Monday Morning Music Ministry

8-22-22

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

My high-school English teacher, Mr Edward-Peter FitzSimmons, occasionally reminded us of people’s curious reliance on (ultimately futile) ancient wisdom, time-honored sayings, and fortune-cookie guidance.

He pointed out that virtually every wise word of advice had an equally wise (-sounding) opposite. Sort of like a rhetorical version of Newton’s Third Law of Physics.

“He who hesitates is lost” contradicts “Look before you leap.”

“Strike while the iron is hot” is challenged by “Better late than never.”

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” is confronted by “To thine own self be true.”

When all is said and done, a stitch in time saves nine. Um, I know that has an origin, but it is lost on me, just as many proverbs – and, today, internet memes – are lost on me. I think the most reliable proverbs are the ancient Proverbs written by King Solomon. The passage above was from his book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3: 1-8.

Those paired sentiments, the apposites of each line, separated by semi-colons, are not contradictory, as in Mr FitzSimmons’ examples. They remind us of the “both sides of life”; the unity of all the circumstances that God has charted for our journeys; the “turn, turn, turn” of the folk-song lyrics that were inspired by this passage.

We savor – or we should – every time of life, because every time has its unique blessings; youth, middle age, old age. When my three children were growing up and I was asked by someone how old he-or-she was, my stock answer was to cite the age and then say it was my favorite year for children. I’ll admit I was trying to sound a little Solomonic, if not solemnic; but I believed it, and do believe it.

At the recent funeral of a good friend who died in his 80s, there were many church friends and neighbors, and many of his family members who had moved to Texas through the years. Two who could not attend were on their honeymoon; recently married! The only factor making the scene more life-lesson symbolic would have been the birth of a grandchild on the day of the funeral.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Much of the small-talk I overheard in the Fellowship lunch afterward centered on children, being the end of Summer – going back to school, leaving for college, even going into the military. These happy, exciting, or melancholy events also are locations on that wheel of life. “Seasons.”

I have written these weekly messages now for about a dozen years, and I seldom repeat messages or music videos, but this is one song I love to share every few years at this time. (As you go through life, you realize that a few things tend to repeat themselves: history; bad sauerkraut; and old bloggers).

I hope you will take a moment to watch the little video. It is a secular song about a mom “sending” her daughter off to college. I first heard it before my first daughter left for college almost 25 years ago; and it made me weep. Now… she graduated… my other children two subsequently went off to college… all have careers… and ol’ Pop has four grandchildren. I still weep because every Good-bye is never fully nullified by the occasional Hello.

Parents, of course, can never “regret” any empty-nest situation. It is a part of being a parent. “Seasons” – as the days drag on, the years speed by. Bittersweet, we say, sometimes forgetting the “sweet” part of such moments. If our tears seem bitter, we are reminded in Scripture that God provides a “balm in Gilead” — healing reminders of his sovereignty, His will for our lives, His love.

And His Seasons.

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Video Click: It’s Never Easy Letting Go

8-31-20

My late wife and I had a formula for dealing with matters that helped contribute to a happy marriage. I would concentrate on the big issues that arose; and she would handle all the minor matters.

Therefore, I addressed things like nuclear disarmament, the World Trade Organization, and amnesty for illegal border crossings. Nancy handled the small things like household budgets, car insurance, and the mortgage.

It actually worked out well. Behind most jokes and pathetic confessions in life, as this is, there are principles that represent truth and tangible benefits. “Tangible,” in my analogy, is the lesson that life is made up of “big” and “small” matters – a cliché in itself – but meaning that we often are seduced into thinking that correct decisions about “big” challenges are sufficient to bring success.

Ignoring or dismissing the “small” matters in life is like building a house on a foundation of sand. Both types of challenges are essential to address, but the “small” matters comprise the mortar that holds the bricks of our lives together.
This too is an old chestnut, you might think, but I saw these clichés in a new light as I prepared the annual “kids leaving home” message here. This year, the pesky virus turns that topic on its head too – children going away to college, or other Rites of Autumn. Some kids leave, some stay, others will be somewhere in between this year.

