Opus 2026-383: My Calling

I am called to provide an outlet for my wife’s ADHD.  When we got married I did not even know that such a thing existed.  Little did I know what I was getting into.  I swear it is getting worse.  I would like to say I accept the challenge with dignity but in reality I try to avoid it as much as possible.

My calling gives her someone to blame for what is not getting done.  Did you know that the baseboards in our house have not been cleaned?  Hard to believe.  Why haven’t you swept off the front porch?  It doesn’t matter that we are having high winds.

She needs someone to assign the latest task that has popped into her mind.  It must be done right now.  What do you mean the groceries are not put away?  Well, when you get them all out of the car it needs to be done in the next 15 minutes.

She needs things to do.  I am quite willing to provide them.

It requires subtlety.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-372: The Wonder of It All

I’m on my way to meet my son for breakfast.  It’s 7:15 in the morning.  I usually would be up by this time, but not showered, dressed and on the road.  Over the past several years as I am retired and he is working from home we have developed a pattern where we get together once a week for dinner or now breakfast.  I am constantly amazed at his willingness to meet with.  In fact, he often brings it up himself.

We have a great time discussing just about everything from theology to cooking recipes.  When I get home, my wife will often ask me, “What did you talk about?”  And my general answer of course is, “I don’t know.”  Given time I can run through some of the things, but generally speaking there’s no agenda.  It is a great time.

What constantly amazes me after I get over thank[ng God and being grateful for the blessing of having children that seemed to have turned out well, I asked myself, “What did I do right?”  I can come up with a lot of answers, but I find more answers to the question of “What did I do wrong?  When I filter out the arrogance, ego, and just plain blessings of Providence I don’t come up with much.

What are the topics that comes up on a regular basis is my discussions with my crazy friend.  You might not recognize him as crazy but if you talk to him long enough and get him off on his topics, he is definitely living in another world.  As far as I know and can tell he is solid in the Lord, but he has a lot of opinions about eschatology and such that make you wonder what he’s been smoking and who he’s been listening to.

When trying to figure out why my kids are turned out as well as they have I often wonder about having strong opinions and being relatively stubborn.  The trouble is that having strong opinions and being relatively stubborn seems to be consistent even with people who I think have not done as well as they should with their kids.  I think it may be that as stubborn and opinionated as I am, that I am still willing to listen to what other people have to say.  Someday I may come up with a solution.  I don’t know, but right now I’m just grateful and rejoicing that my children will still talk to me.

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Opus 2026-363: Strike Two

My heart goes out to Solomon.  First he is chosen to be king.  Sounds good but there seems to be a condition attached,

(1Ch 28:10 KJV)  Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.
(1Ch 28:11 KJV)  Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat,

David leaves Solomon with this tremendous burden.  It is not only a charge to build a temple but an expectation that he build it to David’s plans.  Solomon got the temple built.  He enriched the kingdom.  We have examples of his wisdom.  We also have a chronicle of him turning from the Lord and walking in the ways he was warned against.

I wonder if his failure in later life was because of the shackles put on him at the beginning.  The burden of living out someone else’s dream can be crippling.  How often has a son withered under the dominant dream of a father?  How many great men in history have sons that turn out to be useless?  It is hard to know but real leadership does not pick out hard tasks and assign them to others.  Leadership molds people and establishes conditions that motivate them to stretch and achieve.

We need more motivators and fewer people willing to assign work to others.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-332: The Long Haul

Genuine home schooling parents are committed to the longview of educating their children.  My oldest grandchild is only eight and my daughter is already squeezing me on books and authors that she thinks I would recommend for when they get to high school age.  It’s hard to remember books that have made any lasting imprint.  Many of the ones that might be worth reading are no longer on the shelves and many of them are not even in print.

What is a parent to do?  We discussed reading certain classics such as Plato and Augustine.  The general consensus at least among us laymen is that much of that is a waste of time.  When Plato was alive and Socrates was writing down what he had to say he was original and the first one to come up with a lot of this.  Nowadays, most of what they have to say is something we have been either embracing or rejecting for all of our lives and so it’s not as exciting as it might be for an ancient Greek teenager listening to Plato.

Our hope is that the children will be readers and not just button pushers.  We read to them.  My daughter’s older child is old enough now that she’s starting to read to us.  She got her first library card this week and had to sign her name on the back.  That was an exciting moment for her and an exciting moment for her parents and her grandparents.  Children need an example set and they also need expectation set.

