Life is what happens to us when we make our list of "non-negotiables"...

Navigating change in the past, present and future with Grandchildren

When we made the decision to re-set our lives, we went through a time of excavating our hearts, our deep desires of what we really wanted in our new move. If you missed this, then look for it here on Substack. It’s here now—all in one place!

We came up with a list of several non-negotiables.  Each non-negotiable was an agreed upon aspect that we BOTH felt was important, vital and needed in order to do a healthy reset.

One of the non-negotiables, was NOT able to be checked-off, when we landed on the place and space we wanted to move.  What was it? Why did we give “it” up? Read on and let me tell you the story.

We both wanted to live near our fourteen grandchildren.  We wanted to be the kind of grandparents that could be present; active and available. We held our grandchildren to be the vital link to a new phase of our lives.  As our quiver began to fill up of grandchildren to fourteen, our realization and awakening of our role and the desired role we wanted to have seemed to grow exponentially. It was a process of discovery to discern this. It is what I call—“progressive revelation.”  Progressive revelation says this: You’ll see more and know more as you move along in life.  I love that term. I believe in it. I am learning to trust progressive revelation and see it as a freeing and inviting theological and human expression of trust.

But really, you can’t possibly understand the depth and breadth of this until you hear more of my story—-at how this longing got embedded in my heart and Gwen’s.

Looking Back at Being a Dad

I think I was a good dad in fathering my four sons, who are now the fathers of my grandchildren. Mind you, I did not say ‘perfect.’ I was a good Dad. I tried to be present. I engaged them individually by “Dad dates” taking each one out for breakfasts and fun activities. I showed up at their athletic games. I showed up when asked and often, when not asked. I wanted to be a good dad. I think I was.

When I was in the season of being a pastor of a thriving, exploding and mega-church in the making, this church, which held four worship services on Sundays, and my own addiction to my work reared its ugly head. Here’s the problem though: My addiction was celebrated not condemned. People loved me being present at their family activities, meetings, four nights a week and funerals, baptisms and weddings, and—on and on. There were 54 Deacons. Church members needed marrying and burying—that took me away. Sermons were prepared and delivered four times each Sunday—that took me away. Meetings nearly every night of the week—all the while I was intent on being an active Dad.  I just wasn’t equipped. I wasn’t ready. I did not know how to balance it all. I didn’t yet know that I should not balance it all. The “all” was killing me; sinking my marriage and making me feel like a failure at being a Dad.

I did not want to repeat the cycle that I was raised in—by a father who seemed to work all the time. But, I felt trapped; on the hamster-wheel with no easy off ramp.  (I’ve written my story in The Lazarus Life). I had a front row seat in the dramatic theater of addiction. My Dad was. I was. But, I wanted to break the cycle of addiction. This is the best I can understand what “generational sin” is. In my case, the wages of this sin was, indeed, death. It was a death that I did not want to die. I did not want to pass on my mess up to my kids. But even today, I still recognized the pull and tugs of workaholism, even as I build my off ramp to fully retire. “Maybe I could do this…”  “They need me.” “I could help them with this...”  “Let me just write one more book….”  These are some of voices I attempted to explain in my poem, “The River of No Agenda” and “I want Lighter Load” (You need to sign up to be a ‘paid subscriber to read my poems).

When each of my sons turned thirteen, we reenacted the Jewish ritual of a Bar mitzvah for them, for ourselves and friends..  We ushered our sons into being celebrated and validated as young men in the making. I took each son, when they turned thirteen, on a meaning of life trip. Blake and I went to the Grand Canyon for a week. Jordan and I went to a Dude Ranch in Colorado for a week. Cameron and I went to Yosemite (and there I read my first book by John Muir.) Leighton and I went to Mexico.  On each trip, I guided my sons in a conversation around manly topics: Sex, money, work, and God. I tried to go to the heart about what they needed to feel ready to be a man and I tried to helped them in their identity and faith. When they came home from the trips, we invited our closest friends for an elaborate dinner and the sons received symbolic gifts signifying their arrival as a man. I think they still treasure those knives, compasses and cards to this very day. I loved it. I know my sons loved it. It was important. I would do this all again. I believe in this and I feel it is a missing link in young adulthood today—for both young men and young women.

I tried hard as a man in his mid-30’s to do it all right. But, everything got hard. Everything became unbearable and I began to implode. My family of origin issues surfaced. I had to face the music that I had skipped over significant parts of my own story. I had buried “stuff” way down deep. But the problem is, when we stuff things, they begin to stink and leak out. My stuff was leaking into my marriage, my being a leader and my being a man. What I know now, is that my inner world could not sustain the outer world I was building. I had no inner scaffolding to hold up the world I was living in.