I have observed about children growing up under our care that the days seem to drag… but the years whiz by. And they are gone before we know it. Life shouldn’t work that way, but life seldom follows our scripts.

I see my two grandchildren in Northern Ireland a couple times a week, and even so “I can’t believe how they’re growing!” – which is great, but a distant second to in-person contact. You can’t hug a Skype screen, which how we visit. I have two other grandchildren 45 minutes from my house, but because of an argument whose details I totally forget, I have not seen my daughter or them for three years, except briefly once by a mistake. Life shouldn’t work that way, either.

I have been touched by a song since before the first of my three kids even went off to college, and I share it every leaving-the-nest season. Now all three are in and out of college, in professions, successful and busy. I have grandchildren, as I say, and for all these factors, there is another script I cannot write, nor would want to – that life could switch itself into reverse gear. It is great to see children leave, and a great and proper fulfillment, unto lives of their own. And, I suppose, they will have bittersweet tears when their own children leave their nests.

When we stop and think – when we stop to think – the “big” moments in a family’s life can make us smile with pride or chuckle at significant milestones. But the “small” things, the mortar that holds us together, things like drawings from grade school, lamps in the attic, toys from birthdays past, memories of little joys and (ultimately unimportant) childhood crises… those are what we cherish best and miss the most.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.

There is a season – turn, turn, as the song puts it. I understand. I have read the script. But sometimes these old bones find it a little harder to dance to the script’s music.

Thank God for all things. But remember to savor the small things.

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Click: Letting Go

8-19-19

There are only a couple messages I reprise here during the year. I am not lazy – at least regarding words – but I think the ideas have resonated in my “mind.” So I share with myself, as much as with you.

One of them is about children going off to school, or to the military, or to get married. “Empty nest” is one of the gifts of language that provides a euphemism, or an allusion, from other corners of life. It explains, comforts, distracts, or puts things into perspective. Or reminds us of inevitability. Or futility in the face of our wishes and dreams.

When nests empty themselves there often is a certain innate satisfaction – almost an animal instinct – that evokes pride in fulfilling a role in the process of life. “There is a season; turn, turn…” We ourselves grew and flew; so too our children.

In Ecclesiastes 3, it is written, What happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: All are from the dust, and all return to dust.

Words that imply that life is little more than a wheel in a gerbil cage? However, elsewhere in the book of wisdom is found: To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;

A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away; A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;

A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

There will be some people who read these lines as fatalistic – the glass half-empty / half-full paradigm. (Which I have never understood. Half is half! Fill ‘er up, if you’re thirsty.) But most people, through uncountable eons and circumstances, have rather found comfort in these lines. Whether at grave sites or alone with one’s memories, or reminiscing with family. Remember that Ecclesiastes also tells us – reassures us – that “there is nothing new under the sun.” God sees; God knows; God understands; and we are part of His great plan, a wheel of life that turns.

I have written previously that parents share a feeling about children they rear and say farewell to, that the days drag, but the years fly. Odd. Common, universal; yet counter-intuitive.

It is also odd that the empty places, the holes in the fabric of life, the things you miss about children who leave – when you “let go” it is not the major events or footprints or habits or even the milestones that haunt your emotions. It is the smallest of aspects: funny words; unfinished projects; notes pinned to the wall; scribbles on a pad; bedroom furnishings that seemed so trivial; silly jokes; even arguments that once were hot and then subsumed by obscurity.

“Warp and woof.” Who uses that phrase any more? It is a tailor’s term for horizontal and vertical threads. Lives, like fabric, are comprised of countless threads, often nearly invisible.

