Spencer's Mom

Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

And A Lot of Patience

Waiting…

 

If you are really a Cape Codder, you will never admit that the weather is good – at least without adding a disclaimer like, “What a beautiful day! But tomorrow it’s supposed to rain/snow/hail…” True to my 40 years of being what is called a “wash-a-shore” on this sand bar, I will declare that this winter was really…not bad. We had a couple of slushy snowfalls and dustings, some frigid days but hey, it is New England. However, the spring seems to be stuck in March, reluctantly edging over the 40’s, maybe popping into the 50’s on a rare occasion. This IS the Cape, where the icy Atlantic grips 100 miles of shore, stalling out the release of new life from trees and flowers that are clamped down, waiting.

            Forty years ago almost to this day, a young woman left New Jersey, which had exploded in vibrant color and life, and chugged north in a rusted out Volkswagen bus. A steamer trunk with all she owned was shoved into the back with some peacock feathers thrown on top. A down sleeping bag that had been well used for several years was tossed in last minute, just in case.

            She had only been to Cape Cod once, a few weeks earlier in March, and it was cold, sleeting. “Sea frost” someone called it and it sounded mystical and poetic which drew her even more. She crossed the bridge over the canal somewhere in the afternoon and drove until she could find the ocean, then parked overlooking the gray green palette of sea, dotted with whitecaps, stretching into the empty horizon and she felt like she had arrived. She took out her notebook and wrote. But she became aware of a chilling wet cold, much colder than New Jersey and beyond the shelter that the old bus and sleeping bag would provide, so she pushed on – to Wellfleet. There, kismet led her to a tiny cottage near the bay. There was no heat or hot water, but a small wood stove would warm up the little room quickly and the stove could heat up a pan of water for bathing. As the sky turned dark, the peepers rang out across the marsh. Spring is here, they said. Close, anyway. Close enough, I thought, as I pulled the dirty sleeping bag over my head.

            Forty years. I am 63 now, and as I look back to that strange girl, I can hear the peepers and smell the salt mixed with pine on the breeze coming up over the marsh. I can remember how my heart needed to run, to keep looking, and the temporary peace I found next to the ocean, with the world and all of it’s confusion behind me. I don’t remember feeling cold, or dirty or worried at all – I had enough money for beer and cigarettes. I had no phone so I would rely on the mail and that was sufficient for someone who really just wanted to be left alone. Yet I craved more than I had. I craved a higher place than survival, a wider purpose – to be filled with more than anger, doubt and a prevailing sense of brokenness.  Maybe it’s here, I would think, looking out over the bay.  Something that could grow and thrive. I wanted to trust in Hope, but Jack Daniels was safer, easier.

            Seven years later, I ran into Jesus. I’d like to say that He wrapped His arms around me and gave me a big bear hug, but that’s not at all how it went. First, I had to die. And since I was literally almost dead from doing things my way, it wasn’t a big stretch to surrender my will, my pride and my mess.

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal. John 12:24-25 (MSG)  

              It takes some time for things to grow. At the jail every week I talk to the ladies in green or yellow jumpsuits. Sometimes I get a room full of silence. The expressions can run from bland civility to deadpan to rolling eyes, smirking or smoldering contempt. But the best part of it all is the day I see a spark – so small, you would miss it if you weren’t paying attention. It’s in the eyes and it’s called Hope. And I know once I see the spark, God can build a fire.

            “The cross,” I said, “is a place that represents death and the darkest despair yet also leads the way to hope and freedom and new life.” When I asked for their thoughts, one young woman leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling.

            “This is really deep,” she said and a low rumble of acknowledgement went around the room. She was so right. This truth must penetrate right to the core of our soul. There it will take root, and if we are patient, something wondrous will begin to grow.

            My grandson Eli discovered this first hand after I gave him a terrarium for Christmas. On the cover, you see a tropical paradise bursting from a transparent vase. What you get is a bag a dirt and a small plastic container. A four-year-old has faith to move mountains, but it’s also short-lived. After a few days, he forgot about the dirt. Then a couple of weeks later I got a Facetime call.

