Dad, Still

Most people identify themselves as Morning or Night people.  For whatever reason, people always feel like they get better work done at one extreme or the other.  Me, personally, I feel I'm a night person.  It's almost as if the world has gone to sleep, and I'm finally free to just dump thoughts onto paper.  I need to have a free and clear mind from other work in order to really let it flow.  My Dad, on the other hand, is a morning person.  He claims he wakes up instinctively at 4 AM, sometimes 3, due to habit.  I don't know why we're so different in that regard, but you can't say he didn't try to make me a morning person.

When I was young, I remember waking up early on either Saturday or Sunday morning to play video games with my Dad.  The rest of the family was asleep, so the only ones to wake up were my pseudo-nocturnal Pops and me, the youngest kid in the family.  We'd wake up, drive to Happy Donuts in Belmont (I believe it was called Wild Bill's back then) and grab breakfast before going to play games.  Typically in the beginning we'd go off to my Dad's work, where his tech-savvy co-worker Don had a bunch of computer games stored on his computer.  Old adventure stuff mostly; I remember King's Quest being one of them.  Typically I'd play a game, and Dad would watch.

As an aside, there's something awesome about having your parents just sit and watch you do things.  When I started helping out with Jr. High, I remember I was told that the kids will grow to like you just because at that age it's cool to have an adult care about what you're doing.  I don't know what it is about having people watch and care and encourage you, but when it's an adult you respect (especially a parent) it really means something else.

So anyways, Dad watching me play video games was special.  Eventually the owner of the business (my Grandpa) caught wind of the games, and banned them from the office.  What a curmudgeon.  Anyways, the locale switched to my home.  The weekend gaming took on a new tone at that point; it was gaming in quiet because I wasn't allowed to wake my family.  The quiet was what permeates my thoughts of those days.  My Dad and I didn't always talk a ton.  Well, I should say, I talked a ton, and my Dad listened.  Perhaps the video gaming was a way for my Dad to enjoy my company without having to listen to me yammer on incessantly about Calvin and Hobbes or whatever occupied my six-year-old mind at the time.

There just isn't enough quiet these days.  I still talk too much, I play video games, and I still eat donuts, but I don't have the quiet enough.  Dad always brought the quiet.  When things went wrong, I could count on Dad to come in, bring the quiet, and slow things down to the point that they could be sorted out.  I think of Psalm 46:10.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”

 I admire a lot about my Dad, but his ability to be still, quiet, and listen to God is definitely up near the top of the list.  Even in trivial things like playing video games, Dad was always there to be still and just listen to what was going on around him.  I really need to start taking in more of his wisdom.