Like a Brother (part 2)

Today's post is the conclusion of yesterday's post, "Like a Brother."

---

When Jack was born I began to seriously ponder my relationships with my brothers. How did we get to where we are? What did I do in my relationships with each of them to get us here? How can I as a father create a situation for my boys to grow up together? How might what I do as a father create exactly the opposite effect?

It’s a big idea. How do I raise my boys to regard each other as collegues? Co-workers? Life partners?

Yesterday, they were playing with a matchbox car set. Tigger (#1 and currently the Alpha) was dominating and excluding his little brother, Jack. And Jack wasn’t gonna take it lying down.

At first I was tempted to just stick them both in chairs and lecture them about “sharing” and “loving your neighbor.” I want to instill in them the words of Jesus- Jesus says the most important thing is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.” So that’s sounds pretty important. But then Jesus said that “loving your neighbor like yourself” is like loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. So that phrase gets repeated many times. “Loving the Lord your God is like loving your neighbor.” Because you can’t love a Creator and hate what He creates. The created is an extension of the Creator.

But that’s not what I did. Not this time.

I’m considering a different angle. When I tell the boys that loving their neighbor is like loving God, it’s true. But I wonder if the focus is too lateral. I wonder if that focus keeps them on a track of brother and brother? I think the thing that will hold them together most tightly is if I turn their gazes onto Jesus directly.

I sat them down in front of me and told them to put their cars down. Then I pulled out my little bible and read from the Gospel according to Matthew.

“Do not worry about what your will eat, or what you will wear.” I read them the whole story—“see the lilies? Even Solomon in all his splendor was not dressed as these…”

And finally, “He knows what you need.”

I told the boys that the toys and good things they knew were gifts of God’s generosity. I told them that the money they received to buy the toys that they had was a gift of their grandparents generosity. That generosity provided them with everything they had.

Therefore they had no entitlement to anything except the obligation to show that same generosity to each other. Jesus is generous to us. So the only choice we have is to likewise show generosity.

My hope here is simple. Too much of our satisfaction is found in our relationship to our brothers in the world. We are defined by those things, and measure ourselves by those things. I struggle now, as an adult to measure myself well. As I grow, the Spirit informs me that I must look to Jesus for that. Not to the world. And Jesus says that I am to come and relieve myself of that burden. That he will take it, and replace it with a light burden of grace.

And so begins an era, I hope, where rather than tell the boys how to treat each other, show them how they are responding to Jesus with their actions. And hopefully, the grace Jesus has shown me- the grace he will and does show my boys- will be the grace with which the 3 of us show each other. God knows it smooths over a lot of typically human behavior. Like hoarding, aggression, and spite. Like hurt feelings, the feeling of not measuring up like the other, or of not pleasing like the other. Of being forgotten, or even scorned.

Maybe that grace will shape another generation of Covingtons. I hope I live to see.

Like a Brother (part I)

I have 3 brothers. 2 older, and one younger. My relationship with each of them is more than unique. It’s flat out different.

I have regrets of course. The real killer is that I have the opportunity to affect all of those relationships- but I don’t. Maybe it’s fear. More likely it’s laziness. Maybe it’s a combination of things. All I know is that I desperately want my 2 sons to have a better life together with their brothers than I have had thus far with mine.

I love all of my brothers. There are aspects of each of them that I cherish. My oldest is also a Christ follower. He has faithfully raised a generation of believers, and he has been a model of submission to Christ for the length of my life. He and his wife continue to bless me and mine inspite of my distance. He’s an amazing songwriter. And a jack of all trades. He’s a picture of commitment, holding firm to principals of stewardship that are far-reaching and broad.

30 years ago, he and his wife designed the floor plan for their house. The values designed into that house include stewardship of the sun’s heat to warm the flags of their living room. The rooms are small, and the house meets their needs, and not much more. He and my next older brother built the house together, over a period of years.

He and his wife home-schooled their two children, and probably faced a great deal of skepticism while doing it. They have over the years counted righteousness and obedience to God greater and more profitable than wealth or even stability in a society that measures success and happiness with dollar signs and years in position.

Both of his children cherish and uphold their relationships with their parents. As their parents, not simply as grandparents to their children.

So why don’t we ever talk?

---

My next oldest brother- he’s an altogether beautiful man. During my growing up years he was home every summer, at least for a little while. He has a beautiful voice in my ears, and I love listening to him talk. His laugh is really a chuckle that can turn to characteristically “Covington” hack/chuckle. He and his older brother sound a LOT like each other, especially when they get to that hack/le.

He is full of integrity. Sort of a weird picture when you think of it. You see, “integrity” has come to mean “ethical” but really what it is is wholeness. He is very deliberate. Of course, they both are, so don’t misunderstand me. But a big part of who I am now was formed by my awareness of his wholeness with himself. And how that made him utterly trustworthy to me.

He is a lonely person, I think. He’s loved, but he strikes me as somebody who is sort of alien to society. He prefers solitude. He’s always been a bride to the earth he lives with, committed like a lover. He used to ride his bike on long tours. He would climb rock faces and glacier’s breath was like deep sleep rest. He would fish the dangerous oceans of the Alaskan coast to sustain his flying expeditions. He took my paragliding once. I expected it to be loud- like sticking your head out of a car window on the interstate- but it was utterly quiet. He talked to me while we flew, his head right behind mine. It was like he was talking right into the side of my brain. He too loves to build things.

When we are together it usually means late nights, and long talks. When we part it’s always promises and promises.

But we probably talk 2, maybe 3 times a year.

---

Then there’s my youngest brother. We grew up literally side by side. Ask either of us and we’ll both tell you that we couldn’t be more dissimilar. But that’s probably not altogether true. We’re both fiercely loyal people. We both harbor creativity- or at least the ambition to creativity. We’re both nighthawks (though I’m a reformed night-hawk. It’s customary for me to go to bed early- but that’s an easy habit for me to break given the occasion).

We don’t share a lot in the way of interests. He’s a huge movie buff. Name it, he’s watched it. Likely is you watched it while he was in the projection booth setting up the films.

He’s a performer, and very gregarious. A total freakin ham. So am I. But he is so only in front of a few people. So am I. He has a very carefully constructed image. It appears to be completely the opposite. Me too. We both grew up in the shadow of death waiting for our dad to die, suddenly and tragically. It didn’t happen that way, but we both lived I think in that pallor of fear.

He stayed home though, while I left. And he was the one who called everybody home when it was actually time for Dad to die.

And we were together, with Dad, and with brother #2, when he did. Somehow our triangle of relationships changed. I don’t know how. I’m sure that part of it was that that evening, when Dad died, each of US changed in some way. We each had to face the fear that we’d been hiding from for most of our lives. And facing that fear changed not just who we were individually, but how we were together.

Thing is, he is almost totally isolated from the rest of us.

---(more to come)