What's Really Real?

A six-year-old looked over at his dad on their way home from school one November day and queried, “Is Santa Claus real?” (In a moment, the rest of that story...don’t jump to the last paragraph of this article until you’ve read the in-between sentences.) Since Dad was a parent, school teacher, and Bible class teacher, the question planted a seed in his mind. It wasn’t too many years before that this young parent was asking that same question. In less than a decade the Santa reality dilemma had been and always will be replaced with inquiries about things such as drugs, alcohol, tobacco, world suffering, and the dreaded birds and bees sex issues... Indeed, where did the easy questions go? How to respond to all the childish and childlike curiosities and prepubescent challenges is what being a parent is all about.

I’m reminded of an old folk song that I first heard sung by Peter Paul & Mary back in the Sixties. It adequately expressed it this way: “Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by; and feed them on your dreams, the one you pick’s the one you’ll know by.” I’m not exactly sure what that anti-establishment, hippy guitarist (forgive the stereotypical judgmentalness, please) meant by that last phrase, but I like the sentiment of the song. It’s up to us parents to balance the imaginative with the reality allowing our children to be kids…they just don’t need to grow up sooner than necessary.

Children need a balance of mental, physical, and emotional stability (of course the spiritual can include all three); and they need the consistency of a good home, school, and church (the latter with exceptional Bible classes and youth group activities that offer spiritual, service, and social opportunities). As the wise king Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes 4:12, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” While the home and church can provide the spiritual that encompasses mental, physical, and emotional steadiness, the school also plays a vital role. Most children past the age of five spend a lot of time in an educational classroom. The teacher becomes an extremely essential role model. To reach their boxed students teachers must be alive, energetic, enthusiastic facilitators who plan effectively, communicate efficiently, and care deeply (about subjects and students).

Now at the age of 62, this life-long learner and professional educator has been going into a classroom at some level almost every fall since he was 5 years old. When colleagues or students ask me when I plan to retire, my response is always something like this: “When I can’t walk into my classroom on a daily basis and act passionate about what and whom I’m teaching, I will know it’s time to put myself out to pasture.” I often ask my classes if they’ve ever seen me down, negative, or unhappy in the classroom. So far they’ve all answered, “Never!” I then inquire if they think I’ve ever felt down, negative, or unhappy when I’ve walked into their classroom. “Guess so.” “Probably.” “Maybe.” Those are some of their replies. The key is the word “act” in the above response statement. Teachers must, to at least some degree, be actors, entertainers…they must bring fun as well as enlightenment into their boxes. This means having genuine enthusiasm and sometimes thinking outside the box about strategies and methods. No, there is no contradiction in my mind between “act” and “genuine” the way I think of those terms. If I can’t enjoy my time in the classroom, then I shouldn’t be there. My students should enjoy it as well. The content taught must come alive in students’ minds and hearts and that takes a passionate teacher.


A brief word here to all you Sunday school teachers. The goal should be to so grip the interest of the children so that at some point they are ready to express the sentiment of one small child in his made-up-on-the-spot prayer, “Dear God, count me in!”

I am continually reminded of the words to another favorite song of mine. I actually sang this song on the birth day of my 4th child back in 1987, sitting in a hospital rocking chair while holding him in my arms near his incubator:

If it weren’t for kids have you ever thought, there wouldn’t be no Santa Claus;
Or look what the stork just brought, thank God for kids?
And we’d all live in a quiet house without Big Bird or Mickey Mouse
And Kool Aid on the couch, thank God for kids.
Thank God for kids there’s magic for awhile, a special kind of sunshine in a smile.
Do you ever stop to think or wonder why the nearest thing to heaven is a child?

Cycling fully back to that opening inquiry about the existence of Mr. Claus, how did I reply? I used the Socratic method of answering a question with a question, “What do you think?” Upon learning of my son’s renewed faith in the reality of Jolly Old Saint Nick, this parent agreed and changed the subject. I must add that this is the same child who had stated previously at age five, “The next time God makes a world, I wish He would make Superman and Star Wars real!” The memories and rewards of parenting and teaching are endless.

The Handsomest Man Ever

No, this is not autobiographical. I woke up this morning with some thoughts about Adam, the first man. Genesis tells us absolutely nothing about his physical appearance. The fact that he wasn’t very bright or assertive comes out in the Eden tale; remember that paradise-lost story? But just how handsome was this first man? I think I have an imaginative clue about that.

