August 29, 2009: If A Man Will Not Work...

Three weeks ago I bought a couple popsicles from a Mexican street vendor in honor of my grandfather.

My grandfather – Dad’s dad, was 36 when the Great Depression hit. I had heard that he was a shoe repairman, but recently my sister corrected me: “No, that came later,” she said. “During the Depression he strapped an ice box on his back and sold ice cream cones to rich people in Lincoln Park.” I don’t know what he did for work during the winter.

Grandfather lost his wife to cancer in 1933 and was left with two boys, 12 and 6 years old, whom he raised alone until he remarried. I’m told he was not a pleasant man – he is remembered as a stern grouch - but to his eternal credit he scrambled and hustled to provide for his family during bleak economic times. I don’t think my dad ever went to bed hungry. If he did, he never mentioned it.

My mother often went to bed hungry though. Her father drank his way through the Depression and eventually died of cirrhosis of the liver. I never understood how he afforded liquor, given that he couldn’t afford to feed his family. They were on relief and took whatever the Salvation Army gave them. In later years Mom spoke with regret about how often she must have broken her mother’s heart as a child by complaining that there wasn’t enough food, and bickering with her siblings over the portion sizes (“She got more than I did!”).

Several friends of mine are un- and under-employed, and, two days after I bought the Mexican popsicles, I joined their ranks. The board chairman of the small church that I served called me to a special meeting and told me that, since the church was not doing well, I was being let go, effective immediately. (He and I have profoundly irreconcilable views on why the church has not thrived, but I’ll leave that topic alone.) My duty now is to concern myself not with things past but with things future - as St. Paul says in Philippians 3:13b: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead”.

I’ve always wanted to set an example for people, and say with a clear conscience what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1: “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.” So I'll view these unforeseen and disturbing circumstances as an opportunity to do that. I am reminded of what the mother of a college friend of mine said to him as she was dying of cancer: “I have tried to show you how to live; now I must show you how to die.” Leading by example does not necessarily mean succeeding in bright circumstances - often it means coping with dark ones. So, say a prayer that I’ll do an example-setting job of illustrating the way a middle-aged, paycheck-to-paycheck but recently unemployed newlywed with a narrowly defined skill set ought to respond to the sudden loss of his livelihood.

By God’s grace I can call upon some extraordinary assets for the challenges ahead. I have a Bible to warn me: “If a man will not work, neither let him eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10); and “If a man does not provide...for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). I have a God who promises to provide - as long as I do not test his patience with laziness and vice. I have the legacy of a hard-working ice-cream vendor grandfather and radio-repairman father. (He lost his job in his fifties!). And, now, I have a bride whom the Gentleman Caller in Solomon’s Song of Songs could not love more. I think when she opens her eyes every morning she immediately asks herself, “What can I do today to please and encourage my husband?” I bet she’d even help me strap that ice box on my back so I could go sell popsicles in the park.