This week’s guest post is an excerpt from Ian Morgan Cron’s acclaimed book Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…of Sorts. Seriously, it’s acclaimed. It has 101 5-star reviews on Amazon, and Publishers Weekly called it “Redemptive and consoling with bright moments of humor…this story is chock-full of sacredness and hope. Cron is one of only a few spirituality authors who could articulate these themes as poignantly.” Ian is also the author of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale, spoke at the Storyline Conference last spring, and is currently completing his doctorate at Fordham University in Christian spirituality. You can visit him at IanCron.com and follow him on Twitter here.
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My fellow first graders and I processed down the nave to receive our First Communion while a woman sang “Ave Maria” with a vibrato that could have been picked up on police radar. I remember almost nothing of the Mass itself except Bishop Dalrymple distributing the consecrated Hosts. He was corpulent, his cheeks and jowls glazed with perspiration, and he was lightly wheezing. He looked like he would have paid a hundred bucks to get out of his clericals, go home, put his tired feet up, pop open a cold Bud, and watch a Notre Dame basketball game.
As I stepped forward and stood before him, he saw tears welling up in my eyes. For an instant, Bishop Dalrymple’s pasty white face softened, the corners of his mouth turned upward in a smile of deep knowing. I suspect he knew that I was one of those strange kids who “got it”— who was hungry and thirsty for God, who longed to be full. Maybe he’d been one of those weird kids too. He placed the Host on my tongue and put his hand on the side of my face, his fat thumb briefly massaging my temple, a gesture of blessing I did not see him offer to any of my other classmates. And I fell into God.
I have spent forty years living the result of that moment.
I am told that, in years past, when a blizzard hit the Great Plains, farmers would sometimes tie one end of a rope to the back door of their farmhouses and the other around their waists as a precaution before going out to the barn to tend to the animals. They knew the stories of farmers who, on the way back to the house from the barn in a whiteout, had become disoriented and couldn’t find their way back home. They would wander off, and their half-frozen bodies wouldn’t be found until spring, when the snow melted.
That day, Bishop Dalrymple, sweat dripping from the end of his bulbous nose, tied a rope around my waist that was long and enduring. How did he know the number of times that I would stretch that rope to its breaking point or how often I would drift onto the plains in a whiteout and need a way to find my way back home?
A few weeks after my First Communion, I came home from school and my mother told me that my father had gone on a last-minute business trip to Northern Ireland. This was a surprise since I didn’t know my severely alcoholic father was employed.
He didn’t come home for six months.
I learned years later that this was the year the “troubles” broke out between pro-British Unionists and pro-Irish Nationalists. I’m certain he was there on assignment for the CIA.
I have a postcard he sent me from Belfast on which he wrote, “Do you want to know a secret? I love you.”
I would have given anything for my father’s love to not be a secret. Anything. A boy needs a father to show him how to be in the world. He needs to be given swagger, taught how to read a map so that he can recognize the roads that lead to life and the paths that lead to death, how to know what love requires, and where to find steel in the heart when life makes demands on us that are greater than we think we can endure. A young boy needs a father who tells him that life is a loaner, who helps him discover why God sent him to this troubled earth so he doesn’t die without having tried to make it better.
He may not know it, but from the moment he first glimpses his baby boy’s head crowning in the delivery room, a father makes a vow that with stumbling determination, he will try to get a few of these things right. Boys with fathers who keep their love undisclosed, go through life banging from guardrail to guardrail, trying to determine why our fathers kept their love nameless, as if ashamed.
We know each other when we meet.
This book is one of my favorite memoirs. The story is compelling. The writing, sublime.
I’ve bought this book multiple times because i keep giving it away. I am reading it again and again… it’s brilliant. Cron captures deep emotion and discovery through his humor and honesty. Thanks, Don, for elevating this great work, again.
Taylor isscreening an early director’s cut of Blue Like Jazz, the movie tonight in Old Towne Alexandria! So excited to see it on the big screen!
