Birth and New Life: my favorite kind of story

An advantage of age (as if we were keeping score) is that you have the potential to know life more deeply. You haven’t just seen pictures of the Grand Canyon, you’ve stood on the edge of it. You haven’t just heard a digital recording of jazz singer/pianist Diana Krall, you’ve been in the room with her when she performed. You haven’t just thrown back a glass of wine, you’ve picked the grapes, put them in the press, poured the juice into the vats and lived while it aged.

People who don’t “get” art, have only taken a quick look and walked on. Consider this picture for example. It’s a picture of a girl, right? It looks like it could be hanging in a museum, right?

the little shepherdess

It is hanging in a museum. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s called The Little Shepherdess by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It is oil on canvas and was painted in 1889, a few years before I was born. You will know nothing about the picture by only looking at this digital image. You have to stand before it and look this little sherheredess in the eyes and let her look into yours. Let her judge you for a minute or two. Let her question what you are wearing just as you are contemplating what she is wearing and what she is doing. The painting is large and the colors are rich. And, if you visit her in her home in the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, I guarantee, you will have experienced art. You will “get” it. Kind of like us old people “get” life, because we’ve taken a deeper drink of it.

This longer perspective adds to the value of life. Every life and every experience is richer, packed with more meaning.

I think this is why every time we have received word that we will be grandparents again, I am moved beyond words. I know I was excited and scared and overwhelmed each time we learned that we would be parents, but we were young, we knew only a part of what a human life really meant. For the births of each of the Grand-Girls it has been somehow uniquely remarkable. I am always awestruck, and speechless because there are no words in my vocabulary for the reverence of that reality.

Well it’s happened again! Brooke and Kyle have told us of their news. They did it in a wonderful way and I was again speechless. And even if I could have found the words, they wouldn’t have been able to get past the lump in my throat.

So, come this next May, another little one will grab a piece of our hearts and not let go. With the benefit of age, I understand just how special this is. With the benefit of knowing Kyle and Brooke, I know how deeply this little one will be cherished and cared for.

I thank God for the privilege of getting to be a part of another human story that begins, “once upon a time” and transcends our human stories with, “and lived happily ever after.”

Congratulations Brooke and Kyle. How wonderful that this little baby will be born and will live in and through love.

Love Stories

WARNING: This is going to get pretty sappy. But, Love Stories can be like that. I’m not really an expert on love or stories, but I thoroughly enjoy both. Speaking as a layperson, so to speak, I’m guessing that the Love Story is the oldest and most enduring of any storyline. Let’s hope it stays that way, or as The Beatles sang: sometimes, “All you need is love.”

LOVE STORY No. 1.

Ours began in June 1972. Well that’s not really true. It started before that. That’s just when we formalized it all with public vows, rings, flowers, cake, punch, etc.

Back in the day when our romance was emerging, there was a little slice of pop culture that in some ways became a part of the 70s courting lifestyle. It was a cartoon series called “Love Is…”. Here’s an example:

Love Is… is the name of a comic strip created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali in the 1960s. The cartoons were published in booklets in the late 1960s before appearing in strip form in a newspaper in 1970, under the pen name “Kim”. They were syndicated soon after and the strip is syndicated worldwide today by Tribune Media Services. One of her most famous drawings, “Love Is…being able to say you are sorry”, published on February 9, 1972, was marketed internationally for many years in print, on cards and on souvenirs. The beginning of the strip coincided closely with the 1970 film Love Story. The film’s signature line is “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” --Wikipedia

By the way, as it turns out, the movie was wrong; the cartoon was right. Love does from time to time include being sorry. (I’ve learned something in 44 years.)

Even though we will be celebrating 44 years of the marriage part of our Love Story in a few weeks, we’re really just getting started, relatively speaking.

LOVE STORY No. 2.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Anniversary Number 70 with my Mom and Dad. That’s a lot of togetherness. Not only can they finish one another’s sentences, they can actually start one another’s sentences. I am grateful for the wonderful way they prove the beauty of marriage, still.

