Shit Happens, Grace Surprises!
CROSS PURPOSES # 73
2 February 2007
SHIT HAPPENS, Grace Surprises!
A troublesome episode from my early life. I’m six and a half. Brother Leon is just five years old. We’re out in the backyard, “cutting firewood”. Leon has his hand on a piece of wood that I want to chop. “Move your hand,” I say. “No,” says he. I chop anyway. He screams. I recall an image of a V shape in his hand. Then blood spurting. He runs inside, terror manifest in his scream. Pandemonium. White nappies reddening as they are wrapped around his hand, trying to stop the bleeding. Oldest brother sent running up the street to call the ambulance. Mother distraught and threatening me with the police. Me mortified and terrified. So scared. Out the back gate and up the lane, re-emerging to watch from a hundred and fifty metres away. Ambulance arrives, men with uniforms. The police? I don’t know, and I’m too scared to get closer and find out. Eventually they all leave and I slink home. There’s nowhere to hide. Leon’s been taken to hospital. One fearful and angry mother, and a lot of brothers and sisters who don’t know what to say to me. Isolated, lonely and lost. Oh, so lost!
Father comes home. Hears the story. No immediate response. Goes about his chores and then gets into his daily bath. I’m the only one in the bathroom with him. I’m dying inside. Shattered to silence. That silence, on his part as well, is not broken until he’s just about ready to hop out. Then he turns to me and says, in Dutch, “Weet je wat je gedaan hep?” Translation: “Do you know what you’ve done?” I indicate “yes”. I don’t think I said it as a word. More silence. A long, painful silence, during which shame and guilt seem to find their way into my deepest places. Finally, after what seemed forever, he speaks. “Je ben genug gestrafd.” Translation: “You have been punished enough.”
I remember those words as if they were spoken yesterday. I also remember that the meaning didn’t sink in because I continued to wait for the inevitable. And waited. I knew perfectly well what I could expect. Rage and anger, then a hiding, followed by the withdrawal of parental affection and approval. But he didn’t follow the script. “You have been punished enough.” He was leaving it at that. Forgiveness, pure and simple, cutting through the shame and humiliation. Forgiveness cutting through the layers of shock about what I’d done, what I’d caused, and about what I’d discovered I was capable of. I’m not clear anymore about the time frame of my appreciating what his forgiveness meant, but from that day onwards I sensed, deep inside, that he understood my pain, fear and shame. There was a sort of security with him and, in spite of what I’d done, there was space for me in his heart. And you know, he never ever once mentioned it again. It was done and gone. Shit happened … grace abounded … and surprised. Not luck, but willed, freely bestowed grace.
I have to acknowledge that sometimes shit happens and you can’t see grace to bless yourself. In fact, the crap stuff inevitably comes along in life to everyone. It’s just that in my life much of the bad stuff that occurred also seemed to initiate something good as a result. Maybe every cloud does have a silver lining. I can agree, in part, with Professor Robert Spillane who said, in a panel discussion on happiness, “Life is essentially a shitheap. The only reason to keep going is to find those little jewels in the heap.”1. I’d want to add that life is often rich and abundant, and that the precious gems are often found in large numbers buried in the dung.
One of my friends says he’s only ever grown when life has been rough and tough. That’s when he’s been stretched and had his horizons and heart expanded. I happen to believe that there is an Almighty and that he is behind all this. Mind you, sometimes there’s a pretty big lag time between the bad stuff and a good outcome. And sometimes the good outcome is not the one you originally thought you needed.
This book is, by and large, the story of how I have experienced the reality of grace, in the midst of inevitable turmoil and trouble, in and through the four great institutions of my life: my birth family and my dad in particular, the Roman Catholic Church, my wife Rosemarie and our children, and the Lutheran Church in Australia, especially the local parishes I’ve had the privilege of serving as the incumbent reverend.
When it comes to forgiveness for our own children I’ve always tried to emulate my father. Strange it has been that the more serious an episode was, the less anger accompanied it. And once forgiveness was spoken, or indicated, the matter at hand was never mentioned again. No account keeping. No “historyonics” down the track. Along the way I like to think I’ve come to enjoy good relationships with my kids. Maybe such forgiveness is part of the reason why. That, and the fact that I learned to apologise to them as well!
Having such a dad as I did was not luck. I think of him today, years after his death, as God’s gift to me. So I reckon that what most of us call luck would be better described as grace incognito – grace unrecognised.
Fred
For more information about this book from which this is the first chapter send an email to info@ferryhousepublishing.com
2 February 2007
SHIT HAPPENS, Grace Surprises!