“Ama! ” he shouted, his little body trembling with excitement, “LOOK!”

And there it was – well, not exactly paradise, more like ordinary grass, but it was green and growing and so amazing he could barely speak. When I asked him what the secret was, he told me proudly, “A little light, a little water, and a LOT of patience!” Ah, patience!

            Funny that I chose a Cape Cod April as my season to land here. I was as cold and unfriendly as the unforgiving earth. But there was promise just below the surface. I wonder…does Jesus see the small seed of Hope beneath the crusted heart? Maybe He put it there long ago, and is just waiting. Sometimes I think he calls us right to the crossroads of Nowhere-Left-To-Go and Nothing-To-Lose. Let it go – the life that is mine to begin with. Give it to me and I will breathe on it and you will really live.

            I heard the peepers last week, and something in my heart leapt. The young woman I can still see in my mind is an old woman now with joints that are failing and silver strands through my hair. Someone asked me if I was in remission last week, and it took me a moment to realize she meant from cancer. “Well, I’m still here!” I answered. But I thought of another Remission – the forgiveness of my sins, the cancelled debt that was paid for in blood. As I walk through a life that flourishes with the beauty of a heavenly hope, may I never forget the cross, and the deep, unsearchable Love that gave me life, real life.  And the best is yet to come.

Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.  This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Hebrews 6:18-19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQy4NUZKIeM

 

 

 

Feeling Young Again

*** I am so pleased to once again, share a  post with you from my son and favorite guest blogger, Miles Macleod. It is a beautiful and insightful take on Matthew 18:3. You can follow his family blog on macleodsonthemove.weebly.com. Enjoy!

 

Can you find the monkey?

 

So it’s been about six weeks in Malaysia and I’m feeling young again. But don’t get too jealous. I’m not talking about the grip-life-by-the-ears-and-drive-off-into-the-sunset-with-reckless-abandon type of young; it’s more like the I-can’t-read-this-menu-do-you-have-any-photos-of-your-food-so-I-can-point-to-the-pictures young.

It’s infuriating at times and good for a few laughs at others, but mostly it’s just embarrassing. Like the time I couldn’t figure out how to turn the water back on in my house and had to seek my neighbor’s help, or the time I drove down the wrong side of the road (they drive on the left here), or the time I did that again, or the times I pick up Quincy from daycare and can’t understand what his teacher is asking me to do so I just smile and nod and leave and don’t do what they ask, or the time I accidentally drank pond water from a spigot and the nearby guards laughed before showing me how to get filtered water, or how it’s taken me two weeks (and counting) to replace the only lightbulb in my bathroom (Erin showers in the dark every morning), or how I sometimes say “Good morning” (“salamat pagi”) to my neighbors when I see them walking in the evening (“salamat petang”).

Whatever confidence I had gained as a successful member of society while living in the States has quickly disappeared. Now, I’m more unsure, more unaware, and more pensive. More child-like.

There is a verse in the Bible, somewhere in Matthew, where Jesus tells a bunch of people to be more like children. It will help them, He says, get into Heaven. Whenever I’ve heard this verse mentioned, I assumed he wanted us to have more faith — child-like faith — a faith rooted in trust and untainted by the limitations of empirical evidence and the cynicism of adulthood.

Now, though, I’m thinking I had it wrong. Why would He want us to have the same type of faith that led me to put my trust and my bloody teeth and my cookies and milk into appeasing some mythological creature (see tooth fairy) or cultural apparition (see Santa)? That can’t be the same faith that He wants us to have, right? I would think He wants a more adult-like faith than that, one that has been tested and refined. So why be like children then? Well, in light of my six weeks in Malaysia, I’m thinking what Jesus likes so much about children isn’t so much their faith; it’s their helplessness.

I think about Quincy and his own helplessness too. At one years old, he relies on me for pretty much everything and because I come through more often than not, his love and his trust for me grows. I’m there to carry him on my shoulders when he tires and grab him from his crib when he wakes. To kiss his boo-boos and read his books; to teach him boundaries and open his doors. To him, I am everything. My identity — in his eyes — is defined by his own limitations.