That’s the most indicting confession a leader can make—to admit what I had to admit. Every leader must have inner scaffolding to hold up their lives: integrity, healing from the past, knowledge of self and skills . I needed to get healthy. My sickness was centrafused on folks I worked with and people I loved. Richard Rohr has so wisely told us, “Unless we are healed from an unhealthy past, we will transmit the sickness around us until we are healed.” I lacked the health; skill and understanding of boundaries to keep my work, like my work like instead of being MY Life—my only life. It was a soul-sickness that led to my resignation from the mega-church in the making, to fleeing to a Catholic monastery to lick my wounds, find healing and recovery. As you may know, I went into that monastery with Dallas Willard and emerged a truly transformed person in the making. Don’t get me wrong… I’m still doing my work now and writing this out, actually helps me to find more light along the way.

No one changes by themselves. I needed help and if you’re in trouble, you need help. Get the help you need and do it now.

Being a Grandfather Changed Everything…again for me.

Fast forward to the arrival of my first grandson, named Caleb.  Caleb’s birth became a sort of new birth for me. It was jarring to hold my grandson all nine pounds of him.  (Caleb’s birth was the inspiration for my poem I’m sharing this week, titled, “The Honey of the Hive.”  (It will be posted soon for paid subscribers). Caleb’s arrival on the planet and the arrival of each grandchild helped me loosen my grip on what I thought was important in life and to see what I thought was my legacy: my work, my books and the impact. That all got reconfigured as more and more grandchildren came into my life. They shattered what I thought I knew about legacy. They redefined what true legacy is. Each grandchild helped me see that they were my true reason for living. In fact, each grandchild fostered in me a deep and holy desire to WANT to live; to want to stay alive and to get and stay as healthy as I possibly can. I want to see them grow up. I long to be at their life mile markers like high school graduation, college, weddings and to see them become parents. I want to live for a deeper reason than just my ministry. Let me say it as plainly as I can here:

My ministry was my job. It was not my life.

It’s a bit embarrassing for me to be so confessional in this space. But there’s simply no way for you to possibly understand this big non-negotiable that Gwen and I agreed upon in our move until you know the rest of my story.

As a new grandparent, I realized their belovedness. I saw them and still see them as the most beautiful of all of God’s creation. I did not care and do not care about their achievements, awards and high-water marks as I seemed to care so much about in my own four sons. They do not have to achieve anything to be loved by me. They do not need to strive to earn my love or recognition.  I simply fell in love with their essence in a way I’m not sure I did with my own four sons. I am smitten and I will never get over it. I hope I will not get over them. Not ever.

Someone once said, we pray and pray for our children to “just” be healthy and normal. But at their birth, that prayer changes. We want them to be 1st; the best, the greatest and the most ….everything. But with our grandchildren, I don’t think I think or pray like this about them these days.

Looking back at my fathering and looking forward…

I’ve had several “meaning of life” conversations now with my adult sons. These are discussions where I am often leading them back to help me know how they perceived me as a Dad as we moved along the journey of life.  Each son is now of the age where they, too, are looking back to connect the dots on their own story; personalities and idiosyncrasies.  Trust me, it takes courage for me to try to choose the right moment when I feel safe to explore such a topic as “Do you think I was a good father?”, “What regrets do you have in your childhood?,”  “What could I have done better?”,  “What did you need that I failed to offer you.”  I’ve laughed with them and cried with them. I know there is still more to process and learn from together. I look forward to these talks—I think.  But, more than anything, I find myself wanting to be so brave to help give them find a way to talk out loud about any inner demons that they might be fighting—that, well, need to be slain before any more time passes between us.  I am painfully aware of my own mortality and find myself often wondering, “What if this is the last conversation I have with them?”

De-contructing a Theology of Obedience as a Dad

One of the most riveting conversations, I’ve tried to have with each of my sons is this:  “Do you think Mom and I parented you from a “theology of obedience” rather than a “celebration of your belovedness?”  Let me just say here, that when I was a young dad, I never had heard the word—the concept—the core foundation belief—of being the Beloved of God.   I parented in the days of the era of James Dobson and a few other fundamentalist who wrote the books on how to parent. That, I now regret. There were a few good things in that mix, but there was a lot I wish I could re-do.  I so, so, so wish that I had been exposed to what it means to call yourself the Beloved as a young dad; what it meant to ‘become’ the beloved and how to be the Beloved in marriage, work and friendship much less in family relationships. I wish I could have parented my own sons from a theology of Belovedness. But, it was not to be for them. In time, as I grew to know this for myself, I offered this good and great news to them. I am thinking that they “got” it—as much as you can as we mature in life.

Life of the Beloved Dad and Beloved Sons

I was 38 years old when my therapist introduced me to Henri Nouwen and his classic book, “Life of the Beloved.”  That was a game changing book for me and I inhaled his words like they were salve to my soul.  It was such a revolutionary message for me that now, this message has become the core and foundational bedrock of all of my work.  In short, being the beloved says, you can’t do anything to earn your rank with God. God has no ranking system. We’re born clean. We are clean and we are deeply loved by God. Of course, we mess up in life. But messing up doesn’t define us. We are not “sinners” first and foremost. WE are the Beloved of God, first and foremost. This one truth defines us. Before the notion of being born sinners, we were born in original blessing. We made God happy. He was and still is smitten with us as his own children.