A troublesome episode from my early life. I’m six and a half. Brother Leon is just five years old. We’re out in the backyard, “cutting firewood”. Leon has his hand on a piece of wood that I want to chop. “Move your hand,” I say. “No,” says he. I chop anyway. He screams. I recall an image of a V shape in his hand. Then blood spurting. He runs inside, terror manifest in his scream. Pandemonium. White nappies reddening as they are wrapped around his hand, trying to stop the bleeding. Oldest brother sent running up the street to call the ambulance. Mother distraught and threatening me with the police. Me mortified and terrified. So scared. Out the back gate and up the lane, re-emerging to watch from a hundred and fifty metres away. Ambulance arrives, men with uniforms. The police? I don’t know, and I’m too scared to get closer and find out. Eventually they all leave and I slink home. There’s nowhere to hide. Leon’s been taken to hospital. One fearful and angry mother, and a lot of brothers and sisters who don’t know what to say to me. Isolated, lonely and lost. Oh, so lost!
Father comes home. Hears the story. No immediate response. Goes about his chores and then gets into his daily bath. I’m the only one in the bathroom with him. I’m dying inside. Shattered to silence. That silence, on his part as well, is not broken until he’s just about ready to hop out. Then he turns to me and says, in Dutch, “Weet je wat je gedaan hep?” Translation: “Do you know what you’ve done?” I indicate “yes”. I don’t think I said it as a word. More silence. A long, painful silence, during which shame and guilt seem to find their way into my deepest places. Finally, after what seemed forever, he speaks. “Je ben genug gestrafd.” Translation: “You have been punished enough.”
I remember those words as if they were spoken yesterday. I also remember that the meaning didn’t sink in because I continued to wait for the inevitable. And waited. I knew perfectly well what I could expect. Rage and anger, then a hiding, followed by the withdrawal of parental affection and approval. But he didn’t follow the script. “You have been punished enough.” He was leaving it at that. Forgiveness, pure and simple, cutting through the shame and humiliation. Forgiveness cutting through the layers of shock about what I’d done, what I’d caused, and about what I’d discovered I was capable of. I’m not clear anymore about the time frame of my appreciating what his forgiveness meant, but from that day onwards I sensed, deep inside, that he understood my pain, fear and shame. There was a sort of security with him and, in spite of what I’d done, there was space for me in his heart. And you know, he never ever once mentioned it again. It was done and gone. Shit happened … grace abounded … and surprised. Not luck, but willed, freely bestowed grace.
I have to acknowledge that sometimes shit happens and you can’t see grace to bless yourself. In fact, the crap stuff inevitably comes along in life to everyone. It’s just that in my life much of the bad stuff that occurred also seemed to initiate something good as a result. Maybe every cloud does have a silver lining. I can agree, in part, with Professor Robert Spillane who said, in a panel discussion on happiness, “Life is essentially a shitheap. The only reason to keep going is to find those little jewels in the heap.”1. I’d want to add that life is often rich and abundant, and that the precious gems are often found in large numbers buried in the dung.
One of my friends says he’s only ever grown when life has been rough and tough. That’s when he’s been stretched and had his horizons and heart expanded. I happen to believe that there is an Almighty and that he is behind all this. Mind you, sometimes there’s a pretty big lag time between the bad stuff and a good outcome. And sometimes the good outcome is not the one you originally thought you needed.
This book is, by and large, the story of how I have experienced the reality of grace, in the midst of inevitable turmoil and trouble, in and through the four great institutions of my life: my birth family and my dad in particular, the Roman Catholic Church, my wife Rosemarie and our children, and the Lutheran Church in Australia, especially the local parishes I’ve had the privilege of serving as the incumbent reverend.
When it comes to forgiveness for our own children I’ve always tried to emulate my father. Strange it has been that the more serious an episode was, the less anger accompanied it. And once forgiveness was spoken, or indicated, the matter at hand was never mentioned again. No account keeping. No “historyonics” down the track. Along the way I like to think I’ve come to enjoy good relationships with my kids. Maybe such forgiveness is part of the reason why. That, and the fact that I learned to apologise to them as well!
Having such a dad as I did was not luck. I think of him today, years after his death, as God’s gift to me. So I reckon that what most of us call luck would be better described as grace incognito – grace unrecognised.
Fred
For more information about this book from which this is the first chapter send an email to info@ferryhousepublishing.com
Labels: heart sounds
posted by PastorFredVeerhuis at 1:24 PM
1 Comments:
"Shit Happens - Grace Surprises" is a worthwhile book indeed! One that does not hide the parts of our lives we normally supress because they would embarrass us. It talks about life as it really is, warts and all but gives credit to God how he graces us daily.
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