QUESTIONS OF FAITH: Honoring parents, a complicated commandment

FATHER'S DAY IS this Sunday. This will be the first Father's Day since my father passed away at almost 98 years old.

He had lived with us for over three years and passed away on the porch one hot September afternoon while taking a nap. It's the kind of death we could all wish for.

At almost 98 years old, we knew he wasn't going to last forever, but death, expected or not, is sudden when it comes, right?

My “Questions of Faith” this week concern the honor of our fathers and mothers. It is the fifth of the ten commandments.

In Exodus 20, it says very simply: “Honor your father and your mother…” But what does “honor” mean?

Dictionaries seem to settle on the definition of the term “honor” as a proof of respect. This does not say that we must first love the individual. And that's a good thing because “loving” was sometimes difficult to do in recent years with my father.

He had outlived all his friends, had major dental problems that made eating difficult or enjoyable, and his hearing had been affected by being a crew chief on B-25s during World War II. His discomfort was palpable.

I guess he felt the same way about me sometimes, even when I tried to stop him from going down the stairs with his wheeled walker.

Upon reflection, our recent arguments, and those of previous decades, have focused on the fact that we are simply very different people with very different ways of thinking and approaching life. My father was a physicist and a firm believer in Murphy's Law, which states that if something can go wrong, it will. I practice liberal arts through and through and inherited my mother's more positive outlook on life and people.

He lamented to me shortly before his death that he had never been able to tell our children about one of the most important lessons of his life. I asked what it was, expecting a key to life or something. He added that he was sad that we never had the opportunity to explain quantum mechanics to our children! You know what I mean?

Now that I've taken some time since my father's death to think about him, I think that showing respect isn't enough to truly “honor” a parent.

For me, it was helpful to recognize him as a person and not just as my father. Parents do not come with an instruction manual or how to recognize their children's gifts or idiosyncrasies. The same could be said for children who also don't have a manual on how to deal with their aging parents.

It took a good deal of adult grace to look beyond the past and fully honor my father as the person he was or was trying to be.

As different as we are in many ways, my father passed on to me a love of classical music, especially the choir, a love of natural history, road trips, and gardening.

He wasn't rich but he generously helped pay off our children's college loans.

He helped finance the expansion of the organs in his home churches. And he had our backs at the winery when we needed it, even though he was a tea lover and measured all drinks by his love of Mountain Dew.

Following on from the original Exodus on honoring your parents, in Ephesians 6 it says: “Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that all things may go well for you and may you enjoy a long life. Earth.”

I like the idea that a commandment can be accompanied by a promise and that it be a good one too.

The more I move away from memories like my father's rather brutal way of correcting my algebra at age 13, the more I can appreciate and truly honor him.

With this, I feel the promise of Ephesians beginning to be fulfilled in my life.

I hope I inherited my father's genes for a long life, but even if not, my life is better for honoring him and remembering him as a great person and not just my father.

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Issues of Faith is a rotating column written by faith leaders from the Northern Olympic Peninsula. Don Corson is an ordained deacon in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and winemaker at a local vineyard. He also serves as minister at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Forks. His email is [email protected].