The reason for grandchildren

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by the Night Writer

Down among the reeds and rushes
A baby boy was found
His eyes as clear as centuries
His silky hair was brown

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

Our pastor likes to say, “God gives you children so that you can grow up.” The point is that your thinking changes when you realize the long-term responsibility you have, and your behavior (hopefully) changes when you start to recognize your less admirable traits showing up in your children. Unless, of course, you don’t mind your child turning into a despicable evil genius.

watching the game blog size

A second thought along this line occurred to me the other day: “and God gives you grandchildren so you can mature.” By that I mean the satisfaction that comes from seeing all the things you worked so hard to put into your child manifest itself in and around your grandchild. It’s the pay-off for the blood, sweat, tears and unpopular decisions you made to strengthen your own character as well as your son or daughter’s and it comes when you see how they love and teach their own children in turn, perhaps even with a greater patience and discipline than you yourself possessed at the same stage in your life. It’s at this point that you realize that your hopes for the future are bearing fruit and your work has passed from your hands.

I also realized that the same thing applies not just to the natural children you’ve borne or created, but to the “supernatural” or spiritual children you’ve discipled in the faith. How warm and glorious a feeling it is to see these children living on and sharing the things they’ve learned with others. Whether with natural or supernatural children, this is the point where you are truly overcome with the realization that something of you really is going to live on.

As an aside, this revelation may have germinated with me last week at the Bible study I lead at the Red Wing correctional facility. As it happens, each of the men in the study will be released at some point this year and I was moved to read the short chapter of Isaiah 61:1 to them. The first verse — “the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound…” — was what had first caught my attention, but it was the rest of the chapter that was the most powerful because it deals with what can happen for those that receive that word and that liberty. Among these is in verse 3 — “that they may be called trees of righteousness” — and especially verse 9: “Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, And their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed.”

The mens’ faces were a bit gob-smacked as I challenged them to be those trees and I saw the realization soaking into them of the effect they could have into the next generation and the next in the families they had yet to create. “You have the chance,” I told them, “to have your grandchildren say of you either that ‘Grandpa did 10 to 20’ or that ‘Grandpa was a mighty man of righteousness who was an example to our family and set my feet on the path.'”

And T. added, “Or they could say both.”

As for my own grandson, now five and a half months old, his face often has gobs of different things on it, but it is almost invariably smiling. And why shouldn’t he? He is literally surrounded by people who love him and are happy to see him and quick to want to hold him. As Paul Simon said at the beginning of this post, he’s never been lonely, never been lied to, never had to scuffle for fear or had anything he needs denied to him.  If called upon I would gladly and readily pour everything I am and everything I have into him, but I can relax because I see that my daughter and her husband already know what it is they have to impart. My heart overflows with joy when I watch my grandson or hold him close and at the same time I feel an ache knowing that every day the news brings stories of babies that are resented, cursed and abused.

I look into his eyes, as clear as centuries, and stroke his silky brown hair and think of those born into suffering now and the deprivation they face that goes beyond mere food, clothing and shelter. I think of their lives and future paths leading into captivity and the need for someone, someday, to bring the words of liberty. And I hold my grandson even closer and whisper into his ear, “Born at the right time.”

Correctification

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With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day’s work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon — not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words — which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:

page 25 – So I signed it and left. Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim …  rectify

page 68 – You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto Bradish …  rectify

page 84 – But by night they had changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim … rectify

times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

HTs: 1984. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New edition of “Huckleberry Finn to lose the ‘n’ word.

Despicable Parenting

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by the Night Writer

Despicable MeBehind every super-villain is a lousy parent. At least that’s the message I picked up on when the family sat down the other night to watch the DVD of Despicable Me, the animated movie featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segal and Julie Andrews. Whether it’s the main character Gru’s self-centered and impossible to impress mother or the demanding and bullying father of Gru’s also-evil nemesis, Vector, the path to megalomania appears to start in the nursery.

