These Things Struck a Chord Within Me Too

The thoughts shared below are a continuation of my June entry:  These Things Struck a Chord Within Me.

“He always thought the best of me.  Maybe it was by the grace of God that he always thought so highly of me, but it always seemed like he thought that I was the man that he wanted to be, where in fact, the opposite was true, that I always wanted to be the man that he was.”  My brother, Ethan, spoke those words in eulogy of our father, and they struck a chord within me, for though I had never put such thoughts to words, I too had been amazed at my dad’s high opinion of me.  To be sure, I had surpassed him in many ways, as by standing upon a father’s shoulders, almost any son will surpass a father who cares for him.  Yet dad always seemed to have a certain transcendent greatness about him, latent in the grain of his construction, powerfully obvious to those who knew him, invisible to the world at large.  It felt odd, therefore, that he seemed to look up to me.  He even, on one occasion, told me that I was his mentor.

He seemed thrilled that I would take time from my busy schedule to be with him, beaming at my arrival, basking in my presence.  “Dad,” I felt like saying, “you know I’m not the President of the United States, don’t you?”  On one occasion, at some point after it became apparent that he was experiencing memory problems, I asked him to accompany Caleb and me to an air-show in a neighboring town.  The invitation was extended a few weeks before the show, and I expected him to accept and then forget all about it until I re-asked him closer to the day of the event.  Instead, he called me every few days, each time very excited about the invitation and very worried that, perhaps by forgetfulness, he had already missed the date.
 

Looking back, it seems that my dad’s high esteem for me perhaps clouded my ability to see him then as the great man that I now believe he was, for he seemed so willing to place me above himself, and I do not think of myself as great.  As a father, I understand the enthrallment, for I feel similar delight as I see my son becoming more than the sum of my investments, but as the recipient of such high regard, I cannot help my self-awareness of shortcomings.

Beyond the undeserved admiration, another aspect of our relationship that stifled my understanding of my father’s qualities was the mere fact that he was my father.  When I was with him, I witnessed the things that made him a great man (the genuine humility, the tenacious performance of his God-given roles, the voracious appetite for God’s Word, the never abating romantic pursuit of my mother, etc.), but in my mind, I always suppressed the evidence, feeling that such thoughts were mostly a product of personal loyalty toward the man as my dad.

It was the opportunity to observe his dismantling by Alzheimer’s disease that finally canonized for me the extraordinary stature of the man who called me his son.  To watch as the man that he was slipped, piece by piece, into eternity afforded me the opportunity to more objectively analyze, piece by piece, the composition of the man, the inventory of his thoughts, the impact of his actions, the quality of his traits, and it was in this analysis that I concluded it had been my privilege to have been raised by a man of a very rare caliber indeed.

This rediscovery of my father was not limited to the conclusion that he was a great man.  Simply concluding that he was a great man is consequential to me personally as his son, but of no particular interest to the world at large.  Great men are only of interest to those outside their closest circle of friends and family when their lives can be studied.  The mere fact of greatness is not enough; there must be facets open to examination.  This is why my father’s case really strikes a chord within me.  Over a period of years, by carefully preserving his thoughts on 4x6 note cards, hundreds of them, maybe more, he has provided a portal into the mind of a man who, with the faith of a child and the desperation of a beggar cast himself at the feet of his Savior so that, as one of the least in the kingdom of God, he might grow strong on the crumbs that fell from his Master’s table.  In so doing, he chose the one thing needful, the good part in life.

There is no shortage of biographies of our world’s greatest kings, presidents, and generals.  Our great artists, philosophers, and scoundrels are analyzed ad nauseam.  The exploits and misadventures of our sports stars and entertainers delight, amuse, and disgust us without end.  Our wealthy are revered by the right, reviled by the left, and envied by all.  Even the church participates in such distractions.

What then?  What of the simple, quiet man who tests Jesus’ claim that the least in the Kingdom of God is the greatest, who sees in himself no good thing and desperately clings to the coattails of Him who is exalted above all, who spends his energies searching Him whose greatness is unsearchable?  What of such a man?  Does something beautiful transpire?  Or does he just live his life at odds with the world around him and then die of Alzheimer’s?  Can his potter (and mine) really be trusted though He slays him (and me)?

Who will document the life and times of a man such as this?  My father’s thoughts, carefully printed in small, handwritten lines of text upon hundreds of 4x6 note cards, most of which I have not yet even read, afford me the opportunity to say, “Here am I.  I will document the life and times of this man.”  The opportunity to do this strikes a chord within me.

My reader should understand that though I consider my father’s life and thoughts worth writing about, he did not think of himself as anything approaching great.  As he drew closer to God, the Holy Spirit’s light brightened in his life, and he became increasingly aware of his faults.  To be sure he was a flawed and sinful man.  I could even itemize a laundry list of faults.  But in the Kingdom of God, the sinful man is not the point.  The point, rather, is the great Savior, the Spotless Lamb, and he that decreases himself so that Christ might increase, becomes thereby, the great in that Kingdom.

On one of his note cards my father wrote:

Lord, I’m just a little guy; I’ve never been any more than that.  If I ever dreamed of being great, it was to be great for you, but I never was.  But why be great anyway?  Down here, it is just you and me.  I do not understand my own way, let alone any other.

The next day, he wrote:

I once heard of an illustration wherein a little boy lamented that he had spoiled a piece of paper with various blotches which had been intended to be a nice picture.  His daddy cheerfully told him that it was all right, that he could try again, giving him another piece of paper.  It was intended that the reader was meant to take the little boy’s part, the paper being a day on the tear-off calendar.  My calendar of 25,000 days is virtually gone; I still hope to produce something worthy.

The following day, he wrote:

I am convinced that I am damaged goods, but I do not know what the damages are or how it was that it came to be.  I also know that eventually God will make all things new.

Whether or not he recognized himself as great, and regardless of his esteem for his accomplishments or his concerns over whether or not he was in some ways defective, the fact that true greatness emanates from God alone was not lost on him.  Consider the following thoughts from another note card:

Anytime I feel down, there are words waiting for me in the Bible to lift me up.  God has placed us compassed with infirmity upon earth.  He knows our frame; he knows that we are dust.  Today, I see Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, not in Jerusalem riding in a chariot.  He saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the sea.  He wasn’t in a seat of power, looking for the great ones, but he took what he found as it came in the course of life, fishermen doing what they did every day, making a living, men who, except that Jesus noticed them, would live and die and be forgotten.  So that is enough for me today.

I do not know if any significant number of people will ever read the things I have written in this blog.  I hope it happens, for the things I record here are intended to be read.  Regardless of the size of my audience, however, I will to continue building this blog that the life and thoughts of a man such as this might be documented.  As Reverend Hoffman stated in his introduction to my father’s memorial service, “He was a very profound thinker and had a lot of amazing qualities that many men need to emulate.”