It was big, exciting news when your mother told me she was pregnant. Your family waited, with very limited patience, for you to be born. All our friends and neighbors  were  thrilled with us at the prospect of another Caywood child. As soon as you were born, your sisters put up a big pink flag in the front yard to announce that you were a girl. The whole block got a kick out of that.

That was only the first of thousands of times your sisters found a way to say how thrilled they were over you. In my case, while I have frequently been the proud Papa out in the open, the public  things I have said  are overwhelmed by the millions of times I have treasured you in my heart.

Lots of people wondered if I had a secret wish that you had been a boy. I never had  any such wish. I did not wish for another girl and I did not wish for a boy. Like billions of dads before me, I just wanted our new baby to be healthy.  There you were, my new baby daughter and you were happily, obviously healthy .You were instantly, completely, totally welcomed to the place where you remain today, in my heart.

One time, someone said,” You will never know what it feels like to have a son. “I responded, “I feel sorry for you because you will never know what it’s like to have four daughters”. That is exactly how I still feel. The Universe must have honored that feeling in me, because  I now have two amazing granddaughters as well. I was born to have daughters and granddaughters.

When your Mom told me she was pregnant, I was so happy. I will admit to a little trepidation because we were so strapped for money. I prayed, “Dear God please don’t put me to the test of not having enough money to provide good medical care for my wife and new baby.

That Sunday night at church, we announced that we were expecting, but I neither spoke of nor hinted about my financial fears. The following week the problem was solved.

A woman from our church named Betty Paveglio came by the house to visit us. After the normal chit chat and tea, she told us she had something to say.

She said, “My Jesus told me I was to pay for all the expenses involved in this pregnancy. Let me know when a bill comes in so I can get the money to you. If it is a major expense, I would appreciate you giving me a few days notice.”

After she left, your mom and I began to worry. “I wonder what she meant by that. The hospital bill is so big. Surely she did not want to pay the hospital bill”, but we did not phone her.

A little while later, Betty called us. She said, ” I want to make sure you understood me. I want to pay for the doctor, the hospital bill every vitamin or other medicine you need. Everything.”

I said, “Betty you don’t know what a pregnancy costs these days”.

She laughed and said “I know it has been a long time since I had my children, but I want every single bill”. And she meant it. She joyfully took care of every expense.

When you were about six months old, she came by to see us. As she always did when she came over, she took you on her lap and played with you. Then she said, ” I guess you are old enough for me to tell you my secret. When I told your folks I was going to pay for your coming, I had no idea how I was going to do it. This has been one of the greatest adventures of my life. Every time a big bill needed to be paid,  some extra money somehow came in. The money always got there in time.” We were touched by her courage and her heart.  You can imagine how grateful we were.

Betty earned some of her living money as a foster parent. As things turned out in terms of the work that you grew up to do, I have often thought there was some kind of synchronicity in that.

While you were  still in the hospital, the big decision was who was going to hold you first.  Each of your sisters was determined to have that privilege when you came home. There was no way for me to peaceably make that decision.  Finally I said, “You all will hold her at the same time.” I got a few puzzled looks on that one.

So I explained, “We will draw straws. The longest straw gets to hold her head, the medium straw gets hold her middle and the shortest one will get the feet. After exactly two minutes we will rotate positions to the right and continue doing that till each of you have several turns in each spot. Then I get to hold her. I was very impatient for my turn to come but the fuss your sisters were making admiring their new sister was so endearing that actually ended up enjoying my wait.

From the beginning, while I was admiring the wonder of my baby girl, I had another thought in my mind. I kept saying to myself, “I wonder what it is going to be like to someday be talking to JoAnna  adult to adult. Thinking about that fascinated me.

I can tell you now talking to you as an adult is an enjoyable, engrossing and  delightful experience for me. I am so proud of you. Coming from the childhood I had, to see you so involved  bettering the experience of children in our society moves me.

You had a darling smile. It never failed to amuse me. Once, the family went to Aunt Evelyn’s in Virginia. We all loved your smile so much that  your entire family  spent the first fifteen minutes we were there getting you to smile. We loved showing off our baby.

When you were three or four, the family had a fun beach day. Your mom turned to me and said “Watch how JoAnna gets things organized”.

You were digging a hole in the sand. Gradually, a group of kids were gathered around you wanting to dig a hole with you. Some of the kids were considerably older that you. Pretty soon you said something like, “We need to get the sand around the hole back away from the hole”. Immediately, two or three of the children jumped on the project and kept the sand back from the hole from then on.

At various times at your high school you showed your natural leadership. You never led in a dominating way. In fact, it looked to me like you had no intention whatsoever of leading. Leading situations just came your way without you asking for it at all.