And sometimes that fabric of life is rent. Ripped, that is; torn. In those cases – if a child leaves home in anger, and a natural cycle of life is broken – the nest is just as empty. The tears burn just as hot… yet of course it is different. I have a friend whose son only occasionally calls, despite living nearby. His studied indifference hurts as much as if a battle royal had occurred. Another friend has a daughter who is aggressively hostile when she is not merely distant. How cruel if a daughter resents her mother and sister showing up uninvited but unobtrusive, in the back row of the church, at the wedding. Someone else I know has been shut out of the child’s life for years, over a first-time-ever argument; and has not seen the grandchildren over that time. Child abuse or elder abuse?

The bonds between parents and children should not be subject to footnotes. You are tempted to think that it is as unnatural as in the animal kingdom… yet there are some animals who remain in pods through their generations.

We appreciate the difference between vacant nests and empty nests. But both should serve as a welcome-home mats too.

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Click: Letting Go

8-27-18

She’ll take the painting in the hallway, The one she did in junior high.
And that old lamp up in the attic, She’ll need some light to study by,
She’s had 18 years To get ready for this day,
She should be past the tears… She cries some anyway.

I usually trot this song and video out every year around back-to-school time. First, old as I am, manly-man I may be, I get a little pile of Kleenex ready. This song by Doug Rider and Matt Rollings, a chart record for Doug’s wife Suzy Bogguss, is not a gospel song… but it is spiritual.

“Spiritual” in the sense that family bonds are sacred. The lyrics are about a girl going off to college, and they can apply to children leaving home for camp the first time; or boarding school; or military college. I get misty-eyed, even when recalling my own children’s first solo runs to the grocery store…

Oh, letting go – There’s nothing in the way now,
There’s room enough to fly.
And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting
It’s never easy… letting go.

Moms and dads and children. There are bonds that should never be broken… sometimes, sadly, they seem to be broken… but in truth never can be broken. Spiritual? It’s biological too: Family relationships are intertwined with a weave that is so dense and complicated (thank God) that our affections become part of our DNA, just like freckles and buck teeth.

The passage of time, and the rites of passage, whether the years of rearing a family are harmonious or rocky, have the same “bottom line.” Parting or major “breaks” are seldom, if ever, welcome. Pieces of each of us part-and-break, too.

Mother sits down at the table, So many things she’d like to do.
Spend more time out in the garden, Now she can get those books read too,
She’s had 18 years To get ready for this day,
She should be past the tears… She cries some anyway.

A few years ago here I observed that in every family – once again, harmonious or rocky; large or small, nuclear or blended, single-parent or adoption situation – there is hubbub, and crowded moments… silly problems and the occasional real crisis… “major” homework assignments… disagreements with classmates… “first loves” that melt away; and first dates… driving tests and applying for college…

Applying for college??? Wasn’t it last week they could barely climb aboard the school bus? I remember saying in a rare moment of wisdom, that when you manage a family, the days crawl by – and the years fly by. How does that happen?

Oh, letting go – There’s nothing in the way now,
There’s room enough to fly.
And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting
It’s never easy… letting go.

The element that makes the tears sweet, or anyway less bitter, is the pride a parent feels when we do let go. It’s the way life is supposed to work. Spreading their wings. Yes, part of God’s plan, the Family unit that He ordained for His children.

You pray that the children will shed some tears, too, occasionally – but they’re off in their new lives now, busy. And the grandchildren… well, there is a season; turn, turn. Just make an accounting to God, and to your inner self, how you handled His most important assignment in your life, training those little birds to leave the nest.

But I won’t pretend, It’s never easy… letting go.

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Click: Letting Go

8-28-17

It is that time of year again. What time? End of summer? Labor Day? Back to school… off to school… off to military service? Well, yes; but also the time of year I think again about that season when kids leave home.

A friend and I have been talking about the situation generally known as the Empty Nest. In popular parlance, it means when kids go off to school… and some parents feel pretty darn sad on the first day of kindergarten, much less college, a job or the service, or marriage.

I was always a little upset that when my three kids first ran to their school buses at the commencement of their school lives… and that they all climbed aboard cheerily. No looks back; no tears. Except mine. Oh, well, merciful for them.

