Whadyaget? Whadyaget? Whadyaget?

Ah, the post-Christmas bragging rights competition begins.  I’ve made it a point in recent years to ask, “what did you give?”  I think it is a more intriguing question.  However, for reasons that will quickly become evident, I’m going to brag about what I got this Christmas.  I think you’ll agree I’m doing the right thing.

Over the years, I’ve been privileged to write for the National Center for Fathering.  My most recent contribution at Fathers.com is the article The Dad Who Blesses in which I say:

“Every dad's great challenge is to pay close attention as each child develops. We must learn how to coach each child according to his or her ‘bent’.”

I had no idea one of the greatest Christmas gifts I’ve ever received would come directly from this aspiration as a dad.

My second oldest son, Noah, was “special” from the start.  Thanks to colic, he lived on goat milk his first year of life.  Ewww.  Thanks to learning challenges (NOT disabilities) Noah began our homeschooling odyssey.  Noah has always had a quirky, technical bent.  Okay, he’s a nerd, but the sweetest one you’ll ever meet and today he is a successful software designer.  One year, when Noah was a young teen, I posed a very peculiar question to his left-brain brilliance:

Noah, all my life I’ve wondered something… If I got up in the morning and started walking toward the sun, changing my path to follow the sun all day long, what would the map of that path look like at the end of the day?  If I was on a giant patch of snow, what would be the shape of my tracks?

Solving this puzzle is a decades-old quest for me.  I don’t know where the idea sparked, but growing up in Alaska where the sun’s location in the sky is such a prominent matter, to me it’s only natural that I would wonder this.  I may have mentioned this sun followin’ quest to all my boys, but I invested some extra time talking to Noah about it like how the path in mid-winter would be drastically different from mid-summer.  I’ve tried to figure this out many times.  Every time I began working on it, I was overwhelmed with how much data and complex factors go into what seems like a simple problem.  For me, the challenge was insurmountable.  For Noah, not so much.

Noah and Tiffany are spending Christmas with her family in Texas so Christmas with them was celebrated last Wednesday night*.  We exchanged presents.  Tiffany made Alyse a set of winter earrings – one for every day of Christmas week.  Beautiful.  The kids gave me a box of nothin’ – no wrapped gift at all  –  but I noticed an extra, black cord running up to the TV.  This is gonna be good!  Noah began his presentation, “Okay, so you know how you’ve always wanted to know what your sun followin’ path would be?  Here’s your answer.”  And he turned on the TV.

It took me many minutes to digest what I was looking at.  Noah has done it!!  He’s built a program that links into Google Earth to show what sun followin’ would look like on any day of the year from any point on the planet.  BLEW. MY. MIND.  For 35 years or more, I’ve been trying desperately to figure this out.  Couldn’t.  But because I considered the “bent” of each of my sons and I shared my quest, in depth, with my techie son, I now have the answer I’ve been seeking.  But wait, there’s more.

Wednesday night, when Noah made his presentation, he said, “Dad, I do what I do today (software design) because you talked to me about this quest.  It stuck in my mind and drove me to want to build solutions to complex and complicated problems.”

WOW!  I thought I was just “thinking out loud” as I somewhat frequently do.  But I was connecting with my son on his wavelength and it found great harmony in his life.  Now, I’ve mentioned this sun followin’ quest to all my sons.  The others just chalked it up to Crazy Dad and then asked for an increase in their allowance for having to listen to me.  But I really am trying to understand WHO my children are, and nurture and encourage them to pursue the things in life that spring from within them.  This Christmas, I got the gift of knowing that I haven’t done such a bad job, after all.

Clark H Smith

What’s all this “sun followin’” about?  You’ll never know unless you go to www.sunfollow.in and see what I’m ravin’ about.  Yup, my boy dotcommed my life’s quest!  You can move the stick pin anywhere on the globe.  You can adjust the speed of your walking (I think 5mph is about right) and how many days, day after day, you want to continue your sun followin’.  I like moving the pin around and zooming in to see what each day looks like.  You can adjust the date, as well.  Go. Follow the Sun!  (And to no one's surprise, I started a blog to journal some of the things I'm discovering as I follow the son.)

