ARE PARENTS AND CHILDREN 'FRIENDS'?

  Should parents expect their adult children to stay emotionally close to them?

Taylor Caldwell wrote “Great Lion of God,” a novel about the Apostle Paul. In that fictional tale, Paul’s father, Hillel, talks with Gamaliel, a revered Jewish teacher:  

“Then our children are strangers to us?” said Hillel in the exhausted voice of grief.

“Almost invariably,” said Gamaliel. “Wise is that father that knows that from the beginning… Let him cultivate his son’s friendship, as he would cultivate the friendship of a stranger… for what man can be a friend to another if the sympathy is not there…? I do not deny a father’s love. But a son’s love is a vagrant thing… A man must not seek to compel his son to love him… He must only demand respect and honor, and in the end they may be of more value.”

I sent that question and Gamaliel’s “advice” to friends who commented:   
  “I think we have a parent-child relationship when children are young but a friend-friend relationship when they mature,” a mother of three adult children said. 

I wrote to her, saying, “Parents always will have parent-child relationships with their children. We may imagine friend-friend relationships with our children, but I doubt that’s possible. Is the friend-friend thing part of our wishful society? Some parents relate well with their children, but there will always ‘be’ the parent factor.”

Chuck wrote, “I think your response is spot-on. It sounds like a current-society idea to become friend-friend instead of always ‘loving parent-child.’”

A retired teacher said, “I totally agree with you, Steve. A parent is a parent, first and foremost… I have seen parents who ‘think’ they and their children are ‘friends,’ but that is not what God intended the relationship to be. The Bible, to my knowledge, says nothing concerning a ‘friend’ relationship [with one’s children]… You can be a friend to your child, but you are ultimately the parent, and they are the children.”   

A mother said, “‘Honor your father and mother – which is the first commandment with a promise – that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth’” (Ephesians 6:2-3). 

Buddy Bowman, a retired public school teacher and coach wrote about his childhood in a “mill village” in S.C.: “It [the parent-child relationship] is a subject that could bring about a wide variety of opinions, depending on the parent-child relationship in the early stages. I remember friends who spoke of their fathers in a disrespectful fashion. It angered me, because I believed their behavior to be disgraceful, as I knew their fathers to be hard-working men who did what they could for their families, with limited income. My remark was that they (their fathers) were better in their roles than my friends were as sons. Their mothers seemed to have their respect, but not their fathers. My respect for both of my parents grew even more as I learned of their sacrifices. Today, as I drive down the road, I ask God's forgiveness for my sins of omission, regarding both of my parents. They were better parents than I was a son, and I still regret that.”

SYMPATHIES TO A GRIEVING FAMILY

   Sympathies go to Mrs. Ann Burrows, wife of Pastor Raymond D. Burrows (of Faith Temple Church, Taylors, SC), on the passing of her mother, Mrs. Vivian Butler. Sympathies also go to Mr. Bill Butler, husband of Mrs. Vivian, and to their children and mates and to extended family.

The loss of a mother’s support, guidance, and love can leave an emptiness and pain that might seem impossible to heal, even if her death was expected, someone said.  

Research shows the most common age range for losing a parent is 50 to 54 years old. 

I was almost 42 when my mother, Eva Fowler Crain, died at age 67. Mother contracted breast cancer at least seven years before it advanced to her bones. My family (Carol, Janelle, Suzanne, and I) lived in Kernersville, NC, when we visited Dad and Mom (J.B. and Eva Crain) in Greer, SC, in Feb. 1989. Mother, mustering her strength, sang an early “Happy Birthday” to Janelle. We drove back to NC; Dad soon called; he was at the hospital with Mom. Over the phone, I heard Mother’s “death rattle.” She died a day after Janelle’s 16th birthday. Mom’s funeral was at Faith Temple, burial in Hillcrest Memorial Gardens. Dad had a heart attack and died about fourmonths later.