At your graduation some or even most of the students were acting up. The graduating seniors were a small enough group that they could all sit on the platform. There must have been twenty or twenty five of the students on the stage with cans of Silly String.  Silly String was flying all over the place. I think it was a natural reaction to four years of an over controlling  school administration. The faculty could do nothing to stop the Silly String play.

It came time for you to make your speech. You took your place at the podium.  Then you turned around and looked at the fun your fellow students were having. You thoroughly enjoyed it. You watched it for a little while and then while still facing the students you casually lifted your hands in an “It is time to stop the playing around” motion. The confusion ended immediately and you turned back to the audience and calmly and effectively made your speech. You had the audience in the palm of your hands.

Then there was the time that the administration took an unkind and unjust stand over the girl that got pregnant. There was a grassroots student uprising organized in which you participated but did not lead. Midday, the students met in  open space in the middle of the campus. The protest was not rowdy but it was very determined.

Someone had notified the local press so there were reporters there. The reporters asked, “Who is the leader here”.

To your surprise, all the students turned and looked at you.  When you told me about it, you said, ” All I could see was eyes looking at me”. Then you gave a statement that made the newspapers.

The school was very image conscious. As a result of the newspaper coverage, the school modified their stance against the pregnant girl. The modification was neither  fully kind or fully just, but it did improve the girl’s situation. I am sure the kindness,  justice and support of her fellow students was the thing that was most healing for her. I certainly was one proud Dad.

Then there were the Virgin Mary roles in the sister plays; the week we spent trying to understand a William Faulkner story. Our conclusions about Faulkner’s story that completely changed how I understood the limitations of words, especially Biblical words. Also, there was the total joy of spending an entire Saturday with you doing errands and talking. We shared good times and hard times, both yours and mine. We mostly just enjoyed each others company.

You have always loved learning, both learning yourself but now also making it possible for people  to learn,  about the needs of children. Curt Simmons was a great Major League pitcher. Hank Aaron was one of the best hitters ever, Curt Simmons once said, “Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster.” When you were growing up, My saying was “Sneaking a fact past JoAnna is like sneaking the sun past a rooster”. I remember you coming to me during your early  days at UCI with tears of frustration in your eyes saying, “Dad, I just don’t have the time to learn all there is to learn in my classes. All the recommended books look so interesting.”

I explained to you that one of the most important functions of college was to help you figure the field that was your passion. Then you would have the opportunity to learn as much you wanted to about any field that had the power to hold your interest. The good news in your case, is that any interest you would like to explore is wide open because of your intellect and your powerful emotional drive.

With Love, and Joy,  Dad

A few years ago I took an incredible trip with my sister Evelyn. We attended the C. S. Lewis Lecture’s at Oxford University and did some magnificent sightseeing under the guidance of my good nephew Tim. In London, we visited St Paul’s Cathedral and then walked across the bridge over the Thames River to the Globe Theater.

I was, of course stunned and overwhelmed by the grandeur and beauty of St Paul’s. However the longer I was inside St Paul”s, the more uncomfortable I became. The building is full of the tombs of England’s greatest historical citizens with no memorial at all to the laborers who died building the huge, stone building without any assistance of power tools. The stone is hand hewn and the foundations were hand dug by underpaid laborers. The building was paid for by Imperial wealth gained largely at the expense of the colonized peoples. Where is the memorial to the people of India and the other colonial people who in actuality paid for it all.

I felt like I was in a pagan temple dedicated the  success of the British military and the British colonial wealth I suspected that the sermon’s preached from the great pulpit were designed to glorify and justify the success of the empire not the glory of God.

I could not keep my mind from wandering to a powerful scene in the movie “Mary Poppins” It was the scene filmed on the steps of St Paul’s in which an elderly woman staved off starvation by selling food for the pigeons so the wealthier folks could entertain themselves and their children. All during the scene, the theater’s sound system was stirring me with the emotional music of “Feed The Birds, Tuppence a bag, Tuppence a Bag”

That movie scene expressed my sense of the injustice represented by St Paul’s Cathedral. The contrast between the impoverished elderly woman and the fantastically extravagant cathedral was professionally subtle but so powerful to me.

To me the whole movie sounded that theme. The good guys were a chimney sweep, a nanny, small children, the women demanding the right to vote, and an aged banker who finally got to be a true child at the very end of his life through a fit of wild, childlike laughter. The bad guys were the wealthy, controlling, bankers that were part of the system who thought women could not be trusted with the vote.

After our visit to the Cathedral, Tim walked us over the famous bridge over the Thames River so we could see The Globe Theater rebuilt to duplicate the original Old Globe. The walk to the Globe cleared my head so I could better appreciate the Globe Theater.