Their story began in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Mom grew up there. Dad was in town as a part of an assignment as a young soldier during WW II. They both happened to be at the local skating rink one night. He asked her to skate, and as my Dad likes to quip, “We’ve been going around together ever since.”

What do you buy the happy couple for their 70th according to those anniversary charts? Google, google, google. The lists seem to skip from 65 to 75, like 70’s not significant. As I was searching the lists though, I peeked at the anniversary category for #44, hoping it isn’t “Hearing Aids”. 

“Groceries”. “Groceries”??? What the what? So, I guess on June 16, you’ll find us at Whole Foods. We’ll splurge; it’s our anniversary.

Even though we’ve been married almost 44 years, we’re partying like it’s #10. The 10th year is the “Aluminum” anniversary. And since we now adventure in our tiny, aluminum love shack on wheels, it’s like we’re young and broke again.

LOVE STORY No. 3.
Our oldest son and his beautiful wife Kara, just celebrated anniversary #11. Corey posted this on the Facebook:

He must have thought this was the “Groceries” anniversary. How do I know that 11 years later their story is a Love Story? You can see it in the kids.

They have three happy, confident, tender-hearted, wonder-full little girls. That kind of stuff sprouts and grows in the fertile soil of loving relationships.

LOVE STORY No. 4.

In a few weeks, we’ll celebrate the formal start of another amazing Love Story. This is one that I never would have seen coming. It’s one of those that if you had any doubt about Providence, you wouldn’t now. Our youngest son, Kyle is engaged to Brooke. If you know these two, you have a glimpse of how special this is. If I lived in one of those country’s where the male of the family still got to pretend like he’s the All-Knowing Patriarch, in a country where the marriages are all arranged, this is the way I would have arranged it.

Turns out they didn’t need my arranging anything. It’s like they have discovered something that was there all along. Maybe that’s what Love Stories are really all about.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Beyond Age

WHEN IT COMES TO DOWNTON ABBEY, people either WATCH Downton Abbey or they don’t. For those of who WATCH it, we know that every episode will leave us wanting more, tempting us to wish away a week of our life waiting for the next Sunday night, and the next episode of some of the best screenwriting ever.

In a post last Thursday, I wrapped up with this:

“Tomorrow at Noon, I will be having lunch with some of my favorite people. One is 20-something, one is 30-something, one is 60-something and the other is 80-something. I plan to ask them how they feel about being a part of a multi-generational collaboration. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

So maybe it wasn’t the kind of cliffhanger that had people talking around the coffee pot Monday morning, but who knows, maybe someone wants to know how it turned out.

We gathered a few minutes after noon at this amazing little Guatamalan cafe in Oklahoma City called Cafe Antigua. Two of the group couldn’t make it—the 60-something and the 80-something.

So it was me, representing the Baby-Boomers, a 20-something athletic/outdoorsy/artist named Molly, and a 30-something bold/brash/creative-entrepreneur named Kathleen.

L to R: Molly, Pops, Kathleen. Now I know what to do when they say, "duck lips"!

I tried to explain to them my intrigue and interest in multi-generational friendships. I gave a few great examples of the power of multi-generational collaborations.

We talked about blessings and curses of cross-generational stuff. You know: “Generation Gaps”, differences in style and values, communication issues and the like.

Kathleen mentioned that while she did enjoy some conversation with older people (like me), she didn’t want them for clients. (FYI: Kathleen is one of the best, most creative and intuitive branding persons I’ve ever encountered.) Her reason: “Older people just don’t get it.” She’s right you know. On the flip side, I’ve often been tempted to jerk the smartphone out of the hands of millennial or two and throw it in the nearest toilet, because sometimes; they just don’t get it.

Without a doubt, there is a time and a season for multi-generational conversation and a time for segregation too. When it’s right though, it can be a wonderful thing.

Molly said, “Sometimes the common thread is the interest, not the age.” Then she gave an example. Molly is an avid climber. By that I mean she practices in a climbing gym several days a week, and then travels somewhere most every weekend to climb with friends. She told us that on these climbing trips you will find everyone from young teens to older adults from all walks of life, gathered around the common interest of climbing, hiking and being outdoors.