*presented to me on Dec 21 – the winter solstice.  On this day in Fairbanks, the sun rises at 11am and sets just after 2:30pm.  On June 21, it’s just the opposite – setting at 11pm and rising “in the middle of the night”.  These dynamics are why I’m so interested in the position of the sun.

The Jesus Gifts

I have a terrific post coming a day or so after Christmas.  Until then, I want to give my wonderful IGTBTD friends this gift.

Underneath our tree right now are four gifts for each child, each gift labeled "Gold", "Frankincense", "Myrrh", and "Swaddling Clothes".  Jump over to The Jesus Gifts to see our family truly celebrates Christmas by giving the gifts that Jesus received.

(While you're there, you can stretch your thinker muscle and join me in breaking The Magi Code.)

Clark H Smith

Rock On, Son, Rock On!

#Challenge:  I’ve heard it said that we don’t love someone because of who they are, but in spite of who they are.  Think about the people who truly love you – isn’t it so?  Dads tend to be task oriented, results focused.  We have to be careful though.  Our gender sometimes causes us to focus on the performance of our children.  If your love appears to be a conditional, because of kind of love what happens when your child falls short of expectations?  Does your love go away?

#HeadGear:  My dad was a very smart man.  He was a preacher in his 20s, 30s, and 40s and then, due to the same hearing problems I have, he was a carpenter the rest of his life.  He was an avid reader and could cipher the pitch of a roof in a flash, but he never got bogged down in paperwork and administrative things.  On one visit to Mom & Dad’s, I realized how far apart our work-a-day worlds were.  In my 20s, I managed a $5million advertising agency / film production company.  During the visit, I reviewed a hundred or so pages of monthly General Ledger entries for the company as Dad sat in his designated DadChair and just shook his head.  I couldn’t have been doing anything more foreign to him.

I thought of that scene this week when my musician son handed me a page of new song lyrics.  No, I didn’t think of that scene, I relived that scene… only now I was my dad and my son was me.  The lyrics were very well written and came from a place of passion within him, but “I don’t do poetry”.  I don’t get the allegory and metaphor of it all.  Just sing “boom goes the dynamite” and be done with it.

In my sleep that night, I worked out “It’s not about the process, it’s about the product.”  Waking up, I knew I wasn’t there yet.  “It’s about the producer.”  When I got in my car with my General Ledger and drove away from my parents’ West Texas home, they didn’t say to each other, “There goes our little business manager.”  When I read my son’s lyrics, I didn’t think, “Wow, he can sure write some pretty words.”  A healthy dad’s view of his children is not anchored in what they accomplish, it’s based on who they are and how they’re working to contribute to the world.  People love hearing my son’s band perform the songs he writes.  He gives joy, and (somehow) encouragement, to others.  I don’t have to understand a single syllable of his lyrics on that paper to be proud of him.  I was proud of him when the paper was still blank.

#ManUp:  In Championship Fathering, Carey Casey lays out three fundamentals behaviors of a championship dad: loving, coaching, modeling.  We’ve got to get that first one right.  At Fathers.com there is a great section of resources on how to work on your Loving skills.  Please scan the list of articles and continue growing as the Loving Dad your child needs.  While you’re at it, let’s hit the practice field and apply this fundamental.  What can you do TODAY to affirm your child for the person they are, not just for what they do?  A purposeful conversation or a handwritten note would go a long way toward expressing real love.  Or you could go to a rock concert.  Hmmm… where did I put my notecards?

#SoundOff:  Loving Dads, how do you get it done?  What act of affirmation have you found meaningful to your child.  Pipe up on Facebook or leave a comment here.  I’d love to know what works for you.

Clark H Smith

Big Big House

As the Lord has blessed our house with four sons, I’ve had the privilege of becoming friends with many of the young ladies who’ve come through our doors.  At some point today, jump over to my Follow Illustrated post today and get the background on one young lady who is now a resident in our home – my wonderful daughter-in-love, Tiffany.