Simply stated: before you read and build a life based on the fall in Genesis 3, we need to baptized our brains in the message of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. We all are God’s children. All of us. No exception. None.

Recently, when we lived in Charlotte, I went to a church that looked promising. But as we attended two different services, the promise of this being our church diminished. The pastor preached this:  “It’s important for you to realize, we are NOT all the Beloved. Only the elect of God are the Beloved of God.” I was in shock. I had never, ever heard something like that in my entire life—not in seminary; not in my doctoral studies. No where. It was stunning to hear this and to know it to be so wrong as I heard it.  The next sermon, which I got up and walked out of, was when he said, “When God looks at you, there is nothing in you God loves or likes. God only loves you because Jesus lives in you.”   I got up; walked out and never went back. It’s just not the truth, dear friends.

My grandchildren redefined this for me and taught me; mentored me and un-formed me from old doctrine and old ways to a deeper understanding of God’s love and grace. It’s just so true: “out of the mouth of babes…”  Don’t you agree? All my grandchildren are my teachers now. I love to take them for walks and to ask them questions that they will just start responding to. I ask them about God. I ask them about frogs. I ask  them about flowers, trees and rivers. It’s all spiritual talk. It’s all discipleship. It’s all spiritual formation.

This is precisely why I wanted to build a big table in my next backyard and have Sunday evening dinners under the lights like they did in the TV show, “Parenthood.” (see the image I posted above). That series, in particular, must have somehow imprinted me so, so deeply at that precise time of my own formation of being a father and grandfather. It went like this: “This” is the ritual—that table, chairs and my family all sitting in one space at one precise time. All my children sitting at one, long, illuminated table filled with food and filled with laughter and filled with love—that’s life I thought and in many ways, I still think this. I wanted that every Sunday night. I still do.  Why?  Because it’s a deep longing and it’s a deeper picture that I still hold on to about what heaven might be like.

Re-Negotiating the Non-Negotiable

But, as life has turned again for us—this huge longing and desire, is not to be--at least, not yet.  Two sons live with my grands overseas in separate countries.  No Sunday nights with them. We see them once a year, if we are fortunate. One son lives 2000 miles away—no Sunday night suppers with them either.  And the other son lived three hours drive from our new home in Brevard. This was the heart tug we were forced to work through . Brevard—which had all of the non-negotiables but  missing what is the most important one: We want to live our life out with our grandchildren.

It feels dramatic for me to write this out and it was. This is the stuff of our private lives…the longings and desires; the deeply held dreams of what life should look like and be like. This is what we all have to re-negotiate as life moves us forward.

Then, this happened just four short weeks ago…

As we lamented and grieved this non-negotiable with our wise and trusting friends who knew us and helped us find clarity and resolution.  The guidance was this: Don’t move to your grandchildren because they will likely be moving away as their family grows and changes. They may relocate in a couple of years. Then, where would we be?

Then this wisdom: Do what is right for the two of you and let the future unfold for itself.

Don’t manipulate this. Just trust the process of doing what is right for yourselves. So, that’s what we did. We made the decision to stack hands on the non-negotiables—all except one—the big one—the deep one. To be honest with you, it wasn’t easy. There were tears of this. There still are. But, we’re accepting our new reality and trying to make the best of it. Trips are in the plans. Not more moves, I hope. But we will travel to them and Gwen says, “We will travel often—as much as we can and as we are able to do it.”

We moved here. Started this transition. With joy and delight, we entered into a new Eden that we are still in the honeymoon phase of as of right now. (May it last a long, long time).

About a month ago, one of my sons and family came to visit us here in Brevard. My son lined up all three of his sons (age 6, 4, and 2) on our fireplace hearth and in unison, they said, “We have an announcement to make: We are moving to Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina.”  That is a lovely town and is only 47 miles as the crow flies from our new home here in Brevard. Gwen and I were floored. We couldn’t believe what we ust heard. Three of our grands would be one hours drive away. We could meet half way and pick them up for days in the mountain house with us, then return them for bed.  Goodness…. We are still reeling from this new development. No Sunday night dinners—it’s been too chaotic with them move and them settling in.  But, they are coming up for Sunday brunch this Sunday and while we will not have everyone here with us around our table, we will have a trinity of grands.

This is a beginning for us, but a very important beginning in our re-set and to explore how we’ve had to negotiate our “non-negotiables” and find peace and contentment in letting go of dreams that may never be or illusions I have developed in my own head that may have to be “dis-illusioned.” ( l love that term and consider the work of “dis-illusionment to be a great and much needed spiritual discipline. I’ve explore this concept and written up how to attempt to do it in the workbook, “Living the Lazarus Life”) But whatever it is and however this unfolds, we, like you are in the River of Life, flowing, floating and being carried by the Great Creator. same title here).

Nothing is forever, is it?  Isn’t that so vitally important to remember? Plans change. And has some famous poet once said, “Life is what happens to you when you’re making plans.” 

So, there you have it. My confessional, messy journey of living a life of discernment with a full life of very Grandchildren, while still feeling like I have something to say and something to offer. It’s such a journey. Thanks for being a companion along the way.