January 2019 – JasonHague.com: Faith * Fatherhood * Autism

It’s late January, and I just finished my morning walk. Early rising has always been hard for me, as it is for most. But I don’t hate mornings. If anything, I adore the pre-dawn stillness of the world. It’s a shame I don’t pursue it more often.

Wait — I just wrote that last sentence without thinking, and it’s an abomination. I’m not going to delete it, though, because it proves to the point I was intending to make in this post. You see, it truly was a beautiful morning–cool, dark, and blessedly dry. The three-quarter moon was drifting kite-like behind the frills of lacy clouds. I passed a friend on the road, wearing light-up blinking shoes, and it made me smile. I had my coffee, my warm jacket, and my headphones on. I listened to Exodus, and then talked to God over subtle, ambient post-rock music. It was perfect, as is the soaking calm of the living room where I now write.

But you saw what happened. Even before I started going on about the beauty of the morning, I couldn’t help but type that downer of a phrase, “it’s a shame I don’t pursue it more often.” (And seriously, I didn’t plan it for the sake of a blog post. My fingers did that on their own.)

I wish I could say this is rare for me, but it isn’t. I catch myself making these statements all the time. When I find a new band, a great show, an awesome pizza place, instead of reveling in the the discovery, I begin in a lament: “it’s a shame I never knew about this before.”

Casual shame is such a wet blanket. It follows us around at parties to read us our rap sheet. It saps the joy not only of bygone pleasures, but even those that are just becoming real. And in the end, through the power of sheer embarrassment, it keeps us from making the changes we desperately want to make. “You know your track record on getting up early,” it whispers. “Why even try?”

This is one reason people give up their resolutions by the end of January. They feel guilty for missing a day, and that spoils the following three days. Even while dripping with sweat on the treadmill, they excoriate themselves for not running enough.

I was talking with my spiritual director last week about the changes I’ve been making in my walk with God, and about some more I’m hoping to make. I tell him I’ve been apprehensive about committing again to routines because I know my own history. The ghosts of half-met goals still haunt me, even on sunny, victorious afternoons.

I tell him all this, and he nods thoughtfully.

“Can I tell you what I see?” He says at last. “I think you’ve been on a long journey, and you suddenly have room to give more attention to these issues. It’s like you’ve been walking through this dense section of trees, and you’re just now coming out onto a wide open space.”

A wide open space. I feel this image deep inside me. It speaks to me, not only because I’m a wee bit claustrophobic (just don’t make me sit in the inside of the booth and we’re cool, okay?), but because it makes so much sense. He helps me to see it: I just turned forty. I just put out my first book, which capped off a long, painful, redemptive season. I’m about to celebrate my 20th anniversary. And my life is starting, for the first time in ages, to make a good deal of sense.

If there’s ever been a time to silence that casual shame and embrace the promise of dawn, it is today. This open space is a hopeful gift. A rising sun. I want to sit in the stillness of these possibilities. I want to breath in the wide, valley air.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,” the book of Lamentations tells us. “His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.” I believe this, but I want to believe it more. If His mercies really are new every morning, then why carry yesterday’s albatross into today?

I’m starting again, and this wide open space is giving me life. You might not be walking in a prairie like I am. You might be tiptoeing the edge of a mountain ridge. You might be wading through a swamp, or cutting through a thick and dangerous rain forest. Really, I get it.

Nevertheless, the dawn that comes to me comes to you, also. Every day, a new sun rises over all our plains and peaks, our bogs and our jungles, to do battle with the casual shames that tie up our souls. And every day, the light from that sky reminds us of the promise, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

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Photo by MabelAmber at Pixabay

Dear Jack,

On this day one year ago, your mom and I put you into a hospital gown, and you let us do it. You knew what was coming. We had talked about it for weeks. Then, a nurse came and poked you, and you got sleepy. They wheeled you into another room, and when you got anxious, they read your list of movie titles until you relaxed and sleep came. And for the next weeks, you endured weakness and funny medicine and strange dreams and mystery pains in the back of your head. You didn’t like any of it, but you endured.

It was a strange few months after that. Do you remember the panic attacks that came every night? Do you remember when we moved your brothers out of your room so they could sleep? We may never know if that happened because of your surgery, or if it was an autism thing or something else. But what we do know is this: you made it through that dark season. You emerged, and you showed us the things that make you brave.

People have lots of funny ideas about courage these days. You see it in some of the movies you watch. One idea goes like this: “Courage is having the strength to be who you really are.” And this sounds good to us, because sometimes we all get embarrassed over things that are really just fine. Like when you flap your socks. Some people might not like when you do that, but you don’t care much, and I’m glad you don’t care. You shouldn’t have to care. You should be free to be yourself.

But I don’t think courage is like that most of the time. In fact, most of the time, being ourselves is pretty easy. We know our favorite movies and our favorite foods. We know whether we want to go to parties, or to hang out with our brothers and sisters. We don’t need to be brave to choose those things. We just have to do what’s most comfortable.

Maybe you didn’t think you were brave at all this past year. Remember in those really hard days when you would scream, “I ain’t a coward!” like Arlo in The Good Dinosaur? Maybe you thought that because you were afraid at night, you didn’t have any courage. But you did. You know how I know? Because ever since those dark days, you have have been making so many hard choices. And it’s been awesome to watch.

For example, remember those days last summer, when Mom and miss Beth took you to the bowling alley, to the movie theater, and the mini-golf place? You didn’t want to do those things at first because you really love just being home with your shirt off and your movies on. But your siblings stay home all the time so you can do those things, and this summer, they wanted to go have more adventures. So you chose to go out. And that was a good choice, son. You even started to enjoy yourself.

On one of those outings, mom took you to the trampoline park. Before your surgery, you’d had such a hard time using the left side of your body. But over the months, you had worked hard in OT until you were able to do this. It wasn’t your first choice. It would have been easier to say “no-fank-you” and do what was comfortable. But you made the better choice.

Later that month, we told you we were going on a family vacation. You said no at first. We never go on family vacations, because you like to stay home and relax in the living room. But you relented, and off we went, up the Oregon coast and down the cabin ramp on your scooter. You missed home, but you had a great time.

You also started to enjoy riding lessons more. Friday afternoons are a great time to come home and sit in your favorite chair for hours on end, but every week, you donned your boots and sunglasses and learned to cantor like Cowboy Pete himself. Just look at you go!

Finally, last week, Miss Janae took us to that place with all the Christmas lights. When we approached the “snowless tubing” slide, you kept eying it from around the corner. Your said nothing, but your face said, “Wow, that looks scary, but I really want to try it.” When it was your turn, you almost backed out. Almost. But then, this… You went again and again, laughing all the way.

And there is more, son. So much more. There were baseball games and hikes up mountain ridges and happy trips to the Safeway. You even sat through an entire live musical, Elf Jr, to see your little brother play the part of Michael!

These are the things that make us brave: not that we do what we want to do, but that we do the hard things we are afraid of doing. This is what you did this past year. Instead of settling for just “being yourself,” you sacrificed what you wanted for the sake of others. Instead of doing the comfortable thing, you chose to grow.

Well done, son. I’m proud of you. And I’m humbled by all the things you continue to teach us.

Dad

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