What my Father Gave Me

My father and I really do not have much in common. It used to bother me, but not as much anymore. We are different people with different experiences. My father grew up in a blue collar family, and began working in a local meat market at a young age. He served in Vietnam, came home and got married. He started a family and needed to pay the bills, so he began working. Going to school may have been an option, but not a very good one. He worked hard to support his family, buy us some toys, pay for Christian school tuition, and he took us to the occasional movie.

My dad liked action movies, James Bond, war flicks, etc…but he also liked science fiction. I remember staying up late on Saturday nights…until midnight!...watching Dr. Who. He took us to see the original Superman movies, and I will never forget going to The Return of the Jedi. Never mind the critics…I was a kid, and I was mesmerized. Blown away. Inspired. I became a Star Wars nut, collecting as many of the action figures as I could, recreating the battles between the Imperial forces and the Rebels. I also was hooked on superheros. Superman, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk – you name the hero, and I was into them. (Except for Batman…he really didn’t have any cool super powers.)

Whether he knew it or not, my father had given me a gift. Imagination. I would get caught up into entirely different worlds, where good battled against the forces of evil. Where there was more to the world then met the eye…there was something beyond the way things were. There were other forces at work in the world…forces from other dimensions, other places.

I still get caught up into these worlds. I love the Lord of the Rings, the new Spiderman films (although I was disappointed with the third one), and I can’t wait to read the Chronicles of Narnia to my kids. But the influence these things had upon me goes much deeper then entertainment. I am a teacher, and for 9 months I stand in front of 18-23 year old young men and women and share ideas. To be a teacher, from my perspective, is to be a story teller. We take all kinds of narratives...historical, scientific, social, theological - and try to help young people understand them, and find the meaning and purpose in them. To teach from a Christian perspective, means we cast visions. We speak of the hope that the way the world is - the violence, oppression, and suffering - is not the way it always will be. We speak of incarnation, of resurrection, of the new heavens and the new earth...and this takes imagination. C.S. Lewis feared that the modern educational system would produce "men with no chests"...people with no heart...no imagination. I am thankful that I did not need to rely on an educational system to open my mind to think grand thoughts. Imagination is a gift my father has unknowingly given to me, and I am forever grateful.