The Globe was built to entertain the entire community. There were the poor people holding the cheapest tickets standing directly in front of the stage. There were no seats for them but they probably had the best viewing spot in the theater. The rest of the people sat in seats that gradually increased in price as the patrons toward the most preferred seats.

My nephew Tim went on the internet compared the modern prices to the prices in Shakespeare’s day. Of course, the modern prices were far higher. Interestingly, the ratio between the cheapest tickets and the most expensive was about the same when the tickets sold in Shakespeare’s day and the tickets sold when I was in London were compared.

In my mind, the Cathedral sermons were proud trumpeting of the glories of oppression and Manifest Destiny. At the Old Globe, the audience was treated to the inspired, universal truths of Shakespeare’s plays. The Cathedral is a lasting expression of the hubris of religiosity and the Old Globe was and is a lasting   expression of the edifying spirituality given to us by inspired writers like Shakespeare.

I could have added Bill W to my list of inspired writers. Then there is Cervantes, Alexander Lohan. I would add Jesus except He was a face to face communicator. Others recorded his words for us. Who else would you add? I would love for you to let me know by leaving a comment below.

GMC

Jill’s Mom, Jerelyn, who is my ex-wife, was a few months pregnant with Jill when we were deciding to move from the East Coast back to California. At the time, we already had one daughter, our adorable two year old Gina The decision to move was a tough one for me to make. I was very afraid that a cross country trip would threaten our unborn baby and be a risk to our  family.

One day, when I was working as Payroll Manager for The Marriott Corporation in the DC area, I went for a drive during my lunch hour. I began to meditate on this Bible verse. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” [Matt 6:33KJV]

A powerful sense of well being came over me. I felt if I made my decision on the basis of my best understanding of what was right, every thing would work out just fine. At that very moment. I decided that provided Jerelyn agreed, we would move back to California. As it happened, she also thought the move was the right thing to do.

A month or so later, we rented a U-haul trailer for the cross country move. The trailer, packed to the limit with every thing we owned, weighed more than our car, a Plymouth Barracuda. That made the car want to swerve when I had to brake suddenly. Anytime  I was pulling the trailer, I was anxious about losing control of the car.

In a few days we arrived safely in Dallas to be with Jerelyn’s brother Jim and his wife Leta for a few days. I wanted Jerelyn and Gina to fly on to California and to allow me to drive on alone. Jerelyn wanted no part of that Idea. I asked her brother to try to persuade Jerelyn to fly from Dallas to Los Angeles. He refused. He said, “She has the right to make that decision for herself. I will not try to influence her.”

I became more and more distressed each day that we remained in Dallas. Then a phrase from Isaiah began to run through my mind over and over again. The phrase was the last few words of Isa 40:11. “He… shall gently lead those that are with young.” I grabbed onto that  verse as if it were a life raft that would keep me safe from voracious sharks. I finally could accept the comfort that helped me feel that my family was going to be OK. We traveled together and we made it back to California.

After a short visit to San Diego, We drove to Monrovia and  moved into our new home. My main worry then was good medical care for Jerelyn. However,a local Doctor generously offered us free pre-natal and birth care. We settled down to wait for our new baby.

Gina was in a perpetual state of elation at the prospect of a brother or sister. Jerelyn felt good but had one deeply felt concern. When Gina had been born, Jerelyn had gone through a strenuous labor from morning to the late evening on an empty stomach. She had been ravenously hungry and had demanded a sandwich be sent to recovery  while she was still in the delivery room. With this baby, she was determined not to go into labor on an empty stomach for a second time.

We had a peach tree in the back yard drooping with fruit. Every night we made hot peach cobbler buried in vanilla ice cream. Jill came two weeks later than we expected, so we downed, with relish, a huge  dessert just before we went to bed every night for two weeks. It is a wonder that Jill was not born a diabetic.

Labor began very early one morning. We left Gina with Grandma, and rushed to the hospital which was just a few miles across town. I had scouted the hospital a few days earlier so I would be sure to know where the entrance to the hospital was located.  However, because it was so early in the morning we couldn’t go in the main entrance. The sign said to go to the emergency entrance to gain access to the hospital. We had to walk about two hundred yards around the building to get to the emergency entrance.

I was overwhelmed with remorse. Jerelyn thoroughly enjoyed rubbing it in. “Nice job George. Here I am about ready to give birth  and you are making me walk clear around the outside of the hospital. I am going to tell everyone we know about this.”

I don’t think she was angry, but there was definitely some teasing payback in her voice for her long walk. She lived up to her promise. Everyone we knew was given the opportunity to unmercifully razz me.

