Spirituality

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My Grandma’s Highway to Heaven

October 12, 2011 at 11:11 pm , by 

Ten months.

My Mexican grandmother, Lola Mendez Metallo, has always been one funny grandma, though not necessarily intentionally. Like the way she has always prefaced her jokes with “I’m gonna tell you a joke…”.

Or the fact that she literally managed to see the movie Dirty Dancing a total of 37 times when it originally came to theaters back in 1987, though she never learned to drive a car.

Not to mention the way she always found a way to delightfully sprinkle our holiday dinner conversations with mentions of the most recently escaped prison convicts she had heard about on the radio. Classic.

Plus, I’ve never known anyone more intrigued by angels. I remember how when the TV show Touched by an Angel was still on the air, she would never miss an episode and had a talent for relating every life situation back to the most recent one she had seen,especially if the episode had anything to do with an abused animal. (Her favorite show in the ’80′s was Highway to Heaven, which was also about angels interacting with humans.)

Here recently, I have been thinking about her a lot. I know her health has faded more drastically since my Italian grandfather passed away over three years ago. It’s one of those things where I know that she could just one day never wake up; or she could ultimately be here for several more years. In either case, I am consciously aware of the fact that her time on Earth is especially limited.

It’s an interesting (and sad) perspective; to know my grandma may be in her final months, yet everyday I watch my young son grow up a little bit more. I see one life coming to a close and another just getting things started. It’s a constant paradox in my head.

Knowing her time could be soon, I’m literally dealing with her passing, now; before it even happens. People deal with death differently- I guess I deal with it prematurely, reminiscing her life while she’s still here to answer questions I still have and tell her I love her several times in every potentially last conversation I have with her.

I know she’s going to love finally joining the angels she has talked so much about, but I really would mind hearing a couple more of her jokes; especially if she tells me up front that I’m about to hear a joke.

Unexpected Bonus…

It can be easy to write off human interactions with angels as tall tales, but according to the Bible, we entertain angels unaware. Today, someone will win a free book called Angels, which helps explain the interactions of angels in humans’ lives, backed up with Biblical stories and references.

If you would like a free copy of Angelsmailed to your house, just be the first person to leave a comment on this post, then within 60 minutes, send me an email (nickshell1983@hotmail.com) including your name and mailing address.

 

 

1 Comment Posted on parenting, Spirituality, Storytelling

Choosing to Love Unconditionally in Marriage

Ten months.

I can think of three universally recognizable examples of unconditional love: God and man, parent and child, and dog and owner. But what about whom you marry? Is that unconditional love?

Isn’t that sort of the whole concept of marrying someone? To choose to unconditionally love a person you wouldn’t otherwise love to the point of “no matter what?”  To me, that’s the most romantic thing a person can do. Even stripped of emotion and sentimentality, marriage is/should be mutual unconditional love at its finest.

And maybe that’s one of the reasons that marriage isn’t as easy as a lot of people may assume going into it. Instead, marriage is an ongoing process of mutual maturity. Marriage causes people to see how hard it can be to live with even themselves, from the perspective of someone who happens to love them unconditionally.

To love someone unconditionally means there is nothing that that person can do to cause them to fall out of ultimate favor with you. Sure, some days it’s easier than others, but that falls under the whole “for better or for worse” part of the wedding vows.

Actually, for a human being (outside of the parent/child relationship) to love another unconditionally is one of the biggest paradoxes I can think of. But it helps to put things in perspective by turning the tables: I, myself, want to be unconditionally loved.

I want to know there is a person who doesn’t judge me when I’m not in the room, but at the same time is brave enough to tell me directly and privately how I can improve as a person, in both big and small ways. I want to know there is a person who understands me, or at least puts up with me, when I’m being weird or simply not myself.

So maybe choosing to love another person is challenging, but for me, the bigger challenge was finding someone who would love me unconditionally. Thank God, that’s exactly who I found.

 

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The Legend of the Happily Married Man

September 30, 2011 at 10:01 pm , by 

Ten months.

I am the kind of person who will go to quirky extremes to accomplish a mission that I have set my heart upon. In the process, that may mean that I am seen as fanatic, arrogant, or simply removed from reality and relevance. This is because I believe that often in life, it’s the little things we take for granted that can ultimately throw everything off whack. So I pay very close attention to those seemingly insignificant details and live my life accordingly.

Therefore, I am not a husband who will ever be quoted as saying, “Well I can look at the menu, can’t I?” as a justification to “appreciate the beauty” of another woman. It’s one thing to acknowledge another woman is attractive when someone asks me, in general; but that’s not what I’m referring to.