And so it goes with world travel. For those who have yet to do it, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. There are numerous benefits, but perhaps none more so than the spiritual clarity that comes with it. My can-do American attitude has quickly been replaced by a please-help Malaysian posture. And through this transition and in the midst of my helplessness, my Father’s identity has been redefined by my own limitations. He is made strong in my weakness. My place in this crazy, amazing world has never been more clear. I am child-like. But for my Father, that’s okay.

Quincy in Cambodia making a new friend

 

Just a Dog (Not a Dog Spelled Backwards)

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT

            Georgia is a dog.

            Georgia is my new dog. She’s as sweet as a Georgia peach in June and already loves me, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I feed her, pet her and take her for walks. In other words, she’s just a dog. She’s not my child, so please don’t call me her parent. Her parents are two dogs of an undetermined, un-designer mix, which I shouldn’t have to explain.

            I’ve noticed a trend in several areas of our culture where we are shifting our natural affections for weird ones, hence the crop of doggy shops that are abounding. Don’t tell me we are in a recession if stores like Bloomingtails or Posh Puppy Boutique prosper. Women at work whip out their phones to show pictures of their “grand-dogs.” This new obsession has been tagged “replacement – syndrome,” a mostly millennial craze which grossed 4 billion last year on such pet essentials as strollers and pet-slings. One article I read showed a young man licking his cat with a rubber tongue.

            I am not without compassion. We yearn for what we feel we should have but don’t. Ever since I put down my sweet Rosie two years ago I have been perusing the internet for a new friend, “one with four feet” as my son Jake announced when he was five and tired of burying goldfish. It seems like a simple prerequisite but I soon learned that the world of dog ownership has morphed into an exclusive culture. Even if you can afford $2000 for a purebred, you may not be worthy of one.

            I began to wonder if I was a good enough human to adopt a mutt. One turned me away scornfully when I told them, yes, I did have to work. Finally I found Georgia, named after her birthplace. I was sweating the adoption a little because I don’t let my pets on the furniture to “snuggle” – I don’t care if it is their forever home, they will be forever on the floor. And if they need a bath there’s the garden hose, although they get the senior fluff and puff at Petsmart should they live that long. But the southern rescue that released her to me didn’t sound like they cared about that. Different culture. I doubt they have a Bloomingtails.

            Longing. Barren women fasten upon a pregnant mother or a newborn cry. Yearning for approval is soothed by a bunch of letters after a name or the accouterments of a fat paycheck. The bottle of wine brings a reliable comfort, so does the little pill for “my anxiety,” as my patients refer to it. Or maybe it’s the boy/girlfriend that really, really loves you…for now. C.S. Lewis wrote:

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

            Solomon wisely noted that eternity is planted in each human heart. We instinctively long for what we can’t see. So we fashion a substitute, a golden calf. We lose hope, or just patience. The gifts which God delights in giving to His children become objects of worship or even worse, discarded as cheap arcade tokens. We want more, bigger, shinier and a short cut to get it. The longing becomes bondage. 

And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:9

            His riches in glory. Eternal life. Heaven. If you are a Christian, then you know this is not our home. We are sojourners, so we travel light and hold everything loosely, especially pets. I have learned that even the things we think are secure may not be. Anyone who has picked out their child’s casket will agree. We know there is more than this, but we can learn to love the gifts He has placed within our reach today. And be grateful.

            If you are not a Christian, then think about the longing. God put that there. You are really longing to know Him, the one who tenderly formed you. That’s exactly why Jesus came.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;[a]
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well. Psalm 139:14

I found this on Amazon while I was looking for a ball for Georgia that she couldn’t eat:

Furbo Dog Camera: Treat Tossing, Full HD Wifi Pet Camera and 2-Way Audio, Designed for Dogs, Works with Amazon Alexa (As Seen On Ellen)

For $249, you can watch your dog on your smartphone while you’re busy at work, which you need to do a lot of because you spent $2500 for the dog and it costs another $150 a week just to keep her in doggy daycare, then there’s the toys, the accessories and the pet insurance. Furbo even spits out treats for Fido, and it has a 2-way chat and bark alert. I’m hoping it’s really a one-way chat and one-way bark. Be real. Almost 2000 people have given it four stars and it works with Alexa.