I can remember as a child, but my father in the evening would be reading much of the time.  We did have certain television programs we watched, but we didn’t just sit down at the TV and watch whatever came in front of us.  He subscribed to several magazines.  One of our favorites was the Readers Digest back when it was actually a readers digest.  He also subscribed to their edited books, the ones that came with all the extra fluff cut out.

My father was a blue-collar worker all of his life.  He worked with his hands.  He worked outside in the sun.  He struggled with polio from his childhood.  And yet he set an example of reading for his children that has endured to this day.

Set the example.  Turn off the TV.  Turn off the computer.  Put away your iPad.  Find a good book.  I may change your children’s lives.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-302: Redish Letter Day

My son pointed out that he was going to be gone over Father’s Day and was concerned about doing something before you left.  I’m afraid I just laughed at him.  We go out to dinner every week.  We see each other at regular family activities.  I am in no way neglected nor short of attention from my children.

Father’s Day is  conspiracy by mothers who want to justify Mothers’ Day.  They put it in there so that they would not feel guilty about demanding special attention.  That’s the way they think.  I think men on the hole tend to wish it was always ignored. I know I don’t like particularly celebrating birthdays.

If there is one prayer request that I might have for Father’s Day, it would be directed towards those people whose children are not honoring them.  I know they’re out there.  I see them and hear them speak on a regular basis.  The heartbreak is incredible.  Not only that the children haven’t turned out the way they wanted to on the bigger scale, but also the fact that they are ignored on the smaller scale.

So I hope Father’s Day is a day of celebration for your family and that if it’s not this year that the future will look better.
    
homo unius libri

Opus 2026-275: Unexpected Treasures

Recently we were doing the tourist thing at the Alamo with my visiting sister-in-law.  It was an interesting experience which I would have never done on my own.  Since she was with us we hit the gift shop.

In the gift shop my son noticed one item we might have missed, roasted crickets.  He convinced her to buy some for her grandchildren.  Most people would not think of buying roasted crickets at the Alamo as a thing to do but we had a family tradition to uphold.

This goes back to my childhood when my brothers and I came across a bunch of chocolate covered bugs.  We bought a selection with the thought that Christmas was coming and we would have family get-togethers.  When the day came we mixed the chocolate covered treats in with the other items on the Christmas spread.  It was our contribution to the pot luck.  They were enjoyed by all until they found out what was covered by the chocolate.  We still enjoyed the experience but it went down in family history as evidence that we could not be trusted.

Fast forward to the next generation.  My children knew the story and found they could order a selection of chocolate covered bugs over the internet.  My son had a job which meant he had money, so the order was placed.  They were much more aggressive in their marketing.  They put them out on the buffet and then proceeded to solicit feedback.  Everyone had good things to say until they found out what was covered by the chocolate.

Now we have a third generation being initiated into the mystery of bugs.  I will have to wait to find out how it turns out.  My son bought some to try on his niece and nephew.  Trust is built over time and destroyed in a moment.

But the legacy lives on.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-214: Well Raised Children

I went to a birthday party for my granddaughter. She turned eight years old. A hoard of children were going to be there and we would be in a park with a splash pad. What could go wrong? My imagination had many suggestions. None were fulfilled.

I would guess that we had about 15 children present. The ages range from about four to 13. What was really amazing was that there were absolutely no problems. We had no fights and no injuries. At no time did it seem to occur to the children that they could fill a bucket with water and dump it on an adult. They politely asked when they wanted to sample the goodies that were available.

Such children do exist. The one factor I did not mention is that they were all home schooled. I suggest that had something to do with it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-163: Comfort or Control

When my grandchildren are doing an over-nighter at our house there is a scene that repeats itself.  They will come looking for me and demand that I go play Legos with them.  I will eventually go along, sit on the couch, take a bin of pieces and begin sorting through them looking for inspiration.  I have come to the conclusion that one of two things are in operation.

Either I am providing a sense of security or I am being manipulated.

Once I am settled in the scene goes one of two ways.  Either they set me to looking for parts or they quiet down and work on their own.  I can quickly revert to childhood and start trying to be creative.  I got my first Lego when I was 27 years old and it kept me busy for hours.  I know the power of Legos.  I can also sit for long periods of time just enjoying the scene of busy grandchildren.  Sometimes I can get up and go back to what I was doing and they don’t notice for a while.

Is it comfort or control?  I am not sure I care.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-146: Monday Pulpit: Ranking

During the Sunday School hour we were working through Romans 8 and breezed past this verse,

Romans 8:15 (KJV) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

I interrupted and tried to get the class to pause and consider adoption.  It didn’t work.  I got patted on the head and they moved on.