And there ARE different varieties of empty nests. My friend and I compared notes and agreed that the phrase is more appropriate when used when the home is (especially) empty after the death of a spouse. Or when a disagreement has given separation a new meaning: “Apartment” is not simply a place you live; “loneliness” is far different than being alone.

But just as the sadness we feel at the death of someone close is essentially a selfish impulse – not negative, just self-ish – so is the Empty Nest not always a bad thing.

Don’t get me wrong: it can feel bad, and we can hurt. Very much. Ultimately, however, with children, we ought to remember that we have reared them precisely to spread their wings… which means, to fly. Away. Usually it is amicable, thank God; and close families grow closer, somehow, by multiplying.

When separation is not amicable, however, barring ugly or inexplicable situations, even that is part of life, and family members must trust God, and trust the seeds of proper rearing. Parents, trust your children, and those “seeds”; Children, trust God, and believe in answered prayer. God’s language is recorded in teardrops.

I think – among many, many examples that come to mind – of a dear friend, a Monday Ministry reader in Kansas who had precious Christian relationships with two of her children; saw those relationships, at different times, shatter in rebellion. But today she enjoys better-than-ever loving relationships with each. Answered (multitudes of) prayer; God’s Grace.

Have I strayed from my subject? Yes, but only to a degree. I think of Empty Nests at this time of year and remember a song I heard before my eldest started high school – but I knew it would make me sad when she left for college. Well. All three children have started high school, graduated from college, and two have families of their own. Yet the song, about a child leaving home, still tugs.

I am not claiming that these thoughts, or any here today, are exclusive to me; or to either of my friends here cited. No, these thoughts are about the most elemental of human emotions… and why I can claim that even the seemingly unpleasant can be “good” in life’s schema.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 reminds us that The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.

Time and chance happeneth to us all.

These are the words of the song I remember each year, “Letting Go” (the music video follows):

She’ll take the painting in the hallway, The one she did in junior high. And that old lamp up in the attic, She’ll need some light to study by.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day. She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.

Oh, letting go… There’s nothing in the way now. Letting go: there’s room enough to fly. And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting… It’s never easy letting go.

Mother sits down at the table; So many things she’d like to do – Spend more time out in the garden, Now she can get those books read too.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day. She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.

Oh, letting go… There’s nothing in the way now. Letting go: there’s room enough to fly. And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting… It’s never easy letting go.

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Click: Letting Go

8-15-16

The end of summer is nigh… Schools are back in session… Once upon a time, it was the “new television season”… Labor Day around the corner and the traditional beginning of the presidential campaign (I wish it WERE only starting now, instead of two hundred weeks ago)….

Anyway, these few days are called many things, but they are also regarded by countless families as the Festival of the Empty Nest. Many young people are going off to college for the first time.

Leaving home, whether it is to dive into life, or for the intermediary step of a college career, or the military, or a job opportunity, is a Rite of Passage. For parents and children alike it is, or should be, the essence of Bittersweet. All of a sudden, 17 or 18 years seems like a blur; everyone becomes conscious of unfinished projects and unshared words.

But the clock is ticking, the calendar is calling, and life awaits. Oddly, the hours drag, but the years have flown.

I watched the recent conventions and wondered about the rising class of future leaders. Old leaders and newcomers spoke. Many times I asked myself: “A third of billion people in America, and this is the best we can do?” Who are next on the horizon? Do they know? Can they dream? – Can they prepare well? It is a lesson framed many ways: “Carpe diem” – seize the day. “Never a second chance at a first impression.” “Strike while the iron is hot.” “We pass this way but once.”

I see lessons to be applied in family situations when children leave home, too. Our regrets should not equate with inability to let go. Every one of us should say all that we can to our children; express everything, without reservation. As we should have all those years past. Now is the time to make up for uncountable lost opportunities! Or so we feel.

Children juggle the loss of the family’s pod-like security and the excitement of independence. I was always a little disappointed when my own children did not resist getting on the school bus on the first days of their school lives, as I fought back tears. But, to them they were new chapters; to me, chapters ending.