            I’m glad I have a new dog. I love my dogs and I have even suggested getting a dog to people who are profoundly grieved. They are simple and loyal creatures, an oasis of comfort when the rest of the world seems too harsh and complex. I marvel daily at God’s glorious creation, from dogs to daffodils, which are pushing through the cold dirt right now. As I look around me, I am blessed. But this is not home; the best is yet to come.

            So do not be dismayed! If you have a Furbo and a Designer Dog but still feel like something’s missing, you’re right! Jesus is saying, Hey, this way! Once you know the Creator, then all of creation makes perfect sense. And you can freely love those around you, even your pets.

            “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” – Jesus

Thanks Jesus, for a new dog, for making the journey through this life a little sweeter. You think of everything.

Love Lessons From Jail

“First Corinthians 13…”

      I’m opening a small Bible that I brought to give to one of the inmates.

      “Where is that?” Jessica asks.

      “It’s right here.” I push the Bible towards her, keeping my finger on the page.

      Kara glares at her from across the table. It’s her Bible after all. I just gave it to her. Jessica grabs my pen and starts to mark the page.

     “Do you mind if I make a little mark here? Just so I can find it?” Jessica doesn’t even look up.

      Kara leans forward, starts to say something but stops. She looks exhausted, her hair is a matted mess like she’s been sleeping in the woods, but I catch a little fire in her eyes, then she sits back, shaking her head. She’s too tired to care. “No, it’s alright,” she says softly even though Jessica has already underlined the chapter number, a small mark that she won’t ever look for.

      I want to check my watch but I don’t want them to think, no, to know that I am tired too. I stand and walk back over to the whiteboard.

Love is patient…

       The topic is Love tonight at the jail. I picked it – it’s February after all. I realized scrolling through past lessons that I had picked Love last February too, but I can’t remember how it went. Better than this, I bet. It’s an off night. Only three came out, for reasons I can never understand, and sometimes that works for the best. A small group is less intimidating, the girls can open up more and God will help me. But tonight it’s two new girls and Gail, an older woman who I swear lives here. Her sentence stretches out past the horizon, due to frequent trips to the hole. Someone told me she lived on the streets with “her man.” But it’s been a while.

Love is kind…

      I draw two big hearts side by side and write WORLD over one and GOD over the other.

      “Tell me what kind of love the world gives,” and I watch their faces twist up in confusion so I reset it.  “Ok, what kind of love does God give us?”

      “Unconditional,” the girl with the matted hair says flatly.

      “Good!” I write it inside the God heart, then write Conditional in big letters in the other heart. Now they get the game. The God heart fills up with Freedom and Forgiveness and the World heart fills with selfishness and shame. I feel like this is too easy so I throw in some Greek.

Eros. Phileo. Agape.

      “Agape sounds Indian,” Gail says.

      “No it’s Greek,” I correct her, feeling the foolishness of this conversation. I can see her bumming money at the bus station. Hey do you want to hear some Greek? As soon as I tell them that Eros means sensual or sexual love they completely regress to somewhere around fourth or fifth grade. I sit back down, feeling defeated and a tad disgusted.

Love never demands it’s own way.

      I’m praying under my breath as I try to rustle the last shreds of my lesson together. Gail senses my despondency.

      “I can be mean sometimes,” she says.

      “Well, I know you can be sweet sometimes too Gail. ” I’m touched by her honesty. “And I can be mean too.” My words settle like pretty snowflakes.

      Then Gail says, “I wish a was a bird. A big bird.” I wonder where she’s going but I want to think of David writing a psalm about flying away.

      Jessica starts to laugh at her. “So you can escape?”

      “No, so I can poop on everyone who’s pooped on me.” By now Jessica is sputtering and turning red, and falling into Gail.

