The Bible tells us that we may entertain angels unawares. Our pastor has told us to be ready to reach out to and help those around us because you never know if that person might be the answer to your own prayer, or even a future son-in-law or daughter-in-law. It had also been prophesied over me that the father's heart within me, the one that had moved me to sow time and effort into trying to build the character of young men not my own, had been recognized and would bring a related but unexpected and as yet unseen harvest into my own life. Still all these things were far from my mind when I met another young man, Ben, who shared a common interest in blogging and trivia. Our friendship was casual, yet when he found himself in a trap of his own devising it had been easy to offer support and discipleship, groceries, some occasional gas money and to put him in touch with a contractor looking to hire an experienced carpenter. One of their first jobs together was on the home of a family from my church, and a later project involved some work at the church itself. It was completely natural for him to eventually visit the church for a service.

December 11 is an important date in our family. It was December 11, 1987 that my wife and I discovered we were pregnant with our daughter Faith, the incipient Mall Diva. On December 11, 2005 my wife was ordained at our church and we doubled (or tripled) up on the occasion by also having a graduation ceremony to honor Faith's home school and beauty school graduation, also at our church. It also turned out to be the day that Ben first saw Faith. He had arrived early that day, specifically for that special service, probably without much thought of ever returning. He watched our musicians rehearsing and noticed an especially attractive singer. He told me, much later, that he thought she was cute, and then saw her flit over to me. "Oh no, his daughter!" was the sobering revelation.

He had many more sobering revelations to come over the next year or so as he learned where the latch was to the cage he was in and decided to finally quit running from the calling he had long sensed was on his life. Over the years I have known and counseled with many men who were battling their demons. In many cases, I sensed these battles to be more like a series of lover's quarrels with an eye to a future reunion. In this young man, however, was a different kind of resolve and even a note of quiet triumph. He became a regular at our church and, as my friend, a regular guest in our home on Sunday afternoons. His goofy wit, easy-going manner and political insights made him a welcome addition to our afternoon activities and dinner conversations and favorite of everyone, though it was becoming apparent that he was perhaps becoming a special favorite of one in particular.

I watched the interactions with no little interest. Every action and conversation was appropriate and above-board, the way friends should speak to one another. We became aware of email traffic between them, as Faith would share these with her mother, and these showed the proper respect and concern for one another's well-being. Proper, but not necessarily harmless. It was time to bring things out in the light and examine the situation. Driving back from Missouri after my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, the Reverend Mother and I (who had talked already) questioned Faith as to what she thought was going on, and where she thought things were going between her and Ben. She loved him as a friend, and thought the potential was there for more than friendship in time, but there seemed to be any number of obstacles between them in terms of where they each were in their lives and what they both hoped to accomplish — things that would literally take years for them to complete. Regardless, the situation no longer had the luxury of staying the same; it either had to advance or diminish.

That is a difficult point we all come to, often many times, in our lives. We tend to stay with the status quo, even past the freshness date, for fear of change because of the potential that that change could be for the worse. In this case it was time for Faith and Ben to act as true friends, out of sincere concern for what is best for the other. Their path ahead was apt to be a long and challenging one, and it was better to count the cost now than regret it later. For one thing, this would not be a worldly relationship where a couple decides to date for awhile and see where things lead. That is a dangerous and deceptive trail that has crippled many a hiker.

Well. If this friendship was going to continue it would be based on clear rules and objectives and in front of watchful eyes. Ben was due to come over the following evening for our New Year's Eve gathering, and Faith was asked to invite him to come earlier in the afternoon for a family discussion.

And so we found ourselves in the living room tableau mentioned a few paragraphs ago as I presented my statement/question. Whatever it was we were expecting it certainly didn't include, at this point, Ben saying that one day he hoped to marry my daughter. Fortunately, my recliner provides good, solid support. We came to what the Victorians probably referred to as "an understanding." The end proposition was not out of line, but there were many checkpoints along the way. First, they would continue as friends but with this understanding between them and the family. Things would continue much as they had been, but with new and important roles for all of us, including my youngest, Tiger Lilly.

