Being Poppa Ted
22/08/16 05:37
I am many things. I am a minister. Becoming a minister took a long time and a lot of hard work. I had to earn an undergraduate degree and then sent four years in graduate school studying scripture, theology, counseling, preaching, liturgy and other subjects. I had to read a lot of books and write a lot of papers and hone a lot of skills. After eight years of preparation I was ordained, but I still had to work at the skills of ministry. The process of being a minister requires constant continuing education. I meet weekly with one group that reads books about ministry and another that studies scriptures for preaching. I love being a minister and after decades of working as a minister I know quite a bit about how to do that job. But it requires constant work for me to be a minister.
I am a husband. And I think that I have learned quite a bit about being a husband after more than four decades of marriage. Some parts of being a husband came to me quite naturally. Other parts involved learning new skills. Listening, for example, requires practice. Sometimes my instincts lead me to focus my attention on my work or a book that I am reading or a hobby that I enjoy. But being a husband requires that I set aside those things to listen carefully to what my wife is saying and what she is thinking. She has been, from the moment I met her, fascinating, so listening to her and learning about her thoughts and intentions is not a difficult chore, but I have had to learn what works and what doesn’t work in a long term relationship.
I am a father. Being a father is not exactly how I imagined it. I was surprised by the overwhelming, love-at-first-sight emotions I felt. I knew that a father loves his children. I didn’t know how powerful that emotion would be. Learning to be a father was, for me, a process of making a lot of difficult judgment calls. Raising children is a team effort. The skills of listening, talking and negotiating that are a part of marriage were definitely required for my role as a father. Sometimes we had to make decisions under pressure with looming deadlines. Choices, such as whether or not to take a different job and when to make a family move, are made more complex by the lives and education of children. Decisions such as the size and location of a house in which to live have an impact on one’s children. And being a father has its scary moments, such as the first time a child rides his or her bicycle out out sight or their first drive on slippery streets. There are more sleepless nights that one imagines. They start when the children are little and do not sleep through the night. There are other sleepless nights when they are ill and need attention. Still more come when they are testing their wings as teens and young adults and don’t come in when expected at night.
Of course, I play a lot of other roles in life and many of those roles required eduction, practice, learning new skills and developing new practices.
It is wonderfully amazing to me how natural it is to be a grandfather. Perhaps it is one of those things for which my entire life has prepared me. It seems like such an easy role to play. We arrived at our son and daughter-in-law’s home and as soon as we saw the children, there were warm hugs, and we were engaged in activities. We haven’t seen our granddaughter since May, but she climbed right up into my lap and gave me a cuddle as we talked. Soon there were stories to read, games to play and lots of things to do. We got to spend time with our grandson last week, so it was just a couple of days since we had been playing in the river together, but at his home we soon were off on our bicycles for a ride, stopping to look at interesting things and talking about his interests.
It is as if I simply know how to be a grandfather and no learning is required. Being a grandfather is, somehow, an easier task than being a father. I love being a father. I never haven’t wanted to be a father. But I had much to learn and there are tough decisions involved in being a father. Being a grandfather is so much a process of just being who I am and doing what comes naturally that sometimes it feels as if I have always been meant to be a grandfather.
I love reading stories to our grandchildren. I like the repetition of the familiar. “I’ll love you for ever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, your mother I’ll be.” I’ve read that story so many times that the little song is memorized. I could read it a hundred more times without a problem. I can do a fairly acceptable voice of Grover from Sesame Street and I’m getting pretty good at the grumbly voice of the dog in the Scooby-doo stories. Our grandson is five, now, and enjoys chapter stories and can make regular trips to the library for new stories to bring home and read. He likes a story that is just a little bit scary from time to time now.
In the ways of our modern world, we live a long way from our grandchildren. We have some marvelous technologies, such as Skype and FaceTime that allow us to remain connected, but there is nothing as grand as being together in the same time and place. I have a bit of envy for grandparents whose grandchildren live close. It seems that many generations living near to each other is a very natural and good way to live for those who are able.
Today I’m simply glad to be here in the town where our grandchildren live. For this week it is a blessing and a very natural role for me to fill.
I am a husband. And I think that I have learned quite a bit about being a husband after more than four decades of marriage. Some parts of being a husband came to me quite naturally. Other parts involved learning new skills. Listening, for example, requires practice. Sometimes my instincts lead me to focus my attention on my work or a book that I am reading or a hobby that I enjoy. But being a husband requires that I set aside those things to listen carefully to what my wife is saying and what she is thinking. She has been, from the moment I met her, fascinating, so listening to her and learning about her thoughts and intentions is not a difficult chore, but I have had to learn what works and what doesn’t work in a long term relationship.
I am a father. Being a father is not exactly how I imagined it. I was surprised by the overwhelming, love-at-first-sight emotions I felt. I knew that a father loves his children. I didn’t know how powerful that emotion would be. Learning to be a father was, for me, a process of making a lot of difficult judgment calls. Raising children is a team effort. The skills of listening, talking and negotiating that are a part of marriage were definitely required for my role as a father. Sometimes we had to make decisions under pressure with looming deadlines. Choices, such as whether or not to take a different job and when to make a family move, are made more complex by the lives and education of children. Decisions such as the size and location of a house in which to live have an impact on one’s children. And being a father has its scary moments, such as the first time a child rides his or her bicycle out out sight or their first drive on slippery streets. There are more sleepless nights that one imagines. They start when the children are little and do not sleep through the night. There are other sleepless nights when they are ill and need attention. Still more come when they are testing their wings as teens and young adults and don’t come in when expected at night.
Of course, I play a lot of other roles in life and many of those roles required eduction, practice, learning new skills and developing new practices.
It is wonderfully amazing to me how natural it is to be a grandfather. Perhaps it is one of those things for which my entire life has prepared me. It seems like such an easy role to play. We arrived at our son and daughter-in-law’s home and as soon as we saw the children, there were warm hugs, and we were engaged in activities. We haven’t seen our granddaughter since May, but she climbed right up into my lap and gave me a cuddle as we talked. Soon there were stories to read, games to play and lots of things to do. We got to spend time with our grandson last week, so it was just a couple of days since we had been playing in the river together, but at his home we soon were off on our bicycles for a ride, stopping to look at interesting things and talking about his interests.
It is as if I simply know how to be a grandfather and no learning is required. Being a grandfather is, somehow, an easier task than being a father. I love being a father. I never haven’t wanted to be a father. But I had much to learn and there are tough decisions involved in being a father. Being a grandfather is so much a process of just being who I am and doing what comes naturally that sometimes it feels as if I have always been meant to be a grandfather.
I love reading stories to our grandchildren. I like the repetition of the familiar. “I’ll love you for ever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, your mother I’ll be.” I’ve read that story so many times that the little song is memorized. I could read it a hundred more times without a problem. I can do a fairly acceptable voice of Grover from Sesame Street and I’m getting pretty good at the grumbly voice of the dog in the Scooby-doo stories. Our grandson is five, now, and enjoys chapter stories and can make regular trips to the library for new stories to bring home and read. He likes a story that is just a little bit scary from time to time now.
In the ways of our modern world, we live a long way from our grandchildren. We have some marvelous technologies, such as Skype and FaceTime that allow us to remain connected, but there is nothing as grand as being together in the same time and place. I have a bit of envy for grandparents whose grandchildren live close. It seems that many generations living near to each other is a very natural and good way to live for those who are able.
Today I’m simply glad to be here in the town where our grandchildren live. For this week it is a blessing and a very natural role for me to fill.