These two parents are only minor elements of the story, however, as the central dramatic tension and humor comes from the diabolically dysfunctional Gru’s attempts at parenting three orphan girls he adopts as cover for one of his fiendish plots. In fact, as I think of it, the only “normal” kids in the movie are the orphans who don’t have any parents, though they do suffer a bit at the hands of Miss Hattie, the director of the orphanage who is an “iron fist in a velvet glove while wearing a pair of brass knuckles type”. The plucky heroines are unfazed by either Miss Hattie or the woefully ill-equipped Gru’s attempts at authority.

Granted, I’m not going to get too serious about the “reality” or message of a movie that also posits that the moon, having been shrunk and stolen, will snap back into its normal orbit again when it re-enlarges, but still.

If a key part of humor is doing the unexpected then a movie where the adults are smarter than the children would surely be the smash comedy hit of the year.

First Christmas, Last Christmas

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By the Night Writer

Christmas card file

This time last year the Christmas presents represented only a portion of everything that was under wraps. We had learned a couple of weeks earlier that the Mall Diva and Son@Night, looking forward to celebrating their first Christmas together, were also going to be looking forward to their first-born child. In due season their son Benjamin, aka Baby Moose, was born and it has seemed as if the summer and fall have flown by as we’ve watched him grow prodigiously in size and charm. As he has gotten bigger, and his first Christmas has gotten nearer, I’ve tried to hold the passing days as closely as I’ve held him; he has been full of giggles, the days not so much.

This year, as we count down the days until Christmas with the usual excitement I am also counting the dwindling days of what could likely be our last Christmas together, at least as we’ve come to know it. The Diva and the Senior Moose have lived with us since they were married as Ben finished seminary and renovated our porch to hold their unexpectedly growing family. While we waited for the baby to come he finished his classes and his internship and awaited his call to ministry. Just as Christmas and babies do, this too arrived at last and they will be moving to Iowa early in the new year to begin an exciting time in the life of their new family, even if it’s in a career field where your employers somehow don’t expect you to take Christmas off.  Tomorrow we’ll wake up one more time as the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly romp downstairs to collect the stockings and bring them into my wife’s and my bedroom for the “appetizers” before we go downstairs to rip open the rest of the presents. That has become our tradition, though with twists; this year, for example, both Ben and our new friend from China, Lynx, will join us upstairs and there might be a baby as well. As for next year…

This year’s Christmas card photo is different from ones we’ve done in the past where we’re usually bunched up. I don’t know if it was intentional (you’ll have to ask the Reverend Mother who art-directed the photo) but symbolically as I look at it you can see the young family moving away, even as my youngest daughter herself has taken steps in the past year along a path that may wind itself far away. Standing together, of course, are my wife and I on our home turf. We’re not lonely, however – at least, not yet. Let’s not overlook our “adopted daughter”, Lynx, who is working on a Master’s degree in Accounting at the University of Minnesota. Her future and career are apt to lie far away but she stands in the gap in this picture to represent the new people who will come into our lives, perhaps even from unexpected places.

Last night I sat with the men in the Bible Study at Red Wing Correctional. For each of them, as well, this a “last” Christmas, as each is scheduled to be released in 2011. A couple of them have been in prison for around twenty years, and one man told me he actually feels a certain warmth and nostalgia about this Christmas. “As terrible as it is to be here,” he said, “I know that I have friends here who know me and understand what I’ve been through in a way that no one else in my life will likely ever be able to do. I want to be out, but at the same time I appreciate what I have here in a way that I never would have expected.” He’s looking at this Christmas as his best ever, and though he’s especially looking forward to next Christmas as well, there’s some nervousness about that. It can be hard, after all, to know how to go about starting a new tradition.

I can relate.

Come to think of it, though, we didn’t put a lot of thought into the traditions we started. We just did what seemed natural to us as we kept our eyes on a special future and somehow it all came together. I wouldn’t change a thing, and while I may hold my breath, I look forward to what is to come, confident that our vision is intact and the future we are standing on is as bright as the snow in our Christmas photo.