When Jerelyn got to the labor room, the nurse took one look and said, “Honey, don’t push, don’t push.” The  nurse ran out of room to call the Doctor. All the staff were worried that the baby would come before the doctor got there.

When the Doctor came he was angry. He said “It seems like experienced nurses like you could manage to get me here on time”. I did not mention our circumnavigation of the hospital grounds.

I had tried to work it out with the hospital so I could be in the delivery room. However, we had not gotten settled in California soon enough for me to complete the child birth training.The doctor turned on the speakers in the Father’s waiting room so I could hear what was going on. In just a few minutes, I heard the announcement, “You have a beautiful daughter.” I then I heard Jill’s delicate little cry; I was so moved.

After Jill was born I went to Jerelyn’s room. I kissed her and said, “I have no words to express my gratitude to you for giving me my baby girl.” That was all I wanted to, or for that matter could, say.

In thirty minutes or so I left Jerelyn’s room to allow her to sleep. As I was leaving the room, the nurses gave me directions to the nursery viewing window so I could  see my little baby girl. Her crib had been moved right next to the window. The birth had been quick enough and easy enough that Jill was completely unmarked by the process of being born. She was achingly beautiful and still is to this day.

I stood at the window looking at my new daughter for a long time. It must have been at least 90 minutes. I was looking at my baby with delight but also in awed silence. I wanted to be there with her all by myself. I hoped that no one would come by and disturb us. Very few events in the ensuing years could compare at all with the thrill of becoming Jill’s father.

Jill was a delightful little girl. She was bright, giving, enjoyable, hard working and very capable. In school, she kept herself years ahead of her grade level. She did that on her own motivation. I don’t remember ever saying or thinking that she needed to to stop playing in order to get her  homework done.

Ultimately she skipped the sixth grade. That put her at the same grade level as Gina. Being in the same grade worked out well  for them and was the foundation for the remarkable friendship between the two that is still a powerful friendship today. That friendship of course, includes little sister JoAnna

Also, Jill loved to take on big projects. One time when she was about ten,  she wanted to clean the garage. It was a throughly cluttered mess full of things like a non-functioning fuel pump that I had removed from the car years before.

There was no path through the mess in the garage. All the junk was piled up in  layers.  I would not let her clean it up. My reasoning was that I should do the job. In other words, my refusal had nothing to do with Jill’s admirable capabilities and aspirations. I simply wanted to avoid  the guilt feelings that  I would have because I let my ten year old daughter do a job I should have done myself.

She was very disappointed. but it worked out well. Years later, the sisters organized a garage sale selling the junk in the garage. I tried to stop them from putting out the really worthless stuff. Jill said, “Dad, that is the stuff people will want to buy”. That event was a precursor to what would turn out to be Jill’s remarkably good business sense. They sold the worn out fuel pump for a quarter.  They realized a very nice profit that day.

Jill was energetic and enthusiastic in her play, especially when all four girls were trying to wrestle me to the ground from my hands and knees during our every evening play on the living room carpet.  She was and is a lovely sister and daughter.

She also loved justice.  Their grade school was largely a mix of Hispanic kids and kids of Northern European descent. One year she and her sisters were outraged that their schoolmates wanted them to decide between being a Chollo or being an Anglo . The girls absolutely refused to be pressured into deciding between the two groups. They wanted to be friends with everyone.

At some point in High School, Jill began saving all the money she earned babysitting and house cleaning. She wanted to spend a year in Paris with her cousins who lived there. She had to pay for the whole trip herself. She was showing her willingness to make a plan, then work like crazy to pull it off.

This trip was a sort of rite of passage for Jill. Jill loved being at home with her family. Some years she didn’t even want to go to summer camp. For that reason, going off to Paris by herself when she spoke very little French was incredibly brave. I know she was often lonely, but she made the trip work. She even took a dance class at a nearby French University. She stayed as long as she needed in order to give herself the satisfaction of meeting her goal.

She was the first of my kids to leave home for any length of time. She took her sewing machine on the airplane with her on the flight to France. I’ll never forget how my heart ached seeing my lovely daughter, with her sewing machine hanging off her right shoulder, walk onto the ramp leading to the airplane.

When she got home from Paris, she had grown up. Her maturity showed  very soon after she got home; she wanted to volunteer at Union Rescue Mission where I worked. Jill her sisters and some friends did a really good job volunteering at the missions Kids Klub program for several years.

I had the privilege of performing Jill and Eric’s wedding. In one way, it was a sad time because Cousin Steve was struck with a ultimately fatal aneurysm in his brain stem the very day of their wedding.