I could no longer be Ben's "friend", not in the way I had been, because there was something different at stake. Same for my wife. As a father, I was naturally concerned about the "prospects" of any suitor for my daughter. I also realized, however, that prospects have more to do with what is inside a person than what happens to be in front of him at the time. Part of my responsibility was to watch and see if Ben's moral progress would continue. Some facades are easier to keep up than others, but few can bear continued, close scrutiny. Part of what Ben was asking a year ago, whether he realized it or not, was for a new level of this scrutiny. The fact that he is still around, and with all his limbs more or less intact, indicates that some success and sincerity on his part.

Faith and Ben, meanwhile, were to continue as friends, free to talk about a shared future and explore what special challenges might present themselves in achieving that, but also free to step away while remaining friends if these issues became unworkable. The news of this new status would be kept mostly within the family for the time being, hopefully freeing them from social pressures and expectations and again allowing for a dignified and private retreat if it became clear that things were not going to work out. Finally, it would not be a physical relationship, even in ways the world might think innocuous, and they would not have "alone" time together. They would be expected to conduct themselves before the family or responsible friends, while Tiger Lilly would assume the roaming chaperone responsibilities for propriety's sake, escorting them from place to place if family and friends were otherwise unavailable. Restrictive, yes, but also freeing for them in a way because they would not have the distraction of a physical relationship clouding the important things they had to discuss.

Back in September I was talking to my friend Harvey after church. Harvey is a quiet guy of few words but who doesn't miss much. Faith and Ben drove by in the parking lot below us with Tiger Lilly in the back seat. Harvey turned his head to watch them drive by, then said to me, "Ben seems to be paying a lot of attention to Daughter Number One."

"Yes," I said, "Which is why you'll notice that Daughter Number Two is paying a lot of attention to him."

Harvey smiled. He has daughters a couple of years younger than mine. "We've noticed," he said. "We've got a couple of girls coming up on that age, and we're very interested in how this comes out." I related this story to Ben and Faith later, as another reminder that the way they live their lives will be an example to others.

They have not appeared to chafe under the rules of their responsibilities, demonstrating true affection (in an acceptable manner) rather than mere infatuation. They have been a delight and an encouragement in our family and in our church. A few months ago their relationship progressed into official courtship, with an eye toward engagement and marriage. They have a lot of time still to wait, as Ben has a couple of years of Seminary yet to complete, and Faith has plans of her own. Yesterday, one year from the date we had our little meeting, they were comfortable enough to take their courtship public in the blogosphere, ready for the additional scrutiny that may bring.

What has been especially gratifying over the last year is to see how eagerly two young people (three, actually) have embraced their new roles and responsibilities. To see one's children not only doing right, but wanting to do right even when it is inconvenient or directly opposed to their more fleshly desires, is a balm indeed.



Related Posts:
A Balm in Gilead, Part 1: Life and Death
A Balm in Gilead, Part 2: Wife

For example, there's a part of the book that takes place some time after Ames' grandfather abruptly left the home in pursuit of an unknown quest or calling that drew him back to Kansas. The family never hears from him again and finally Ames' father sets out on his own quest to find out what happened to the old man, even though it requires traveling to an unknown and largely undeveloped part of the country (this would have been in the late 1800s). For some reason, though it added to the hardship, he took the young Ames with him. Traipsing on foot, enduring heat, cold and near starvation, they finally come to a small, all-but-forgotten cemetery where "Rev. Ames" is crudely carved into a wooden marker. The father and son, worn-out and bone-tired as they are, nevertheless set about clearing out and tidying the cemetery and the grave-site in a scene that reminded me of a similar episode in my own life a little more than a year ago when my father and I and others restored a rural, overgrown family cemetery that hadn't had anyone buried in it for some 40 years. It was the next-to-last time I would see my father when he was healthy, and the last time that I would watch him at work. Of course, none of us knew that at the time or could explain, exactly, why we wanted to clean up this old place that would eventually be reclaimed anyway. It just seemed like the right thing to do, and I would gladly live those days over again if given the chance.

