Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged Dad
Thanks for Dinner, Dad
0
“Rats,” said one. This was greeted by a delighted chortle from the backseat, where sat the other, smiling at beating her sister this time to thank Dad for the dinner we had just enjoyed at the restaurant. The rules are: you can’t say it until we return home, the driveway counts, first to remember, wins. No prize. Just satisfaction.
Our oldest daughter started this game years ago. But last night, our youngest raced her to the thanks. She must have been primed for the punch because, the second our wheels hit the driveway, out came the: “Thanks for dinner, Dad.” Then the groan from the front seat, admitting defeat.
I had no part in creating this game. It was all them. In fact, last night I was cautioned because I thanked Dad as he signed the credit card slip at the restaurant. That doesn’t count, I was told. You have to wait till we’re home.
At least I can still play, even though it’s my husband I’m thanking and not my dad because we all call him dad. Even me, when the kids are around.
But today I am marveling at the message in this game, created by the kids, refereed by the kids, perpetuated by the kids: the race to thank their father for his generosity to provide a lavish meal, at no expense to them.
What a meal was set for us at a table in a long ago upper room. By His grace, we get to eat it. And we don’t have to wait till we get home to play.
Thanks, Dad, for dinner.
The Power of a Life Well-Lived
0
In honor and remembrance of John F Rilling, my dad, who would have celebrated his 80th birthday today.
Psalm 37:1-6
Fret not yourself because of the wicked,
be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your vindication as the light,
and your right as the noonday.
It’s amazing how people come out of the woodwork when they hear time is growing short. A deadline really motivates, especially when it’s imminent. That’s what happened when my dad received his diagnosis. People he hadn’t heard from in decades started writing, emailing, and calling. Each one had the same message: were it not for you, I would not be who I am today.
It was heartening to hear that my father’s deeds had borne fruit as they echoed through the years. Though Dad appreciated the sentiments shared, it didn’t change things. He would soon die in his home of many years. A man of modest means, he was never wealthy, never famous, never in the headlines. As the world measures, he had very little to show for himself.
It doesn’t seem fair that a man who lives an honest life, works hard, cares for his family, supports his friends, and mentors his co-workers, just perishes. I hear daily of those who lead tarnished lives with questionable business practices, extravagant spending, and expendable relationships, and yet they prosper. The Bible may say that the wicked “will soon wither, soon die away,” but I see plenty who are flourishing. Why bother to lead a good life when this is what it gets you?
My thinking did an about face when a kind friend offered, “While the wicked may prosper, they never leave a legacy.”
So true. The stories which follow the wicked are best forgotten, but those shared after a life well lived are told and re-told. They magnify the goodness and continue to inspire. Dad didn’t plan what people would say about him after he was gone, he had just made regular deposits in other people’s lives, and the interest compounded over the years. This flowed freely in loving remembrance after he left us.
Not long after the memorial service a group of employees from the neighborhood Starbucks came by the house with a gift. In recognition of the many hours Dad had spent at the Johns Creek Starbucks welcoming and conversing with patrons, they had framed a green Starbucks apron. At the top was Dad’s photo encircled by the apron ties, and underneath were the words: John, honorary barista of store 8202.
When a good man dies, we’re left to tell the stories of his life, not only to remember him but to take meaning and purpose for our own. While the wicked may flourish for a little earthly while, the righteous leave a legacy of goodness and mercy that inspires even greater things. One might even say that it gives such a life power over death itself.
—Wendy Rilling LeBolt
Today: Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Concurrently published in the Lenten devotional booklet distributed by the Church of the Good Shepherd, Vienna, VA.
Are you leaving a margin?
2
What if we printed our books and wrote our essays right up to the very edges leaving no margin? Wouldn’t that be a much a better use of our space. Why waste all that good white paper around the edges?
I know. I know. The book publishers out there will tell me it’s easier on the eyes, better for binding, and cleaner for copy to leave a margin. But there is a better reason: it’s jotting room. A place to make note, respond, or converse with the author, whom you may imagine is sitting there with you, reading or speaking these printed words to you.
