Beyond the Rainbow

Beyond the Rainbow                     

By John W. Vander Velden

Each day we are bombarded by the news of some awful thing happening to someone, somewhere.  But when tragedy enters the inner circle of our lives it brings dreadful darkness home.  None can escape pain and disappointments; even illness is part of life.  But when death marches sudden and unannounced in to our lives, the very foundations on which we stand seem shaken.  Life is tenuous.  It is a fact we know, and yet we place it somewhere in the back recesses of our minds.  But when someone close and dear is torn from us…. How difficult it is to face those realities. 

Tragedy comes and it comes sudden.  It tumbles over us like a great wave, pushing us off balance, leaving us confused and lost.  Some will say that faith is enough.  I say yes, in the end we will be righted when the wave has passed, but now, oh now, how will we face…the now… 

Loss is something very real.  Those that have dwelt within the bubble broken understand the very realness of it.  GOD comforts, but GOD does not eliminate the pain of our lives so drastically changed.  Loss is just that…a loss.  Something is GONE.  And if that something mattered…really mattered…then it is a big SOMETHING, and we will suffer at its missing from our lives.   

Yes, there are the promises.  On that we may rely.  But we face broken hopes and dreams, scattered as ashes on a cold winter’s wind.  And regrets, never to be resolved, fester within our own souls.  How do those most deeply touched go on?  How do the parents, siblings, and closest friends face tomorrow?  The world seems a bit darker.  Time moves a bit slower.  Someday, yes someday, we will learn to exist in this new reality…to live around the hole now ragged and ugly.  Someday we will understand…maybe just a part, but it will be enough. 

Beyond the rainbow we will be shown answers.  

Beyond the rainbow there are no tears...for pain cannot follow.  

Beyond the rainbow we will again hear the laughter we now miss…

Beyond the rainbow…   

On these things we rely…and it will be enough.

(367 Words)    6-22-2016/8-24-2020

Been Thinkin’ About…Fathers

Been Thinkin’ About…Fathers

 

By John W. Vander Velden                          

 

It would seem suitable that June would be a time to think about fathers.  With the holiday approaching my mind has moved in that direction lately.  For most of us Father’s day takes our thoughts to our own fathers…and that’s good.  It is good to think outside of ourselves.  It is good to remember our dads.  Those of us that are fortunate to have had fathers worth remembering in any case.  I was.  But growing up television programs were filled with fathers.  Father Knows Best, Make Room for Daddy, and hundreds of other programs that showed families headed by strong good nearly perfect men. Though there is no “reality” on television…never was…these “characters” did often revel noble attributes.  But they could never be a true measuring stick for men facing the real challenges of real life.  I hope none of us measured our dads against these actors moving about in perfectly manufactured scenes. 

But lately my mind has focused on another father…me.  I wonder, constantly, how do I measure up?  Being a father was always part of my life’s plan.  I’m big on plans…too big.  As I look back I understand that I stepped into the role even before my son arrived.  Now twenty-two years later, I’m still at the job.  There’s no retirement plan folks.  Yet I wonder.  How did I measure up?  For so many years, work’s obligations stole moments my son rightly deserved.  Was I there when I needed to be?  Did I have enough energy to give?  Was I always fair?  Life in our home was different.  I believe each home is a unique environment.  But did I give enough, not things but of myself?

People see my son and tell me I’ve been a good father, as if I could have forced him to become the fine young person he has become.  I remind them that the jury’s still out on that.  I’m not certain that even Nick will have the platform to judge my success, and his character can not be the measure of my inputs alone.  I had a lot of help.  His father might be responsible for his height but perhaps little else.  You see everything about “fathering” was new to me.  Each challenge a first time thing.  It was kinda’ like traveling an “unknown country” with so many events coming and me feeling so unprepared and wondering if I handled them best. 

As I consider Father’s Day and my actions as a father, perhaps it would be wisest to dwell less on what I consider successes and failures, and just trust my heart and continue on…continuing on.  To understand that I am flawed and it is unreasonable to expect perfection in all of my actions.  To trust that love will guide when I stumble along wondering what is best.  To just be…and not second-guess…the best father I can be at the moment…each moment…every moment…and accept that I will be good enough.

So another Father’s Day approaches and I think about my father and the grandfathers I never knew and all those male ancestors to the beginning of time.  I think about effort and sacrifice.  I know that they too had moments of self-doubt.  But I am grateful…so very grateful for them all.  I think about my son.  I wonder if one day he too will make the conscious choice to join the ranks of fatherhood.  Yes, on Sunday, gifts will be exchanged and words spoken and that’s nice too…but…I’ve been thinking about fathers and what being a father really means….

 

(596 Words)    6-10-2016

 

Pressure!

Pressure!

By John W. Vander Velden

Elliot’s mouth fell open when he first saw his wife.  Blinking, he suggested they go outside for a breath of air.  She seemed slightly underinflated.

To Be a Mirror

To Be a Mirror

By John W. Vander Velden

 

During my school years I loved physical science.  Perhaps I have always been fascinated with how things work…and science tries to explain that.  I had a wonderful science teacher in 8^th grade.  He pushed me.  Some might not appreciate a teacher that expected a bit more, but I thrived.

It was in his class that I gave one of my first science reports.  My subject, light, was broad and required much work to prepare.  But part of that report dealt with light’s reflection.  If light could not be reflected we would not be able to see.  For the light that comes to our eyes, revealing landscapes, flowers, beautiful face of my beloved, and nearly everything else we see, is reflected.

But when we think of reflecting light we think of shinny surfaces, we think of mirrors.  There are mirrors that make things appear larger, concave mirrors.  There are mirrors that make things smaller, like that odd mirror on the right side of our automobile, convex mirrors.  And there are those funhouse panes that are a blend of both convex and concave that shift and change our appearance.  But by and large most of our mirrors, be they in our bathroom or perched upon our dresser, are flat reflective glass that gives the most accurate, though reversed, view.

But mirrors do more for me than just reveal the spot I missed while shaving.  They can be used to see around corners.  They can make a space appear larger.  They can focus light into a dark corner.  You see mirrors bounce light, and that’s impressive.

It seems to me there are two types of “things”, those that capture and those that reflect.  And that distinction is not limited to light.  So what has this to do with us…you and me?  I believe that we have control over which of those two things we are at any given moment.  We can absorb…take everything good and bad inside, to capture, to hold, to possess.  Or we can chose to me more like a mirror, to understand that the good things we have been given, comes from outside ourselves. To see that we have been showered by good and even bad, but in ways beyond our control.  It is for us to “deal with it”, and the mirror-like deal with it differently than the absorber.

I see love as the light that fills the universe.  There is enough love to go around.  Yet there are those that feel the need to hoard love’s light, to be the black velvet drop cloth grasping and holding every ray of love that dares to come near.  Desperate, they fear to be shortchanged.  The world around them is colder as the murkiness of a space that surrounds a Black Hole.  But those that reflect God’s love light, shine sparkling bright, their love, reflected, warm others nearby.

It is my hope that I, at least most of the time, am a reflector.  And my wish for you…is to be a mirror.            (505 Words)