Love bears all things…

      “Then you want to be a horse!” as she demonstrates the size of horse manure with her hands. Kara is silent, her face expressionless and it occurs to me she may be withdrawing form something. Or very medicated.

      “Ok guys, back to love.” They stop laughing and look up. I feel like the kind of teacher I couldn’t stand. Dull. A droning voice. Even my notes wonder what I’m doing.

      Jesus made a point of showing us over and over that what we thought we had was beside the point. Five fish. Two mites. Or should we just call down fire and toast them all? I remember one time when my husband and I were pastoring that I confessed to my mother that I felt like telling everyone to go to hell. She thought that was terrific. But it wasn’t – it was a screaming indication that I was spiritually bankrupt. I was sitting at the piano smiling every Sunday, embracing women I considered faithless and teaching their little demons about Jesus in the cold basement. Apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5) Oh yeah, I forgot. Again.

       An exasperated Jesus asks his disciples, “Are you being willfully stupid?” (Matthew 15:16, MSG) They weren’t getting it. Neither was I, trying to love what i thought was worth it, with a small love that I manufactured for my own benefit. And here I was again; a teacher trying to teach something that I understood but didn’t really know. I forgot AGAIN.

Love hopes all things..

      “Do you want to know why I’m here?” They are silent. “I’m here because I love you.” The words come out soft and I am as surprised as they are. Yes, that’s it.

      “I’m here because Jesus loves me. I don’t deserve it, but He does and He’s put His love in me. That’s why I’m here. Because I love you. And Jesus loves you.”

      Kara looks up from the table, her eyes searching. Jessica and Gail are looking straight at me, and I know I saw just a small flash of hope, like a shooting star.

Love rejoices in the truth.

        As I drove home that night I prayed for Kara and Jessica and Gail. I knew that despite my dumb lesson in Greek, that the Holy Spirit was able to take my notes and breathe upon them – to feed 5,000 with two loves of bread, to feed three women with the feeble prayers of another woman who knows what it’s like to be held captive, without hope, then set really free. And He is still able to teach an old teacher a new lesson in Love – even when I’m willfully stupid. It just takes a spark, a small spark of humility and a flash of hope. That’s all He really needs.

Love never fails.

 

*** All names have been changed, except Jesus.

(All Love scripture from 1 Corinthians 13, NKJV)

 

 

And Be Thankful

 

                                          Got crumbs?

Grateful.

The rain falls straight and dense, hammering the gutters and bulkhead doors in a staccato rhythm. Stay in. It’s November, it’s the day before Thanksgiving and two days before Black Friday. Traffic is thick and edgy.

My husband and I just celebrated 20 years of marriage by spending five days in Bermuda. As we sat on a balcony overlooking a clear aqua ocean, we said, “It’s hard to believe we will be eating Thanksgiving dinner next week.” We planned to invite some folks from church, people who like us, are far from family or maybe have none. But since we were absent during the strategic pre-Thanksgiving week of planning, everyone we know has found a home, a table and the beauty of a real church – family.

Our first day in Bermuda we met some friends. A sparrow lit upon the rail of the balcony, about three feet from where I sat and looked expectantly at me.

“Hello little friend,” I said. Soon some of his family came over and I could entertain the small crowd. I was so delighted by this because here, on Cape Cod, I pour some income into three bird feeders out in my backyard, drawing mostly sparrows, but they never even say Hi. Any sound, like the gate closing, causes a sudden Whoosh! into the nearby trees, where they peek and wait for me to disappear.

The Bermudian sparrows, it turns out, are just cuter counterparts to our seagulls. They’re looking for a handout, although a large crumb goes a long way. Seagulls look like they’d scoop up your grandchildren if you weren’t watching. They’d certainly snatch the lunch out of their sticky little hands. Still, they charmed me. The longing I have for another dog is somewhat abated by my bird friends. So I was grateful for the sparrows that actually came to me in Bermuda.

This morning as I was praying in church, a young man who has been coming to church for about a year bounded into the room and fell to his knees. I love listening to him pray. He is loud.

