Over the horizon
“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20 KJV
It was a very long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. As I stared out at the horizon, I wondered if it would ever get better. I kept looking for something, but I’m not sure I would have even recognized it, even if it rode in on a white horse. When things aren’t going well, confusion is always there. Just sitting there staring does no good.
Fatherhood is one of the greatest gifts a man can ever receive. I think a lot of fathers don’t realize that. I’ve always loved kids and when I finally had a son of my own, I was overjoyed. But like many marriages in America, it just didn’t work out very well between his mother and me. The every other weekend thing was very hard at first. Soon you find the nerve to stop worrying and you start to find other things to do with your time. But you still think about your child.
Soon the testing begins and with it comes the breaks in the strong relationship you really hoped you would forge with your child. I guess in the eyes of a child, one parent must portray the villain, whether they deserve it or not, and one parent must need protection. Somehow I got cast in the villain role. Our relationship drifted away.
Dorothy’s father, Bert, truly loved his daughter. In return, Dorothy adored her father. She was very religious, sometimes attending church three times on Sunday. She was very competitive, too. Once, she was nine months pregnant, but that didn’t stop her from playing in the family softball game. She hit a home run and announced, as she crossed home plate, that she was going into labor.
Although, Dorothy was very competitive, she expected grace in victory and good sportsmanship in defeat from her children. Her grandson described her view: “…arrogance was unattractive, and a person with true self-confidence did not need to gloat.” One of her favorite Bible verses was Proverbs 27:2: “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth.” Her grandson goes on to state, of his father’s relationship to his mother, “Of all the influences in his life, nobody did more to mold his character than his mother.”
The Bible is full of stories of farmers or farming items. All throughout the Bible we hear examples of sheep and cow, crops and grain, and the responsibility of the farming life. I’m sure a good part of all of it had to do with the fact that the major form of livelihood, for a great number of the population, was related to some type of farming lifestyle. People could relate to what was being said because that was their life.
The story goes that there was once a farmer. This farmer did very well because he had servants. He loved his family very much, so much so that he would do almost anything for them. But like most families, his family had members that believed there must be more to life than the life they were currently living. Maybe, just maybe, the answer is not in the life I have, but in the life I want. But the father of the family did the best he could possibility do.
Our future President was all set to follow in his father’s footsteps and he was planning to head off to Yale University. Things changed rather quickly in early December the year before, though. His life headed in a totally different direction.
On Sunday, December 7, 1941 he probably started his day just like any other seventeen year old would. He was full of high hopes for the future. He was walking across his high school campus at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts with a few of his classmates. Someone must have rushed up to them to tell them about the 2400 people who had been murdered that morning in Hawaii. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. The day he turned eighteen years old he signed up and joined the Navy. He was going to do his part to help us defend our country. Neither of his parents, especially his Mother, was any too pleased with that decision.
He learned to fly and before he knew it he was reporting to duty aboard the USS San Jacinto. He acquired the nickname of “Ellie the Elephant.” Soon the carrier was bound for the Pacific. The San Jacinto’s first mission was to strike Japanese installations on Wake Island.
On September 2, 1944, he and his crew lifted off the carrier for a mission to take out a radio tower on the island of Chichi Jima. Their plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire from the island. He was determined to complete his mission and he continued his dive and dropped his bombs on the target. His hope was that he would be able to make a water landing after the attack, but it wasn’t to be. Over the intercom he shouted at his crew to bailout. After he thought they all bailed out, he then bailed out. Another plane dropped a raft into the water, but he still had to paddle for hours. He then spotted a dark spot in the water and thought he was doomed. He thought it was a Japanese sub. As it rose out of the water he soon realizes in was a US Navy sub, the USS Finback. He was rescued. Two of his plane’s crewmen were never found.
Webster’s Dictionary describes a parable as “a short, simple story, usually of an occurrence of a familiar kind, from which a moral or religious lesson may be drawn.” Jesus was famous for using parables. Probably one of the most famous of His parables was the one about the Prodigal Son. He told of a farmer who had two sons. One son decided he had enough of the farm life, so he asked the father for his share of the inheritance so he could search out the “good life.” He ends up wasting away all the money and had to resort to feeding hogs. He was starving and decided to head back to his father. He planned to ask for a job with his father because, at the very least, his father took very good care of his servants. As he walked down the road, I’m sure he was working on the sales pitch he would give his father in the hopes he could secure a job.
The father sees the son in the distance horizon and comes running toward him. The son makes an effort to ramble out his well-rehearsed speech, but the father will have none of that. He yells out to his servants to plan a party. His son is home and he is overjoyed.
Two weeks after George HW Bush lost his reelection bid to Bill Clinton, he received more bad news. President Bush’s mother was dying. He rushed to her bedside. His mother, who meant so much to him, was now going to leave him, too. At one point his Mom asked him to read to her out of her Bible. As he flipped through the well-worn pages, a pile of papers fell out. There were the letters he wrote her fifty years before and she saved them in her Bible. And every day she prayed for her son.
Good parents know no end to their love for their children. Even when the child is no longer there, they still look over the horizon hoping that their figure will emerge. Although both of their lives go on, there is a very big part of them that is missing. And the prayers never stop.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, I hope one day everyone’s horizons see those special people they truly miss, like my son in my life. Until those days arrive, please keep that special place in our hearts warm by Your presence. Amen
