Poor Man's House
This evening I had a Counting Crows song in my head, the name of which I could not remember, and which mentally morphed into the Patty Griffin's song, "Not Alone." So I popped in her CD, Living with Ghosts. It's been some time since I've listened to this CD; it's one of those recordings that I absolutely love, but which I cannot listen to repeatedly. So I was sitting in my living room, listening to the album and writing in a notebook some things I intended to add to this blog, while my computer was chugging away on some doomed-to-crash task, when the song, "Poor Man's House" came on.
The first line that caught my ear was,
You know you've prayed enough when you don't ask any more.
I felt something resonating in my heart and my pencil stopped moving. I took a long swallow of the wine I was drinking and gave my attention to the song.
Nothing is louder to God's ears than a poor man's sorrow.
Conflicting feelings and thoughts arose at this. My thoughts turned to my own parents, my father in particular.
Daddy's been working too much for days and days he doesn't eat
he never says much but I think this time it's got him beat
It isn't that he isn't strong or kind or clever
Your dady's poor and he will be poor forever
I remember as a child of four, five, six, and so on getting up at five in the morning to see my dad off to work and waiting up until eleven or midnight, for him to come home. This was not easy for a youngster my age, and I fell asleep more than a few times. My father worked very hard.
Hey that's the poor man's house
Those kids are living in a poor man's house
They walk to school with the soles of their shoes worn out
And come home in the evening to the poor man's house
I remember my childhood: the powdered milk we drank, the shoes with patched holes and soles that were held together by Shoe Goo, the hand-me-down clothes from family, friends, and church, my father driving my mother, my sister, and I to my grandmother's for "vacation," and then returning to Delaware so he could work. My parents literally bankrupted themselvs to send my sisters and me to a private, Christian school.
Life wasn't always incredibly difficult, and I never went hungry, but I had peanut butter and jelly for lunch for years. We had a TV most of the time, and we even had cable here and there. There was never plenty, let alone abundance, but there was sufficiency. Going out to eat meant going to McDonalds, or on rare occasions, Naples Pizzaria, the only true New York style pizzaria ever to exist in Newark, Delaware. It succumbed to Pizza Hut and Dominos sometime in the mid-eighties.
What is the point of all of this? The point is that my parents haven't had it easy (they gave everyghing for their children), and there's no sign of it getting any easier. Every Sunday I visit the house I grew up in from the age of three and a half to the age of twenty-one, and I see it falling apart with broken cars in the broken driveway (which my father and I poured ourselves when I was 12), missing asbestos shingles, paint flaking off, wood rotting, roof in need of replacement. Though my father is 60 and can't work anymore, there's no retirement. My mother, also 60, is looking for work again now that her bout of clinical deprssion is abating. I don't know what they're going to do, but I feel their pain of being mostly poor their adult lives and now, when they're supposed to be relaxing, being unable to. My father cannot relax because of pain and illness (without which he would be working), and my mother cannot relax because of the need for income.
Of course my parents always wanted things to be a little bit easier. Of course there are plenty of people in the nation and in the world who are worse off than my parents. God has kept my parents safe thus far. They've always been able to get by somehow, and they have always given 25 to 30 percent of what they make or are given back to God. This irks the hell out of my dad's mother, who has given my parents money a few times. My parents look forward, primarily, to their eternal life in the presence God. New bodies! No more sin, need, or corruption!
I don't know why Patty wrote this song, but it serves as catharsis for me. (I recall my senior year high school English teacher and how she adored the concept of catharsis, which is thus imprinted within me forever.) I'm not complaining about my childhood here. I'm not even complaining about my parents' difficult life; I am, however, saying that this is something that's on my mind often. We all want good things for those we love. I'm still praying for my parents, and my question to God is not, "Why, Lord?" but, "When, Lord?" Ultiimately, their treasure is in the next life, I just wish they could catch a break in this one.