After Mother’s death, Carol left the kitchen and found me as I worked in our garage in NC. 

“You haven’t cried much since your mother died,” Carol said, with a questioning sound in her voice. 

“I’m afraid if I start, I won’t stop,” I said, feeling moisture in my eyes.

“Grief is the price of love,” someone said.

Mrs. Ann demonstrated her love for her mother and her family by caring for them “above and beyond the call of duty.” She is going to grieve.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted,” Jesus said (Matt. 5:4).  

In ancient Israel, folk were expressive. A loved one was usually buried on the day they died. A burial was “followed by a funeral procession and a 30-day mourning period with loud wailing and dramatic displays of grief,” someone said.

Jesus received word that Lazarus was sick in Bethany, the town of his sisters Mary and Martha.

The Mary mentioned is the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent to Jesus, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is sick.”

Jesus delayed going to Lazarus. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead four days.

Mary met Jesus and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping that came with her, he groaned in the spirit, was troubled, and said, “Where have ye laid him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.”

Then “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

That verse, “Jesus wept,” is the shortest verse in the Bible. It says a lot about Jesus, who comforts us with this message: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).

CHILDREN LEARN ABOUT THIS UNFAIR WORLD

  Children learn how the world works — in their little corners of the world, and beyond.

As a pre-schooler, I lived in a white-shingled house on a 13-acre “farm” on rural Groce Meadow Road, Taylors, SC. Dad was a World War II Army combat veteran who worked at Southern Bleachery. Mother, who had sewed sheets in a mill, stayed home during my early years. Sister Shirley came along three years behind me. I was blessed to be born into a Christian home. We attended Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church.

Poor people and not-so-poor people attended our church. My late Uncle Fred, who was raised on a farm, worked in textiles at Southern Bleachery, too. He said people who worked in “the mill” could afford to buy pre-made cigarettes but other folk had to “roll their own.” Of course, Uncle didn’t smoke. He attended our church, and our church didn’t approve of smoking, much less drinking. That was why we had “holiness” in our church name, I thought back then. 

I began to realize that some people were nice and others not-so-nice by hearing adults talk. I learned that God loved all people — “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.” We used to sing that song in Sunday School. Forming ideas of the kind of world I’d been born into, I saw people of different colors — they were referred to as “colored people” in the 1950s.  

Ma and Pa Crain — that’s what I called my dad’s parents — often took me to Greenville on their Saturday “milk and butter route.” Ma wanted to be called “Ma” instead of grandma because “grandma” sounded old, she said. Ma sold milk and butter to city-folk wanting straight-from-the-cow products. In Greenville, I’d see all kinds of folk. A few “colored people” in the city appeared fairly well-to-do. Of course, there was the poor fellow on Main St. He had no legs and sold pencils for donations. He sat flat on the sidewalk with his back against a stone-walled building. His black hands held a cane, but I wondered how he used that cane, with him having no legs. I can still see an image of him in my mind. 

When I started first grade at Mt. View School, I rode the bus. On that long, round-about trip to school, I saw the houses children lived in, and I couldn’t help but make judgments about how poor or rich they were. A few lived in brick homes, most in shingled-houses, and some in run-down plank abodes. Mobile homes weren’t on the scene in those days, as I recall.

By age six, I knew people who were affected by poverty, race, handicaps, mental problems, and moral failings. I came to believe that Jesus can give eternal life and save us from this fallen world and accepted Him when I was six years old. I also came to believe this: No parent can keep children from learning about the unfair world into which they’ve been born.

POSTMODERNISM ... YOUR TRUTH, MY TRUTH, or GOD'S TRUTH?

  Have you heard someone say, “You have your truth, but I have my truth”?

“To challenge anyone’s ‘truth’ now causes personal offense and seems to be a definite ‘no-no’ in society. How did we ever get to such a point… that no-one is ever wrong anymore because everyone is right?” asks Goodnewsunlimited.com. 