Tiffany is a whole, healthy, and happy person – but she shouldn’t be.  When she was twelve, divorce quaked her home in half.  Through an indelicate process, Tiffany wound up with her father; her ten year old sister going with Mom.  I don’t know the man, but he was nothing of a father to Tiffany.  I’ll leave it at that.  By the power of her faith and God’s excellent grace, Tiffany survived that chapter of her life and now a new chapter as wife and daughter-in-love has begun.  I think about her young life often.  Seeing the world through the broken lens of her father must have caused wounds and misgivings about life.  Since the kids have moved in, I have also come to a stunning realization – I now stand as a father for her.

As we move about in this world, Tiffany is looking to me to encourage her with wisdom and compassion.  Her eyes are measuring my qualities as a husband and father and she’s creating a new template of what to expect from her husband and the father of her children.  On the whole, I feel that I have been a good father to the boys who grew up in my home.  Now, I get to give Tiffany something she never really had – a dad.  In the Old Testament, God worded a promise this way, “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” (Joel 2:25)  I’m patching huge tears in a fabric that only a father can weave.  I’m humbled.  I’m honored.

Other boys have brought young ladies through our home.  I make it a point to get to know them personally; not just as my sons’ friends, but as MY friends.  Several of the girls have been like Tiffany, beautiful souls lacking a dad.  Recently, I was online writing some encouraging words to one of these friends.  I hadn’t seen her in a while and I wanted her to know I thought of her and treasured her.  She wrote back to me, “You are the father I wish I had.”  It is difficult to find the words to express the compassion and sorrow I feel for her.  I also feel an overwhelming burden to open the doors of my home and heart to give this beautiful soul a reference point, so to speak, of what a loving father, loving home can look like.

All I know is a big ole house

With rooms for everyone

All I know is lots a land

Where we can play and run

All I know is you need love

And I've got a family

All I know is you’re all alone

So why not come with me?

Come and go with me
To my father’s house

                 Big House / Audio Adrenaline (see video here)

Dads, we cut a big swath through this world.  Our reach is far greater than our wives and children.  If you have the opportunity – and I believe we all do – please consider who you can encourage, who you can nurture with wisdom and compassion.  The locusts are out there in other homes, eating the hope and courage out of children who lack dads.  #ManUp.  Seize the opportunity.  Be the dad.  Trust me: It’s Good To Be The Dad.

Clark H Smith

Like Yesterday

Nov 17, 1986.  Dad called me the day he got the new catalog from my book publishing company.  It was the first time he’d seen the company logo - a hand holding a pencil.  Dad greeted me with “Do you remember how you boys watched in amazement as I held a pencil in my hand and drew a hand holding a pencil.”

“Like yesterday, Dad.  Like yesterday.”

Thanksgiving ’86 came and went.  My family of wife and child had just moved to Kansas City in the summer and we couldn’t get back to Texas to see Mom & Dad for either Thanksgiving or Christmas… or so I thought.

Dec 1, 1986.  Mom called.  Dad had a stroke.  He was “alright”, but hospitalized, waiting to see what the long-term damage would be.  Within a week I flew down to see him.  He was in a rehab hospital, barely conversant, barely mobile.  I walked into his room and he lit up.  With a stroke victim's drunken-tongue he pushed out, “Hoppy, d'you see the gyp?”  Hoppy is my nickname, taken from my middle name, Hopkins.  (When I was 5 I got everyone to stop calling me that – everyone except Dad.)  Gyp was a reference to his beloved gypsum rock carvings.  I’d briefly stopped by the house to get Mom and saw an small Eskimo woman and a sled dog he’d been working on.  He beamed with joy knowing that I shared his love of sculpting.  During that visit, at his request, I helped Dad to the bathroom in his hospital suite.  In the midst of that short walk Dad stroked out again, in my arms.  He froze, never to speak again or signal any cognition.  Dad was all but gone.

Dec 20, 1986.  Mom called.  Dad was gone.

