9-23-24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Readers of these essays know that one of my favorite poems is \u201cA Psalm of Life\u201d by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Its subtitle is \u201cWhat the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist.\u201d It is a short poem whose first quatrains are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!<\/em> \u201cLife is real! Life is earnest!\u201d \u2013 those lines ought to be written over every newborn\u2019s crib; on every grade-school\u2019s wall; ought to be recited at graduations, weddings, and, yes, even funerals. The sentiment has special urgency for contemporary America, where avoidance of reality, commitment, and earnest work is the mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was a boy, \u201clabor-saving device\u201d was a catchword in advertisements for appliances. Yes, families desired to escape the drudgery of winding, polishing, cleaning, prepping, cutting, mowing, whatever. Then\u2026 such imperatives became necessities themselves… and then obsessions. The next step was \u201cplanned obsolescence\u201d \u2013 \u201cWhy fix something, when you can just buy a new one?\u201d which seduced us all to become wastrels, unskilled, and lazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related: this leisure-obsessed society was fed sugar waters and fatty snacks until obesity became epidemic. A \u201cLife is real! Life is earnest\u201d culture would take note of the situation, and stop poisoning itself. But America chooses to spend billions of dollars on diet pills, exercise machines, surgery, health clubs, and psychiatrists instead of simply stopping to gobble junk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related: how addicted are we? Try to imagine a world without TV remotes. Big deal, you say? How many complaints would rise up in every household if we had to get out of our chairs, walk across the room, to change channels or adjust the volume all evening? (Well, at least it would provide some exercise\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Edwin Markham, another poet, wrote other favorite lines of mine: And meet them ever alike:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you are the anvil, bear \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you are the hammer, strike.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Both poems address fundamental challenges we face, or should, in the human family. Snack foods and TV remotes seem trivial, but they are symptoms of basic requirements, or not, of people who navigate life. There is an order to life; a structure that we recognize, even subliminally, that leads to stability, that leads to happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there is one theme \u2013 and there are several \u2013 that is woven through the Bible, it is the foundational aspect of the family<\/em>\u2026 the idea that God ordained the Family\u2026 the roles, with rules and injunctions, for fathers, mothers, and children, husbands and wives. We are called \u201cchildren\u201d of God. We are invited to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in End Times. The Church in many places is likened to the Bride of Christ. These references, and many in between, fill the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not a message about cohabitation or the prevalence of divorce but, if I may, a lament for what happens, and doesn\u2019t, in American families today while they are together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At one time in America, we know from accounts and descriptions, members of a family, perhaps in a buggy or a streetcar, would be seen all reading their Bibles. Today? How often do you see every member of a family, maybe waiting for their dinners at a restaurant, all bent over, intent on their cell phones? It is not so much the individual reading that I notice, but what they read, and don\u2019t. Many churches have full programs of kids\u2019 church and Women\u2019s Bible Study and Men\u2019s Groups\u2026 but few have Family Studies. Oh, \u201cthat\u2019s what church is for\u201d? No\u2026 church is for worship, not fellowship and discussion. How many families dedicate time for fellowship and discussion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n These bees in my bonnet were buzzing this week because a dear friend whose daughter had an aneurysm many years ago and has lingered, bedridden, for decades; and the daughter died this week. I think of the prayers and networks of support\u2026 and how precious families are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think of my own sister, who gave birth to a cerebral palsy girl predicted to live a couple years but lived into her mid-20s. My sister led a somewhat aimless life until her daughter\u2019s condition gave her life purpose. I think \u2013 I know \u2013 that God does not send disease, but He blesses those who call on Him to meet life\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think of a friend whose wife and children constituted a family unit that could have been painted by Norman Rockwell. But in \u201cTwilight Years\u201d he is widowed and one child has not spoken to him in years over some perceived slight; another lives overseas and seldom speaks to him \u2013 and he has four grandchildren who he might not recognize if they passed on the street \u2013 and another who sustained a life-threatening situation but did not call his father for three weeks, \u201cnot wanting to bother him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend seriously wonders whether that \u201cnuclear\u201d family is in fact happier, or closer, than families riven by divorce or infidelity. Has he been a failure as a father? (May I ask that you pray for the people I have mentioned here?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally\u2026 Related. Yes, related. At this time of year, with kids going off to schools or careers, I sometimes remember the (secular) song \u201cLetting Go.\u201d Not as gloomy as the situations I have just described, it is a sweet song about a daughter going off to college. Parents can shed tears in those moments. But\u2026 there are cycles in life. Priorities change. Perspectives adjust. Time heals. I have said, with children, \u201cDays drag on, but the years whiz by.\u201d Don\u2019t stand there and watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I pray that you don\u2019t have to say \u201cGood-bye\u201d too often. But Letting Go, as hard as it is, comes to all of us, and also can be sweet. Choose those moments, those reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/em>For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.<\/em>
<\/em>Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal;<\/em>
<\/em>Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.<\/em>
<\/em>Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way;<\/em>
<\/em>But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
For all your days prepare,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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