Back in the saddle

September 5, 2006 · Filed Under general

I’m back. And you didn’t even realize I was gone, did you?
We (the Territorial Family) spent the long weekend visiting my parents at the ancestral home — the Territorial Incubator, if you will…

It’s always an interesting thing, these visits, if for no other reason than the inter-generational dynamics that are on display. I worry about how my kids behave, because I still worry about making my parents upset, even as/though they are far more tolerant of things because they are approaching said behavior from a ‘grandparent-ly’ point-of-view. It’s also interesting (such a dispassionate word!) to note how I tend to regress and/or revert to type in the house in which I spent my most formative years. There’s so much that’s different, but yet so much that makes me feel just like I did 30 years ago. If nothing else, it serves to illustrate for me the many ways in which I have kept to, and deviated from, the patterns by which my parents have lived their daily lives.

Not only do such visits bring into sharper relief the ways in which I have aged, they also make me face up to the ways in which my parents have aged. In my mind’s eye, my parents are frozen at about 40 years-old — i.e., my view of them when I was about 10. Even as the past 30 years have gone by, that’s still how I view them when I think of them. It’s comforting, in a way, as it allows me to always fall back on that sense of child-like awe & reverence that kids need to have about their parents. My dad will always be that ultimate arbiter of truth & “rightness” — I may not have always liked it, but I always believed in & respected the authority he projected & represented. My mom will always be the even-tempered, all-knowing, and ultimate ally — the smartest, most caring woman in the world. (Big sis will always be the coolest, and the best example that a weaselly little brother could ever hope to have — but since she wasn’t there this weekend, I’ll leave it at that… )

Among the many things that I’m thankful to my parents for/about, one stands out in particular. One thing that I’ve learned during my almost 39 years on Earth (about 35 of which I’m actually aware — the first 4 are kinda fuzzy…) is that my parents have done me & big sis a great service by not subjecting us to the same restrictions that were placed upon them. My parents, in their nearly 50 years of marriage, have been subjected to the largely unreasonable expectations of familial demands & obligations. This is neither the time, nor the place for airing the laundry list; rather, suffice it to say that they have endured far more than I would’ve ever been able to, and have done so far more gracefully than could’ve ever been expected. In that context, then, the gift that my parents have given us (me & big sis) is this: they did not subject us to the same “burden of the law” to which they had been subjected. We were not made to feel guilt about going away to college, or moving away after getting married (even hundreds of miles away, and not just the 10 miles away that earned my parents such scorn 31 years ago…). As a parent, a man, and a human, I’m humbled, awed, and thankful for the way in which my parents have lived their lives in a true Christian, Gospel-driven way. They have modeled how to do things such that I truly do not feel the lash of the Law as a motivator, but rather the love of the Gospel.

While this might sound/read like I’m in a maudlin mood, I’m not. I’m thankful — to my parents for their love & example, and to God for my parents.

I’m also thankful to God for Christ on the cross, so that my salvation is not dependent on anything other than Christ on the cross. For if it was necessary for me to contribute in any way at all, I’d surely be on the hell-express. I prove to myself every day that I am powerless to effect any control (in myself or others) or results other than screwing things up.

Anyway, that’s where I was. I planned on blogging, especially now that my parents have broadband, but circumstances colluded such that I never got the chance, with Sat & Sun both presenting obstacles, largely of my own creation. Sometimes I can be quite the bozo…

Shocking, and sad, but true…
-ghp