About the time I was coming of age in the late 1960's, I came into the influence of an old time gospel preacher in a tiny deliverance church in Fresno, California. It may have been appropriate to have fallen under the influence of Clarence. Growing up is sometimes difficult, and often uphill. The allure of counterculture, of herbal indulgence, of anti-war exuberance and enthusiasm, was something in my troubled adolescence was hard to resist.
So, it was appropriate that my path led me into that tiny deliverance church. Clarence was a product of what Tom Brokaw calls The Greatest Generation. He had struggled with, and overcome, hardships of rural and small-town America during the Great Depression, teenage years during World War II, and those were days when Minnesota was still a stern upbringing (as in Bob Dylan's Halls of Red Wing). Not very far removed from the prairie of Rovlaag's Giants in the Earth. Endurance and deprivation were simply part and parcel of the heritage of American pioneering experience.
In his own life, Clarence somehow found the stamina to turn his hardtimes into something positive. After my own bout with the trials of adolescent searching, there was something I saw in the Shannon household that reached out to me, that appealed to my youthful quandering and quest. This noisy, joyous, boisterous, large Irish family. (Well, German, too!!) Lots of kids, always plenty of activity, and a home full of joy and love and humor. If there could be one word to describe how they struck me, it would be JOY. "oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter." Clarence could be strict, I was told, but I found he also had a quick and exuberant sense of humor, loved to joke, loved to laugh. (If that ain't Irish, it'll pass in my book.) His religious standards were solid ones, and those high values are good things in a parent, or a pastor (or police-work para-professional). Joys of a large family
Memorial of love from his daughter
Perhaps because he was strict on himself, we who knew him were not surprised that he had high expectations of those around him. Oh no, I don't say I relished his criticism. But as with all training, often the nudges and "dings" are warranted. We learn from them, as time passes. We can look within and seek to learn the lessons, even when, at the time, we do not understand fully.
Was I becoming like him? One of the comments people made, seeing in me, was how I began to become, in little ways, more and more like Clarence. (Not always a compliment, the way they saw me.) Linda loved her Daddy, and that light in her eyes was a constant influence on me, though mostly silent, unspoken. To say she "turned me into" something approximating him, while true, is a distortion to the degree that it ignores my own willingness to emulate my beloved father-in-law, his twinkling eyes and booming voice, his sense of humor, his hearty laugh and love of "impractical" jokes. And yes, Clarence and Ida were parents of a big family - ten children. Big families are not exactly popular in modern America, but "All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular stands."
Yes. If we could see what our parents went through - in their generation - we would have a better understanding of their love for us, of their zeal to protect us from the mistakes they made, and the sufferings they overcame. The great New York City preacher, Henry Ward Beecher once said, "We only understand our parents love when we have children of our own."
During the holocaust time, Gertrude Kolmar, before her own death, wrote some beautiful lines as she reflected on the sufferings of her Jewish people.
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Only the night listens. I love you, I love you, my people.
Only the night listens. I love you, my people people clothed in rags.
Just as the son of pagan Gaea would, when exhausted, glide back to his mother the Earth,
Now cast yourself down to the lowly, be weak, embrace suffering,
Until that day when your tired wanderer's shoe will tread upon the neck of the strong!
The point to me is even in deepest despair, we must look within for the resources of resilience that God puts there. Even as the Jewish experience is a gleaming beacon to us, so the journeys of our own can likewise reach out in the darkness, and light the way for those who follow. Clarence himself was an example of this sort of stamina. Yes he had been misunderstood by many religious people, yet he chose to overcome, to love, to set his face to the wind and perservere. And in turn, he was able to uplift others, to encourage us. "Reach out to Jesus. He's reaching out to you."
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular stands.
Adlai Stevenson
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