My son...

So, my son leaves for the Marine Corps in about 44 days. Woof, I am going to miss him. I don't see him much now but at least he can be hunted down and coraled. He's doing great. As usual in school he's pulled everything together at the last minute. He's the man. I am very proud of my son.

I've been tagged

I got tagged by Rick at http://www.oldsolar.com/currentblog.php and asked who the five best influences in my Christian faith have been.

The Five Best Influences????

It is tough to narrow it down to just 5.
1. Robert Gaertig, intellectually and organically, for being Grace and one of the most gracious men I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
2. Rod Rosenbladt, intellectually and organically for teaching and modeling what it is to be a sinner and repentant. He was also my theology professor at Westmont College and at Fuller Seminary.
3. C.S. Lewis, Intellectually for his stories of the Kingdom of God.
4. JRR Tolkein, for the same reasons as Lewis.
5. My dad organically. Probably the most surprising one of them all who is not spiritual or Christian. When I was ten he told me I didn't have to go to church anymore with my mother. Later it turned out that that church made more atheists with its lack of theology and emphasis on a very liberal ideals. He is a scientist and he would kick my a** intellectually when I tried doing apologetics with him.
6. Saturday nights out on the deck with the crew at Rod's house, intellectually and organically.
7. My old English Professor Dr. Arthur Lynip organically. He was a kind gracious man.
8. My Ethics professor Dr. Lou Smedes organically for the same reasons as Dr. Lynip. That's eight sorry I can't say just 5. They all have affected me deeply significantly and thoroughly. I'll tag the good ReverendMe, Dave A., Pat K., Ron H. and Jeremy R.


e-mail: Steve | posted on: October 2, 2008

Honoring Father

Genesis 9:20 - 25 is the story of Noah getting drunk and lying in his tent naked, Ham walking in and seeing his father. Ham goes out of the tent and tells his brothers about it. When his father wakes up he curses Ham’s descendent's. In essence it’s the description of Ham disrespecting his father. Last week in Sunday school class Chris Rosebrough taught on this passage. Chris taught that Ham got cursed because he was being disrespectful to his father and he acted superior and arrogant. I challenged or wondered out loud to Chris how he got his interpretation out of that passage. I just didn’t see it in the text. I guess the question stuck in the back of his mind because he did more research on the text and he even looked into it in the original language. Looking into the original language was, as it turns out, very informative on several levels. Apparently, in the Hebrew, it says that Ham did not just relay the bit of information that their father was drunk and lying naked, but it was much worse. He was being a tattle tail. He was being superior and arrogant in his attitude as he told his tail. He was being “better than his father” He was being much more "spiritual". As my friend Dr. Rod Rosenbladt says; " when one thinks or knows he’s better than his father it won’t go well with him." My friend Pat Kyle would say “…even if I did beat my father I’d still lose…”.

I think these things are part of Honoring our father. “Honor your father and your mother, that your (P)days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.” It doesn’t go well for those of us who dishonor our fathers or think that somehow we are better than them. It doesn’t go well for us when we realize or we think we are stronger/better. Unfortunately, some of us go there all too often and it doesn't go well with us nor should it.

Huh, Go Figure...

The more "Modern Science" stuff I read the more the "Modern Scientists" are finding that that once useless creature called "dad" is a little more important than a sperm donation. The following link is one small finding on dad's importance in a kids life. In sum it says dad's state of mind can affect his child's vocabulary. But I over generalize. Dad can't be that important!? Can he????

...huh, who'da thunk it?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13850-depressed-dads-affect-kids-speech-development.html

A Vacation From Mom and Dad

My son's mother left for Missouri and Alabama last Wednesday to meet with her sister so they could travel "The South" searching out all the places they used to live and play when they were kids. I took the week off to play taxi driver to my son who, while he is working on getting his license, doesn't drive solo yet. I had high hopes and big plans for my son and I spending some time together. I won't put "Quality" time because I know better. My son is 16 and he makes the party debu Taunts of the wealthy seem like shy little turtles. He is very socially active with 2 or 3 little girls chasing after him and one that caught him when he wasn't looking. It makes a dad proud. He has many friends including one that is a really solid guy friend who is well liked by my son's mom and me. Anyway, with plans well in in the books and one excited dad at being able to spend time with his son I got a phone call from my son saying..."uh dad I'm spending the night with Ryan. You don't need to pick me up from school. Ryan and I will just walk. Oh ya and I am spending the night with him tomorrow night, too. Friday night I am working, Sat. is.. and sunday is..." and so on and so forth. I was just a little put out, to say the least, after securing those days off just to...oh well, you get the picture. I started rolling it over in my mind and I realized that sometimes kids need a little vacation from all mom and dad's agenda stuff they want the kid to do. My son is pretty mature about most everything and he really made sure he got to the places he needed to go and do the things he needed to do. I worried a little bit and then let it all go...hearing the words of my friend and former professor saying; "it will be okay, Steve". Low and behold it was "Okay". My son was fine and he did a great job. He is growing up and pushing out of the nest. He is shedding the stuff of childhood, falling down, making mistakes, getting up and doing stuff again until he gets it right. This is the job of a kid. This is the stuff that builds self esteem. Self esteem is not built by telling a kid how wonderful he is all the time. That just builds arrogance. There has to be something behind the praise. There has to be something substantial, like the kid really did something worthwhile. My son took good care of himself even at age 16.

