Apr 27 2009

My Uncle Fred

Category: friendshipharmonicminer @ 7:55 pm

My Uncle Fred

My Uncle Fred passed away about 12 days ago, moving on to be reunited with his brothers, and best of all, with the Lord.  I wanted to tell you a bit about him, not in the way of a complete recounting of his life, but more along the lines of a personal appreciation.

He was an absolutely amazing classical tenor.  He could probably have had a career at the Met, or something similar, if he’d wanted that.  (He might have needed cosmetic surgery to make him look Italian.)  On the other hand, with all his amazing talent, and great success as a teacher of singing, he never quite managed to turn ME into a tenor…. or even a singer.  Nobody bats a thousand.

My Uncle Fred was a philosopher.  No, really.  Not somebody who sits around woolgathering, but someone who read what all the other woolgathers sat around thinking about, and then thought about that.  For a long time.  He was unusually adept at communicating to his philosophy students the fruit of the many generations of philosophers that he had studied.  Yet, he encouraged them to think for themselves, not to be intimidated by the weight of all those heavy thinkers, who certainly don’t seem to have been intimidated by each other.  He left his students believing there was always a chance that they might think a genuinely new thought, but that meant they’d have to learn what other people had already thought, so they’d know it when they saw it.

He was a theologian and pastor.  He was a skilled communicator from the pulpit, and a caring shepherd for his flock.  (I know, I’m writing too much about wool.)   Speaking from personal experience, he was an absolutely safe place to store confidences.  He genuinely loved people, all kinds of people, and saw them as opportunities to show his love for God, by loving them.

Uncle Fred was just enough of a politician to survive in the world of academia.  (Remember Henry Kissinger’s comment:  “University politics make me long for the simplicity of the Middle East.”)  When I was a young professor, and in some serious political hot water at my university, he was exactly the right combination of mentor, strategist, behind-the-scenes operative, therapist and (I suspect) rhetorical hitman, to help me keep my job.  But he loved teaching more than university politics, and when he had the chance, he moved out of higher education administration back to teaching, an exception to the Peter Principle if ever there was one.

He was quite the golfer, an avocation I never understood, and still don’t, though I hear he was very good.  I had a suspicion, for a time, that he imagined the faces of philosophers with whom he disagreed to be stenciled on the golf balls.  In retrospect, I now believe it more likely that he had in mind lazy students.  Or maybe he was just doing ballistic research.  Maybe he had fantasies of being a reincarnated Scottish king.  He seemed to know an awful lot of golf jokes. Thursday was golf day, and it didn’t really matter if the Big One finally shook southern California, or the Martians landed, or the president invited him for tea; golf is very important, you know.  And a man has to have some principles.

He was pretty interesting to watch in faculty meetings.  He’d sit and listen for a time, while the various perspectives on the trivial issues of the day were aired.  Then he’d clear his throat, an utterly characteristic gesture, a sort of announcement of pronouncements to come, and as the room fell silent (they knew what was coming), in a very few incisive sentences he’d explain what was wrong with all previous statements, all the while appearing to compliment the wisdom of those who’d made them.  Besides singing, this rhetorical tactic was the other thing he failed to teach me. Not for lack of trying.  But for me, it was like a person with a club foot watching a ballerina on a high wire.  If I was fast, sometimes I could knock him off the wire, but I could never do the dance.  I saw him literally end a few faculty meetings, working without a net, with no one having anything much left to say.

I’ve ended a few in my time too, but somehow it isn’t the same when the paramedics have come to save people who’ve slit their wrists.  Uncle Fred was definitely a man of words.  He used to say that I was too, but I suppose it’s possible that he may have meant something else.

For some reason, my Uncle Fred seemed to precede me in lots of places.  I recall being very proud, at the age of 18, of having started a jazz band in my undergraduate college, and then seeing a 25 year old photo, in an old college annual, of Fred Shackleton directing the Anderson College Band.  He played the trombone, too.  Nobody’s perfect.

Does it sound like my Uncle Fred was three or four people?  You don’t know the half of it.  I haven’t even mentioned much of his various accomplishments, speaking and conference invitations, publications (worship songs sung by hundreds of thousands or millions of people, scholarly work in theology/philosophy, popular and curricular work in ministry), honors he received, etc.  Actually, I used to wonder if he had a cape or something stowed away under his suit jacket.  But it is a fact that he was simply supremely gifted in a variety of ways, such that most people would be thrilled to have one of those gifts, let alone all of them.  And then he worked very hard in polishing those gifts, and using them in service.  In all of that, somehow he managed to encourage people to excel, to bring out the best in them, and tended to leave the lesser mortals in his life (that would be most folks) believing they had something unique to contribute, too.

The last time I saw him, he asked me to rub his ankle, which still hurt from a recently cleared up skin infection, and which was hard for him to reach.  So while we chatted about the old days, and I thought about how much he looked like my dad (who I knew was waiting for him across the great divide), I rubbed his ankle.