Dec 22, 1986.  Memorial service.  If you’re interested, here’s what I said at the service.

Dec 25, 1986.  We stayed a few more days in Texas to help Mom.  On Christmas morning, Mom went with my brother over to his in-laws’.  My wife, son, and I started the day with a quiet little Christmas for just the three of us and then joined the extended family.  About twenty people raucously opened gifts.  Someone handed me a present marked “From: Mom & Dad”.  It seemed so strange to be opening a gift from someone who had just passed away.  Stranger still was the silence that fell over the room.  I didn’t understand why everyone paused what they were doing and watched me.  Whatever was inside was heavy.  I tore off the wrapping paper and took the lid off the shoebox.  At this very moment in December 2011, just the same as twenty-five years ago, my breath is swept away from me.  It was a gyp-rock carving… of a hand… holding a pen.  In thirteen days – between Nov 17 and Dec 1 – Dad stopped everything else he was working on, started, and completed this carving for me.

And now I’m virtually at a loss for words.  Dads… your child’s world… jump in it!  Treasure the smallest things that you share together – they may wind up being the best, and the last, things you share.  Dads, celebrate your child’s life.  Especially as they enter adulthood, bless them when they return to the nest for laundry or food or money (often all three!), but also get out there in their world.  What new interests have they found?  How are they demonstrating wisdom?  Connect their current accomplishments with baby-steps from their childhood under your roof.  Remind them that their life today is a result of the love you poured into them for two decades.  Ask them if they remember a sweet moment from their childhood.  And expect to hear…

Like yesterday, Dad.  Like yesterday.

Clark “Hoppy” Smith, Carl’s kid

Searching for great gift ideas that will distinguish you as thoughtful parents?  Follow this link to see what the Smith Family of Wife and Children do for Christmas.

Leave A Mark

#Challenge: In Championship Fathering, Carey Casey talks about how to "upgrade" (my word) your "heritage" from your father to a "legacy".  (Watch this video and get all inspired.)  That simple thought helped me look at my father in a totally different light.  I'm going to do some cross-promotion today and encourage all dads to "leave a mark".



Please check out my post today at FollowIllustrated.com.  It's a fun, kind of quirky story about my dad and so typical of how he interacted with his world.

#HeadGear: This story just impressed upon me how important it is to show my children how I am making a mark on the world.  Sound vain?  Look at it this way... in the Depression Era Southwest there there sprung up a peculiar kind of baseball with larger than life figures like Dizzy Dean.  Dizzy was famous for saying, "It ain't braggin' if ya done it."  My dad loved quoting Dizzy on that.  Dad's if you are making a positive contribution to your world, you have earned the right - and have the responsibility - to share that with your children.  In time, your legacy will become the most important thing in the world to them, I promise!

The jury is still out on the complete view of the legacy I am passing on to my children.  Over-sized TVs, a love for electronic gadgets, and a zeal to make great barbeque will be numbered among the things they will remember about me.  I hope they also remember all the mornings, sometimes thrice weekly, I was up and out of the house before they opened their peepers.  I've spent the better part of the last 20 years discipling the finest young men on earth.  Many are now leaders in their churches.  Most are leaders in their homes - faith-filled and courageous dads doing the heavy lifting of leading a family.  I can smoke up a slab of ribs that will have you apologizing to your taste-buds for not eating them porksickles sooner, but I really hope my children will tell their kids about how Pops made his mark on other men's lives.  But also the ribs.  Don't fail to mention the ribs.

Silver spoon or not, the Cat's In The Cradle and your children ARE going to imitate you.  Sit down today and make a short list of three things that you have done to leave your mark in this world.  Share that list with your kids soon.  Most importantly, explain to them what drove you to do those things.  You'll pass on a legacy that will bless your generations.

Ready to #ManUp?  Here's a great "action plan" from Fathers.com.  And yet another good idea.

#SoundOff:  Men, what mark did your dad leave on your life.  Let's focus on the positive today.  Sound off at the IGTBTD Facebook page.  And click SHARE to bring others into the conversation.

Clark H Smith