Apparently, I am not the first to discover this and even to value this. There is actually a project called Book Traces which is seeking books with notes in the margin or entries in blank space or even with things shoved in them for safe-keeping. As libraries go digital, these treasures are in danger of being lost. They are asking for help:
Thousands of old library books bear fascinating traces of the past. Readers wrote in their books, and left notes, pictures, letters, flowers, locks of hair, and other things between their pages. We need your help identifying them because many are in danger of being discarded as libraries go digital. Books printed between 1820 and 1923 are at particular risk. Help us prove the value of maintaining rich print collections in our libraries.
Ironically, the books they are particularly trying to save – pre-copyright books published before 1923 – do not qualify as rare or fit for special collections, because they are considered damaged because of their marginalia. I would call them personalized, but to find their personality each has to be opened and examined.
A University of Virginia English professor found a tale of lost love in a 1891 copy of Longfellow’s poetry he pulled from the shelves at the Alderman library. In it, Jane Chapman Slaughter, one of the first women to receive a PhD from the University, wrote in a blank front page,
“Our readings together were in this book, ere you went to your life of work and sacrifice, and I remained to my life of infinite yearning for your presence, the sound of your voice; a yearning never to be satisfied in this world or the next.” (more here)
Ah, books are more than printed pages. There is printing, for sure. Words lived and spoken and acted out. But those margins have purpose:
- So we can expand our thinking?
- So we can share our thoughts?
- So we can reach out to others?
- So our eyes can rest from their reading?
- So we can doodle during the Service?
Somehow, my creativity is meant to go there. I’m meant to be a bit more adventuresome, to try things out, squeeze it in, go sideways or up and down. Perhaps shade or circle, foot print, teardrop or floralate. (yep – just made that up) The margins let me be me, even when we are all looking at the same printed text. They let me put my signature flourish or quiet discontent in writing. After all, who will ever read them?
But what if someone did? What will they say to those who never knew me? Perhaps more than I would say, were I to be standing there wearing my most honest, politically correct and socially acceptable face. There, in the margins, I stand exposed.
Regrettably, so much of my life is pushed to the very edges, leaving no margin, no room for error, no padding, and no comfort zone. There is no room left for whatever might come along.
What if I treated margin as it’s meant to be treated, not as extra room to fill, but extra space for extending?
- Time for someone who needs it.
- Patience for a child who deserves it.
- Calm for a body that rests in it.
- Quiet for a mind that expands in it.
Then in the end, in the very end, there will be room around the edges, just enough for the affixing of our frames in the banquet hall of masterpieces. We will be not only justified by our typewriters, but by our Lord. Oh, our words do echo through the generations, perhaps because the Word Himself left a margin for us.
A letter from my dad to his parents about his first scout trip
You remind me of your father
110 years
We said our final goodbyes to Dad this weekend. What a collection we were, gathered there to pay our respects.
- The golf group – who remembered the yips he got on short putts like I did
- The bridge partners – who remembered the joy the game gave him
- The business partners and employees – who remember the mind and the method of a man on a mission
- The Starbucks cohort – who remember the tall, black coffee and ready conversation
- The family – who realize how much of this man they didn’t know
A bit of an enigma, this guy. But put us all together in one room and have us share stories, and lo and behold we’re all talking about the same guy! yips, joy, mind, method, coffee, conversation…the common denominator: working together to make it work better.
Funny, as I made the rounds people would greet me with…”I knew your Dad from…” They all fit in a category. I joked with Adam, a young man whom Dad had employed and mentored over the last 5 years, that we all needed colored t-shirts corresponding to the John-team we were on. “That’s exactly what your Dad would have said,” he told me.
We all laughed.
I loved chatting with an athletic looking, sport shirt-clad man named Mark, who also happened to be in a wheelchair. Mark was a golfer. He had an assist device that allowed him to stand from his chair so he could swing the club. But Dad felt, in looking at him swing, that if he had something on his chair that widened his base of support, he could really improve his game. That, according to Mark, led to connecting him with the head golf pro at the Atlanta Athletic Club to see how this could be created. Mark told me he had just discovered such a device in use by another disabled golfer who could now hit the ball 300 yards. Mark lamented that he had shared the video of this, but Dad didn’t have time to see it. “He would have loved it,” Mark told me. Made me smile; yes he would have.
