been unsuccessful. Perhaps it’s time to stop the mimeograph machine and create a unique work of art out of the precious life I’ve been given. 

Want to try it, too?