"The right thing to do" can often be a hard thing to explain, and even harder thing to live up to. I've tried to develop an internal sense for when I'm cutting myself some slack in an area, or giving myself a pass on doing a difficult or merely inconvenient thing. Would that there wasn't so much weasel in me. In the four months that it took for my own father to fail and die, I struggled to find my proper place amidst the obligations that surrounded me; trying to be the son, father, husband and employee that I should be and feeling that the time I put into each was always insufficient for the need at hand.

In my father's case, I called regularly and visited when I could. It became a running joke that whenever I came to visit he always seemed to end up in the Emergency Room. It started a couple of years ago when he was scheduled to have his aortic valve replacement and I drove down a couple of days early to be with him before the operation — and arrived in time to be there as he developed congestive heart failure and had to be rushed to the hospital ahead of schedule. Similarly, trips down there in June and September this year also ended up in Exam Room 5 at the hospital in Sullivan, Missouri. In early October when I called him he was at home and feeling pretty good, even sounding a lot like his old self. I suggested that maybe I could come down for a couple of days. "Oh God, no!" he said, "I don't want to go back to that place!"

Time, of course, was already slipping away from us and he died before the month was out. One morning, a couple of weeks ago (and before I started reading Gilead), I dreamed about my father right before I woke up. It was the first time I'd dreamed about him since he died, and I'd been wondering when he might turn up. I still see my grandfather in dreams occasionally, and he turns up usually to say something to me, unencumbered by paralysis or aphasia.

As with most dreams, there was a surreal element to this one. My father and another man came to my door as veterans, doing fund-raising for something. Instead of the door of my present home, however, it was the door of the mobile home my father provided for me when I was in college, and instead of being in my college town it was in our hometown. Finally, though he had been in the Air Force, I never knew him to be involved with any veteran's programs. In the dream he looked like he did when he was 50 (about the age I am now); I didn't recognize the man with him.

My father and I recognized each other, however, and we also both knew that he was dead, yet here he was. There was a pause and then I took him in my arms, almost fiercely, and I held him as we both cried. The second guy just stood there, not bothered in the least. My wife is the one who gets the prophetic dreams, and I'm pretty good, I think, in piecing together workable interpretations. I didn't know what this dream meant, though it has stayed with me. Several days after the dream my family and I attended a Christmas concert at one of the local mega-churches. Sitting in the dark, amidst the loud music and thumping bass, I remembered the dream and wept as bitterly as at any time since he died, and still didn't know what the dream meant.

There is a balm in Gilead, however, and as I read of an old man's hopes and fears for his son, of how another father and son had struggled to come to terms even while on the common and holy grounds they shared, and of how acts of omission, commission and contrition weave themselves perpetually in and around us, I realized that I had not been able to hold my father in all the time he was sick.

Even in the visit in June before he was diagnosed, he was in so much pain that it hurt to stand up, let alone be hugged. As he diminished it was even more impossible to do so. I almost envied my brother, who had had to carry him to the car for the final trip to the hospital. As I wrote in November, there was little left unsaid between my father and I, but there was so much I wished I could have communicated through my arms and chest, and perhaps have received in return. And now, in my dream, he had been returned to me, perhaps with an angelic escort, for that all-but-silent time and last, soothing embrace.

These thoughts, and others that have been brought to the fore from reading Gilead, have helped me see and appreciate the other balms I have in my life. They have also put me in a mood to record these for my own benefit and, perhaps, the benefit of others. Over the next few days I will try to draw these out of the book and my life. Right now, though, I am very, very tired.