December 10, 2020<\/p>\n
A birthday note from my Dad on his son’s (i.e. my) birthday in 2020<\/p>\n
“this is where I want
\nto love all the things
\nit has taken me so long
\nto learn to love.\u201d<\/p>\n
This day, 109 years ago, \u00a0my grandmother brought my dad into the world with pain and courage: farm people who lived\u00a0in the far east of Kansas, close to the Missouri River.\u00a0 Dad lived long enough that we grew to be friends, to tell each other stories across our generational lines. (E.g., \u00a0On rare occasions someone would bring candy from the store and each kid got their portion. But, one of his sisters told me years later, “Louis would eat his quickly and then go beg some more from the rest of us.”) \u00a0When the family moved to central North Dakota, \u00a0he learned to swim in\u00a0the Hart River by holding onto the horse\u2019s tail, \u00a0so he told us.\u00a0 He learned the responsibilities of an oldest boy so that when, in 1921 the family swapped farms with strangers in Wisconsin, sight unseen from a farm journal (!), his mom and dad packed the Model T to overflowing and drove east with the younger kids.\u00a0 He, the oldest boy, took their small herd of dairy cows on the train, across the prairie, down through central Wisconsin into Chicago where he and the cows changed trains and headed north through Milwaukee and Green Bay to Marinette.\u00a0 He was 14.\u00a0 He told me a story thread once, when he\u2019d gotten up before 5:00 so he could drive 2 hours to where I was staying for vacation . \u00a0. \u00a0. he picked me up at 7:00 when the Jesuits allowed him to pick up his Jesuit man-child for an overnight at home. \u00a0 On the ride home he observed that he had worked his way through Marquette U law school in the depths of the Great Depression so that he would not have to spend his life getting up in the pre-dawn to tend cows.\u00a0 And here he was, getting up on farmer hours to pick up his son.<\/p>\n
Stories, lots of them to remember decades later in 2016 when stirred by David Whyte\u2019s poem, in conjunction with a birthday 109 years today.\u00a0 Is it deeper love to listen to a father\u2019s stories or to live one\u2019s own? \u00a0Yes.\u00a0 All around me, on this university campus, in this city, in this hard-times world, \u00a0stories live.\u00a0 At the university we teach precision skills; \u00a0we also teach listening and the conviction that everyone\u2019s stories are worth the telling.<\/p>\n
Have a blest day this mid-week.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
p.s.\u00a0 On their first (blind, set up by mutual friends) date, deep in The Depression in the fall of 1933, my mom told us kids that her date’s best shirt had a frayed collar. \u00a0\u201cBut he kept it clean,\u201d a promising early sign she thought.\u00a0 Stories.<\/p>\n
“THE HOUSE OF BELONGING”<\/p>\n
by David Whyte<\/p>\n
I awoke
\nthis morning
\nin the gold light
\nturning this way
\nand that<\/p>\n
thinking for
\na moment
\nit was one
\nday
\nlike any other.<\/p>\n
But
\nthe veil had gone
\nfrom my
\ndarkened heart
\nand
\nI thought<\/p>\n
it must have been the quiet
\ncandlelight
\nthat filled my room,<\/p>\n
it must have been
\nthe first
\neasy rhythm
\nwith which I breathed
\nmyself to sleep,<\/p>\n
it must have been
\nthe prayer I said
\nspeaking to the otherness
\nof the night.<\/p>\n
And
\nI thought
\nthis is the good day
\nyou could
\nmeet your love,<\/p>\n
this is the gray day
\nsomeone close
\nto you could die.<\/p>\n
This is the day
\nyou realize
\nhow easily the thread
\nis broken
\nbetween this world
\nand the next<\/p>\n
and I found myself
\nsitting up
\nin the quiet pathway
\nof light,<\/p>\n
the tawny
\nclose grained cedar
\nburning round
\nme like fire
\nand all the angels of this housely
\nheaven ascending
\nthrough the first
\nroof of light
\nthe sun has made.<\/p>\n
This is the bright home
\nin which I live,
\nthis is where
\nI ask
\nmy friends
\nto come,
\nthis is where I want
\nto love all the things
\nit has taken me so long
\nto learn to love.<\/p>\n
This is the temple
\nof my adult aloneness
\nand I belong
\nto that aloneness
\nas I belong to my life.<\/p>\n
There is no house
\nlike the house of belonging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
December 10, 2020 A birthday note from my Dad on his son’s (i.e. my) birthday in 2020 “this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.\u201d This day, 109 … Continue reading