When a person says “That’s my truth” and another person presents a different view and says “Well, here’s MY truth,” are those people upset with each other? 

Maybe not. If they are Postmodernists, they can still be friends because it will not matter to them that they hold conflicting beliefs. They probably believe a person cannot know something for sure — that all ideas and facts are “believed” instead of “known,” as someone said.

Postmodernists deny Christ’s claim to be the truth, the life, and the way. Today, Christianity is ridiculed as arrogant or intolerant by those who say Christ is not the “only way.” They say there are many paths to heaven

What is “Postmodernism”?

“Post” means “after,” so Postmodernism is “after” (occurs later than) Modernism.

So, first, what is “Modernism”?

“Modernism can describe thought, behavior, or values that reflect current times,” the internet says.

The First World War and the Russian Revolution (1917) led to a belief that the human condition could be healed by new approaches, sources say. This led to the Modernist movement. At the core of Modernism lay the idea that the world had to be rethought, sources say. Many preachers knew Modernism attacked the Bible and old-fashioned moral beliefs based on the Bible.  

“Postmodernism is best understood as a questioning of the ideas and values associated with a form of modernism that believes in progress and innovation,” someone said.

Postmodernism considers Modernism outdated and holds that there are no universal religious truths or laws. It proposes that “reality” depends on the situation you are in. For Postmodernists, every society is in a state of constant change; there are no absolute values, only relative ones; nor are there any absolute truths, sources say.

How does Postmodernism view God?

Postmodernists tend to think more about God being everywhere and in everyone — if God exists, they might add.

“Many Christian young people evidence post-modern thinking, which redefines truth as being whatever a person wants it to be. The effects are devastating to morals and lifestyle because these young people do not have the absolutes found in God or His Word to influence their living or behavior,” answersingenesis.org says.

Someone said, “Rather than seeking my truth, or even to understand ‘your truth,’ shouldn’t we make our first priority to discover God’s truth? We will only ever find it in relationship with Jesus.”

“God’s truth is the fixed point of reality, the source of all truth. Truth originates in the very being of God… Every word he speaks, every decision he makes, and everything he does is truth. It is fully and absolutely true,” goodnewsunlimited.com says.

VISITING ELLIJAY, GEORGIA, AND REMEMBERING OLD TIMES

  For four years, Barbara and I have stayed home: first there was COVID-19 when we married. Reba and Scott Turner, Barbara’s daughter and son-in-law, offered us a stay at a time-share in the mountains for our honeymoon, but we didn’t venture out amongst COVID-carrying folk.

Then, Barbara’s dog, Coco (part Lab, part Great Dane?), was our reason for not traveling — she had to walk him every day and no one was able to look after him. A commercial kennel was not an option. So, we just didn’t go anywhere overnight. 

Coco died recently as an old dog. He’s buried at the edge of Barbara’s property.

Last Monday, I thought, “Why don’t we ride to Ellijay, GA? That’s where in the early 1990s I spent time on carpet-printing with Courier, Blue Ridge Carpet’s printing operation. My family moved to Southern Pines, NC, in 1989, after moving to Kernersville, NC, in 1988. I worked in Southern Pines for JPS Carpet (renamed Gulistan Carpet as we separated from JPS Carpet). I traveled to and worked at Courier on projects for JPS Carpet. 

I tried to think of things we’d have to take to spend two nights in Ellijay, GA. Barbara’s a good packer. We planned to leave on Wednesday morning. 

I made reservations at the Best Western Motel in East Ellijay. Ellijay and East Ellijay are separate. I hear that East Ellijay brings in 70 percent of the revenue for Gilmer County, where those two towns are — really, they are part of the same town-area. That motel is on top of a high place with a good view! 

The weather was misty when we left him around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. We did all right on curvy mountain roads, as we didn’t go down I-85 and up through Gainesville, GA. We drove north and then west across Hwy. 76, the more mountainous trek. 