For parents there is no way properly to describe the mixed feelings of the mixed blessing. You will miss the daughter or son. For many of us, despite the contrary assurance of worldly logic, a crater suddenly exists in our everyday lives. But we are wired as parents to possess an indescribable joy in seeing our children take their next steps into the world. Spread their wings. It is RIGHT. It is what you have prepared your child for – even if not yourself, fully – all these years.

Being a parent was never easy. Oh, all the challenges and crises… but then how is it that the hardest part comes when they leave home?

I’m not sure science has ever analyzed tears. Those salty droplets. Maybe one of our budding students will win the Nobel Prize for such research. But there are tears of pain, of regret, of sorrow, of bitterness, of lost opportunities, of lost love and found love, and surely tears of joy. The tears that parents shed during these rites of passage are of a special composition. Distilled, they somehow confirm to us God’s loving “wheel” of life – “there is a season,” He tells us. Whether a little scary, or seemingly sudden, or a guarantee of big changes in our lives… we must seize more than the moment, but the season too.

“Letting go?” Think of it as spreading your arms in fond farewell, so that they can be open to receive… when the next season comes.

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I have never heard a song, or read lyrics, that more beautifully reflects the bundle of emotions in the Rite of Passage of children leaving home (in this case, a college student) than “Letting Go,” by Doug Crider and Matt Rollings.

She’ll take the painting in the hallway,
The one she did in junior high.
And that old lamp up in the attic,
She’ll need some light to study by.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day.
She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.
Letting go: There’s nothing in the way now,
Oh, letting go, there’s room enough to fly.
And even though she spent her whole life waiting,
It’s never easy letting go.

Mother sits down at the table,
So many things she’d like to do.
Spend more time out in the garden,
Now she can get those books read too.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day.
She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.
Letting go: There’s nothing in the way now,
Oh, letting go, there’s room enough to fly.
And even though she spent her whole life waiting,
It’s never easy letting go.

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For a music video of this song, amazingly performed by the amazing Suzy Bogguss (wife of Doug Crider), click: Letting Go

6-1-15

Many of us have come to assume that “commencement,” as in every June’s spate of Commencement exercises, means the end: ceremonies that mark the end of high-school or college or grad school stints; the end of studying; for some people, the end of emergency calls from your kids needing money in their accounts at college. (Um, it doesn’t end with diplomas.)

But of course “commencement” means beginning. It is not a mere word-exercise to keep the meaning straight. It is well that we always have the attitude that almost everything we do is preparation for the next stage. This is true about one’s first job, and it is true about one’s last job, so to speak, in Glory, for which we always should prepare.

A personal note as I commence this little essay. I will write about endings and commencements and seasons of life. I usually do in June, for graduations are useful reminders of the larger cycles wherein we spin. I have just returned from a month overseas with my daughter and son-in-law Emily and Norman; my grandchildren Elsie and Lewis; my hosts Kenny Morrison and Ann Campbell and so many other new friends. It was not easy to arrange the trip there… but less easy to leave. Circles and cycles.

Parenthetically, this week is the exact fifth anniversary of this blog. And coincidentally, we just passed precisely 100,000 subscribers, hits, visitors, and, perhaps, even eavesdroppers. And respondents, from all over the world. It is truly humbling. I thank God and Google; the web and YouTube; my amazing Web Master (and I do mean Master) Norm Carlevato; and sites that pick us and share to places unknown – RealClearReligion, AssistNews, CBN.com, etc.

Ironically the germ of these messages was, five years ago, sharing a music video with a precious friend, singer/songwriter Becky Spencer… and I shared the link below, on the theme of kids’ graduations (and my enthusiasm for the singer Suzy Bogguss).

So here we are, back again. Circles and cycles. And thinking about the seasons of life. For me, enjoying my grandchildren after two years. For many, children graduating, and preparing for college or some other schooling or the military. You don’t have to be a parent or a grandparent to savor the unfathomable mixed but sweet emotions at the commencements of new chapters in life. You can be a child or grandchild. The pathos might take longer to be evident, but you eventually will feel it.