Any time I come across the word “adoption” in the Bible it makes me stop and consider what it meant in that day.  We have a tendency to believe that past cultures think the same way we do.  For that matter we tend to do the same with modern cultures.  In some cases it is dangerous.  In this case I think we miss a lot of the richness.

Adoption in the Roman Empire of Paul’s day was considered a higher level of family than natural birth.  In Rome, if you were not happy with the way your children were turning out, you would go out and adopt someone you thought worthy of being your heir.  That would put your children aside because they were less significant.  Sometimes the push to adopt was the result of women being reluctant to have children themselves.  Roman culture had a lot in common with modern women who value their own physical beauty over having children.  So you would adopt.

When you adopted you did not go out looking for an outcast or settle for second best.  The modern concept of adopting handicapped children or disadvantaged teens would have been a strange concept.  You did not adopt for the benefit of the child but for your purposes and goals.  Keep that in mind when you consider that Paul is saying we are adopted.

The gentiles were the focus of this adoption.  They were brought in from outside the family of Israel.  They were made children with the right of addressing God with the familiar rather than the formal.  That is what the “Abba” was all about.  We like to say that we are not worthy of salvation and that is true but this would seem to indicate that God sees something in us that is not in the unadopted.  It could be something as simple as a willingness to believe in Jesus.  It could be that you have unique qualities like the Apostle Paul when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus.

However you want to look at it accept that being adopted into God’s family makes you special in His eyes.  You are not ranked as superior to your brothers and sisters in Christ but you are elevated to the class of family.

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Opus 2026-094: Needs and Wants

Our children don’t really “need” us anymore.

That is a good thing.  It says that we have done our job.  We have raised them right.  We have planted the seed and it is growing to maturity.  They may have times where they think they need us, but in reality, they have the tools to deal with life.

If I was talking to myself, I might say, “Good job”.

As I said, there may be times when they would like to retreat to childhood and let mommy take care of it.  There are times when they wish they could metaphorically let daddy answer the door.  That’s normal.  The point is that they are equipped to deal with what they face in life.  All they have to do is reach down and call up the lessons that they have been taught.

How do they raise their children?  They’ve had that demonstrated.  How do they respond when the finances get low?  They certainly had that lesson.  Most important, what place does Almighty God have in their lives?  So far it seems like we demonstrated a living faith.

I hope that you can say the same thing.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-082: Embarrassment

My family just celebrated a birthday and it was a day that was enjoyed by all.  Today I got to thinking about my children.  They don’t want me bragging on them in public.  Okay.  Maybe I can’t broadcast all their attributes but I can share with you that they do not embarrass me.

That is a major thing in life, the absence of embarrassments.  I think of the people my age who love their children but are almost ashamed to be with them in public.  The other side of that is I don’t think they are embarrassed to be seen with me.

One of the reasons I am an introvert is my insecurities that would make me ashamed to go out in public.  Looking back, many of my insecurities were products of my imagination.  I guess the question is, “Which came first, being introverted or being insecure?”  Age has made me more content because I don’t care as much about what others think.

We should extend that confidence to the criticism that the woke culture wants to beat us down with.  I think I would be glad to be accused of “toxic masculinity” or being a “fundamentalist”. Just because someone thinks they are insulting you doesn’t mean that the comment is really negative.  When someone mocks me for my well done steak I just nod my head and take another bite.

I don’t know what embarasses you but it can’t be worse than going to Flemings and ordering your steak well done.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-591: The Cost of Christmas

I keep hearing about how people can’t afford to pay their rent or to put food on the table and so forth.  Even people who should know better are complaining about how tight things are.  I feel their pain.  Most of the things I buy in the grocery store have gone up in price.  So far though, I can still afford what I want and need.

I was looking over the Costco ads for their great bargains this week and toward the end of it, they had various offerings in the area of meats that would be appropriate for a Christmas feast.  I think the lowest price I saw was $17.95 a pound.  It went up from there.  Not exactly a cheap dinner.

I must say I have in the past had some of their better cuts when my son was doing the shopping.  Prepared properly, which to me is burnt to crisp, they were really delicious.  And since my son was paying, it was worth every penny of it.  If I had been paying, we would have been satisfied with cheese sandwiches.

And that’s the point really.  When we have family over for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, is the point to have family over and to celebrate together?  Is the point to show off how much we can spend on food?  Is the point to exercise or gluttony?  Obviously those are not fair questions because you already know the answers, at least the ones you would give in public.

If I were putting on a dinner for Christmas and felt like finances were tight, I would have no problem in making a big pan of chili with hamburger and frozen vegetables.  Add to that crackers from the discount store and if I was really feeling frisky maybe some cheese.  If the right people were there with the right attitude, it would be a glorious celebration of the incarnation.