I was stunned over Steve, especially since I was with him when the aneurysm struck.I deeply wanted Jill and Eric to have good memories of their wedding day despite our family’s tragedy.

The incredible love that everyone in attendance at their marriage so powerfully felt, carried the day. Everyone fully supported the idea of the two of them getting married.I felt waves of love rolling up from the attendees. Jill, Eric and I all agree that their wedding was moving and warm. The wedding is a good memory for all us .

I love having Eric as a son in law. He is a very loving and enjoyable member of our family. In time there was the wonder that is my granddaughters. I love them so very much. Jill is still beautiful in every way a woman can be beautiful.

When she was a child she delighted me. That hasn’t changed.

Here are seven reasons I used to not respond to what seems to me to be female flirting.  I am getting very hard on my hesitations and have actually made good progress. The reasons listed are in no particular order.

1. I need to be pretty sure I am reading the signals right. It hurts to be rejected.

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2. Sometimes women flirt just to reassure themselves that they still have what it takes.

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3. To me, it seems like I’m in a pickle. The odds seem high that if I respond, in the long term, either me or the woman is going to hurt. I dislike both options equally.

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4. I am so damn self conscious.-

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5. Some women think of me as a fatherly type. I often can’t tell if their approaches to me are an attempt to ease their daddy wounds or if they would like to  investigate the possibility of a romance with me.

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6. If the woman is really attractive, I sometimes I tie up verbally.

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7. I am scared of intimacy dating back to my boyhood. If there is the possibility of intimacy of the sort that may lead to sex, I  sometimes lose the ability to be my true self. I feel a kind of macho defensiveness rise up.

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GmCay

Dear Ruby,

I am looking at my beautiful little display of roses. I have had it about 5 years I think. The uninformed might say that the flowers are artificial, that they are not real. What do they know?

The people who gave them to me have beautiful roses in their back yard. The roses in their yard are so lovely that HP came to live at their house in the form of a beautiful cat. So I know the whole family loves roses.

In the last five years, a friendship has bloomed between me and that family. It is a deep solid, delightful friendship. That is why my roses are real. They have come to represent this friendship which is real beyond my ability to describe. Therefore, the roses are real way beyond the bouquet I brought at the store a few days ago.

Your Grateful Friend,
George

All my life, I have felt a deep loneliness. The persistence of the loneliness has been frightening. It has seemed to me, that the consistent loneliness was inarguable proof that something was wrong with me.

I tried to talk myself out of the lonely feelings. I tried to uncover wounds out of my boyhood that gave me inappropriate feelings of loneliness. I went to five or six meetings a week so I would be around people. Some of the things I tried gave me a few moments of fulfilment, but soon the lonely feelings re-emerged.

Then I had an experience that led to an insight that helped me. A friend of mine, who was a social worker, called me and told me she was all torn up emotionally. She had to take a child out of an abusive home. Of course the parents were angry, but she had been surprised at how angry the little boy was. However, she felt morally and legally obligated to protect the child by getting him out of the situation.

We talked awhile about how difficult her job was and how she had no choice in the matter. After thirty minutes or so she felt some better, perhaps from just venting her feelings. I knew I had no answers for her, but I did listen to her and validated the realness of her agony.

The rest of that evening I thought about the little boy. I wondered why he was so angry. After all he truly was being abused. I could not figure out his angry feelings about being taken out of his home.

Then I asked myself, “What would I have felt if a social worker had taken me out of my abusive home?” I realized that I would have been furious just like the other little boy.

The reason I would have been furious was obvious to me. Back then, I was totally persuaded that if I tried hard enough, long enough, I would finally achieve nurture from my Mom. I was resolute in my determination to win that battle.

If I had been taken out of my home, I would have felt that I was being denied my chance to have a Mother’s love. If I was not with her, I could not win her love. If I had been removed, I would have felt I was doomed to grow up without the maternal acceptance I so desperately wanted and needed and would ultimately gain if I tried hard enough.

Of course, my boyhood assumption was entirely wrong. My mother’s rage was in her. I did not cause it, I could not control it, and I could not cure it. No matter what I did or did not do, she would have dealt with me as harshly as her personal psychology demanded. But, as a boy I did not have that understanding.

Then I saw the root of my adult loneliness. I was still trying to win my mother’s love, even though she had been dead for almost twenty years. I was the target of enormous love from my kids, from my larger family, and from an absolute wealth of program and other friends. However, none of that love was from my Mom, Louella, and Louella’s love was the love I was demanding and the love I was totally committed to finding. It was like I was starving to death, seated at a banquet table full of food.