When Emily’s pastor Keith McCrory drove me to the Dublin Airport last week I wept for several minutes after waving to the family. Keith finally sympathized, “It must be hard to say good-bye.” I don’t think he believed me when I protested that I had merely jammed my fingers in the car door.

But these feelings of pathos, these tears we cry, are not sad, or not 100 per cent sad. There is an elemental part of us that appreciates when a significant transition of life takes place. It is natural, it is proper, it is what comprises life, as much as breathing and sleeping and eating. But because these moments come at fewer times, and with concentrated emotions, they seem more poignant. They ARE more poignant… but not unwelcome.

When kids go off to college, or the military, or professions, they are just doing what you reared them to do. When they marry, they fulfill your dreams, not only theirs. When they leave home, sometimes to live in other states or countries… you will miss them, but you feel the pride a mother bird must feel when a young one spreads its wings and flies. Elemental.

The tears we shed when we welcome our babies to the world have the same real and virtual ingredients as the tears we shed when the world, in turn, welcomes them years later, and we say Farewell. What different emotions! But parents holding on at first, after all, is the same sort of act as parents letting go later on.

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.” (Ecclesiastes 3: 1,2, New Living Translation)

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Music vid: Singer Suzy Bogguss was barely a newlywed when her husband Doug Crider wrote this song, an early hit record of hers, about circles and cycles of life, the mysterious poignant joys of parenthood. Two decades later she drove her own daughter to college before singing it on the Grand Ole Opry. Not an easy task. To every parent this June. Happy Commencement!

Click: Letting Go

8-25-14

A familiar scene this time of year. Children go off to school, some walking up the steps of the yellow school bus, some into the front doors of the school where you drop them off, some into the car, off to college. Familiar scenes; also familiar feelings, at least for parents.

For parents there is no way properly to describe the mixed feelings of the mixed blessing. You will miss the daughter or son – for many of us, despite the contrary assurance of worldly logic, a crater suddenly exists in our everyday lives. But we are wired as parents to possess an indescribable joy in seeing our children take their next steps into the world. Spread their wings. It is RIGHT. It is what you have prepared your child for – even if not yourself, fully – these 18 years or so.

Being a parent was never easy. Right? Then how is it that the hardest part comes when they leave our homes?

When we sign up to be parents, part of the contract is to let go some day. Actually day by day. It is not a mixed blessing, even if we get, in the immortal words of Maynard G. Krebs, misty in those moments. In a recent essay I quoted Theodore Roosevelt, when he said that both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. Likewise, no less, are dirty diapers, silly tantrums, going off to school, asking for help with homework, the first date, the second broken heart, going off to college or the military, and watching them get married.

Rearing children is more about your values at the time than their “molded” personalities afterward. It is unavoidable, and not to be regretted but rather celebrated. Savor it all, parents, even the separation of day care, summer camp, or college in some state you cannot locate on a map.

Part of God’s sweet plan of life is that when you have children, and nurture them, and train them, and endure (and share) all the dramas of childhood, the hours drag by slowly.

… but when the kids have left home, for whatever the myriad reasons, the years then go by quickly. Remember that, while you still have the gift of remembering. The hours drag by, but the years speed by. Strange.

“Time and Chance happeneth to all,” we are reminded – and we do need reminders – in Ecclesiastes. If God sees sparrows falling to the ground, He also sees them when they leave the nest… and fly. If Mama Sparrow is not sad about that (which is my guess), neither should we regard our tears as anything but droplets of joy.

I’m not sure science has ever analyzed tears. Maybe one of our budding students will win the Nobel Prize for such research. But there are tears of pain, of regret, of sorrow, of bitterness, of lost opportunities, of lost love and found love, and surely tears of joy. The tears that parents (and, I can remember back that far, children too) shed during these rites of passage are of a special composition. Distilled, they somehow confirm to us God’s loving “wheel” of life – “there is a season,” He tells us.

