Reasons Why - my father

Well, I’m home now. I left China for good. The feelings running around in my heart and the thoughts mixing in my head are, to say the least, a little overwhelming. I’m glad to be home. But a whole part of me seems… for lack of a better and less cliché’d term, “dead” inside. Very numb, very lost, untouchable. But I know that I’m meant to be here, that this is, and always was, home. Bloom where you’re planted.

More on that later.

I’m not entirely sure if this blog is even still being read… and there’s really no reason for people to read it anymore, unless they have some out-of-the-blue desire to learn more about China and my adventures there. I think nowadays, for me, this blog has more become akin to a therapy session of some kind. A place I can come to record my memories.

When something wonderful, terrible, or merely BIG happens in your life, you have to have a place to reflect on it, to let it stew and simmer and settle in. Our world is far to fallen of a place to think that we can somehow push on regardless, without allowing the wrinkles and the growing pains to smoothen… So, if you don’t mind, this blog has become my ironing board. 

Anyway… today, I’ll write about my Chinese dad. We’ll call him Matt.

            “Are you ready?”

            “I… uh… I think so,” I smile bravely out at the quiet road ahead of me… nothing much stirs. A fat, scruffy, stray dog sniffs at the dusty curb, then waddles off around the corner. Matt turns to me with a small smile and a raise of the eyebrows,

            “Are you sure?”

From Matt, it’s not a question… more of joke. Compared to most Chinese, with their set ways and very direct, almost stubborn approach to daily life, Americans are a little crazy. We hem and haw and make a big deal out of every little thing… especially me. I can’t make decisions for my life.

            “I think so!” I say, gripping the wheel, my knuckles whitening. (Yes… I know… most high-school juniors can handle a car… MOST… but obviously, not all…)

            “Okay. Let’s go.” The quiet smile still is there. Dad always smiles in a way that makes you wonder if he knows something worth knowing, a secret of some kind, a secret he’s just too proud of to tell the rest of the world.  I nod, more to affirm myself, and press the pedal down.

I don’t know what I expected to happen… I wasn’t sure if the car was going to explode, or if the seat would randomly turn into a catapult and throw me into orbit… but something much more magical happened…

…the car moved forward! Imagine that! No crashes, no fires… it just rolled foreword in a steady, family-car kind of way.

“Now turn, but stop slowly and look to see if another car is coming,” he says, quietly. Each word, despite the accent, is very clipped, very clean, and delivered with a deliberate steadiness. Matt’s English is amazing.

We rumbled along the back roads for about 20 minutes before Dad decided to step it up a notch by asking me to actually turn the car around. This was the beginning of my first driving lesson, in a massive construction site, the day before Easter, in Beijing, China.

Amazing people usually have amazing stories, and sometimes, more often than not, those stories are weighted with darkness overcome, mountains climbed, battles fought, lessons learned. My dad happens to be an amazing person. I don’t know his full story, and I didn’t get to spend as much time with him as I wanted to. But the little I do know has made him somewhat of a legend in my mind.

I know that Matt grew up near Beijing… I can only assume his was a farming family… whenever they came to visit, they were usually accompanied by dozens of crates of eggs, cabbage, apples, and tofu… all of which were stored in the guest room when the refrigerator got too full. Matt, though he wore a suit and carried a briefcase, knew more about vegetables and planting than most dads I’ve met. I think part of him misses the simplicity and beauty of growing your livelihood from God’s good earth.

I know that he met mom at university, and they both became Christians around that time in their lives. I know that they got married, and had their first child, Diana… both were immensely busy… doing what, I’m not exactly positive.

I know that my father, years ago, used to be the head pastor at a Chinese church. But that changed when my youngest brother was born… (my mother had to flee to the countryside and avoid Beijing hospitals, where she would have faced a forced abortion… just another product of life, brought to you by China’s One Child Policy).

With the entrance of their third child into the world, Matt lost his job as a pastor, and a way to provide steadily for his family. That particular church has been fairly unsteady ever since he left… and it doesn’t take a genius to know why; my father was extraordinarily gifted. God breathed through him, you could say. I know for me, when I visited their house church with my family, and my dad got up and started speaking, I spent the next two hours in awe. The man who had been quiet, somewhat solemn, and seemingly burdened by that task of holding a million parts in place… was suddenly standing straight, eyes focused, face joyful, voice full, words flowing… I couldn’t understand them, but the congregation he addressed listened with thirsty heart, and a weight of trust and respect for this man who poured his passion for God into helping and teaching others. My father was gifted. You could feel God in the way he preached, even if, like me, you couldn’t understand a word he spoke.

I know it wasn’t just his presence or power as a teacher… the way he lived proved God’s hand on his life. I’ve never met a more humble person. We read about men and women who radiate strength, who live lives overflowing with love for others, who serve endlessly, who live wholly from the heart, who rarely speak but live as if Wisdom herself made her home in their minds… we hear about them… but I had a chance to spend a year under the same roof with a man who was all of that and more. He even gave me driving lessons.

I know that not all Chinese families can boast of a father who actually loves his children… let alone one who plays with them, or tells stories, or cooks and cleans and tucks them in at night… Matt, never once, raised his voice. (even when I accidentally drove the car off the road and into a field…) He got angry sometimes, sure! But he never (not once!) let anger, or any emotion, control or define his actions towards others. Now that, in and of itself, is something the merits deep respect.

I know my father loved to laugh. He didn’t laugh often, but when he did, you know that he was truly joyful, inside and out. It was as if all the clouds of running a kindergarten, coping with the complications of Chinese finances, fathering a church, counseling families, travelling, raising three children, cooking, cleaning, teaching…. all of the evidence of the storms in his life cleared and gave way to a smile that belied younger, freer spirit than the one that contended on his daily battlefields.

I know Matt used to do kung fu… and was very good at it too! About a month into my time there, the kids cajoled him into showing us some of his old kicks… THE MAN COULD FLY. Literally. Flipping and kicking and spinning through the living room.

This is a 48 year old man, may I remind you… in a business suit.

I miss being his daughter, being a part of his family. I miss the car-rides back and forth from the airport, when we would talk about all sorts of things! He spoke little and quietly on most days… but it seemed that those times on the expressway, when it was just him and the strange home-stay from America occupying that tired silver car, words flowed! And each one was precious to me… it didn’t matter if they together built a window through which I could better see Chinese culture, or quietly imparted the vulnerability and toughness of life for a good man in China, or forged prayers more sincere and thoughtful than any I’d yet heard...

I loved to hear my dad speak, because I knew that whatever he said, however menial, however deep, came from his heart. A heart of real strength… a heart of a wise father, a humble teacher, a steadfast husband… a heart of a truly good man, staunchly pursuing God.