Throwing Apples

While organizing my blog, I can’t across this letter from 2010. My dad wrote it after losing his shit on my wife, and destroying the first and only family vacation. His verbal assault of my pregnant wife could have sent her into early labour. Then they stormed out, and left in the early morning, leaving this email as an explanation: Dear Ishmael and Isobella, I'm dying inside.  I've lost a daughter in law, now I'm facing the loss of my grandchildren.   Isobella, I'm sorry for cutting you off, I should have let you finish what you were saying.   You can't expect me to bear this burdon alone without some angry blow ups.  I am after all, only a human being.   We will be leaving tomorrow.  I want to spend the most time possible with our grandchildren before they are taken away. Dad. Interpretation: 1. I’m sorry... 2. BUT you made me mad 3. You can’t expect me to always keep my cool, based on what I’m going...

"Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor." (Romans 13:7) Respect and honour are two very different things, dad. I respect you positionally  but you have done many dishonourable things, for which I will not honour you. *** Honour is something which is taught by Christians. However, what does respect mean? Does a father get to choose what respect means? "If you're not talking to me, that means you don't respect me?" If so, isn't that just the same as obedience? We obey our children while with them, but then we "leave" to become independent, then marry our spouses. A few months ago, I took the step of mentioning my parents negatively in a sermon. It was not a very negative example, but for the first time, I spoke about them in a slightly unflattering light. My wife said that God gave her a very unexpected experience. As I was talk...

Today was a big step. I dared to speak ill publicly of the family. In a sermon I preached a few months ago, I shared the anecdote about the time I nearly died when my dad unwisely tried to fjord a river with his young children. I did not go into detail about how he shamed and blamed me for the event, how his primary emotion seemed to be  embarrassment (for himself) rather than concern (for me) or terror (at the fact that I almost died). I didn't mention any of that. What I did say was something like this: "I want to honour my dad by saying that he spent a lot of time with us as children. We had a lot of experiences in nature, with motorbikes, with guns and dogs. We had a lot of fun! But...my dad did not always have a plan. And...honestly, we were not always safe..." Then I launched into the story about sliding down the waterfall, and how a random stranger saved me. I related how I had come to resent missions because while in Africa, I felt similar unprotected. Su...