Whether a little scary, or seemingly sudden, or a guarantee of big changes in our lives… we must seize not only the day, but the seasons too.

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Even after mxplf years (gee, how strange: a typo) since my youngest went off to college, I still get as misty as Maynard G. Krebs when I listen to Suzy Bogguss’s bittersweet classic about a child’s Rite of Passage, “Letting Go.” The lyrics about the empty nest, and turning the page on memories, are wonderfully captured in the video with the song. Please treat yourself. Written by her husband Doug Crider.

Click: Letting Go

8-26-13

It is a familiar scene this time of year. Children go off to school, some walking up the steps of the yellow school bus, some into the front doors of the school where you drop them off, some into the car, off to college. Familiar scenes; also familiar feelings, at least for parents.

Separation anxiety, of sorts. Landmarks. Turning points. All very emotional. For me, as a father, these scenes were especially emotional, because my children appeared to seldom notice anything special at all about them. Tra la la, they couldn’t wait to board the buses or run for the schoolyard. The most sentiment ever displayed was my son Ted’s annoyance at my insistence to photograph him on the porch, each first day of school year after year (because, um, I KNEW that some day he would cherish the memories) (that day might yet arrive).

It all threatened to get really slobbery when they went off to college. At those points I was ready to grab each of my three kids around their ankles, unwilling to let them go. They reflected no such emotion. I have chalked this all up, by the way, to their active sense of curiosity and adventure, nothing to do with me being the Weirdest Dad On the Street, proven by such episodes.

OK, I exaggerate a little (I tend to exaggerate at least a million times a day). But we need to remember – which means, when I write it, that I often forget – that the “saddest” things in life really are sometimes the sweetest.

When we sign up to be parents, part of the contract is to let go some day. Actually day by day. It is not a mixed blessing, even if we get, in the immortal words of Maynard G. Krebs, misty in those moments. In a recent essay I quoted Theodore Roosevelt, when he said that both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. Likewise, no less, are dirty diapers, silly tantrums, going off to school, asking for help with homework, the first date, the second broken heart, going off to college or the military, and watching them get married.

“Time and Chance happeneth to all,” we are reminded – and we do need reminders – in Ecclesiastes. If God sees sparrows falling to the ground, He also sees them when they leave the nest… and fly. If Mama Sparrow is not sad about that (which is my guess), neither should we regard our tears as anything but droplets of joy.

Our first born, Heather, I assumed to be exceptional from her first breath, so when she was three months old or so, I festooned the house with large signs labeling everything, just to help her to read a day or two sooner than otherwise. My son Ted entered a more sensible world. Our youngest, Emily, we knew would be our last child. My subliminal response to this, I now realize, was to keep her a baby forever, to preserve her like amber in childhood (hers, not mine). I tried to hide from her the knowledge of things like bicycles and solid food.

I kid again, a little, but rearing children, after all, is more about your values at the time than their “molded” personalities afterward. It is unavoidable, and not to be regretted but rather celebrated. Savor it all, parents, even the separation of day care, summer camp, or college in some state you cannot locate on a map.

Part of God’s sweet plan of life is that when you have children, and nurture them, and train them, and endure (and share) all the dramas of childhood, the hours drag by slowly.

… but when the kids have left home, for whatever the myriad reasons, the years then go by quickly. Remember that, while you still have the gift of remembering.

One of Emily’s friends is Amy Duke Sanchez, whom we would not know except for having “let go” of Emily when she left for a faraway college right about this time of year. Recently AmyDuke forwarded to me a very wise saying – “Don’t ask God for anything until you’ve thanked Him for everything.” That is not merely a template for constructing your prayers.

It is a reminder to stop and think about the implications of “everything.” We know that all things can work for good, and we need to see that our momentary regrets, especially in this, the Season of Empty Nests, can really be puzzle-pieces in God’s eternal and joyful plan.

