Courageous?

So Dayna and I went to see the new Christian film, Courageous. It’s produced by a church in Georgia that has produced other films like Facing the Giants and Fireproof. Courageous is a compelling film for families and especially for fathers. If you’re inclined to cry at movies, take some Kleenex. If you’re not inclined to cry at movies, take some Kleenex.

Courageous is a film about fathering, and it stirred me to think about the way I fathered my kids. Of course, with kids who are 31 and 29, my fathering is pretty much past tense. “I’m feeling a little guilty,” I said to Dayna as we were driving home from the theater. “I could have done better with the kids.” I don’t think I was courageous.

Having been raised in a home without a father, I was ill-equipped to be one. I didn’t read any books on the subject; I just sort of followed my gut. Sometimes that worked out pretty well. Sometimes it didn’t. Like the Saturday I was supposed to watch the kids (who were about 4 and 2 at the time). I put them down for a nap about the time the Razorback game was supposed to start. Nathan, the oldest, refused to go to sleep. He kept asking for one thing or another, kept bugging me like a mosquito in a tent, kept me from being able to watch my game. Exercising zero maturity, I didn’t deal with the issue, I got into a back and forth exchange with him—my line usually being, “Don’t make me come in there.” Being a mouthy kid, he wouldn’t shut up, so (during a game timeout) I pulled him out of his room and took him to the kitchen sink. He wants to be mouthy; I’ll deal with his mouth. I’ll wash that boy’s mouth out with soap. But dang! There wasn’t any bar soap at the sink, so I grabbed the next best thing available: dishwashing liquid. (Before you judge me you must realize that I was in a hurry; the game was about ready to start again.) He was crying. I was mad. And I was going to win. So I smeared some of that blue soapy liquid on my finger and rubbed it in his mouth. And do you know what he did? He looked up at me with tears rolling down his pudgy cheeks and blew the biggest soap bubble you ever saw! Hysterical. I got to laughing and he got to laughing and I hugged to my chest the one I was ready to exile to Siberia just moments before. Not very courageous, huh?

I wasn’t much better with my daughter. Having been raised with two brothers, I had no concept on how to raise a girl. As demonstrated in the previous paragraph, I knew all about boys (yeah, right). I knew about wrestling and playing ball, about getting dirty and eating like a pig, about bodily functions and acting crude. And I knew how to discipline a boy too. They take a spanking pretty good. I could yell at a boy when I needed too. But how do you discipline a girl? From the first time I saw her, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to yell at her. And I wasn’t sure I could spank her either. So I was kind of nervous about having a girl. Could I discipline her when needed? Could I find a way to enter her world? Other than the GI Joe I played with in the mid-60s, I’d never been around dolls in my life. And even then GI Joe was no girl doll. He was always shooting the enemy and blowing stuff up. He’d have had no trouble wiping out Barbie if he thought she was a Communist. He was one bad dude. But this girl world was different—dolls and tea parties, Kaboodles and My Little Ponies, jewelry and makeup, dresses and ribbons and lace. I was glad she liked sports—we made some connection there. But on the whole, I was out of my element and would be the whole time she was growing up. But I loved her, how I loved her and love her still! Yet what’s so courageous about that? She was easy to love.

So if I was grading myself on my daddy-work I’d have to give myself a B. I think I was generally better than average but certainly not exceptional and certainly not courageous. Truth is: both of our kids were easy to raise and both turned out well. They love God, serve Him in their churches, live responsibly, and are raising their own kids to do the same. I credit this end-product to many prayers, Dayna’s influence, and two good churches we’ve been a part of. We did do our best to show them Christ, keep them in the Scripture, and keep them in the church. We did love them unconditionally. We laughed a lot—a whole lot. And we never for a moment forgot that these two kids belong to God and are only on loan to us. The bottom line is that God was merciful, and God shaped these kids into the adults they are today—in part because of us, in part in spite of us, especially in spite of me.

I can see it now: “Let’s make a movie about John’s fathering.”

