Here's My Answer

Here's My Answer

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

Years ago you asked a question. It was a simple, but I really don’t think I ever gave you an answer. Today, I have an answer for your question, "Why can't our family be like that?"

As the teenagers on the TV show had just taken the family car without permission, promptly got into a fender bender, and returned home to a laughter filled round table discussion on the matters at hand, my questioner was drooling. Watching it, they posed the question above.

They wanted a system of equality in the life of all youth….especially their own. They wanted to know that if the same would happen to them...that there wouldn't be an all out ruckus of consequences and in the end an early to bed, early to rise sort of imposition that would inevitably take hold. In other words, they wanted to have life a bit more scripted, and predictable. They wanted ease, they wanted fairness, and above all, they wanted a different set of parents than the ones they came with because apparently, we were nothing near the likes of the ones upon the television screen.

Now that they’ve given birth to their own, I finally have my answer to their posed question.

Truth be told, I wanted the same. I wanted to be able to see the outcome ahead of time in order to process danger. I wanted a script that told me in the end, things would be okay and we’ll all show up in the next episode because that too would turn out according to script. The actors had processed and practiced their lines. They had prepared for what was going to happen.

Comparing and contrasting lives upon the screen with ours…there was only one thing that seemed to be missing in ours…the script. We didn’t know what was around the corner at times, and as crisis met crisis…we flew by the seat of our pants in order to even get them on in time…at times…much less deal with said crisis.

I wanted a script more than anything in order to prepare for and reinforce lessons needing to be learned. Since budgets were limited for TV productions, the actors maintained their presence in and around the block…where they were assured of a safe and sound outcome. In other words, emergency room trips were out of the question because of the expense in filming them. In order to keep high anxiety out of the picture, it was paramount for calm and order to prevail. After all, back in the day, who needed more real life when one lives it 24/7? People tuning in wanted calm, order, and predictability.

They got it. You got it. I got it. But that wasn’t our reality nor was it reality at all. What you got was a healthy dose of real life…real time…starring parents who’d never played those roles before. The non-scripted episodes ran 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, over decades with no two seconds looking remotely the same…and we did our best. We did our best to love you as imperfect as we were. And it was an amazing journey to say the least.

1 Peter 4:8. “Above all, love one another deeply because love covers a multitude of sins.” As you begin your own journey, choose to love deeply, and rich blessed reality will follow.  Amen.