The lower story of the house I grew up in was bricked and the upper story was clad with aluminum siding. The trim was wood and had to be painted every few years. Mine was a do-it-yourself family, so I learned to paint as a boy.
When you are working from an extension ladder on the second-story trim, being efficient is important, but my father put a lot of emphasis on using all the paint in the bucket before getting more. He taught me that Denham men don’t waste paint or anything else for that matter.
I understood that it was important to use all the paint in the bucket and to never throw away any scrap that might one day be useful. Though such words were never said, I am afraid I understood, “I will love you if you use all the paint in the bucket.” And I am afraid that I understood, “I don’t love you now, but I will love you if you do what I say. I will love you if you please me.”
My father and I were never close, but I think he loved me. He told me that he loved me once when I was 18 years old, but there was always distance in our relationship. And my father seemed awkward with me in ways I never noticed in him with others.
Awkward or not, he made an impression on me.
I wore a beat up pair of white Chuck Taylor All Stars when exercising for the past several years. They were severely worn on the toe box from baby crawling. The canvas was stained and the shoestrings were too long and had to be tied carefully to keep them off the ground. The treads were worn. The left shoe was close to wearing a hole through to the lining. My plan was to keep wearing the shoes until the left sole actually made a hole.
During my recent 8-day retreat at Ignatius House, our teacher talked about the subtle conditioning that children get from parents, teachers, and the church that lead them to make certain choices and do things automatically later in life. It dawned on me that wearing those Chuck Taylors until they made a hole into the lining was an expression of what I learned from my father as a boy – Use all the paint. Never throw away a scrap that might one day be useful.
My father died more than a year ago at age 93 and I was still trying to secure his love by wearing worn out shoes.
We learned things as children and even as adults that should not be applied automatically to situations we face today. How long I wear a pair of shoes is not especially important, but how I treat my wife is and my father was not a good role model in that department. There are ways I behave with people that are automatic and unconscious. Not all of it is bad, but I want to replace automatic and unconscious with behavior that is conscious and purposeful.
The three elements of awareness that we practiced all week on my retreat were 1) being present, 2) observing, and 3) suspending evaluation or judgment. Being present means paying attention to what is happening now, not automatically applying lessons from the past. Observing means seeing what is really happening now, not blending what is happening now with something that happened in the past and responding to the present in terms of a lesson learned in a different situation with different people at another time.
My white Chuck Taylors went in the garbage. Since getting back from the retreat I’ve been wearing new red Chuck Taylors to exercise. They are much more comfortable. The white ones were too tight and should have been replaced a long time ago.
Recent Comments