“God, I just love you and I want to thank you for picking me up when I was all dirty! You’re still cleaning me up Lord and I love you for that!” he yelled.

Once, after several minutes of enthusiastically praising God, I heard him say, “Jesus, I just want to give you a big hug!” This man is my brother, God-given, and his grateful spirit brings me joy.

“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” Colossians 3:15

Members of one body. Family! As I look out across my church, I see a mish-mash of colors and ages and cultures. Sometimes I hear more Spanish than English and I love that. If it were up to us we would carefully hand pick a homogenous group within our social strata. Admit it – we just want to be comfortable. But God loves to shake us up. Iron sharpens iron.

Gratitude. At the jail last night, I hesitated bringing up Thanksgiving since it was obvious all plans were off for these women this year. But something nudged me to ask about favorite foods and soon the room was vibrant with descriptions of turkey stuffing, real versus jelly cranberry sauce, apple crisp with whipped cream and an eggnog drinking contest (yes, it was a family tradition for one girl and she said she usually won). I realized that gratitude sometimes is carved out of the darkness, out of the “have-nots.” I remember a phone conversation I had years ago with a dear friend who cut my pity party short by declaring that there is ALWAYS something to be grateful for. I was silent for a moment while I scrambled to throw out some cliché like “I’m grateful I’m not dead,” or “that I don’t have scabies,” when she said,

“You can always be grateful for coffee creamers…you know the little ones.” And I still ponder that truth every time I pull one open and dump it into my coffee. I’m grateful.

On the shuttle bus to the airport we rode with another couple who stayed at the same resort. We all agreed that it was a lovely place. Incredible view, food, relaxed atmosphere.

“Except for those stupid little birds,” the woman said. “I could’ve done without those!” My husband dared not speak, and I couldn’t look at him because I knew I would laugh. He wasn’t crazy about the little feathered beggars either, but he loved how happy they made me. We have several pictures to prove it. I smiled and looked out of the bus window. They say one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.

We still have no Thanksgiving plans but we can be creative. One year my mother made spaghetti and meatballs and we brought it to the beach. I guess she was tired of turkey and dishes. Two years ago we walked downtown and told people about Jesus. The only people on the street were lonely people. We prayed with one man who cried. And he was grateful.

So this Thanksgiving, whether you sit at a table filled with turkey and sweet potatoes with marshmallow fluff (who thought of that?), surrounded by family who will say they ate too much pie, or in a jail cell with turkey roll on a cold tray (although they do have coffee creamers – I asked them), let the peace of God rule in your hearts and then look around at the crazy people God gave you to love…

And be thankful.

Just one crumb…please!

A Father’s Perfect Love

My dad —circa 1962

Pawwwwwt Chestah!!

I can still hear the conductor holler over the clack and rattle of the train and the steady kachuk kachuk kachuk of the wheels on the rails. Port Chester, Rye, Harrison. Back then, in the 60’s, it wasn’t an odd thing for a little girl to ride the train alone. The conductors that strode like drunk men up and down the swaying cars knew my dad, knew that he worked in New York City like most men from Riverside, Connecticut and that he would be there, at Grand Central Station, watching for the wave of the conductor as he would signal me to go.

“There he is!” they would call out, as I ran from the train to my father.

New Rochelle! These places didn’t look much different to me until we reached Harlem.

“One hundred and twenty fifth Street!” I learned that was the final call before the last stop. The station was filled with people that were strange to me, dark-skinned with ragged clothes. But it was more than the way they looked, or didn’t look. They moved slower, like they had no where to get to, like trains and time didn’t matter much, not like my town, where men in crisp suits and new briefcases often ran to catch the train..

The seats were soft blue velvet and smelled like my dad, cigarettes and shaving cream. I liked to pull up the window so I could feel the air rush in and hear the tracks beat out their rhythm…kachuk, kachuk, faster and faster as we pulled away from each station. I could smell the air change as we pressed forward, farther and farther from the salt air of Long Island Sound and the heavy perfume of tall maple and elm trees, into the colorless exhaust of Harlem. It was different in so many ways.

