This Father’s Day, try being there

This Father’s Day, try being there.

If you can’t be there in person, do the next best thing: Call or FaceTime.

Just make sure you are totally there when you are there.

One of my favorite quotes from martyred missionary, Jim Eliot, is, “Wherever you are, be all there.”

I first read that quote in high school and still struggle with being “all there” to this day.

It sounds simple, but it’s not always easy to do when you are in the presence of others, because it requires that we give our attention to someone else, making ourselves available and even vulnerable to them.

This Father’s Day, try being there, really there.

It’s not complicated; it doesn’t need to take the entire afternoon---your dad probably doesn’t want to visit that long anyway.

But you will need to take enough time to make time for dad, so that he knows you were “all there,” when you were there.

If it can be a time just for you and your dad alone to talk and visit, that’s even better.

At least let Dad know you are there for him, even if others are around.

If you are involved in some activity while you are with Dad, make sure he knows you are devoted to being completely with him while you are there.

Spending time with him tells him he is important to you. He matters.

One of my most vivid memories of time with my dad was taking a drive with him. I couldn’t have been older that 10 or 11, still young enough when taking a drive had some allure to it.

I suppose part of the fun of that drive was that Dad and I skipped Sunday night church; Sunday morning as well as Sunday night church attendance was routine for our family during my growing up days.

Mom was out of town, and I don’t know where my older brothers were, but Dad and I were home alone that evening. We started out to church, but for some reason, Dad wanted to go for a drive, so we headed east instead of west.

To this day, every time I drive by the Wichita Mountains on Highway 62 east of Altus, Oklahoma, I think of the time Dad and I went for a drive with no particular reason other than to go.

I still recall him telling me that some say gold is hidden in those Wichita Mountains, secretly buried there by Wild West outlaws who all died before they could come back and retrieve their heist.

Dad spent time with us. He took my brother and me fishing on numerous occasions. During my teenage years, I traveled to Africa, India, and the Middle East with Dad and Mom on mission trips. I cherish those wonderful moments.

But that simple, little Sunday afternoon drive remains one of the warmest memories I have of time with Dad.

For one thing, it was time with just the two of us, shared with no one else. We just drove and talked. Dad talked with me, and no one else interrupted our conversation. Cell phones were an invention of the distant future. I do recall Dad turning to KWHW AM radio (we didn’t have FM then) as we returned and entered the city limits. KWHW carried the First Baptist Church Sunday evening worship service. Dad wanted to “hear what was happening.” But other than that, it was time with ourselves.

And it was spontaneous; we didn’t plan it. We were headed to church and ended up in the country. The uniqueness of the trip underscored its significance.

I would like to think there’s another reason why that simple drive stands out in my mind.

As important as being faithful in church attendance was to Dad, maybe he recognized that at least for that Sunday afternoon, an exception could be made.

An exception that said, “Time with my son matters.”

Make time for Dad this Sunday, for time with him matters.

My dad’s too far away for me to visit this Father’s Day.

But I’ll call him.

And I think I’ll ask him if I can take him for a drive when I’m there to visit later this summer.

A drive with no particular place to go.

And just the two of us in the car.

His eye is on the sparrow

Our Schnauzer, Max, was prancing toward us, like he had just won the blue ribbon at a dog show.

We were relaxing on our back patio, enjoying the mild weather, watching the sun set.

“What’s that in his mouth?” Lori innocently asked.

He dropped it at our feet, as if it were his offering to us.

“Oh no,” Lori exclaimed, “a dead bird.”

It wasn’t just a dead bird; it was a dead, baby bird. And worse, upon further examination, the nestling wasn’t totally dead. Its tiny beak was still moving.

“Oh, this is horrible,” Lori responded when I pointed out the mangled bird still had at least some life in it, enough for it to suffer.

She wanted to punish our dog, but when we looked back for him, he had disappeared.

In a matter of moments, Max returned, carrying another bird in his mouth. He then obsequiously placed it at our feet, as if he had fetched our evening meal for us.

“No, no, no,” Lori scolded him.

The dog looked confused.

I followed him to the scene of the crime: a bird’s nest had fallen to the ground, allowing our dogs to torment the nestlings.

“He’s only being what he is, a dog,” I said, playing defense attorney for Max as I corralled our dogs into the house.

And so it was: I was left with the unenviable task of putting the baby birds out of their misery.

Call it the circle of life.

Or death.

I looked back, way back, beyond the weeds in my vegetable garden near the fence row to the biblical narrative about another garden, the one that was once perfect. When the first humans chose their own way against God’s, not only did their rebellion affect them and us, but nature was somehow tilted askew as well.