“Ok, but what will we call it?”

“How about Courageous?”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I’d call it … Blessed.”

And so would I.

Father of the Year

The Arkansas Baptist News, a bi-monthly paper with all the news that's fit to print and some that's not, holds a contest every year around Fathers Day. The paper invites readers to write a brief essay and enter their good old dad in the "Father of the Year" contest.

So I was thinking that if the Bible had a "Father of the Year" contest, who would win the prize? You know, really good fathers, as we Americans romanticize them to be, are pretty hard to find in the Bible.

Adam could have won the award for several years in a row, I guess, but the man had no competition. And was he really all that great of a dad. Didn't one of his boys murder the other?

Noah did all right for the most part. He was a blameless man, most righteous man on earth at the time, so Noah and his family were the only ones God saw fit to save from the great flood. But after the flood, there was this strange episode about Noah getting drunk and falling asleep buck naked in his tent. His son Ham found him that way and went and told his two brothers, Shem and Japheth. Those two found a blanket, backed into the tent, and covered their father. When Noah slept off his drunk and learned what happened, he cursed his son Ham for looking on his nakedness. Ham became the father of the Canaanites, not exactly a very high class breed of people back in the day.

Abraham was pretty good, I think—at least with Isaac. Except for that little episode where Abraham almost slit Isaac's throat and burned him in sacrifice to God (a test at God's bidding, mind you), Abraham was probably a bit over-protective with this child of promise.

Isaac didn't do so well with his boys, Jacob and Esau. He played favorites with Esau and got played for chump by his other son Jacob.

And Jacob, a chip off the old block, wound up with twelve sons, playing favorites with two of them, Joseph and Benjamin, and sort of alienating the others in the process. Jacob did offer individual blessings for each of his boys though. A lot of us dads could sure do a better job of blessing our children, don't you think?

Moses is one of the three dominant figures in the Old Testament but we know virtually nothing of his kids or his fathering.

And while David was a great king, he didn't do so well at fatherhood. One of his sons raped one of his daughters. Another son killed the brother who raped their sister, and that same son later orchestrated a coup against his father—a coup he came within an inch of pulling off. And when that no good son was killed in the battle, David grieved and grieved and grieved.

Job was probably a pretty good dad. He provided well for his children and they apparently got along well with one another because they were eating together when a tornado crushed the house in which they were gathered and killed them all.

And we've got to at least tip our hats to Hosea. God told him to marry a whore as a stark example of God's opinion of His people Israel who were whoring after other gods. Hosea did what he was told. His wife Gomer bore him three children then left the family in a lurch and went right back to her whoring ways. I guess Hosea had to raise those kids on his on. And when God told Hosea to take Gomer back a few years later, he did so, setting quite an example of forgiving love for his kids.

Jump from the Old to the New Testament, and there's not many dads in there to enter in the contest. There was Joseph who more or less adopted Jesus and, except for the time he accidentally left 12-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem, apparently did well with him. But honestly, who couldn't do well with Jesus?

There's also Zebedee. He was the father of James and John. He taught them the fishing business and apparently let them go without much of a fight when Jesus called his sons to follow Him. But then again, James and John were known as "the sons of thunder." Was this a nickname about the boys or about their dad? Did their dad, perhaps, have a little temper problem he passed on to the boys? Who knows?

And there was also a dad here and there in the Gospels who brought sick children to Jesus, in hopes that Jesus would make them well. But we know so little about them it's hard to make a judgment as to the quality of their fathering.

Oh, and in Acts there was the Philippian jailer. No sooner did God save him than he invited Paul and Silas to his house in the hopes that his whole family would be saved. The Bible says they were. And really, that's about it for fathers in the New Testament.