When I shared at a meeting about me demanding my Mom’s love from the world, I made a joke. I said, “I have found a solution. I need several of you woman to change your name to Louella.” Immediately two or three women jumped in on the joke and raised their hand and said, “I’ll do it.” We all had a good laugh.

Since then, I have worked at grieving my boyhood lack of motherly nurture. In that way, I am gradually able to let the obsession go. As I release my grief into the hearts of my loved ones and into the hands of God, I am able to accept and enjoy the abundance of love there is for me in the world.

When I worked at Union Rescue Mission, I was sometimes in charge of the Dryout Room where men detoxed. That meant that every few hours I would go to the Dryout Room and check on the three or four men who were detoxing there. If they asked me to, I would pray with them, but most of the time they just wanted to talk.

Sooner or later, our conversations would turn to what they wanted to do when they checked out of detox. Generally, they wanted to join one of the mission’s ten or so recovery programs. Occasionally, they would want help getting into one of the county programs or into a program like The Salvation Army.

Robert was one of the exceptions. He wanted to go back to his home church and reestablish himself in the community. I knew of the church because I had preached there many times and because my very close friend, Ron Hill was the pastor.

I suggested that upon leaving the Dryout Room, Robert should come by my office and phone Pastor Hill. To my surprise, he did not want to do that. He explained his hesitancy with the following story which I will recount to you as he told it to me, in Robert’s voice.

“I was sitting in the chapel waiting for the service to start. I wasn’t paying attention to the things going on around me. I was hungover and feeling miserable. Then I looked up and realized that a group from my home church was on the chapel platform preparing to conduct the evening service. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice. I looked around, and to my shock, I saw an elder from my church. He was in the aisle to which I was closest, five or six rows in front of where I was sitting, visiting with various people seated in those rows.

I scrunched down in my seat hoping he would not see me. I hoped he would turn around and head back down front to the speaker’s platform. No such luck. He kept walking down the aisle toward me, stopping to talk to people along the way. I thought about getting out of the chapel, but I knew he would surely see me if I stood up.

Then he did see me. He looked shocked for a second and said, ‘Robert, what are you doing here?’

There was nothing for me to do except to come clean about my latest drinking episode. He wasn’t angry and he didn’t reproach me. He just began to try to figure out what he could do to help.

After talking to me for awhile, he went to get the chaplain that was on duty. The chaplain asked me if I would like to check into the Dryout Room. I said, ‘That would really help.’

That was two days ago.I feel like God wants me to go back home and work to get myself established again as one of the lay ministers at my church, but I am afraid they won’t accept me.’ ”

I said, “Robert, I know those people they will accept you. They will be glad to have you back.” Then I told Robert an important lesson I had learned about hiding my true self from other people.

I said, “For years, I had two selves. There was the false self I wanted everyone to think I was, and there was the true self I wanted to hide from everyone because I was afraid they wouldn’t accept me if they really knew me. The people around me tried to love the only George I had let them know, which was the false self. They hugged the false me, talked to the false me, loved the false me and did there best to let my false me know they cared.

The problem was that despite their best efforts to be loving, they could only love the self I presented to them. In the meantime, my real self was on the other side of the room sitting there in abject loneliness. I had to learn to allow my true self to be seen before people could love the real me. Only then could I begin to enjoy the love that was all around me.”

Then I asked Robert if what I had told him had made sense to him. He told me that he understood. Then he said, “When I was going to that church, I was a lay minister in training. I wanted to impress everyone with my spirituality. I patterned everything I did after Reverend Hill. I never really let anyone see the man I really was.”

I replied, “I am sure the people tried to love your imitation of Pastor Hill, but that was little comfort to you because the real you was not getting any attention. Why don’t you go back home to your church and be yourself. I promise you they will love and accept you.”

He took my advice. The last I heard he was doing fine.

Not being myself was a very hollow way for me to live. Letting the people in my program see me as I am, has gradually allowed me to improve my sense of well being. Being as honest and transparent as I am able to be, is allowing me to experience the extremely generous love of my family and my friends.

-GMC-

Big Sis

Hmmm—Your story about Robert and your insights you shared out of your own experience, is somehow trying to shed some understanding into my thinking about one of the kings of Judah we were studying last week. Joash, who in 2Kings 11, came to the throne at the age of 8 after being hidden from Athaliah for 7 years.The thing that was puzzling was after his spiritual mentor and father figure Jehoida died, Joash suddenly turned into a bad king- even though he had been doing things pleasing to God for decades.