I’m talking about being out at a public place, hanging out with other guys, and the conversation turns to the body of the 22 year old waitress.Or observing the way other male coworkers lose their focus every time the Jane Siegel of the office (a reference to the 2nd season of Mad Men) walks by. I simply refuse to contribute in those situations.I am a happily married man and that means something to me.

It means that I don’t need to try to answer any subconscious questions in regards to my ability to woo a woman other than my wife.It means I will respect the sanctity of my marriage and the integrity of my family; not letting my guard down, even on account of an innocent look or a thoughtless comment regarding another woman.

Why would I need to “look at the menu” when I’ve already got everything I want in my wife? Part of the positive re-branding of fatherhood involves a deliberate campaign to view every other woman simply as another woman- not an object of desire. A man I would aspire to be like is a man who respects his wife even when she’s not around. So that’s the kind of man I choose to be.

I wear a wedding ring. Therefore, that dominates the messages I send to other women. My conversations with them will accordingly be intertwined with mention of my wife and son; so that even if I didn’t have a wedding ring, the message would still be clear how much I value my marriage- and how not interested I am in looking at any other items on the menu.

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting, Spirituality

The Rosh Hashanah (New Year) that Autumn Brings

September 28, 2011 at 6:33 pm , by 

Ten months.

Happy new year 5772!

Until this year, I never realized how close the first day of Autumn (September 23rd) and the first day of the Jewish New Year (sunset of September 28th) are to each other on our calendar. While the greenness of Spring symbolizes a new beginning for many, it is the Fall season that has always best represented newness of life to me.

Yes, there are the more obvious images of Autumn that make us feel good: the scorching heat of Summer finally dies, Starbucks brings back their pumpkin flavored drinks, our favorite TV shows premiere their new seasons, and the glory of American football becomes inescapable. Sure, we have to suffer the upcoming time change, but there’s a certain calmness and quietness to the Fall season that charms me every year.

This Autumn is especially like a new year for me. After nearly a year without it, my family is officially back on insurance again through Vanderbilt University- that gives me such a necessary peace of mind!

And within the next week or so, we will be moving back into our townhouse. (We’ve been staying with good and gracious friends since we moved back to Nashville in July.)

My son will turn a year old in November; so the Fall season will transform my infant into a toddler. And a few weeks before his birthday, we will finally get to see him in his awesome Halloween costume… a sea otter! (Random enough?)

As if it wasn’t obvious, Autumn is (and always has been) my favorite season. So as Nick Drakes plays on my iPod in the background, I proudly sound my imaginary shofar in celebration of a particular new year.

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Brainwashing Versus Successfully Influencing a Child

September 27, 2011 at 9:20 pm , by 

Ten months.

What’s the difference between a parent brainwashing their child versus successfully influencing them? After all, a child will ultimately grow up and make up their own mind when it comes to stuff like moral issues and relevance of religious faith. Yet it would be unwise to discount the impressions made on a child by an involved and encouraging parent.

Brainwashing carries a connotation of something forced and militant. That’s obviously not how I aim to influence my child. Instead, it’s a matter of making what’s normal and accepted to us as parents, normal and accepted to him.

My strategy is to simply raise my son in the way I know as right, so that when he is older, he won’t depart from it. My son Jack was born into a specifically Christian household. His exposure to our family’s religious beliefs won’t be presented as a respectable suggestion, but as reality and actual history.

But I can’t make him believe anything for the rest of his life; nor would I want to. As his dad, I can only influence him in ways that most other people will not be able.

What parts of our parental influence will really stick with him by the time he’s our age? I guess we’ll know when we’re sixty. But as for now, we’ll continue brainwashing influencing him in our quirky ways.

Unexpected Bonus!

On a related subject, I am giving away 5 copies of a brand new book called Sticky Faith, which specializes in giving parents everyday ideas to build lasting faith in their kids’ lives, specifically at key transitional stages (i.e. elementary, middle, high school, etc.).

Just be one of the first 5 people to leave a comment on this post, and within 60 minutes, send an email to nickshell1983@hotmail providing your name and address so the publisher will know where to send the books to.

UPDATE: Congrats to the winners of this free book!

J. Valentine from Pompton Lakes, NJ

S. Cruce from Fort Payne, AL

C. Williams from Cincinnati, Ohio

W. Pierson from Houston, Texas

G. Grey from Berlin, Germany

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