Think values not value.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-545: The Interlude

Having grandchildren around is not the most intellectually stimulating event of the holiday season but it is certainly emotionally satisfying.

Imagine being attacked by a Lego spaceship with unlimited ammunition and only having the Space Tickle Monster to defend yourself.  Add to that an inspiring version of O Holy NIght in the background and you have the day after Thanksgiving at my house.

I am not sure I won the battle but the spaceship captain has been distracted by parts falling off.  He is celebrating an undeclared unilateral truce while he gets all the vital tech back in place.  We had to search for an essential yellow star that had mysteriously disappeared.  He was not satisfied with the suggestion that the Space Tickle Monster ate it and he claimed he had not eaten it either.  Finally the Mysterious Space Muse made it appear in the middle of the rug and life when on.  Whether the battle will continue or the spaceship will depart for parts unknown is still undecided.

If you never hear from me again, I lost the battle.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-542: An Example of Attitude

It always amazes me how much difference the attitude chosen makes in facing life’s situations.

Let’s take something that has not happened yet, at least not this year, about an issue that I really couldn’t care a lot about.  Let’s say that as you gather together for Thanksgiving dinner, the family member who was assigned to bring the cranberry sauce arrived without his contribution.  As I said, this is not an issue for me since I never eat any of it.  It is, however, any issue for some people.

There are different ways that you can respond to this.  My way would be to try to establish it in family folklore.  This could be the year when Skesicks forgot the cranberry sauce.  The tale would grow better every year.  Details might vary, but the lack of that Red stuff would be central to all of it.  Dinner would proceed and a good time would be had by all.  Whether you never had him bring the important condiment again, or whether you made it his perpetual burden would be up to you as a family.

Some families have that one person who is personally offended by the lack of cranberry sauce.  Their life is ruined.  Thanksgiving will never be the same.  It isn’t Thanksgiving if you don’t have cranberry sauce.  They make sure that everybody knows how unhappy they are.  They belittle the person who forgot the sauce, not in a humorous, good natured way, but in that way which is designed to show how inferior they are.  We don’t have one of those in our family, but I’ve heard about them.  I hope none of our blood ever morphs into such a creature.

So attitude can make a big difference.  In both families, the cranberry sauce was not on the table.  One family made it an item of family bonding and legend creating.  The other made it a divisive and destructive issue.

I guess the key is that we have the choice of what our attitude is going to be.  We have the choice of whether this holiday season is an opportunity to build memories or a time of destroying bonds.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

And don’t forget that now we can say, “Merry Christmas.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-522: Influence

I was walking and my mind goes all over the place when I do that.  Part of my routine as I walk is  a prayer map I follow.  I came to my grandchildren and my children and was thinking about influence.

I pray that my children would be the kind of adults that will cause my grandchildren to love Jesus.  I have some influence, but it is limited.  We’re about 40 minutes away, and I don’t see them as much as I would like.  But my thinking focused on how we still have influence.

Some of the old people that I hang around with tend to think that they’re all used up, that nobody cares anymore, that they’re just bidding time.  There is an aspect of that I guess, but I think we need to also look at the fact that we have influence that we give towards our grandchildren.  It may just be in the sense that God will bless them through us as we are faithful.  It could be the weight of our prayers.  It could be many things that we wouldn’t even think about, things we say, memories we share, things we do.  But we still have influence.

So don’t give up.  Don’t stop living in such a way that would encourage God to bless you and yours.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-506: I Love Being an Old Man

Recently I had the experience of a wheel collapsing under the front of my car as I was driving down the street.  God had His hand on me because it happened on a four lane road with enough room for me to get off on the side.  It was inconvenient.  It’s going to cost a bit of money.  But all in all, I am grateful that my guardian angel was able to hold the wheel in place until I got in a safe spot for it to fall off.  It could have happened when I was driving 60 miles an hour on curvy country roads going to church.  It could have collapsed at 70 miles an hour driving on the interstate to go to the local outlet mall.  Both of those took place within a few days.  But instead, the guardian angel decided that here, in the middle of town, was the place where it should happen.

Here’s where it gets interesting and the benefits of age start kicking in.  Remember the days when you would have a flat tire and you would call your dad?  Remember the days when you had your car engine blow up and you had to borrow money from your parents to get it fixed?  I trust you paid them back.  Remember the time where you had to borrow a car from your parents because you had to get someplace and yours wasn’t working.  Well, it all comes back to you later on.  You see my son came to pick me up as the tow truck left and handed me the keys to his car, had me drop him off at his house, and I now have the use of his car.  It is a second car that he hasn’t sold yet, but it certainly comes in handy.

