But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it” 2 Timothy 3:14

On the wall above my desk hangs a picture that delights me.  It was painted by Dorothy Dowler, a prolific artist, musician and teacher I met at our community’s senior center.  Her works were vivid, alive with color and movement.  Every moment of her life pulsed with energy, passion and joy.

Dorothy is gone now, but her spirit shines from every work of art she left behind.  I think of her with each glance at the picture on my wall.  I’m grateful to have experienced her friendship.

While Dorothy left visual images in her wake, my father ‘s primary medium was words.  After his death two years ago, we managed to condense Dad’s lifetime of writings into three large filing cabinets.  Now, faced with the necessity of removing them from Mom’s garage, I’ve been sorting through the papers again.

For thirty-nine years, until age 91, Dad wrote weekly Sunday School teaching plans that he sent to hundreds of churches.  Before that venture began, he spent his professional career pastoring and teaching Religious Education and journalism at two major seminaries.  His extensive body of written work includes books, articles for magazines, papers for academic journals, church and organizational newsletters, and even a syndicated newspaper column.  And he left all of it behind in stacks of hand-written notes and typed copy.

While sifting through files these past few weeks, I’ve been hearing my Dad’s voice.  He is gone, but through his writings he continues to teach, train, exhort and encourage, just as he did in life.  The occasional tears that bubble up in no way diminish the sweetness of this time I’m spending with my father.

Which gives rise to a question:  what kind of legacy am I building for my own children?  What will remain behind when I am gone?  (Besides my miniature glass animal collection, that is – my grandkids have already divvied that up between themselves.)

Like my dad, I love to study the Bible, to peel away the divinely-inspired layers and dig deeply into contextual meanings embedded in cultural backgrounds.  In the words of one of my Faith Academy students, such pursuits make me “feel like a Bible detective!”  Dad also passed to me his love of words, and his influence continues to shape my compulsion to craft language into clear forms of communication.

I can physically hold Dad’s volumes of works in my hands and pump his thoughts directly into my brain.  Mom, on the other hand, was more comfortable with verbal expression than the written word.  At one time or another, all three of us siblings brought her one of those fill-in-the-blank memory books and begged her to jot down pieces of her story.  She never made it past a third entry.  Finally we sat her down and videoed her answers to all our questions about her life.

Mother was not a scholar.  Her gift was loving.  She loved God and loved people so fiercely, so passionately, so deliberately, and with so much energy that it was almost exhausting just to watch her.  And she pulled us along with her – into the kitchen to cook and freeze a week’s worth of meals for an elderly widow and then deliver them to her; into a comprehensive care center to visit people we knew and those we chanced to meet onsite; to clean the house of a bed-ridden cancer patient.  Our home served as an emergency placement for battered children; a temporary shelter for unwed teenage mothers; a second family for seminary students from other states and countries around the world.  Mom found people everywhere she went and drew them into her circle of compassion and concern.

With such a heritage, it felt completely natural to take my children along on weekly nursing home visits when I started my own family.  It was no big thing to go watch a newborn, wash a few dishes and vacuum the living room while his mother enjoyed a rare soak in the bathtub.  Hosting foreign exchange students for a school year or filling my car with food for a struggling family feels neither heroic nor noteworthy.  Because of my mother’s influence, those are things we simply do because we can and we should – being the hands, feet and voice of Christ at all times, in every situation.

Daily I’m discovering and appreciating new depths to the legacies my parents left behind.  And in turn, I am beginning to feel a sense of urgency for building my own.  What can I leave to my progeny that will make a difference in their lives?  How can my voice continue to whisper love, encouragement, and instruction after I am gone?  This is the new quest that has taken hold of my heart.  It’s my turn now.

3 Comments

  1. Martha Mason

    Absolutely……I feel when I’m sorting through everything emotions from childhood until when I had to say “see you later” and treasure all the memories I find. My children on the other hand tell me they will just put a dumpster in the front yard when I’m promoted.

  2. Martha

    You know your words strike a chord with me. I’m on the road as a single gal wanting to leave that in my little church I’m pastoring…
    Your words are my thoughts thanks so much!!

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