George’s response.
I see two possilities. The first is that Jehoida was not a good teacher. He did not build Godliness into Joash as much as he just told Joash what to do. He was Joash’s boss not his mentor. In that case Jehoida only pretended to be a mentor to Joash. In Jehoida’s pride, all he wanted was control. So when Jehoida is gone, all Joash has to work with is his immature heart.
The second is that Joash was an unwilling student. After Jehoida died, Joash began to do what he had wanted to do all along. With Jehoida, he never revealed his true self, so his true self was never dealt with.

Maybe both of the above were true. In any case, the relationship between Jehoida and and Joash does not sound very healthy.

From Thoughts on Loneliness and Fellowship 4

According to the New Testament, if anyone is in Hell they there despite the following graces offered to us all by  God.

John 12:32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”

-If anyone is in Hell, they are there despite the fact that at the cross, Jesus drew them to himself.

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Romans 3:23-24 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

_ The message in this passage is that every last one of us is justified. The easiest way to understand what the word justification means is to say that if I am justified God has made it just as if we never sinned. Therefore, if anyone is in hell, they are there despite the reality that God has made it just like they never sinned

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Romans 5:6-7 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

-If anyone is in hell they are there despite the fact that Christ died for them straight in the  face of their sin.

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Romans 5:15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

-Surely, the work as Christ is at least as powerful as the work of the forces of darkness. Therefore, if anyone is in Hell, they are there despite the overflowing grace of God.

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Romans 5:18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.

-In case we missed it Chapter 3,  Paul repeats the same idea in Chapter 5. We have all been justified. Therefore, for the second time, if anyone is in hell they are there despite the fact that God justified them.

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Romans 5:21…So that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

-The reign of Jesus Christ our Lord is obviously more sweepingly inclusive  and powerful than the reign of death.

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In case you missed it, George (my dad) and I were fortunate enough to be selected for the new StoryCorps book, Listening is an Act of Love. Keep your eyes open - it’s in the bigger Starbucks stores across the nation! You can read more about our StoryCorps involvment by clicking here.

Dad’s gotten a lot of press, too. Apparently, our story was one of the favorites of David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps.

• • He was interviewed on KPCC, the Airtalk show with Larry Mantle on November 12th (stay tuned - we’re gonna get this on the blog).
  • He was featured in the Orange County Register on Thanksgiving.
  • Even the Seattle Post Intelligencer picked up our story!
  • Today he was scheduled to be on Democracy Now but alas he has a terrible flu bug.

Go, Dad, go!

Love,

Gina

There is a verse in the Psalms that says, “The Heavens are telling the glory of God.” The writer looked at the Heavens as a friend, a night companion that communicated wondrous things to him.

When I look at the stars, I think of them in a way that is far more scientific than the way the Psalmist looked at them. I see giant thermonuclear furnaces that are often burning brighter than the Sun, only tiny in my eyes because they are incomprehensibly far away. I see stars in numbers beyond my ability to count, knowing all the while that there are far more stars I can’t see than those that are visible to my elderly and human eyes.

A shepherd from thousands of years ago, staying awake at night to guard his sheep had not seen all the documentaries I have seen. And yet I think he understood the glory of the night sky at a personal level better than I do.

For one thing, his view was far less obscured by light and air pollution than mine. Also, the fragmentary understanding I have of things enormously beyond my limited human intellect can pollute my sense of wonder. That is because I kid myself about how much I know, in order to feel more in charge than I actually am.

The old shepherd looked with pure wonder on a sky that felt like a close and intimate part of his daily life. The silvery illumination of the night sky bathed the world around him in a soft and becoming light. That light kept the world from falling into a darkness that would have felt dangerous to him. It helped the shepherd protect himself and the flock he loved and depended upon.

He could find his favorite constellations and watch them float serenely and dependably across the sky. He knew that the sun would follow the stars up into the sky and erase them, only to be replaced itself a few hours later by the reappearance of the celestial night.

However, there have been two occasions in my life that I saw the stars in a way that gave me a glimpse into the sense of wonder that the night sky gave the shepherds thousands of years ago. The first was a boyhood experience.

My family moved from the desert city of Tucson, Arizona to San Diego, California when I was 3 years old. World War II had just begun. My Dad wanted to go to work in the West Coast defense plants.

However, each year some of my siblings and I would spend the summer back in Tucson with the grandparents. We loved going there and were too little to realize that Tucson was not a place most people visited in the summer because of the high temperatures. We always had a grand time and were not bothered by the heat at all.

The house we lived in Tucson was an oven by the time evening came. Therefore, most of the family slept on cots in the back yard. We folded the mattresses over in the day and unfolded them at night. We put one half of the bed sheet over the mattress and covered up with the other half. I loved going to sleep with my siblings around me, knowing that when I woke up, some of the adults would be there, too.