So instead of me loaning him my car because he was in trouble, he loaned me his car.  It’s a great place to be in life.  The blessings just keep coming

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Opus 2025-416: Need a Hug?

There’s a big difference between being accepted a hug and being hugged.  One reflects a commitment involving listening, understanding, enduring relationships, and the other simply expresses a momentary emotion of support or just social expectation.

I’m not a big hugger.  I’m quite willing to hug my family and have been known to chase my grandchildren across the house with arms stretched wide as they run away squealing.  All that is wonderful.  I do not however by nature, throw my arms wide when I see someone.  That’s not how I greet.  Because I am a pleaser, cough, cough, I am willing to go through the process of hugging if that’s what somebody needs.  I will often ask them, just to clarify, “Are you a hugger?”  Usually, they will say yes.  And so I graciously condescend to hug them back.

God is both a hugger and an acceptor.  Of course there are times when He refuses to do either one.  He hugs when we just need a momentary touch of encouragement.  He accepts when we have those long conversations and I’m looking for the right word or trying to express something from deep inside me.  He saves judgment for the great white throne.  Because He accepts as a general attitude for His children, I am quite confident in opening my heart my mind when I’m with Him.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-367: Explanations

I seem to have read that the marriage rate is dropping.  I know I keep hearing about how the birth rate is declining in the western world especially.  I would say that this is a result of the feminization of society.

Men have been realizing that their sex drive is not the main reason they want to be with women.  I know women keep explaining it that way about how men are animals and driven by their hormones.  But what men are realizing is that the deeper need for family, children, companionship and a partner in a relationship are more important than sex.  Women can give sex without commitment just as men can.  Men may grab that in the short term but in the long term it’s not enough.

I don’t want to reject the importance of the physical intimacy in a lifelong marriage but even affection and general physical contact is not the end game.  It should be noted that in the Bible sex is recognized and ecouraged in marriage but in Ephesians 5 Paul doesn’t even mention that as a key.  What does he say a man needs?

(Eph 5:33 NAS77) Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.

Most of this long section is about the duties of men to their wives but respect is the only thing a woman is required to give.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-317: A Question of Power

My grandson came roaring into the room wearing a mask and a cape while he waved a sword around.  I can’t remember if he was Bible Man or Zorro but he was some kind of super hero.  I was impressed with his imagination and enthusiasm but not so much with his wisdom.  He came in thinking he would win.  I let him think that for awhile but eventually the truth came out.

Grandpa powers trump super-powers.

That is hard for a child to understand.  In a way it is hard for adults to understand.  It still remains true.

We won’t discuss grandma powers.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-280: Children of Eternity

What are the patterns I see in the spiritual walk of the people of God is that you often have generational decay.  The parents have a strong encounter with the living God.  They often pass that on to their children, but it is still not the same as that first initial experience.  By the time you get a few generations down the road, it becomes ritual, habit, going through the motions and the living contact has died out.

This makes me wonder about eternity.  We already know what Jesus had to say about marriage,

(Mat 22:30 KJV)  For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

I would assume that if there is no marriage, there would be no children.  That seems a bit sad but I’m sure we will make up for it in other ways.

In eternity it is possible that the only chance people have a knowing what it is to have children will be to interact with those young lives that were destroyed by abortion.  They may need to wait in line after the real parents show up.

One of my questions is about whether sin will be possible in eternity.  It would seem not, but the only way that you could get a culture or a community with no-one slipping into sin is to have filtered in such a way that the desire to sin has been pushed out of the picture.  That would seem to imply no new children, because each of us who makes it to heaven has gone through the gauntlet of living on earth.  New children would not quaify.

Picture a Utopia established here on earth.  One of the characteristics of that Utopia would be that no one likes liver and onions.  It was off of the menu and out of our minds.  If we continue to have children, the odds are that somewhere in that process a defective gene would reemerge and a child would be born that thought liver and onions are the cats meow.  Thus sin would be reestablished.

In reality, it will be more like being suspended in that brief moment between our last child moving out to their apartment, and realizing their room is now available for an office and the moment when empty nest syndrome sets in.  Or that time as grandparents between when we finally waved goodbye to our grandchildren after a long day, take a deep breath and then start wondering how long until we see them again.  These intervals may not be long, but in eternity they can be extended.

And I trust that eternity will be so glorious that we won’t have to worry about little things.  Until we know more we need to concentrate on making sure that the children we have here will be with us up there.

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