It was an honor.

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Sep 12 2008

“Birds Of A Feather Flock Together” / “A Man Is Known By The Company He Keeps”

Category: corruption,election 2008,friendship,Obama,politicsamuzikman @ 8:00 am

When I was about 11 years old I remember my parents telling me they had some serious reservations about my hanging out with a couple of guys from school who didn’t meet with their approval. At the time I took great offense, telling my folks their concerns were misplaced, and secretly harboring no small resentment against them for trying to tell me who I should and shouldn’t have for friends.

Not too long after that our family moved and I didn’t see those guys as much. I do remember one of the last times we were together I noticed they seemed to have developed quite a taste for finding ways to skip school and get high.

In retrospect my parents were absolutely right!

A few years later they were at it again, this time about a girl I was dating. Again I became indignant over their “meddling” and again, I had to admit to myself later they were right.

As a parent, and now officially on the “other”side of the hill, I see the same issue playing out in the lives of my own kids. And the perspective that comes from adulthood adds a dimension to this subject I didn’t have as a child. For now I realize the problem wasn’t necessarily who my friends were, it was the judgment, or lack thereof, I exhibited in making choices about who I would invite to be a part of my life.

Every parent breaths a sigh of relief when their kids make good choices about the friends they run with. And the two wise old sayings that serve as title to this blog have entered the American lexicon precisely because we know them to be true.

So, do we suspend this truth with candidates for the highest office in the land? Do Presidential candidates get a free pass on the company they keep? Or is the truth still the truth? William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khaladi, Louis Farrakhan, and Kwame Kilpatrick are all friends of Barack Obama. If Obama was my child I’d be worried. If Obama becomes president I’ll be afraid.

Here is more detail on the company Obama keeps.

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Aug 28 2008

On Friendship

Category: friendshipamuzikman @ 11:26 pm

I suppose it is a sign of getting older when one starts counting time in decades rather than years. And though we remain a largely youth-oriented culture I am getting old enough to realize how foolish young people are in their frequent disregard of the perspective available to them by those who have taken a few more laps around the sun. I was guilty of it as a youth and I hear my kids making comments that reflect the same silliness. They truly believe the internet, cell phones, video games and iPods did something to fundamentally change human nature. The landscape has indeed changed but the wild adventure through adolescence remains fundamentally the same E ticket ride (kids – look it up), dealing with the same struggles common to all who would enter adulthood.

One thing I have learned (and I wish I had realized a lot sooner) is how rare and precious are true friends. In college (a few decades ago), I could count my friends by the fist-full. But tested by time very few remain. And those few who do remain are not store-bought, just-add-water-and-stir, we-once-took-a-class-together friendships. No, I’m talking about life-long, self-sacrificing, shirt-off-your-back, storied, battle-tested, in-the-trenches friendships that have survived everything life could throw at them. No one I know has a surplus of those!

There are most certainly plenty of good reasons for this. Marriage, career, raising a family, moving, etc. all contribute to a shift in priorities and a necessary move into new seasons of life. The time a college-age student can spend hanging out with buddies is just no longer available when adult life intrudes. But there are those exceptions who manage to do whatever it takes to remain close. There are those few who will continue to go the extra mile or two to maintain a close friendship. And as the clock keeps ticking and the years fall away like so many autumn leaves, those true and close and dear friends become more rare than a Cubs World Series ring and more valuable than words can express.

Young people take friendships for granted. I wish they wouldn’t. But you really can’t explain to a young person that with age comes a certain melancholy, almost a loneliness. How sad it must be for those who have neglected to nurture those few real friends. They only get harder to find as the years fly by.

So here’s to you and a heart-felt “hail fellow well met”, Cody, Ernie, and Tim. True friends all. The rarest kind.

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Jul 05 2008

What Love Is, and Is Not: Celebrating a marriage

Category: love,marriageharmonicminer @ 12:00 pm

Yesterday, I watched my daughter marry a fine young man. So now, in addition to being a patriotic holiday and my mother’s birthday, July 4 is my daughter’s wedding anniversary.

I’m proud of the happy couple, and hope and pray the best for them, as well as the strength to weather times of trial and challenge. Part of the ceremony involved the pastor reading from the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 13, sometimes known as “the love chapter.” Among the portions he read were verses 4-7.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Sitting in the front row as father of the bride, I was close enough to clearly see the groom’s face, in a way not many could. As the pastor read, I realized that the husband-to-be was reciting the words with the pastor, very subtly, not making sounds, barely moving his lips, just enough so that I could see he knew the passage by heart. Even two rows back, I think I would not have known. I’m not even certain he knew his lips were moving, ever so slightly.

I think my daughter is very fortunate to have married a man who values these words enough to commit them to memory. It will probably not hurt any of us to remind ourselves of just how love behaves…. and how it doesn’t.

Congratulations and best wishes to the newlyweds!

Disneyland 4th of July fireworks

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