Ellijay appeared pretty much the same but natives say it’s changed a lot. I took Barbara to see the center of town and its courthouse. Took her to see the Courier Plant, now closed and under construction for a high-class camping outfit, someone said. I showed her Poole’s Barbecue, where I ate, years ago. 

I called Tony Holloway who worked in Courier’s dye house in the ’90s. I called Charles and Cheryl Barkley but couldn’t leave a message. Charles worked for Courier, too. Tony messaged back, and I called him. We arranged to meet with him and his wife on Thursday. 

That night, around 1:00 a.m., I messaged Tony, saying I’d have to cancel our eating. The reason: I forgot to pack my needed nightly pills. So, next morning, we packed and arrived home by a little after noon. We had traveled 394 miles. That was all, and that included motoring around Ellijay.

After arriving home, Charles Barkey called. He had not responded because my cell phone still identifies as “Aberdeen, NC.” He thought I was someone he casually talks to when he wants to, so he didn’t return my call while I was in Ellijay. 

We enjoyed our time away from home, even though I forgot my pills.

   Copied: Ellijay (sometimes formerly spelled "Elejoy") is the anglicized form or transliteration of the Cherokee name Elatseyi, meaning "new ground.” Other sources say it means "green place.” Gilmer County was organized by territory cut from Cherokee County in 1832, and Ellijay was designated as its county seat in 1834.

BARBERSHOP CONVERSATION WITH 89-YEAR OLD

  Clipped hair fell at Greg’s Barber Shop in Taylors, SC, on a recent afternoon. Greg and Brian snipped, buzzed, and “lowered ears” as I waited for Brian to “give me a trim.” An elderly gentleman with a cane entered the shop. He could have sat further away but chose the seat beside me. 

“How are you doing?” I said.

“Oh, very well,” he said cheerfully.

We sat in silence. Soon, feeling I should strike up a conversation, I said, “I’m Steve,” and held out my hand to shake his.  His name was Bill.

If I’d given my last name, he might have offered his. The trend seems to be this: offer first names and avoid giving last names. Perhaps that’s a way of seeming friendly while remaining mostly anonymous.

At the moment, no conversations flowed among the eight men (six customers and two barbers). I felt our talking would be overheard by the other guys. I was a bit self-conscious, but we talked normally, and Bill seemed to hear well. The men around us either listened or were occupied with their own thoughts. 

Bill, 89, had driven a truck for a living. He and his family had lived near Harrisburg, PA. I shared that my first wife, the late Carol Williamson Crain, had grown up around Washington, Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh.

“Growing up, me and my brother worked on a farm,” Bill said. “200 acres of cabbage; 200 acres of potatoes. Lots of bending over.” 

Bill’s father worked in the coal mines.

“He was the guy who drilled holes for the dynamite,” he said. “He got lung trouble from breathing in the mines and died at 47. Smothered to death.”

“Did he tell you and your brother not to work in the mines?” I said.

“No, but we didn’t,” Bill said. “I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for 25 years. My brother smoked too and died of cancer at age 54. One night, I told my wife I was going to quit smoking. She laughed at me because she’d heard it before. I told her I was going to smoke all the cigarettes I had that night and then I was going to quit. That evening, I smoked every cigarette I had — stayed up till 3:30 a.m., and then quit. That was it. I really did quit.”

“What caused you to want to stop smoking,” I said.

“I got saved,” he said.

“That’s wonderful,” I said. “How long have you lived in the South?”

“Twenty years.” 

“What occasioned you to move south?”

“I retired, and my son-in-law worked at Bob Jones University, so we moved down here. My wife went to work in the university bookstore.”

“I majored in art education at Bob Jones University,” I said.

“Next,” Brian said. 

I rose and climbed into Brian’s chair. In a few minutes, Greg was trimming Bill’s hair. I enjoyed talking with Bill, and he seemed glad to tell me about his life.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Pro. 27:17).