And so we dwell for a time among thorns and thistles.

And dogs and cats, who are what they are, doing what they do to birds of their prey.

Sometimes in the still of the night, I hear the coyotes howling in the field behind our house. With one eye open, I wonder if they are celebrating the catch of the night at their dinner table. Assured that our dogs are safe inside, I breathe a sigh of relief before drifting back to sleep, for I know the dogs who so effortlessly took the life from those birds could just as easily be the next meal for the coyotes.

As I put on my Red Wings, covering those helpless birds in a towel, turning my head away as I stomp them out of their misery, I wish I had the miracle working power in me to touch those babies and bring them back to wellness and wholeness and life.

I yearned for that very same thing a few days later when someone needed a pastor to pray.

As Lori and I stood by his bed, a man whose body was riddled with cancer for no cause other than that he is caught in the same imperfect web of life and death as those nestlings, I wished again: I wanted to place my hands on his cancer ridden body and heal him, right there and then, a complete healing and not one just in part, and not only a healing for him but for everyone like him---people suffering with all manner of diseases and calamities that plague us this side of glory.

I did all I knew to do: I prayed, humbly asking and believing for a miracle.

And who knows? Perhaps by God’s grace it will happen.

This I do know: whether it’s on this side of eternity or the next:

His eye is on those sparrows,

And I know he watches over me.

And you.

A time to remember

We finally found the cemetery by the country church, several miles outside Rhome, Texas. We almost walked past the gravestone. It was a simple, thin maker, no more than a couple of feet wide and no higher than my knees.  Bending down, I ran my fingers over the letters, squinting to read the birth date and death date, for the passing of the years had worn them smooth.

Somehow, just standing there, I felt closer to him.

It was the gravesite for my great-great grandad, Robert Franklin Whitlock. I had become fascinated with his life. A little family research revealed that he had fought in several major battles of the Civil War. He was in Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as the battles of Fredericksburg, and Antietam.

Reflecting on what I knew of his life as I stood there that day, I had a profound sense of gratitude for the very fact that I was able to stand there and give thanks. Nearly one-third of those engaged in the Battle of Gettysburg became causalities. Think of that, one of three persons. At Frederiksberg, the Confederate army lost 5,377 soldiers, the Union army even more. And about 23,000 men died, went missing, or were wounded at Antietam.

Great-Great Grandad was a survivor. After the war, during a period historians refer to as the Reconstruction Era, Robert Franklin moved his family from Tennessee to Texas, maybe to try and forget what he’d seen and to start anew.

He may have started anew, but he couldn’t forget.

He remembered, I’m quite sure, both the happy and the sad.

That day at his gravesite, I remembered too, the happy and the sad that up to that point had helped shape my life.

And reflecting how my very existence had been caught up in his survival, I could give thanks for being able to give thanks.

This Monday is Memorial Day. It should serve as a reminder of how important it is to give thanks for those who have gone before us and think, if even for a moment, about where we are in this journey we call life.

Actually, Memorial Day was started in 1868 for the purpose of decorating the graves of Civil War veterans. Over the years, it has evolved into a time to remember all deceased veterans and our deceased loved ones.

Poet Robert Frost said, “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”

This weekend is more than just an extended weekend; it’s a time for remembering, and all of us have someone to remember.

And we would like to think that we will be remembered too, don’t we?

After the nation of Israel had miraculously crossed the Jordan River, God instructed Joshua to have the people erect stones in that place. “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you should tell them…” (Joshua 4:6-7).

It’s important to remember.

Today, we still wonder what those mysterious stones at Stonehenge mean. Somehow, some generation failed to pass it along, and the memory is lost.

This weekend, take some time to remember and pass the memory along.

Maybe you’ll go to the cemetery, and there a gravestone will remind you. Or perhaps when you look in the mirror and once again catch a glimpse of that necklace you’ve become so accustomed to wearing, you’ll pause and reflect on him, for that piece of jewelry carries a part of him in it. Maybe it’s when you stare into that faded picture that her memory comes alive to you. Or perhaps as you gently, even reverently caress that special urn containing what’s left of him, you remember. Or maybe when you open her Bible and press its pages to your face, breathing in deeply, you breath her in, too, because she touched those pages, and a part of her still lingers in them. And you remember.

Wherever it is, and for whomever it is, take some time to remember.

If even for a moment, remember.

And give thanks that it is no mistake that you have been brought there to that moment, to that place, by Someone greater than you, if for nothing else than to give thanks that you are there to give thanks. And remember.