I've got to tell you, the Bible doesn't appear to be all that interested in parading excellent fathers before our eyes. You'll not find many father role models in the pages of the Scripture. You'll find some fatherly counsel there: like, how dads are supposed to teach their kids day in and day out to love God, and like Paul's counsel for fathers not to breed rebellion in their kids but to raise them in the nurture and admonition of Christ. And, of course, Proverbs dishes out a little fatherly wisdom about disciplining the kids—"spare the rod, spoil the child" and all of that. Actually, when it comes to fathers, the Bible has more advice than role models. Most of the dads we see in the Scripture aren't all that different from most dads I know today: they are a mixture of the holy and the profane, they have their good moments and their bad moments, but mostly they just try to do the best they can with what they've got to work with in themselves and what they've got to work with in their children. So if you had a bad childhood and a father that wasn't so hot, why don't you cut him some slack and even forgive him if that's needed. And if you are a father who feels like you just haven't done enough, why don't you cut yourself some slack and just try to do a little better. I wish I could hold up a couple of fatherly models from the Bible and say, "Do it like these guys did it," but I really can't. Like or not, there just aren't many great father-figures in the Bible.

So is there no "Father of the Year" in the Bible? Well, there is one. In fact, I'm ready to make my nominee for "Father of the Year." I nominate … our Father God. He is the Father who made us, knitting us together in our mother's womb. He is the Father who saves us from our sin and keeps saving us a little more every single day, forgiving and restoring us as we have need. He's the Father who provides for our needs. He is the Father who loves us enough to discipline us when we go astray and get us back on the path that leads to life. And He's the Father who wants to be with His children so much that one day He will take us home to live with Him forever. What a great Father! He is, says the Bible, a Father to the fatherless, and He is a Father who can sympathize with any parent who ever gave up a child to death. If you want a model father to follow in the Bible look no further than to the Lord God himself. You will never live up to His standard, but at least He shows us the way. So praise be to God: the Father of the Year, the Father of All History, and the only perfect Father you'll ever know.

Would Have Been 97 Today

Storyteller and writer extraordinaire, Garrison Keillor, once told this story about one of the dads in Lake Wobegon. The town ball club was the Lake Wobegon Schroeders, so named because the starting nine were brothers, sons of E. J. Schroeder. E. J. was ticked off if a boy hit a bad pitch. He’d spit and curse and rail at him. And if a son hit a home run, E. J. would say, “Blind man coulda hit that one. Your gramma coulda put the wood on that one. If a guy couldn’t hit that one out, there’d be something wrong with him, I’d say. Wind practically took that one out of here, didn’t even need to hit it much”—and lean over and spit.

So his sons could never please him, and if they did, he forgot about it. Once, against Freeport, his oldest boy, Edwin Jim, Jr., turned and ran to the centerfield fence for a long, long fly ball. He threw his glove forty feet in the air to snag the ball and caught the ball and the glove. When he turned toward the dugout to see if his dad had seen it, E. J. was on his feet clapping, but when he saw the boy look to him, he immediately pretended he was swatting mosquitoes. The batter was called out, the third out. Jim ran back to the bench and stood by his dad. E. J. sat chewing in silence and finally said, “I saw a man in Superior, Wisconsin, do that a long time ago. But he did it at night and the ball was hit a lot harder.”

I’ve known a lot of people over the years who had a dad like E. J. Schroeder—a dad who loved his kids for sure but had a hard time showing it, a dad who found it easier to find fault than to applaud and encourage.

My dad was not exactly like E. J., but to be honest, I don’t really know what my dad was like. At least E. J. was there for his kids. For the most part my dad ceased to be an active part of my life in the middle of my third-grade year. He did have time to pass on his love of sports to his three boys. My dad was a star athlete in Lakeside High School in Lake Village Arkansas, class of ’32. And I have yellowed newspaper clippings of his exploits as a fullback and punter for Arkansas College in Batesville (now Lyons College) where he played until financial restraints forced him to drop out of college and find work (it was the Great Depression, you know). My dad taught me how to throw and catch and love any good old American game that involved a round or oblong ball. The sad thing was: after my third-grade year he never saw me play again. So, would he have been an encouraging dad or an E. J?

