We meander through different topics - especially rolling through the many old friends he has met over the weekend.
When we come to one name, Dad digresses. He tells how this person's older brother Harold Sutle had come to Akola when Dad was a 16 year old boy. Harold was arranging meetings for the evangelist bro Akbar Haqq. During these evangelistic meetings Dad had 'gone forward' for the first time and committed himself to Christ.
Now how is it that I never heard this story before? 41 years are over in my life - of which a good 35 or so I can remember - but we never crossed this path in our conversations. Dad is if
anything always very open about his faith and I have heard many a tale of his spiritual growth. Yet this piece of the puzzle evaded me till now.There is so much that I don't know about my own father.
What mysteries there are in each one of our stories. How strange that those who are the very closest to us are still terra incognita in so many ways.
Earlier this year I challenged Steve Satow to write a book about his amazing parents - Dr. Symon and Yvonne Satow. I told him that I would be working on one on my parents. Feb 15 2011 looms - and not a scratch has been done from my part. My initial attempt to borrow an mp3 recorder from an ethnographically-inclined friend came to naught when Mum and Dad heard about it. I was told by them that when we came to visit them this year 'on holiday' that I was to leave 'work' behind. The mp3 recorder was not borrowed.
'There will be plenty of other times' I heard Dad say.
Well. Maybe. But the years spin by. And they seem to be spinning quicker the longer we are aroound.
While Dad is here. This time. These few days before he heads North again on Sunday evening. We are going to push my discovery of him a little further into reality.
Will I end up with a book? I don't know and I don't really care. I want to know more about him.
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p.s.
Dad - thanks for reading this - you so faithfully do - you are among the gentlest of men. We are very very proud of you. (Numbers 12.3)
Dad - thanks for reading this - you so faithfully do - you are among the gentlest of men. We are very very proud of you. (Numbers 12.3)
Wonderful project! You are so right--there is so much we don't know about our closest family members, or that we don't reveal to those nearest of kin, our children. And it is also too true, that times is spinning past at an ever increasing rate. Now is the day!
ReplyDeleteNeat story and great photo. Thanks, Andi.
Talked to your mother last night.
Thanks Rita. We stand on the backs of giants - and yet how to strike the right balance between appreciating and discovering the past - with the joyful and purposeful living in the present?
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading your parents story. We need to hear the stories of those who have gone before and the story of your parents will be one worth writing. All the best!!
ReplyDeleteP.S. Read something on these lines at http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/tell-us-your-stories/