My father took me to Radio City Music Hall several times — Nutcracker Suite, the Rockettes — all the things he knew a girl would love. I remember gawking at the bare legs flying up in the air in unison, because these women must be the “chorus girls” my mother made reference to when I behaved in a coarse way, like belching or chewing gum. But what I loved the best was going to his office, high above Manhattan, being “Bob’s little girl” and the pride he showed as he smiled down at me while people filtered through. I knew that I, his big desk and the view over New York City, made him feel special, like he did something right, and I loved sharing that moment.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

I never thought of this Father too much growing up, the one in church. For one, heaven seemed very far away, so this Father must be too. My sister thought they were saying, Harold be thy name instead of Hallowed which made more sense because we had an Uncle Harold. Who ever heard of someone named Hallowed? Anyway, I had a father, right here and he was the daddy of the big desk and the Rockettes and whisky breath, the bedtime stories that would take you to castles with swords and knights and knaves, the scratchy kiss good-night from the thick stubble on his nighttime face. I can still see him waiting for me, outside the train, smiling like a big kid waiting for a friend to come out to play.

The visits changed. One day my mother called me outside, to the porch where she shook a glass filled with ice and bourbon.

“Your father lost his job,” she said. I was 12, I couldn’t grasp the full meaning of what that meant, nor did she try to explain. But I knew that things had changed, just like when my brother died four years before. The wind was turning around again. I looked at my feet and turned away.

The next time I met my dad at Grand Central station, he took me to a bar. Everyone there knew him, just like when he took me to his office.

He ordered a drink, and took out his cigarettes, shaking the pack and offering me one.

“I know you smoke. You steal my cigarettes all the time, so I’m giving you one now.”

I took it and put it between my lips.

“Always wait for a man to give you a light,” he instructed me, as he pulled his lighter out of his jacket and flipped it open with a swift shake. He reached across the table and waited for me to draw smoke, then lit his own. I don’t remember if we ate.

There was no Radio City Music Hall that night. We got on a subway beneath Grand Central Station, sitting in the front, near the conductor, so we could see the tracks ahead, the stations appearing bleak and dirty as we stopped along the way, the doors sliding open to swallow the rancid air. Finally the subway reached the end, then jerked backwards, sending us back again. We stayed in our seats, watching the tracks disappear into the dark, not saying much.

Even after I met Jesus, at age 31, years after the subway ride and watching the daddy I loved slide into a deep pit of failure and despair, I still didn’t trust this new Father. I was grateful though. I knew He had rescued me from the same snare that caught my dad, I knew He had had somehow fixed what was broken. The mess that teachers and cops and therapists had just scratched their heads at, God reached down into my heart and in a flash – it was like new. But love? I doubted it.

My father died at age 56, when I was pregnant with my second son. He had been sober for seven years and in an awkward dance of reconciliation, we tried to build a bridge over years of my pain and his shame. I wrote letters because it was safer, describing the raw beauty of the lower Cape, and he lived within the fierce gales and the unrestrained sea. He liked that the gulls kept flying, even though they couldn’t get ahead. Cancer took him away from me for good in 1981.

Forgive your father, my new Father spoke to me. I argued a bit — we had made amends. He’s dead anyway.

Forgive your father, He insisted. So I did. And a strange thing happened. I could love again. My old dad, and my new Dad too.

This Father’s day, love your father if you can. And if you can’t, I suggest you meet the new One. And forgive.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 NIV

No one. That seems a little exclusive, I know, but you are all invited.

It’s funny — when I remember my dad, I remember the dad who loved me, the dad who sat through the Nutcracker Suite, smiling, who showed me off to his friends. He was a good dad. But I am even more grateful to my real Father, the one who gave me life, who poured His love out into my heart – a heart that quit love, quit hope, like those people a little girl on a train looked out at in Harlem 50 years ago. I couldn’t name it Despair then, but I would come to know it well.

Thank you, Father, for your love that is pure and boundless and never fails. And for Jesus, who made a way for me to find you. Your name is not Harold, it is Love. Perfect love.