The Wilsons

I love the holidays.  I love the time off from school (over a full month in the case of this college professor).  I love the sounds and smell of the season… baking cookies and making gingerbread houses, sitting by the glow of the lights on the tree, watching the snow fall, listening to Christmas music with no tv on in the house, smelling wood burning in the fireplace, and stepping out into the Crisp (20-degree) night air when the snow on the ground is reflecting the light of stars and what should be night is lit up as if someone had hung street lights all around (those of you who’ve experienced this, know what I’m talking about).  And there’s so much more to love about this time of year.

Melodia and I were chatting about all of this the other day, and were discussing the notion, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Melodia questioned such widespread use of the words, “Holiday Season” to mask and/or avoid calling it “The Christmas Season.”  She was, of course, making the point that society (particularly American) has worked hard to take the “Christ” out of Christmas.  Yet, He is the reason the Holiday exists - and even the historical notion of St. Nick wouldn’t exist if St. Nicholas himself had not believe in that Christ’s birth was more than myth, legend, simple historical fact.

I mentioned to Melodia that I struggle myself with the Christ in Christmas.  Oh, it’s not that I don’t believe in His birth, the price He paid for me, the salvation that comes because of His gift(s) to us — no, it’s just that, I also love the notion of the “Holidays.” I’m not bothered by the word, and am just as happy with the words, “Christmas Season.”  But, as I told her, I love all the things I opened this paragraph with…  the snow, the music, the lights, the baking — and the other things — no, not the beat downs in Walmart as people display their ultimate rudeness all in an attempt to “generously give from their heart” - lol.  But I do appreciate the spirit that some others seem to adopt, which I have to believe is a hint of the reflection that we ourselves are supposed to live daily… opening a door for another, allowing someone to go ahead of them in line, saying thank you, displays of both grace and mercy, and generosity that some seem to show - if only during this season of the year.  I like those hints of His love, and only wish we’d live the Christmas season all year long.

Of course, I have the benefit of now living somewhere with real cold and snow.  And I love that bundling up to go outside adds to the “experience” of this season for me…. and then, after having been outside, returning to the warmth of the house, and drinking hot tea or hot chocolate.  Yummy.

I guess, in the end, I love the experience of it all, and maybe, just maybe, weather we use the word, “Holidays” or “Christmas,” there are things in this season that offer hints of — well, if not the way it should be between us as we journey this path together, perhaps the way it will be in the end.  Oh, I’m not so sure they’ll be endless fountains of hot chocolate in Heaven, but I like to think that somewhere in that warm, cozy, loving, gracious, giving experience of the season, we are glimpsing the stuff of Heaven.

I know, I may be stretching it a bit considering the commercialized, packaged, mandated gift-giving, competitive light-decorated, government ordained day-off season — but I find the season to be — well — hopeful. And right now, this world needs hope.  Of course, it’s need hope long before a little child was born in a manger; and it’s needed hope long after that same child was a man walking one last time up a hill; but here’s “hoping” that all of us find a renewed hope this season, and that more and more of us will - even in the midst of all the scents, sounds, sights, and feelings - pause to consider the first five letters of “Christmas.”  Merry Christmas, everyone.

In church today they showed a video about how Christians have really polluted the water when it comes to Christianity and the lost.  The man in the video said that most people haven’t really rejected Christ, they have rejected what we have attached to Him (our politics, our religious rules, etc.)   He apologized on behalf of the church to those who had been hurt by those who profess to be Christians and yet live a life contrary to the faith.  He also apologized for those of us in the church who have become so “Religious” that we have failed to reach out to the lost and hurting people in this world.

It really got me thinking. I guess it was more conviction than anything else.  At first I was quick to agree  with him and caught myself placing the blame on all THOSE OTHER people in the church.  Then as usually happens between me and the Big Guy, I saw that finger pointed back at me.  I was always the one to say, “It’s not about Religion, it’s about Relationship.”  I never considered myself a “religious” person.  I equate that term with the Pharisees who were all about the rules and the bondage.  I always thought I was a “relationship” Christian.

However, I started to wonder if I have become more of a “religious” Christian now that I am married and have children.  I have caught myself thinking that I would have a hard time inviting someone to my home who was homeless or struggling with some addiction or whatever.  You know, someone who wasn’t “pretty”.  All with the excuse that I have to protect my children.  Obviously it is  important to “wise as a serpent yet gentle as a dove”, but have I covered Jesus up in the process?  I mean, like the guy said in the video, Jesus was the kind of guy the lost and hurting ran to for comfort.  Am I like Jesus or just some cheap imitation of the kind of Jesus I want Him to be?

So that brings me to the question of ” Have I done a good job teaching my children about Jesus?”  When I talk about Him am I quick to list the do’s and don’ts of the Faith instead of love, justice and mercy?  What reflection do they see in me?  My children are my life’s work.  The most important thing is for  them to know Christ.  If I fail at this then what is my legacy really worth?

I think about my parents and what a great job they did allowing me to know Jesus for myself.  They did pass down some “religious” habbits, but they always seemed to focus on relationship Jesus.  My Father has been a great example of godliness, not perfection, but has always made it obvious that

he loved God.  Mom has always been able to trust the Lord for things.  She has always been a realist, not

backing down when it comes to talking about the “taboo” kinds of things.  It was always easy to confess to Mom, knowing that she wouldn’t love us any less.  I guess that is the easiest link to accepting that Jesus loves me even when I am not the perfect mom, wife, or even Christian.