Hopefully I will write about The Station Agent in my next entry. A wonderful film.
The first line that caught my ear was,
You know you've prayed enough when you don't ask any more.
I felt something resonating in my heart and my pencil stopped moving. I took a long swallow of the wine I was drinking and gave my attention to the song.
Nothing is louder to God's ears than a poor man's sorrow.
Conflicting feelings and thoughts arose at this. My thoughts turned to my own parents, my father in particular.
Daddy's been working too much for days and days he doesn't eat
he never says much but I think this time it's got him beat
It isn't that he isn't strong or kind or clever
Your dady's poor and he will be poor forever
I remember as a child of four, five, six, and so on getting up at five in the morning to see my dad off to work and waiting up until eleven or midnight, for him to come home. This was not easy for a youngster my age, and I fell asleep more than a few times. My father worked very hard.
Hey that's the poor man's house
Those kids are living in a poor man's house
They walk to school with the soles of their shoes worn out
And come home in the evening to the poor man's house
I remember my childhood: the powdered milk we drank, the shoes with patched holes and soles that were held together by Shoe Goo, the hand-me-down clothes from family, friends, and church, my father driving my mother, my sister, and I to my grandmother's for "vacation," and then returning to Delaware so he could work. My parents literally bankrupted themselvs to send my sisters and me to a private, Christian school.
Life wasn't always incredibly difficult, and I never went hungry, but I had peanut butter and jelly for lunch for years. We had a TV most of the time, and we even had cable here and there. There was never plenty, let alone abundance, but there was sufficiency. Going out to eat meant going to McDonalds, or on rare occasions, Naples Pizzaria, the only true New York style pizzaria ever to exist in Newark, Delaware. It succumbed to Pizza Hut and Dominos sometime in the mid-eighties.
What is the point of all of this? The point is that my parents haven't had it easy (they gave everyghing for their children), and there's no sign of it getting any easier. Every Sunday I visit the house I grew up in from the age of three and a half to the age of twenty-one, and I see it falling apart with broken cars in the broken driveway (which my father and I poured ourselves when I was 12), missing asbestos shingles, paint flaking off, wood rotting, roof in need of replacement. Though my father is 60 and can't work anymore, there's no retirement. My mother, also 60, is looking for work again now that her bout of clinical deprssion is abating. I don't know what they're going to do, but I feel their pain of being mostly poor their adult lives and now, when they're supposed to be relaxing, being unable to. My father cannot relax because of pain and illness (without which he would be working), and my mother cannot relax because of the need for income.
Of course my parents always wanted things to be a little bit easier. Of course there are plenty of people in the nation and in the world who are worse off than my parents. God has kept my parents safe thus far. They've always been able to get by somehow, and they have always given 25 to 30 percent of what they make or are given back to God. This irks the hell out of my dad's mother, who has given my parents money a few times. My parents look forward, primarily, to their eternal life in the presence God. New bodies! No more sin, need, or corruption!
I don't know why Patty wrote this song, but it serves as catharsis for me. (I recall my senior year high school English teacher and how she adored the concept of catharsis, which is thus imprinted within me forever.) I'm not complaining about my childhood here. I'm not even complaining about my parents' difficult life; I am, however, saying that this is something that's on my mind often. We all want good things for those we love. I'm still praying for my parents, and my question to God is not, "Why, Lord?" but, "When, Lord?" Ultiimately, their treasure is in the next life, I just wish they could catch a break in this one.
Hopefully I will write about The Station Agent in my next entry. A wonderful film.
posted by transfigure @ 12:35 AM
1 Comments:
At 3:23 PM EST,
sharon said…
it's amazing sometimes to look back and see how God worked, especially when current circumstances seem overwhelming. praying for your parents.
that entry made me tear up, mike. you've got a way with words.
and "the station agent" is one of the best films. i've recommended it to several people & all have had great things to say about how it hit them right in the heart.
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