It is time for this thing to come to an end. It is a strange world in which we live, and indeed one that I no longer understand. Why should I write anything more when it is clear I don't understand the world and cannot be sure anyone cares to hear what I have to say? On top of it all my voice is rather superfluous. These are the days when all voices swell up to cacophonous irrelevance, for if every voice is only opinion, then they are all noise. In that spirit then, I begin the ending.
Children believe their fathers to be larger than life. They might even brag to their friends of their father's greatness. I remember doing this in reference to my own father. I had to say goodbye to him recently. I promised I would never forget him, but that is a powerful lie when loved ones pass. We all know it is a lie, and that we all fade, but we cling to the comfort that we will not be forgotten.
Just today I took my college-age daughter to dinner in lovely Wimberley, Texas, a mere 10 or so miles from her college campus. It was beautiful in so many ways, but it was also starkly self-revealing. At one point, my daughter said, in the relaxed lightness of safe conversation, that I was an average man; "mid" is the term she used. The context of the comment was playful, and I took it as such, but it did get me thinking not of my own vain pursuits, but of the vanishing brevity of life.
They say I'm in the middle years of my life, but the reality is that I'm in the late fall or early winter of my life, if the averages are true. And in my case the averages probably don't apply, since my father died at 83 after medical heroics extended his life for nearly 20 years, and probably 10 years beyond any real quality of life.
What I have accomplished is little in the grand scheme of things. I feel like Socrates in boasting of his ignorance, which was a boast of humility, but then that too is a kind of prideful identification with the greatness of Socrates. You can see that even my boasts of humility cling to the hope of greatness.
All this to say that the recent loss of my father has made me curiously and selfishly pensive. What is the real importance of my life? What is to be my legacy? Why did my teaching and writing career end? Was it my divorce and the necessary punishments that come? Why must it all fade away?
Even the writing of this blog is a peculiar vanity which I know must end. I once told a friend that I wrote it for myself, but I'm through keeping my own society. It is probably best for me to finish my years simply listening.
The time has passed for me to do the great things I once hoped to do. It is unlikely that I shall ever finish the Ph.D. I once dreamed of, or even the sommelier training that appeals to me. The arc of my life has turned in the direction of anonymity to all but my amazing wife and wonderful kids and a few friends, and that is enough. I'm no intellectual now if I ever was. I do a hard man's labor every day with all the attendant aches and pains to go with it.
I'm blessed to receive so many providential moments to heed in the last few years.
I once asked my church if they might want my services in teaching a class or two on topics I have spent many years studying and teaching. I believed my heart was selflessly interested in the moment. They did call me in for a meeting or two and questioned the length of my notes, and quibbled over things. It seemed they didn't want what I was offering and so I respectfully removed myself.
Along with "mid" accomplishments come "mid" earnings. As such, I know I will probably not retire early or write or travel or learn from the schoolroom of the world as I once had hoped to do. There are too many obligations, reducing me to the grand laboring class of my grandfather, which I now see as a great blessing and compliment. I only hope I will live out my years with the dignity he demonstrated in all the hard labor to which he was bound for the sake of his family and in the end can set aside the whining of this confession.
I once thought I would be able to make some claim to raising one of those countercultural families that contends boldly with the prevailing secular culture, but that also seems lost; a result of disunity and failure in my first marriage.
My failures and disappointments are numerous and weighty, so obvious that they have pierced any delusion of perceived greatness. And though I still feel like an accomplished man in many ways, it is obvious to me now that my accomplishments will not shine in ways that my own kids will see. For one thing, I'm a man of faith and have spent much of my life in dedicated study of that faith. No doubt my children will see this as the height of my self-delusion and mediocrity.
We live in a world where our children can measure the accomplishments of their fathers against not just the guy with the boat down the street, but all the fathers everywhere. Who will I be in the eyes of my children next to the world?
It is amazing how often I have encountered prideful people; people who believe themselves to be authoritative or culturally superior or politically instructive or in some other position to impress me. How often is their boast met with truth? Not often. Why should I think my own claim any different than theirs?
I end with the concept of the "extraordinary average man." I have perhaps always been enamored with the idea. From the many examples in my life, such as my father and grandfather, to my coaches and teachers, to examples in art, such as the great poem, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," to the greatest Christmas movie of all time, "It's a Wonderful Life," examples abound of the anonymous greatness of ordinary virtue. Among the classical virtues, you will never find "internet star."
I've always been deeply moved by the story of George Bailey; a man destined for greatness, but sidetracked by duty. And the virtuous fulfillment of his duty became his greatness in the end.
These are not the people who go viral, but the people who namelessly move the generations towards civility and grace and excellence and truth. I hope one day to be in their company.
The End.