I suspect he would have been a little bit of both. On most visits (which weren’t numerous) he would take my brothers and I bowling. He would show us how to do it, encourage us when we did it right and correct us when we did it wrong. I remember playing catch with him on some of those rare weekend visits. “Good throw, John Scott, but get your arm up here instead of down there.” He’d throw me a grounder: “Nice catch, John Scott, but don’t reach for the ball; scoot over, get your butt down, and keep it in front of you.” I played catcher for a couple of years of my Little League career, and when my dad found out, he bought me a full set of catcher’s gear—chest protector, shin guards, mask, the works. I really liked the gift. I remember standing in front of a full length mirror in my gear, dreaming of throw-outs at second and tag-outs at the plate. But I would have traded the gear in a heartbeat just to have him in the stands to watch me play. It’s not that he didn’t want to see me play, but he lived in Little Rock, my mother had moved us to Branson, Missouri, and things were complicated. But you can see what I mean, can’t you? I think my dad had some E. J. in him for sure, but he also could be encouraging.

A few things stand out in my memory. He hurt me emotionally several times and in several ways across the years—maybe that’s the E. J. in him. But I’m choosing today to remember better things. On those rare occasions when he made a visit, especially when I was still in grade school, I would run out to his car when he pulled up in front of the house, and he would greet me with a kiss on the mouth. His family was affectionate; my mother’s family was not. Why is it that I remember a warm kiss on the mouth from my dad? Did I yearn for touch and affection (so missing in my Branson home), or did I just want my daddy? I don’t know, probably both, but I remember it.

Another memory: my dad paid for the first three years of my college education. I got married early in my senior year, and he told me that if I was old enough to get married, I was old enough to make my own way. I appreciated both the first three years and the lesson he taught me in the fourth. But it’s something from the first year that stands out most in my memory. I received a valentine from him in February that said something like, “Valentine, you’re at the head of the class.” Go figure—I don’t think my dad had ever sent me a valentine in my life. I remember thinking that was strange at the time. What prompted him to do that?

Still another thing that sticks out in my memory is the 1964 Ford Fairlane Ranchwagon. I had no car my first year in college. I needed a car for my summer job. My dad sold me his old ’64 wagon for one dollar. I got ripped off. The car was junk. My college friends called it the Ratwagon. The heater didn’t work. It had a hole in the floorboard. It broke down at least three different times between Fayetteville and Branson. I replaced most every part over the next three years. But it was a car. I had wheels. I had independence. When I traded it in for something better in December of 1977 I got 200 bucks for it. And my dad made it happen.

Another memory: my dad was dying of cancer in a Jackson, Mississippi, hospital. I was going to make the trip to see him but couldn’t get away until after Christmas. I am a pastor. I had Christmas Eve Service, then I had a wedding to do the day after Christmas. His doctor told me he expected my dad to live for another week or two. Daddy and I talked by phone the night after Christmas. I told him I was leaving the next morning to head down to see him. He said he appreciated that. We small-talked a bit (which was hard for both of us, I think). Then, just before he hung up, he thanked me for reaching out to him and he said, “John Scott, I love you. I’ve always loved you.” My aunt called me not an hour later to tell me my dad was dead. I never saw him alive again, but those words of blessing and love still linger in my mind.

Still another memory: when we were cleaning out his apartment after his death, my aunt found a written prayer folded up in an envelope in a drawer. It was a prayer for “John Scott McCallum II.” It was line after line of petition to God that “John Scott McCallum II” be the best minister he could be. It was a prayer that God give me wisdom and peace and knowledge and understanding as I carried out the ministry to which God had called me. I don’t know if it was a prayer he wrote or a prayer he copied and then just inserted my name. I do know that I still have that prayer.