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Even after mxplf years (gee, how strange: a typo) since my youngest went off to college, I still get as misty as Maynard G. Krebs when I listen to Suzy Bogguss’s bittersweet classic about a child’s Rite of Passage, “Letting Go.” The lyrics about the empty nest, and turning the page on memories, are wonderfully captured in the video with the song. Please treat yourself.

Click: Letting Go

9-3-12

Labor Day weekend. The end of summer… Schools back in session… Once upon a time, it was the “new television season”… The beginning of the presidential campaigns (I wish it WERE only starting now, instead of two hundred weeks ago)…. Anyway, these few days are called many things, but they are also regarded by many, many families as the Festival of the Empty Nest. Many young people are going off to college for the first time.

Leaving home, whether it is to dive into life, or for the intermediary step of a college career, or the military, or a job opportunity, is a Rite of Passage. For parents and children alike it is, or should be, the essence of Bittersweet. All of a sudden, 18 years or so seems like a blur; everyone becomes conscious of unfinished projects and unshared words; but the clock is ticking, the calendar is calling, and life awaits.

I watched the Republican convention this week and wondered about the rising class of future leaders. Impressive speakers, comparatively young to be national leaders, boosted the candidate, but also, as part of their assignments, introduced themselves to a national audience. I thought, here are people who might be on the scene four or eight years from now, or 20: should they hold back with their searing testimonies or impressive personal stories, until “their day in the sun” arrives? Of course not!

That day might never come. Or, the way to assist its advent is to tell all, show all, be all, right now. It is a lesson framed many ways: “Carpe diem” – seize the day. “Never a second chance at a first impression.” “Strike while the iron is hot.” “We pass this way but once.”

I saw this as a lesson to be applied in family situations when kids leave home, too. Having regrets should not equate with not letting go. And every one of us should say all that we can, express everything, without reservation. Children can juggle the loss of the family’s pod-like security and the excitement of independence. However, their parents will always be as close as a phone call, e-mail, text, or an ATM.

For parents there is no way properly to describe the mixed feelings of the mixed blessing. You will miss the daughter or son – for many of us, despite the contrary assurance of worldly logic, a crater suddenly exists in our everyday lives. But we are wired as parents to possess an indescribable joy in seeing our children take their next steps into the world. Spread their wings. It is RIGHT. It is what you have prepared your child for – even if not yourself, fully – these 18 years.

Being a parent was never easy. Right? Then how is it that the hardest part comes when they leave our homes?

I’m not sure science has ever analyzed tears. Maybe one of our budding students will win the Nobel Prize for such research. But there are tears of pain, of regret, of sorrow, of bitterness, of lost opportunities, of lost love and found love, and surely tears of joy. The tears that parents (and, I can remember back that far, children too) shed during these rites of passage are of a special composition. Distilled, they somehow confirm to us God’s loving “wheel” of life – “there is a season,” He tells us. Whether a little scary, or seemingly sudden, or a guarantee of big changes in our lives… we must seize the season too.

“Letting go?” Think of it as spreading your arms in fond farewell, so that they can be open to receive, when the next season comes.

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I have never heard a song, or read lyrics, that more beautifully reflect the bundle of emotions in the Rite of Passage of children leaving home (in this case, a college student). “Letting Go,” by Doug Crider and Matt Rollings.

She’ll take the painting in the hallway,
The one she did in junior high.
And that old lamp up in the attic,
She’ll need some light to study by.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day.
She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.

Letting go: There’s nothing in the way now,
Oh, letting go, there’s room enough to fly.
And even though she spent her whole life waiting,
It’s never easy letting go.

Mother sits down at the table,
So many things she’d like to do.
Spend more time out in the garden,
Now she can get those books read too.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day.
She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.

Letting go: There’s nothing in the way now,
Oh, letting go, there’s room enough to fly.
And even though she spent her whole life waiting,
It’s never easy letting go.

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For a music video of this song, amazingly performed by the amazing Suzy Bogguss (wife of Doug Crider), click:

Click: Letting Go