Working Harder Than Your Kids

There comes a time in your child’s life when mommy and daddy have to quit working harder than there kids. My son has, I believe, reached that age. My son is great and yes I am the very proud papa of my 16 year old son. He is great; he is taking personal responsibility for much in his life, he works, he does his chores, he is respectful…mostly, he pays his debts, etc. He is truly a remarkable kid. So, why am I working harder at his education than he is???? Well, honestly, because I know what will happen if he doesn't get good grades and doesn't get into college, or at least I think I know and I just couldn't let go. It’s not that he can’t do school. It’s that he won’t do school. He's pretty brilliant, even if I do say so myself. He’ll get A’s on his exams and zero’s on his homework assignments because mostly he doesn’t turn them in. We took football away from him this year, last year it was his electronic games, his friends his tv. It did little. I have been re thinking the consequences from us. It seems we are working too hard and he just doesn’t care. I don't think he's moved enough for the energy we've expended. I say no more on the grade thing. I think from now on if he gets a poor grade because he doesn’t want to do his home work. Then so be it. His mother and I sat down with him yesterday. He told us that his homework was pointless and he wasn’t going to do it unless it meant something to him. He would only do stuff that meant something to him. Perhaps, not getting into college and having to struggle daily for daily bread will mean something to him later…then again I have two masters degrees and I have a stupid meaningless job and I struggle for daily bread. I wonder if he is on to something. Maybe he's smarter than I am...

Dad? Naw, I'm so over him...

As I've said before I am a psychotherapist who does drug and alcohol treatment. The who and the where are not important to this blog right now. As I do this job, trying to get kids and adults to move toward sobriety, it's become crystal clear to me what a psychologist, a theologian and some good friends have hammered into me these last 30 years that "father is more important than you and I will ever know, Steve". An example of the importance of father drove this point home the other day. Below is a note taken from a number of clients that have a particularly bad addiction. I've rolled information from these clients up into one person for anonymity sake. The stories are virtually the same and the reaction to being told about father and belonging are exactly the same. The long term outcomes vary somewhat as they do when dealing with the human psyche but the truth still lies deep in what happened the other day.
…once again J was concerned with the therapist’s opinion and seemed very concerned that the therapist didn’t believe J was clean and sober. The therapist commented on clients concern. There seemed to be some power struggle over whether the therapist believed the client. After finally understanding there was this struggle the therapist stepped out of the struggle by commenting on the client’s process, by stating that the client was very concerned about how important people in his life perceived him. The therapist interpreted that J felt like (s)he was very disappointing to mother and always felt guilty for it. The therapist also interpreted that it sounded like J’s father was not emotionally involved with the client nor had father ever been involved. Client confirmed this by stating that the father was never in J’s life. J dismissed father’s involvement because father had never been involved and J “…just never cared”. The therapist took J to task on father having no impact on J’s life and stated J had been greatly impacted by the lack of father. This therapist told J not to dismiss the lack of father quite so quickly. The client further discounted father’s lack of physical and emotional presence in life until the therapist interrupted and said it’s the father that causes the child to feel belonging. “You have never felt like you belonged, J”. The client immediately broke down weeping.

The idea of belonging is, I believe, innate in each of us. We are social creatures who need to belong somewhere. God created us this way. He says, “…It is not good for man to be alone….” It was the beginning of communion with one another, the beginning of belonging. The Father God gave this to us in the beginning and it is our father’s that give this to us with their voice and presence from before we are born.

On subsequent visits I was able to talk more about father and finding father. There we were disagreements about being able to trust men and father substitutes. There is a deep residing anxiety that is because of a lack of father in these clients’ lives. There is the constant fear of disappointing mother and God. I find this permeates fatherless men and women. There is boundless needless guilt, shame, fear and approval seeking behavior. I have worked with these clients for a while and there is more work to be done. ”…the need for father is more important than you and I will ever know Steve…”