A Father's Love, Begotten

to be seen, known, and loved

Happy Friday, Blue Roomies!

I’ve been away all week at one of my happy places, doing some work on the book. I scheduled this post last weekend before I left, because (gulp) I didn’t bring my laptop with me! Instead I printed out the draft and am working longhand… the better to remain undistracted by the Internet. As you read this, I should be headed home, and let me throw my intention into the universe: to have created a serviceable draft of the book that I can refine over the next three months.

As a reminder, I’m on a reduced schedule through November. I’ll be back writing at the Blue Room two weeks from today, on August 30. If you just can’t wait that long, I’ll be sharing a bonus post with supporting subscribers next Monday or Tuesday!

Today, I’ve invited my friend Paul Lutter to share some of his writing with you. I was touched by his vulnerability in sharing this reflection, but I must admit, I also chuckled a little. Have you ever played “two truths and a lie”? Leave it to a pastor to go deep with it…

Mainly I’m grateful for the ways that intergenerational hurts can get healed, bit by bit.

~

Paul writes…

Recently, I was in a group in which we introduced ourselves by telling two truths and a lie. As games go, the things people told about themselves were mostly predictable, and often gendered, at least from a random sample of the group I was in. I’ve been to see Taylor Swift in almost every continent, one said. Audible gasps of envy escaped from around the circle. It was a lie. Well, I tried out for the Olympics this time around, said others. Lie. The truths that were revealed had often to do with favorite vacation spots, food, concerts, sports, and colors. Over the course of the game, the lies and truths grew. The level of vulnerability between us didn’t.

I am a father, I said. I have a nine-year-old daughter, I continued. Never a day passed that my dad told me he loved me. Silence fell over the room. You aren’t a dad, someone asked? No. I am a dad. Wait, you’re kind of old. You must have an older daughter, like in college or something? I was the oldest person in the room. Still, our daughter is nine years old. We adopted her from Haiti when she was not yet four. Your dad must have told you that he loved you. I paused. Tears trickled from the edges of my eyes. I nod slightly. I don’t tell them that he often told me he wished I wasn’t alive. Because of a medical condition, I was supposed to die young. I paused and looked around the room. But I lived.

            When we first saw her picture, before we even met her in person, we knew we loved our daughter Annika. She was not quite three years old when we met her. Yet we knew from the moment we saw her picture how much we loved her. When we first flew to meet her, our stories were filled with the things we couldn’t wait to do with her. When we arrived, we laid next to her on the cracked and slanted slab of concrete and gave thanks for all the things she was telling us about herself even though we didn’t yet speak the same language. When she was tired, I would often pick her up and rock her to sleep. Mwen renmen ou were the words I sang to her. I love you. She would shift herself in my arms so her ear could rest against my lips as I sang. They were the song to which we bonded as a family. These were the words we sang where she lived then, when we traveled with her to the airport, when we took three flights, and when she’d lose her food all over us because turbulence was new to her. We sang these words when thunder and lightning would fill the sky, when we rose, and when we fell asleep. Mwen renmen ou, we sang. I love you.

These were the only words I knew in her language. These were the only words that mattered.

+++

The other day, my wife, Jenny, sent me a text. As I opened it, I smiled. A picture appeared: Annika’s face formed a wide smile, and she held a large magnifying glass to her eye. Big and brown, round and sparkled, I couldn’t tell if her eyes revealed that she was up to something – she is nine, after all – or if something more could be the case. She looked through the magnifying glass. But it almost seemed as if she were also looking at the photographer, and maybe even the one who held the phone on which her picture appeared. I love you, I said. I meant it then. I mean it still. And I will mean it beyond the time when I have any more breath with which to say or sing or whisper the greatest truth, the widest mercy, and the most beautiful mystery I know. Love has found you. Love has found me. Love surrounds us.

+++

            How have you been able to keep going, a friend asks me in a basement of a church whose boiler was on high, while our hair stuck to our foreheads. Resilience? Yes, I tell her, and something more. It’s not just that I’m still standing. I’m neither a hero nor a saint. I pause as I watch her nod her head up and down, knowingly.

It’s because I’m known, and seen, and loved for who I am.

~

Paul Lutter is an ELCA pastor serving as interim pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Princeton, MN. He and his wife Jenny and daughter Annika live in Plymouth, MN with their puppy Winnie. Paul holds an MDiv. from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN. He is working on a collection of essays on hope.

Thank you, Paul. Steady on, friends.