I only had one bad experience. One night while I was sleeping, the covering half of the sheet came off of me and fell onto an anthole. Desert ants are huge and they sting painfully. I woke up at daylight covered with red ants. I ran screaming into the house. Someone put me into a bathtub filled with cool water. I don’t remember being stung, but I do remember the comfort of that bath and the sight of dozens of ants floating on the water. My Aunt Nellie somehow fished the insects out of the water. I stayed in the tub a good long time.

However, most of the time, sleeping in the back yard on beautiful desert summer evenings was wonderful. There was very little light or air pollution, and there was generally a pleasant, warm breeze. The sky was amazing.

The Milky Way was so bright and thick with stars that it looked almost solid. I would go to sleep awash with the wonder of the universe and wake up serene and rested. I believe that those summer nights have provided me the basis for the faith in God that has sustained me all my life.

The second time I shared sky wonder with the ancients involved my oldest daughter, Gina. She was almost seven at the time. In a way, it was the first time that I tasted the immense pleasure I have these days, fellowshiping with my girls as adults. Yes, Gina was only a small child at the time, but the situation made me need her to be more mature than I had any right to expect her to be, and she came through.

At the time, we wanted to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We had friends that lived there and I had wonderful relatives in Oklahoma. My wife had warm, loving family a few hours drive from Tulsa in Arkansas.

While visiting in Oklahoma and exploring my employment options, my wife got very ill with hepatitis. Her skin was bright yellow-gold. The doctor ordered months of complete bed-rest.

My family sent lots of money to help us, so we decided to fly her home to San Diego first class, so her folks could care for her while I drove the kids home to Azusa, California.

We owned a very solid automobile, but it was definitely older. I was worried about the car breaking down out in the desert, but I felt I had no choice but to drive the kids home.

We took off on the trip early one morning. JoAnna was one year old and rode in a car seat in the front. She hated the car seat and protested predictably for a few hours. Then she settled down and was no trouble for the remainder of the trip. The other three girls were in the back seat. They understood our difficult situation and were unimaginably cooperative. I felt so proud of them all.

The first day we drove to Amarillo, Texas. We stayed at a Holiday Inn (expensive by our standards) because they had a “kids sleep and eat free” program. I don’t think they had a dad and four kids in mind when the program was designed. They were very nice, though, and we got a little hotel-wide fame as in,”There goes the dad traveling with four darling little girls.”

At dinner, one grandparent-like couple invited all four girls to eat with them. Maybe the couple was missing their own grandbabies. They offered the bribe of, “You can have any dessert you want,” so the kids went along cheerfully. I read the paper over my dinner. That felt really good. No doubt the girls needed a break from me, as well.

The next day we drove almost all the way through New Mexico. We made good time considering the frequent play stops that seemed advisable. That evening at dinner, I decided to drive all night. I thought if we did that, we could make it almost home by the next morning.

Several adults had told Gina that she had to be a big girl and help me all she could. She took them very seriously and therefore told me she wanted to stay awake and talk to me to help me stay alert while I drove. I put JoAnna and her chair in the back so Gina could be in the front.

Before long, the younger girls were asleep. Gina and I had a good time talking and singing. Every time I stopped for another cup of coffee, I let Gina pick out a chocolate candy bar. We both were pretty hyped up after a few hours.

In the middle of the night, somewhere near Flagstaff, I stopped to get us a little exercise. It was a moonless night. As we were walking around, one of us looked up and saw the stars. We were both stunned. The Milky Way was flowing brilliantly across the sky.

We just stood there and gaped for a few minutes. Then I explained how the Milky Way was really our own galaxy and that we were looking through the galaxy as if it were a dinner plate and we were at one edge. I think she got it.

Then I told her that the God that made the Milky Way loved us and was going to take care of us. We were both deeply comforted. We were no longer just a dad and his little girl. We were two human beings that loved each other very much, feeling close and serene as the universe looked down on us with total acceptance and approval.

In the morning we drove to Nellie’s house instead of going home. Nellie watched the kids so I could sleep. I don’t know if Gina slept or not. My guess is that she did. Gina and I have never been very good at going without our rest.

The next day we went to San Diego and picked up Mommy to take her home. As sick as she was, Mommy was very thrilled to have her family safe and close.

As I have written this, I have gained an insight. That night in Arizona, the stars taught Gina and I the human emotion of wonder. Being able to feel wonder is a great thing, but the wonder of the night sky has been exceeded in my experience, by the awesome wonder of the privilege of being dad to my daughters, and the wonder of the women they have become.

WRITTEN FOR GINA AS MY GIFT TO HER ON HER 40TH BIRTHDAY