When we can negotiate without compromising our integrity, and stand on our own two feet without pushing others over, and love without controlling ….. we will be men, my sons.
When we understand and accept our uniquenesses, our resilience, giftedness, our frailties and failings, and within that understanding, do no harm ….. we will be men, my sons.
When we can forgive all others, deserved, undeserved, requested or not, and freely offer mercy and grace even to those who have rejected us, deserved or not……. we will be men, my sons.
When we can welcome strangers with radical hospitality, and yet foster independence, and be generous with all we own, while treasuring our valued possessions ….. we will be men, my sons.
When we empower others, desire their highest good especially when they can do nothing for us in return…….. we will be men, my sons,
Today, for the rest of the week, and beyond, I encourage you to regularly identify and deploy your superpowers. I believe we each have all 7 of the following superpowers – they come with our humanity – while 5 will probably be stronger, more pronounced within you. I also believe we will each “shine” with one as if it is our particular divinely imparted strength:
Generosity – the willingness to give of what you have. It is not about wealth or having vast possessions, it is about being willing to give and share from what you already have.
Hospitality – the willingness to be open to others, especially those who may be unlike you in terms of language or ethnicity or social background.
Mercy – the capacity to offer grace where it is unexpected or even undeserved.
Kindness – the willingness and desire to see and affirm and promote the best in others.
Acceptance – the willingness and strength to embrace other people because of who and what you are rather for who or what they may be.
Forgiveness – the willingness and capacity to let others off the hook – turn the page – for your own sake and for your own freedom.
Love – the willingness and capacity to desire the highest good for yourself and for all whom you know, friend or adversary.
I found the last letter written to me by our father….
Just to thank you for the lovely holiday you gave me. Thanks for Washington, Atlanta, Aussie, and New Zealand. Hard to believe that I covered so much ground and saw so much. I am missing Indianapolis a lot, also America and all its people. We had such a lovely time.
I am finding it hard to settle down. Can’t seem to get mobile. Health wise, I am a lot better. Tummy back to normal. Just a little backache now. I am sure that I will get better in time. Everyone’s looking forward to your visit in August. I will be away for seven days while you are here but will make it up as soon as I get back. Perhaps you can take a trip to Margate to visit me. We’ll talk about this later.
Have had so much to tell friends about our stay in America. Saw Chicago on TV and we were so excited as it was one of the main streets we went down with you. We are lucky to have so much to remember. I don’t think we can ever forget how kind and generous you and your friends have been me. August 1994
Please, take a few minutes to write something beautiful today – and, if you wish, send it to me.
Such writing shifts things within us, sets our heart on seeing beauty.
Uplifts.
I discovered this in a moment of desperation.
My sons were preteens when multiple pressures demanded I land a part-time job teaching writing at a local community college.
Mostly, it was a pleasant, inspiring experience. The adult students were often late, arriving after work by public transportation, sometimes after a second job..
One evening a married couple entered the room while engaging in a raging vicious and rather abusive domestic argument.
Once the couple was seated I knew I had to do something to ease the tension.
“Welcome,” I said, “I am glad you are here.”
Where I got this from I don’t know:
“Everybody, please, take a blank sheet of lined paper and let’s take 7 minutes to write something beautiful. Anything. A short poem, a vivid joyful memory, perhaps something about a gift you gave or received. I am also going to write. You will have an opportunity to read what you have written to the class if you would like to.”
Within 15 minutes there was widespread healing, weeping as students volunteered to read their writing.
Strangers were kind. Friends were friendly. I met people from at least 9 countries. Some wore outfits revealing their country of origin because it’s how they routinely dress.
Perhaps the most encouraging letter I’ve ever received…..
Rod,
I was thinking of you today at lunch. I happened to have snagged a C.S. Lewis book on my way out the door to catch the train to work, and I was reading it at my favorite Indian place. I’d snatched the book just for train-reading, but I’ve noticed with Lewis that after you’ve put him on the shelf for awhile, when you pick him back up he blows your mind all over again. And, I suppose, somehow, you and C.S. Lewis and Anthony Hopkins are all jumbled up and associated with each other in the movie-theater in my head.
The trinity of associations probably grows out of the fact that Anthony Hopkins played C.S. Lewis in ‘The Shadowlands.’ And then you sort of look like Anthony Hopkins, or at least I’ve always thought so. There is, too, the British accent and cadence that thrums in my head when I read the words on the page. But then there is also a deeper connection between you and C.S. Lewis, insofar as you both have played similar, particular and transformative roles. C.S. Lewis having done so passively and abstractly, and you having played a more active, concrete, and engaged role. At any rate, when I came back to the office, I looked you up. I read some things you’ve written recently. I looked at pictures of you and your boys. The boys are quite handsome these days, and they appear happy in the photographs, which made me happy in turn.
The letter I’m always meaning to write you, Rod, has grown and grown in my mind as time has passed, until by now it’s an epistle of such out-sized proportions I don’t think I could ever commit it to paper, or put the majority of it into words in any sequence that would make sense, even if I was just talking to myself.
So instead, I thought, I’ll just write Rod a little note. To tell you that I think of you often, and that things that you once said to me–some of these ideas and principles that you tried to explain to me so long ago– have continued to save me in times of trouble, loosen my anxiety in tight spots, strengthen me when strength has been needed. So, I guess: thank you. A thousand times. The way I’ve lived my life Rod, if you could speed it up it up and stream it together into a single image, has been like a man pulling the trigger to blow his brains out and instead of dying his life is saved.
And, indeed, you did get through to me, Rod. Though it took awhile.
A decade and change, if I’m doing my accounting correctly. By which time, of course, we’d fallen out of touch.
Also, I’ve had occasion to think of you some of these late nights at the office. Recently, it’s become a kind of professional necessity for me to immerse myself in and commit to memory the recent history of Africa. And that gets me thinking about you, too. Both you and your boys.
I just wanted to touch base and let you know that I’m thinking about you, old man. That I love you, that in the body of Christ you are close to me always, feeding me, reanimating me, and reminding me to get my shit together. I love you, Rod.
Please read the following stanza 4 or 5 times, preferably out loud.
O memory of painful time,
Are you seed or stone?
A dark and deadly tomb,
Or seed with life to bloom?
Only if I say, “I want you,”
Will I really know.”
(Poet Unknown)
I’m caught (enriched, inspired, motivated) by “seed or stone.” Will you, will I, respond to life-challenges and permit them to make us hard, angry, lifeless, indifferent – and be as stones?
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