the susie solution

One of the interesting things coming out of dealing with my mom’s death is the revelation of just how different experiences with/perceptions of our parents were/are among my siblings and me. With a ten year age span between the five of us, several different living locations during our growing up, and, of course, our very different personalities and needs, it isn’t any wonder that such differences exist – indeed, it would be unbelievable if they did not – but knowing that these differences must exist and coming face to face with them in reality …. Somehow they still can be surprising. Even though our dad died 24 years ago, I’m still learning new things.

One of the things that came up in these last months has to do with fixing things. We always said my dad could fix anything. My dad disagreed; some things, he insisted, were not worth fixing! Honestly, though, he was one of those amazing guys who can seemingly do anything in the handyman line. I saw him take apart and put together countless kinds of appliances and toys; more often than not, that alone would restore them to working order without him even having to figure out what had been wrong in the first place. He did all our home maintenance and repair. At one house he enclosed the carport to create extra rooms; at another he finished the basement AND added on a huge garage and a workshop for himself. Once he retired, he parlayed his skills into a handyman business, under which flag he expanded into even more projects. I’m not sure if there was anything he was totally unwilling to tackle, though if electronics got too complicated, he’d bow out.

Because of my Daddy, I am pretty fearless when it comes to taking things apart. As he always said, “If it’s already broke, I can’t make it not work any worse.” If I already can’t use something, I’ve got nothing to lose by trying to fix it myself – especially if it’s something that it won’t be worth paying someone else to try to fix, if that’s even possible! I know if something was put together, it can most likely come apart; you just have to try to figure out which was the last screw, or the last tab. I can hear my dad’s voice as I work, “OK, lay everything out in the order you remove them, then just work backward from there to put it back together.” I can look at gears and latches and movements and more often than not figure out how the thing is supposed to work. I can read a user manual and identify parts. (Yes, my dad actually read directions!) My mom and at least one or two others of my sibling have said the same thing about hearing my dad’s voice as they go along on a project. A few months ago, one of my other brothers made the point that he does NOT. In fact, he doesn’t understand why we DO.

As I thought about it, I was struck by the realization that I didn’t get any of what I just talked about because Daddy TAUGHT it to me. Although he probably thought he did, the fact was, Daddy didn’t TEACH. He might show us – “OK, do this-this-this-this-then-this and there you’re all done” (like my one and only lesson in changing a tire) – but he didn’t take us through step by step and have us do it. Because he had come by his skill naturally and had had plenty of opportunity to gain experience on his dad’s ranch growing up, I don’t think he ever quite understood how unusual he was; I think he expected that of course we kids – especially the boys – would know how to be handy with tools simply because HE was. (When I married a man whose own dad had been, um, the antithesis of my own in that regard, my dad made allowances and did make a point of working WITH my dh to teach him skills, a blessing from which our family continues to benefit.)

I didn’t learn from Daddy how to fix things, but somehow I managed to absorb an attitude from him that I COULD. Yet my brother was left with neither. There are other attitudes I absorbed that have had a far less positive influence, but that escaped my siblings’ notice altogether. Of both my father and my mother, we find ourselves asking one another, “Where did you get THAT??” or saying, “Boy, I sure didn’t see it that way.”

Is it any wonder, then, given how amazingly individualistic we kids are in how we react to our earthly parents growing up, that we are so individualistic in how we perceive God? We believers read the same Word, yet how differently we may interpret it! We worship the same Lord, yet relate differently to His holy character. We come to God from such different experiences and different paradigms, such different expectations, fears, hopes, and longings that we should not wonder that we sometimes ask each other, “Where do you see THAT in Him? I’ve never felt like that.”

Unity in the Spirit doesn’t make us like each other; it makes us like the same God. However, because our God is so diverse and beyond our comprehension – the Great Both/And, the Great Contradiction, Who Makes Exist What Does Not – being all like Him we end up as different from each other as can be. No other believer will ever be able to relate to God as I do. There is a facet of God’s image that only you can connect with.

I see my mom and dad more clearly now that I am learning to see them through my siblings’ eyes. In some ways, I continue to hold to my own perception, but I have learned to fully acknowledge the validity of theirs, no matter how different from mine. It would be so sad if any of us tried to deny family identity over those differences. In the same way, we should value those in God’s Family whose perceptions differ from our own and be willing to consider theirs. We don’t necessarily have to adopt those perceptions, but we should acknowledge their validity. Worst of all would be for us to attempt to disown others from the Family simply because they experience the Father differently, have learned some different lessons, see His world through different eyes.

Whom God has called His child is my brother, my sister. We all bear the same family name. May we all be our Father’s children in word and deed.