Adam was made by the same Creator who manufactured (without tools or machines – just His bare hands) sunsets and roses and puppies and waterfalls and the northern lights…need I go on? So this greatest-of-all imaginers and designers produced a highly functional, somewhat symmetrical being from dirt (of all things) and named him Adam or man. Adam had to be the perfect, most handsome man of all others to follow in the history of the universe. All subsequent efforts, though unique, were sequels…and we all know sequels are seldom equal to the original. Except perhaps in some isolated cases such as Star Trek II, III, and IVas they all far outdistanced The original Motion Picture in their attempt to go where no Adam (or James Tiberius Kirk) had gone before.

That would make Adam the penultimate Adonis, handsomest male ego ever. I was recently reminded of this mythological narrative during my perusal of an old Robert Wagner, Peter Graves, and Richard Boone flick, Beneath the 12-mile Reef. This was a Romeo and Juliet type film about there not being any love-loss between a Greek and a Conch in the sponge-fishing industry. Wagner gets beaten up by Graves but wins the heart of the girl anyway – she was a pushover for a pretty, yet somewhat bruised face. During an early get-to-know-me scene, Wagner struts around like a peacock with feathers spread proclaiming himself to be the irresistible Adonis – a fitting reference to Greek mythology, since his character was a direct descendant. Just in case you avid, knuckle-biting, on-the-edge-of-your-chair readers may have forgotten about Adonis, here are the “facts” as I rediscovered them on the Internet:

Adonis was the handsome god of desire and good looks. For reasons I won't go into, A turned his mother Myrrha into a pregnant myrrh tree. When it split and the baby was revealed, Aphrodite was enchanted. "Oh, he's gorgeous. I'm saving him for later," she decided. So she put him in a box and checked him in at the Underworld Bank Vault under the care of Persephone, who took a quick peek and had the same thought. When Adonis grew old enough to be the gods’ gift to women, Persephone refused to hand him over. The case went to arbitration and Calliope was asked to bring about a settlement. Her final judgment was this: For four months of the year, he would live with Aphrodite. Then she must hand him over for four months with Persephone. For the remaining four months the choice was up to him. As Aphrodite was the first to find him, she had the first go. Using her girdle of desire, she declared that Adonis loved only her and Persephone could take a running jump. So Persephone took a running jump to Ares (who was very struck on Aphrodite himself) and said: "Your fancy woman has got herself a mortal lover, and you don't stand a chance; he's absolutely gorgeous!" Ares was furious and being of a boorish disposition changed himself into a boar and killed Adonis in a hunting accident. This resulted in much hair-pulling and scratching and shrieking on Olympus. Eventually Zeus decided it was time for a bit of peace. He declared that Adonis was not totally dead, but could spend six months with each of them. So now Aphrodite has him in the spring and summer, and he goes down to the Underworld for autumn and winter.

Now let’s return to those thrilling days of real yesteryear from the Genesis account. If Adam were extremely good looking, then anything from him would have to be of that semblance as well. That would make Cain, Abel, and Seth very handsome young men. We don’t know that for a fact…but I left the world of facts a long keying ago in this blog. Made from a rib of Adam and by the same Creator, Eve must’ve been a most beautiful woman – that’s Woe! Man! or perhaps Wow! Man! But either way she was a sight upon whom to look. Oops! Call a woman a vision, but never a sight. Eve was obviously a vision of loveliness.

Sitting beside my wife last night at the Trans South Conference basketball men’s semifinal game at Martin Methodist College (beat Cumberland, by the way and so are in the finals against Freed-Hardeman Tuesday night), I noticed for the gazillianth time in our 40+ years of marriage (sure gazillianth is a word even though my spellchecker doesn’t recognize it – I needed a huge number for what I was feeling) just how absolutely gorgeous Delores is. After all, she is a direct descendant of Eve – without the mindset to yield to every tempting serpent that happens to sing out to her from a tree. In fact my wife is not only the most outwardly attractive woman on the planet, she has the inward beauty as being after God’s own heart. King David from 1 Samuel was the only other human said in print to be “a man after God’s own heart.” Of course, with the most beautiful wife, you would only expect and accept the fact that our four children and at present seven grandchildren (that number is destined to increase in November) are also the most wonderfully and fearfully made in the galaxy.