And one memory more: after his death, we found in his apartment every card and picture and letter any of us boys had ever sent him—every one. The cards and letters were neatly filed away; the pictures were on the dresser, the chest, and the walls. He saved them like treasure, hoarded them like a miser. It was as if he wanted to be surrounded by reminders of his children and grandchildren, yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t just pick up the phone and call us. And I don’t know how many times after his death we heard this from people who knew him: “He was so proud of you boys. He talked about you all the time.” That was good to hear, but I couldn’t help but wish he had said such things to us while he was alive. I think it would have built some bridges. I think it would have made things different in the relationship (or lack thereof) we had with our father.

So there you have it. My daddy was a little bit of E. J. and a little bit of an encourager too. Mostly he seemed pretty clueless as to how be a dad to his kids—especially after the divorce. He wasn’t perfect by any means. I don’t idolize him in my memory. But he was my daddy. He loved me as best he could, I think. And I loved him as best I could. I write this today because this is his birthday. If he were still alive he would be 97 years old today. And even though we never knew one another all that well, even though from the time I was 8 until his death I rarely saw him, and even though he’s now been dead for 23 years, that old man is still on my mind.

On Fathers and the Father

A man once told me that he won’t go to church on Father’s Day. “Oh, really,” I said. “Did you lose your dad and being in church on Father’s Day reminds you of your grief?”

“Nothing like that,” he replied. “It’s the discrimination.”

“What? Discrimination? What do you mean ‘discrimination’?”

“Well, on Mother’s Day every mother gets a rose. On Father’s Day every father gets a lecture: ‘Do this! Do that! You’re missing the boat. You’ve got to do better.’ Discrimination!”

I suspect he’s got a point. But the word is probably not discrimination; the word is complication. Being a father is a complex thing. We know we’re important; we’re just not sure exactly what we’re supposed to do. We know we’re supposed to pass out cigars when the baby comes. We know we’re supposed to make sure the kid has shelter and diapers. We know we’re supposed to open the jar lids that get stuck and kill the bugs and spiders that sneak into the house. We know we’re supposed to teach them how to ride a bike and throw a baseball. We know we’re supposed to take them to church, discipline them when they get out of line, teach them how to be responsible with money, show them some level of affection, help them pay their way through college, and then let them go when they find Mr. or Miss Right. It’s complicated. And since there’s no book I know of called Daddy for Dummies, some of us just kind of figure it out as we go along. If you’re like me, you depended a lot on their mother to make sure they turned out okay. Complicated.

But oh so powerful in the life of a child! Roger Thompson put it this way: “If you were a piece of paper held up to the light, we would see a water mark on your soul that has the name of your dad on it.” I’ll never forget watching an episode of the documentary Moon Shot in which one of my childhood heroes, Alan Shepherd, described a conversation he had with his father after the Apollo 14 moon landing. “Son,” said his father, “do you remember in 1959 when you told me you were going to be an astronaut, and I told you I was against it? Well, I was wrong.” There’s really nothing all that striking in that comment. We fathers give bad counsel now and then to our kids—sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong. That’s life. What was striking, though, about Shepherd’s telling of this story is that as he concluded it, his eyes began to well with tears and he couldn’t speak. Here was a now-retired, larger than life American hero, first American in space, a man who had stood on the face of the moon, a man of immense courage and daring, getting all choked up as he talked about this backdoor blessing he received from his father. See what I mean? Powerful and complicated.

So let me encourage you fathers today to set aside the complexity of your role and to use the power of this relationship to bless your children. Even if your example isn’t so good and even if no one’s going to be nominating you for Father of the Year, find a way to bless your kids. They need it. They yearn for it. Only you have the power to do it. I don’t know why this is so, but it is so. And oddly enough some of the joy your children will feel in your blessing will bounce back to you.

Oh, and one other thing: when you’re struggling with the complexity and the power of your father-role, remember this: you're not alone. You’ve got help in heaven—Someone who understands, Someone who sympathizes, Someone who is with you and for you, Someone who can show you the way and bless you with the wisdom, patience, and strength to do your job well. Jesus told us how to get hold of Him. He said, “And when you pray say, ‘Our Father …’”—a pretty remarkable metaphor when you think about it, huh?