Kathleen who now has a young son talked of the value of having a multi-generational tribe to help connect the dots in our human story. “I want to know if people think about dying. Are they afraid of dying?” I told her that I agree with Woody Allen who said, “I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” I don’t know if Kathleen is afraid of dying or not, but I do know this: she is NOT afraid of living! She has made be braver too.

For me that’s one of the coolest things about having a multi-generational tribe—the story. If you have people younger than you and people older than you, it’s like having more chapters in the book of your life story. It’s essential to have those who have gone before to help you make sense of it. And each of us who have been further down the path, if we do it with humility, can serve those who are younger by showing the way.

What if we were to step outside the normal and made something happen? What if we joined with some younger and some older and saw a movie together, or read a book together, or had coffee together, or told our stories together; or just listened to each other?

I hope that Molly and Kathleen know that I respect them and value their friendship, that I love hearing what they are up to whether it’s a climbing adventure or organizing a conference for creatives entrepreneurs in New Orleans. The old adage that if you want to stay young, hang out with young people is true. I hope the inverse is not true. I hope that by hanging out with older persons, these two and others will feel wiser and inspired and more courageous.

Oh, and if you aren’t one of those who WATCH Downton Abbey, you’re missing a great story about the power and beauty of multi-generations.

Stay tuned to About POPS. In a future post we’ll explore this issue: What’s Family Got To Do With It?!

Beauty and Pain

THIS MORNING OUR SEVEN YEAR OLD GRAND-GIRL KARLEE was standing in the middle of our living room, pulling up her tights. “That looks like a lot of work!” I observed.

Then she explained, “Sometimes beauty is painful.” A lesson, she shared with me in great detail, was from Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid”.

I’ve been thinking this season about the Christmas story, you know the one we’ve heard so many times; this being my sixty-fifth Christmas. I thought about G.K. Chesterton’s quote I shared in the previous post, about adulthood and our loss of wonder which causes us to experience monotony. So I started reading Matthew’s account of the story, and truthfully, almost gave out halfway through the genealogy monologue. But wait… What’s up with these five women?

One of them is obvious: Mary, the mother of Jesus. Of course she deserves to be listed, but these other four? I wonder if there was ever a time when the Disciples were gathered around the campfire waiting for the fish to cook, that maybe Jesus asked Matthew, “Hey, Matt, I get why you mentioned my mom and maybe Ruth; but Tamar, Rahab The Prostitute, and Bathsheba?!”

Of course he never asked Matthew about that. My guess is that Jesus was not at all embarrassed to have listed in his public record women like Tamar, who pretended to be a hooker so she could trick her father-in-law in to having sex with her, or Rahab The Prostitute, a real prostitute, or Bathsheba (mentioned only as the wife of her husband) who had an adulterous affair with the king (David) and then the king had her husband moved to the front line of the war so that he would surely be killed.

Maybe WE’VE made the story monotonous by making sure that it’s all cleaned up and sanitized. We want to make sure that Jesus complies with our politics and religiousity. And in making him like us, we’ve made him boring.

From the Daily Artifact Project by Corey Lee Fuller.

I hope if you were planning to get a “caucasian” nativty set from Sam’s Club, you didn’t wait to late, because they are sold out. What’s even more sad is that some company felt compelled to make a “caucasian” nativity set in the first place, and Sam’s Club knew they would sell like enormous plastic bottles of puffed cheese balls.

Another thing about those “other” women that Matthew mentioned: not all of them were Jews, most were Gentiles, Moabites, Hittites and such. So there’s that.

I’ve never given birth, but I have been present. I know this: in the experience, there was both beauty and pain. Like Jesus, we all have a family tree. In those trees are stories of both beauty and pain.

In Jesus’ life there are two tableaux we remember more than any others. One we see so much this season, with a little baby in a manger. The other is of a cross on a hill. In both there is pain and beauty; and stories that never grow old.

Marker Rendering of The Nativity by Corey Lee Fuller (at a much younger age)