“You have your Dad’s smile,” Mark said. “That twinkle.”
Yep. That spark of an idea. There’s something more we need to do with this. There’s an idea here ready to be uncovered, ready to be acted upon, raring to go. That was Dad. Not trying to make a fortune. Not trying to get attention. Just trying to solve your problem, and yours, and yours. He lived simply and was completely satisfied, but he didn’t settle for that.
This was not discontent for him; it was purpose. He did not want what you had, he wanted what you wanted and immediately activated on helping you realize that desire. But only if you were in honest pursuit, which meant you were willing to work hard and apply all your resources to the project. That was his directive in every day.
Some people who came to the Service did not know my father except through his wife Melanie, whom he adored. They came on this day because of her. Even these introduced themselves to me and offered honestly, “We didn’t know your father, but now after hearing you and seeing you, now we do.”
What treasured words those are. ‘We didn’t know the father, but now we have seen him and we know him.’
That would be enough. If I could live out my days in such a way that people remarked, “You remind me of your father,” I would be content. Joy, mind, method, coffee, conversation, connection, solution…everything but the yips on my short putts, please. But yes, I even had those. Guess I’m more like my father than I thought.
What a privilege. What a responsibility.
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” ~ John 14: 15-20
Amen
My Father said, “You belong here”
2Did you know that both beach volley-baller Kerri Walsh-Jennings and Baltimore Orioles ironman Cal Ripken received the same piece of advice from their dads? It was this: “Remember you belong here.”
Now, both of these incredibly talented athletes came on the scene very young. Ripken talked about being 19 among all these 23-24 year olds who were “so much better than me” (and so much older :)) and I’m sure Kerri Walsh was younger still. What these dads knew was that their young protegees would be shaking in their boots when they hit the big time. Under the lights, facing the major league competition, they would wonder what they were doing there – with all those really talented athletes. And here they were, just “junior champions,” “just minor league phenoms.” What were they doing there?!
When we’re young, we don’t see ourselves well. We let others do that for us. How fortunate these two athletes had fathers who had the insight and the foresight to realize what their kids needed to know. You belong here…among the greats. Among the celebrated. Among the best who have ever played the game.
What a great acknowledgement. Not – you’ve made it. Or, you can beat them. That would feel like pressure. Just, you belong. Perspective, with the vision of love and the foundation of truth.
I remember – on a much smaller scale; I am no Ripken or Walsh – when I was breaking in on the junior golf circuit. I was a good player. As an 11 year old I had won the 9 hole junior championship and “moved up” to the 18 hole group. I was much younger than the rest. The reigning 18 hole champion was 18. It was her last year to play as a junior. She was legend at our club – Guerra was her last name. I think Connie was her first. We played the front 9 even and moved over to the back 9. I remember clearly on the 15th hole when I hit a really good shot – better or at least as good as hers – thinking man, I may be able to play with this girl. We played through 17 holes head to head. It all came down to the 18th. Parents and families were walking along with our match and riding in carts. I remember one of Connie’s siblings squealing the wheels and tearing up the fairway turf as she screeched to a stop. In response, I hit a 5 wood stiff to the pin (maybe 2 feet from the flag). Make that putt and I was the new junior club champion. Walking up to that putt was the first time I had ever considered that I might be able to actually beat this girl. I missed. We went to extra holes and I lost on the first.
No one had told me I belonged there. That day the concept was too new for me to claim. But afterwards, I did. And perhaps the experience taught me much more than words from my Dad would have. He, after all, was only an average golfer. What did he know about my chances? (Dad, if you’re reading this, thank you.) Both of us became believers that day, I think.
But how this moment now makes me think of Our Father who knows we belong, simply because He spoke it and it was so. Some of us just take a bit longer than others to believe it.
Today I celebrate Paul’s words to protegee Timothy…
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. ~ 1 Timothy 4:12
So many of the young people I know just need to hear, “You belong here” in order to make it absolutely true.
Thanks Abba.