donald

yesterday ended the first week of my summer stint with reconstruct. i must say that i enjoyed the experience in spite of the fact that i wasn't able to read or sleep very much.

the week after easter i helped with a team that came in from washington state put on a few roofs. the home owner at one of the sites was named donald and i got to know him fairly well. this past week we had a crew paint his house so i made sure to stop by to see how he was doing.

donald told us in april that his stepson had murdered his birth son and then took his own life. as you can imagine, it had effected him quite badly. he would tear up whenever he mentioned him. donald does have one other son.

several times during the course of each week he made mention of things he and that son had done. he showed us the new patio set that his son had bought for him, told me about the time last year they went to see the fireworks at riverfront park and about how his son was trying to get him to go with them again this year. when he would tell me these things i would get the sense that he wasn't exactly being truthful. there was something about the way he spoke about these things that didn't seem right.

unfortunately, they weren't true. his son refuses to talk to him and will not see him. donald made it up so we wouldn't know. i could make guesses about why he did lie. i can understand, to a degree, why he lied. i suppose i've done and continue to do that too.

most of us care deeply about other people's perception of us. we want to be thought normal, or intelligent, or funny, or popular, or a good miny-golfer, or a good listener or somebody who cares more about other people than themselves or somebody who _____.

it is those few who don't seem to care that throw me off. they are who they are and that is all they know how to be. some times this is refreshing. sometimes you wished they would pretend at the very least to care (they probably do in reality).

i'd like to think that i've moved beyond this, that i'm a pretty genuine person. i think for the most part i am. but i still have those moments when i become something i'm not for whatever reason. so i understand donald wanting us to think that he and his son have a normal relationship, that his son would by a gift for the father he loves.

i understand the front, but it won't do him or any of us a bit of good. it won't build community for one of the loneliest people i've come to know. it won't alleviate the pain of his relationships with his sons. it will build up inside of him and hurt more.

i couldn't tell you how many times i've heard the classic advice of 'just be yourself.' i'm just now seeing how hard that really is for just about everybody. maybe we're scared that our self isn't good enough. thank God our self is good enough for Him. we don't have to create this perfect, utopian person to present before him. he comes to us as the wrecks we are, without prejudice. that is amazing to me.