MARRIAGE IS IMPORTANT

   Carol, my late wife who was born in 1947, was the only child in her first-grade class from, as she called it, a “broken home.” I believe Carol wrestled with missing her father until she died in January 2019.

“Our culture needs more messages about the importance of marriage,” according to The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation. “Unwed childbearing is the norm in many communities, and nearly half of all children in the United States spend at least a part of their childhood in a non-intact family.”

Carol once attended a Furman University education class after teaching elementary school for years. A lady student commented to the class that she and her husband divorced the previous year and she thought their young son “was about over it.” Carol, whose mother divorced Carol’s father when Carol was two, waited till class ended and told the lady, “You never get over it.”  

“A supportive marriage is one of the greatest blessings in life, yet popular opinion on marriage has declined,” writes Matthew Little, health editor for The Epoch News, in an article titled “‘Til a Delayed Death Do Us Part.”

“Modern film, television, and music seem to obsess over casual romantic encounters, but as people lose sight of the value of marriage, suffering increases,” Little says. 

Psychologist Gad Saad says the most critical elements of a strong marriage are shared values and beliefs. 

Researchers confirm that certain traditions play a role in marriage health, such as not living together before committing to marriage. Timothy S. Goeglein, vice president of Focus on the Family, notes that people today seek to cohabitate before marriage as a way of test-driving the relationship but this approach doesn’t grant assurance as much as it weakens commitment.  

“It’s faith that provides the perseverance to keep a marriage together when troubles arise,” Goeglein says.

What does the Bible say about marriage?

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18) 

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

“And he [Jesus] answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

“And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?   “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4-6).

ISRAEL IS NOT FORGOTTEN, DISPENSATIONALISTS SAY

I hope Christians are praying for the Jewish people, especially after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. I do not think God is through with Israel, though some say God is done with his “chosen people” and the Church has “become” (taken the place of) Israel.  

As a teenager in the 1960s at Faith Temple Church, Taylors, SC, I was taught that God restored Israel to her homeland in 1948 and though, now, most Jews do not trust in Jesus, many of them will believe (someday) in Jesus as Savior. “The modern State of Israel is an ongoing fulfillment of biblical prophecy,” someone said.

President Ronald Reagan said, “I read in the Old Testament that God will gather the Israelis in the land of return. This has finally happened after almost two thousand years and for the first time everything is ready for the final battle and the return of Christ.” 

I was taught the “Dispensational Premillennialist” (DP) view that says a “rapture” is coming that will remove the Church from the world, followed by a 7-year Great Tribulation. After the rapture (in DP interpretation), Israel will be the main focus of God’s plan on earth once again and many Jews will come to Christ through the 7-year Great Tribulation, fulfilling God’s covenant with Abraham.

In the DP view, “Israel is still the ‘chosen’ people, though they will not return to this status in the world until after the rapture of the Church,” sources say. Meanwhile, the 1948 creation of the State of Israel fulfills prophecy and helps God keep his promises to the nation of Israel.” Some believe the Jews’ role as God’s “chosen” people is still valid despite their sins and rejection of Christ. DP Christians expect God to renew his covenant with the Jews in the Great Tribulation following the rapture of the Church.

Other Christians hold to "Covenant Theology" (CT). They largely believe God “chose” Israel as the people through whom to reveal himself, his Word, and his Son to the world. They hold that Jesus’ followers, including believing Jews and believing Gentiles, are the “new Israel.” That is often called “replacement theology.” (Some Covenant Theology Christians, however, believe that God continues to use the Jewish people in unique ways in the world, sources say.)

DP Christians believe the Bible should be interpreted literally and believe in a distinction between the Church and Israel. CT’s “replacement theology” basically teaches that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan and God does not have specific plans for the nation of Israel.

Israel has been set aside in God’s program over the past 2,000 years, but has God forgotten that nation? St. Paul said, “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid” (Romans 11:1).