how God is
It starts as a joke, Kevin drawing Adam back after we finish cleaning the kitchen and Adam starts the nightly pilgrimage to his sanctum sanctorum; Kevin asking Adam to give all the things Adam is withholding–a hug, a backscratch, a bit of lingering attention. Adam endures, but only with perfunctory investment–the hug, light and limp, shrugged off quickly; the backscratch a short, featherlight rub, the attention summed up in returning only briefly from the staircase.
Of course, Kevin expected this half- heartedness and grins over it, loving Adam–delighting in him–anyway, which is an encouragement to me, because I see bluntly in my son the attitude I have when I feel most introverted and needy. I read about how Jesus tries to withdraw and, followed by a clamoring crowd, turns toward them with compassion, and I sigh, instantly aware of a deficit in my own retreating heart. These are the times when my affection for God and others is too quick and light and my service just gets by, but the point–I see it now watching them–is how God is, how persistent and lavishly loving, despite my weaknesses.
“Adam, that’s not how you scratch someone’s back,” Kevin says, with laughter in his voice, calling toward the shadows where Adam, long and lean and impatient, skulks away, head bent, eyes focused away from his father.
Hearing this exchange and recognizing in Kevin’s words some hint at unfulfilled desire, Riley pops up, suddenly abandoning her self-imposed to-do list at the bar, that place I call “her office.” Riley papers that stretch of countertop neatly with checklists; she carefully lines the rows; she double etches her checkmarks. She takes dedication and taskiness to an extreme, preferring and imposing order and planning even over her free time, whispering bouncy comments to herself as she walks along the bar checking off items. As someone who imposes order to minimize stress, I can relate to this aspect of her personality, even though my attention to such things falls far shy of her autistic obsessiveness. Because I can relate; because of my over-disciplined dedication to lists and plans, it amazes me how, only when faced with someone else’s needs, Riley can so easily disengage from her own compulsiveness. In fact, meeting the needs of others seems to be the only key to Riley’s freedom, as though a healing occurs at this dismissal of herself, or, as Jesus said, she finds her life by losing it. She exhibits a strength of character I pray to develop; she is completely distracted, her selfishness undone, by compassion. I smile, watching her stretch out her arms toward her Father, thinking this is the interruptibility that brought Christ back into the crowds.
“I can do it,” Riley says happily to Kevin, positioning herself behind him, already beginning to scratch his back. She has missed the joke, but her enthusiasm for helping sweetens the room. I treasure it up; feeling as though I’ve caught her joy, a filling for hollow places. And then I know: this is why God loves a cheerful giver. Of course, Riley’s efforts and character aren’t perfect. She feels, as I often do, some sense of pride in her own serving heart, some need to exalt herself, some need to show her brother how it’s done. “Adam, you do it like this,” she calls, even though Adam has long since escaped the room and, lost to some music upstairs, pays no attention to her older-sister pomp. But the notable thing isn’t Riley’s perfection or imperfection in service (only one servant has ever lived flawlessly)–I see it now, watching them–but rather that her Father’s love, her Father being her Father inspires her desire to give, even when giving means dying to herself.
“Well,” Kevin says, “that’s not exactly it either. You don’t just scratch in one little spot, you move your hands all around and really give it a good going over. Give it some umph, Riley.” He says this grinning wide, still funning, although I can’t help but smile at how, silent on the error of her pride, he responds to her desire to serve with training. He will want me to say that it isn’t always this way, that sometimes he’s less patient than he wants to be, that sometimes he doesn’t make the most of these opportunities. He’ll want me to say this because he is also not the hero of our story; because only one parent’s love has ever been remarkable.
“Ah, that’s it,” Kevin says finally, clearly pleased, and Riley laughs, satisfied to have given to her dad, to have touched him. She loves to love. “I won’t make you stay here doing this any longer,” Kevin says to her after a few minutes more, “though I think you would stand here all night and keep right on scratching my back if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?”
“I can and I will–I would,” she says happily, brooking no doubt, making no move to change course until at last Kevin turns, smiling, reaching to pat her shoulder with his open hand.