Lord, help me to see through your eyes and not be afraid to love without condition; to show Your kind of love to the world.

The last few days I’ve found myself thinking often about this life.  Ah, I get in the middle of a semester, more stuff undone than done, and projects piling up that would love my attention.  Then my mind starts to wonder toward the what-ifs of the dreamer’s world… what if I could just get away right now?  What if we could follow the sun, maybe skip winter altogether? what if…

I haven’t been able to give it much time because the daily tasks keep calling me away from my thoughts.  But, I’ve been reminded how life is about small moments.   How it’s the little things that matter most.

• Like McKinley lying in bed at bedtime whispering in my ear, “I love you daddy.”
• Like Wil waking up in the morning and wondering out to the living room to climb up into the LaZyboy with me
• Like Izzabelle sleeping on my chest in the middle of the day
• Like Melodia busting a joke and then giving me that, “come on, honey, you know I’m funny” look.

Like family.  Whatever else we do, whatever else we are, this is important.  It defines us.

I’ve struggled the last 5 years, well, even before that… as a son.  I graduated high school and left my parents in Arizona, headed out to college in California.  I’ve often joked that I left Arizona and never looked back. I moved all over the country following my educational opportunities… San Diego, Miami, Los Angeles, San Franciso, Columbus (OH), Atlanta, Buffalo.  I’ve always loved to travel and found it hard to stay in one place.

But I was happy to be a wonderer, and not interested in being “home” for too long, home being defined as that place where my parents lived.  It wasn’t their fault, I was just a single guy traveling, living a single life.

Five years ago this month, I asked Melodia to marry me. By the time we’d been married four months, we’d been married longer than we knew each other pre-marriage.  It was quick, our hitchin’ up.  The son that wondered the country one day called home to say he was getting married, and that my parents’ first opportunity to meet my fiance would be about 2.5 weeks before the wedding.  They struggled with that.  Struggled at the wedding, I think, too.

I think I was a selfish son during those years between 18-30, doing my thing, having left the house, and not interested in home. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love my parents, love them more than I’ve often communicated, loved them those 12 years for all they did for me.  But I wasn’t the greatest at showing that love.  I don’t think I greatly blew it; I just, well, sometimes regret not having been a better son during that time.

I had my moments… I always enjoyed playing chess with my dad.  For several years after college, he and I played by phone, each with a board setup at our house.  I loved that.  I can remember one summer, I was working at a Christian camp in Santa Cruz.  It was Saturday, my one day off during the week. I was sitting outside with the chessboard on a stump, the phone in hand, playing chess with my dad.  Wish I had a picture of that.  I loved that.  I miss our chess games often.

These last five years have flown by, and as our anniversary approaches, it, too, has caused me to think more and more about life.   Sometimes, I am bothered by the things in my past that I just didn’t get right.  The people I’ve wronged, the mistakes I’ve made, the son that might have done it a little better.  In college, I grew fond of saying a certain expression to friends about the changes we were all experiencing - that, sort of birth from bubble to adulthood in the Christian College world… “you can never go back.”  One doesn’t get the chance, no matter how (s)he’d like to, no matter how nostalgic (s)he is about days past… one doesn’t get to go back.  Time just keeps rolling forward, and things just keep changing, relationships, circumstances, finances, and so on.

So I don’t get to go back… no mulligans, no do-overs, but on the whole, I’m ok with that.  I mean, I’d like to have done it better, I would have.  But I won’t get that opportunity.

My life mentor, Vic Alvarado, once told a group of us guys, way back in Finch Hall at Point Loma Nazarene University, “leave a legacy.”  Wherever you are, wherever you go, leave a legacy.  I wrote those words down.  I pinned them to the wall above my desk.  I looked at them often.  Few times did I ever feel like I’d met the challenge in them head on.

But now, finally, as a dad, I am starting to realize that those words, uttered back in December of 1993, would finally start bearing fruit 15 years later.  I realize it every time I walk through the door and hear little feet running my way, “Papi’s home! Papi’s home! Mami, Papi’s home!”  The legacy I am leaving is growing up. Right now as I write this, my legacy is sleeping in the other room.

When I think back about the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s… and realize that “you can never go back,” I realize that what remains is not for me to think about what’s behind, not even for me to think about what’s ahead (because who can know what tomorrow brings)… but it’s to think about those little hands that are holding mine as I walk the road. “Papi, hold my hand.”  Yeah, that’s my legacy. It’s been a long time coming, and it will still spend years being brough to fruition, but that’s my legacy.

I can only hope that I do it half as well as my parents did it with me. Yes, being a dad, makes me think all the more about being a son.  I never would have realized that as a single guy.  People say, “what’s it like being a dad?” And I say, “it reminds you that you’re a son.”  My parents, too, held me tight in their arms. My parents, too, laid in bed with me at night to help me fall asleep.  My parents, too, kissed my cheeks and told me how great their love for me was.  My parents, too, wondered about the man I’d become.  My parents did it well.

As I look at my own kids, as I think about my years as the wondering son, I have to just press on… and put the things that I cannot redo, stuff I should have said, stuff I should have done, into my own kids.  I pay it forward with them. They’re my legacy just as I am that of my parents.  And in my kids, my own parents’ legacy is expanded.  My parents did it right.  I hope I, too, am up to the task.  Oh, how I love those little buggers, Wil, McKinley and Izzabelle.

Protect them as they sleep, Oh Lord, and help me to be the Papi I need to be.