A generations thing

After Hebrews 11:17-22 

It threads its way

through generations,

this thing called faith,

expressed in different

ways but passed through

nonetheless. It may be

the willingness to sacrifice.

It may be including all

of one’s children. It

may be helping 

your grandchildren. It

may be how one is

buried and giving

credit when its due

for blessing and

deliverance. But

down through

the generations it

flows, a blessing

of grace not to be

rejected, not to be

ridiculed, not to be

disregarded, but to be

nurtured and grown.

 

Photograph by Liane Metzler via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

A Birthday Prayer – Jonathan Shoulta at Society of Classical Poets.

 

John Dryden: The Politics of Style – Jeffrey Hart at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Playing in Power – Seth Lewis.

The ones who came after

After John 17:20-24

The ones who came after

the ones not here but

separated by time and

space and culture and

history, theses ones, too,

an odd thing to pray for,

but they too are the past

the present the future

one body, a unity

transcending time just as

he transcends space

and distance, eras and ages.

The unity is always there,

even when it’s not.

The future is always pulled

into now, joining the past,

fused into now.

“The faith and the love

and the hope are all

in the waiting” – T.S.Eliot, Four Quartets

Photograph by Nona Lohr via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Doug Spurling’s “The Voice”

As I read Doug Spurling’s The Voice, a phrase Kept going through my mind – “unto the third and fourth generation.” It’s from the Book of Exodus in the Bible – “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”

The Voice isn’t about sins being passed down through generations, but it about patterns of behavior recurring in generations. But fundamentally, it’s a love story, a story of love and faith stretching across generations and decades. Four generations, in fact.

It begins with RJ, who owns a fishing shop at a marina in the Florida Keys. His 16-year-old son Mac is working there, doing so well that he’s put in charge of maintenance at the dock and marina. He meets Maggie, or perhaps Maggie meets him. Mac joins the Navy, he and Maggie marry, and have one son, Richie. They want more but are unable to have more children. About the time Richie turns 16, he meets a girl, but Mac and Maggie know a mistake is being made. They marry anyway and Richie goes off to the Navy.

Then come the losses. Spurling piles several on at once – death, desertion, depression. Mac faces personal devastation. Richie’s wife moves away.

Doug Spurling

Eventually, we learn there’s a Rickey. And it is around Rickey that the story begins to turn.

The Voice is full of the stuff of life – love, faith, tragedy, injury. It’s about the sea, and sailing, and why we do the things we do when we’re dealing with pain and suffering. It’s about hope, and redemption. It’s even about how a bar can serve as a missionary outpost.

Individual patterns and character traits repeat themselves – falling in love at a young age; the connection to the sea and the Navy; and even a crooked smile. Extending through the years and generations is something else, too – faith.

The Voice is a story written for the heart, from the heart. Well done, Doug Spurling.

Photograph by Weyenbergh Jacky via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

What separated us

Twenty-eight years separated us,
not even a comma in the span
of time, those years of Roaring 20s,
Great Depression, Gone with the Wind
and the Wizard of Oz, Pearl Harbor
and the bomb bookending the war,
divorce and remarriage, whole novels
of experience and living, generations
fusing and passing, and she sat
in a hospital bed, eyes tired, smiling
at the thought of what she had had
for dessert for lunch. The sherbet,
she said, was delicious.

Photograph by Larisa Okhtienko via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The Mustard Seed

It’s one of the famous sayings of Jesus, that he tells his disciples about having faith as “a mustard seed.” In The Fire of Delayed Answers, Bob Sorge notes the familiar characteristics of a mustard seed that do much to explain what Jesus meant when he used the metaphor.

It is a very tiny seed, Sorge says. “It grows very quickly and quite tall. Being an annual herb, it has striking growth – some plants will grow as high as twelve feet in a matter of weeks.” And I would add one more: the flower of the mustard plant is beautiful (as shown in the photo above).

Faith, like a mustard seed, can grow. It can grow quickly. It can grow large.

And because it is an annual herb, it has a season, like a life has a season. It’s created, born, flourishes for a set time, and then declines, ultimately ending in death. Death s a part of the natural order of life.

I’ve been pondering this idea of seasons lately for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the recent death and burial of my mother. She was 90; she had lived a long life. Her seasons had come and were finally gone. From dust to dust.

My father died some 27 years ago, and the passing of my mother means more than just being without parents. It means I’m coming to assume the place of my grandparents. My father’s mother was the same age I am now when I was born. My mother’s mother was 10 years older. I never knew either of my grandfathers.

I am now of their generation. It’s an odd feeling, and yet it’s part of the natural order of life.

I think about my grandmothers and this question of faith. My mother’s mother was a staunch Lutheran, as was my mother. My father’s mother, the one I closest to, was a staunch Southern Baptist (my father was not). The story of my two grandmothers’ faith, or faiths, is part of that mustard seed understanding. In ways that perhaps even they didn’t know, they contributed to my faith. Just like, in ways I may not even know, I’m contributing to the faith of my two little grandsons.

Mustard seed faith grows large and can occupy a lot of space.

And it is something that can be quite beautiful.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. This discussion of the chapter “Don’t Cast Away Your Confidence” concludes the discussion of the book. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Morena Sangiorgio via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.