Stirring Passion #4

(This ended up being a long one. Pour your favorite beverage, find a comfortable chair, put your feet up, and then after your can't-read-this-whole-thing-without-falling-asleep nap, read the second half of this somewhat self-indulgent dad post...)

George Bernard Shaw is attributed with the quote: "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children" (although some believe he simply reworded a quote from Oscar Wilde) (http://www.bartleby.com/73/2097.html). Here's my own rewording: "I wish I could have the maturity of my 40's combined with the passion and energy of my 20's." I'm sure the quote works at any age simply by halving the first number (i.e."...maturity of my 60's...passion and energy of my 30's.").

Physical energy, at least for now, is regulated by my exercise, eating, and sleeping choices. For me, these are disciplines I have to monitor and re-engage with on a regular basis or I can get out of sorts with any of them.

Passion, I believe, has elements of spiritual conviction and relational engagement to it. I think it's impossible to be passionate without conviction. I think it's difficult to be passionate without meaningful human relationships. And meaningful human relationships with people of similar conviction may be the most passion producing combination.

It has been and continues to be a passion stirring thing for me to get to know my oldest son Daniel at this wonderfully exciting time in his life. In two weeks he'll marry Katherine Sneed of Flippin, Arkansas under a canopy of pecan trees in Keo, Arkansas. His mom and I couldn't be more thrilled to add Katherine as our daughter. She graduates from UCA on Saturday with not only a degree but with deep and lasting spiritual friendships and experiences. We are proud of her and love her and look forward to loving her more and more. We know that she would have never given Daniel a second look if he weren't more passionate about his relationship with God than his relationship with her. That's just one of the many reasons we thank God for her.

The last 2 years have been very impacting in Daniel's life and watching it has been impacting for Alicia and I. It's difficult learning to treat your grown son like a man instead of like a boy. After all, the dad-boy relationship has been around a while.

I (and his mom some too) definitely treated (spoiled?) him like many young, 1st time parents do. If he cried, we jumped (and danced, and sang, and fed, and walked, and drove, and bounced, and anything else we thought would end this horrible unbearable thing called "crying".) He slept on my chest in the recliner for the first two weeks of his life when he wasn't feeding with mom. I was perfectly happy continuing this indefinitely but his mom thought a 16 year old sleeping on his dad's chest in a recliner might make other people uncomfortable. So we finally agreed to start the transition of training him to sleep in his own bed in his own room. We completed this transition about 6 years that felt like 60 years later. (Mikaila was in her own room and own bed by day 2. Yes, we were young and dumb, but we could learn. She and we were much happier and slept much better than did Daniel and his overprotective young parents. When Jeremiah cries we don't even hear it.)

I could write a book about everything we learned about Daniel between ages 2 weeks and 21 years but for now I'll spare my blog readers all the details of homeschooling, camping, kindergarten, moving, friends, fights, surgeries, football, basketball, summer camp, sleep overs, garage bands, drama awards, choir trips, spiritual awakening, temptation struggles, heartbreaks, and many other failures and triumphs in between. It was tough. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Off to college proved to be time of soul searching and struggle for Daniel in year 1. Then toward the end of his freshman year God got his attention in some major ways. (Many of those "ways" will be groomsmen on his wedding day.) When God got his attention (this is what we theologians like to call "worship") he became Daniel's number one passionate pursuit. His pursuit of God has led him to the African continent twice, to worship ministry positions for three churches (1st Baptist Church Conway, Chi Alpha Campus Ministry @ UCA, a United Methodist Church in Cabot, and currently he leads the worship team each Sunday at Christ Church, Cabot), to leading a discipleship group of his peers, to deep relationships with men and peers of similar conviction, and to a life dedicated to serving him wherever in the world it takes him.

And it has led him to the heart and affection of a Godly woman (who reminds me a lot of his mom) and to the second most important decision he's ever made. On May 11, he will with conviction and passion, vow to God and to Katherine to continue his pursuit of them both for the rest of his life.

Chills.

Tears.

Stirred passion!