October 04, 2011
Never Ending
It’s not unusual for older folks to comment that as parents we’re never
done raising our kids. We continue to worry, watch and fret over them even when
they have left the nest and have children of their own. I recently
interviewed an 82 year-old woman who has a 52 year-old son with Downs Syndrome still
living at home. Proud of being a mother Eleanor said, “John still needs attention, so I’ve never really stopped raising my
children.” Generally speaking we think about God moving us on to different
roles and responsibilities as we mature. I now have new insight, admiration and
appreciation for those who must remain in their role for a lifetime.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----The general sense of moving on to different roles and responsibilities develops from our focusing on skill-sets and situational involvement as we mature. The roles we end up doing generally follow what we come to do well as they combine with what we can not escape doing. Not always, but generally, what we come to do well emerges from increased time and attention given to something we like to do more than most other things. At least it somewhat works that way in what’s left of this once burgeoning, laissez-faire culture. Part of the reason it doesn’t always work that way is because many factors outside the individual’s control make enough effect to themselves demand the individual take on a different role. These factors vary greatly in both source and power. Everyone knows some in their own lives. Incarceration and slavery are a couple of high power, uncommon factors. Communism and socialism are not far behind, yet are more prevalent. These are sociological factors. I’ve had friends crippled by polio, accidents, and cerebral-palsy. Their roles have been severely limited by things outside their control. They are biological factors.
-----But one category of role demanding external factors are arguably internal factors. They belong to that special category of spirituality called the Truth. Their internal aspect is that the individual chooses to be effected by them, or chooses not to be. Jesus Christ did not come and lay everyone’s life down for them. He came making a way to His Father’s eternal bliss, and that way involves laying down your life.
-----Of course, laying down your life as Jesus meant it isn’t chambering a round in the ole 30-06 and splashing your head. Although, in the final estimation of some situations the effect of it may well be the same, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) We all know stories of heroes who have died trying to save or effect others. They chose to love, and then found themselves in particular situations calling for their love’s ultimate genuineness. Our soldiers, police, deputy sheriffs, and firemen are called heroes because their accepted duties cover these possibilities. The only cause of such sacrifice is the rock bottom truth about love.
-----But that rock bottom truth need not serve up the whole loaf of bread at one time. In fact, the overwhelming majority of situations call love to show the same degree of genuineness one small piece at a time. The man who falls in love with a maiden will by the genuineness of his love abandon childish frivolities to join the mundane work-a-day world. That’s a bit of death. When their love produces a child, they work harder. That’s more death. When the child goes to college, they work till the sweat of their brow is mixed with blood. And if the child is born with a birth defect limiting it to a role of abject dependency and the parents have chosen genuine love, then their roles will increase in dependability, an unending death to the self. Love is that spiritual factor we choose to do which often becomes a role limiter, and slicing off a little of our selves to be served to others. So the despair of life has a way of locking us into roles that are death by a thousand slices - piecemeal heroics - known by God as simply love.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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