You know, I’ve had my eye on this book for quite some time. I keep seeing ads for it on the sidebars of various blogs I read, and I’ve looked it up on Amazon. I haven’t yet read it though, so my comment on this passage can only be a fleeting observation based on a tiny window into the book. I’m not sure, really, what to feel about this idea of so much weight being thrown on a father, specifically focused on a father’s love being expressed to his son. I’ve read a lot – A LOT – about this. This concept is plastered all over the Evangelical church.
I don’t want to detract from the areas where this has had significant healing and impact on people. I don’t mean to make light of it. I sometimes wonder, though, whether or not too much weight is being pushed onto this specific concept. I wonder whether or not this particular Dad issue becomes a catch-all for Christian men. Faced with the concept of a Heavenly Father, we then try to rewrite the ideal father into our culture and even more specifically our own fathers and our experiences with them.
Again, I really don’t mean to undermine the areas where this has been used by the Spirit for the benefit of many people, and I think that that certainly has happened. But I’ve found myself in this place before. I’m a gay Christian man. For years, I’d attend all sorts of Love Won Out, Exodus International, etc. conferences, and I’d always hear about how such a large part of my “problem” was due to this exact issue, my father and him expressing his love towards me poorly, or even being absent. Then as I grew and continued to live life, I kept finding this issue everywhere. Book after book, spiritual event after event, Bible studies, Sunday schools, you name it.
And you know, I think – like I said before – that there are real and powerful stories, Kingdom stories, in which this concept was key. But I also know that in my experience with my father, it holds no water. I’m a gay Christian guy with issues. I’ve done the going through life bouncing off guardrail to guardrail thing. But my father loves me, and I’ve known that my father loves me. He’s told me my whole life. He’s been engaged and active in my life in a wholesome, positive way. It sure isn’t his fault that I turned out to be one of those guys who has to “learn the hard way.” (DC Talk anyone?)
And it’s not just me. As I’ve talked about this with my Christian friends, many of us have grown uncomfortable with the way that this concept has seeped its way into nearly every aspect of a Christian man’s life together with his peers. Some of my closest friends – straight, married men with solid faith – have even expressed frustration that, in trying to go deeper with things in their lives, the larger church body smothers their attempts to do this communally, because unless they’re ready to talk about how their father’s lack of expressing love is key to those things, then they’re not really being honest with themselves.
Anyway, I think my “pondering” may have become “dumping my thoughts” here. But it’s been on my mind heavily for some months now, and I know that the community of commenters here is excellent about fleshing out ideas, so hopefully some of you can work this idea out a bit with me.
Again, I really don’t mean to undermine the power that is found in this idea. But I do question whether we haven’t found a new Spiritual duct tape for the North American Christian men. And no, for the purposes of this, duct tape does not fix everything.
Ethan, thanks for sharing that. I agree with you. But I think this is not the only issue that is blown out of proportion. In fact, I think the whole narrowness of the path that leads to life makes it inevitable that we fall off it all of the time. I was raised in the time of “children should be seen or not heard”. I don’t think that I’m any more messed up in the head as a result of it than any of the carefully nurtured and attended to children of today. To be honest, I think that any style of nurture results in wounds to the heart, mind and spirit. In fact, life in general does. That’s why we all need love, repentance, confession, forgiveness, mercy – all of the things Christ provided us through his life, death and resurrection. I think that a lot of things like healing the father wound are one way to access and apply these gifts. But no one size fits all other than Jesus. But by sharing what He has done in all of our lives we are all strengthened. I like to hear stories from people who’ve had powerful spiritual experiences, even if I never had those and don’t think I ever shall.
I hope I expressed that at least somewhat clearly. Thank you for posting again.
Dave,
Thanks so much for your reply! I think the language you used was spectacular – especially the phrase “one way to access and apply these gifts.” You snapped things into perspective for me there. Thanks! Looking at the post again with fresh perspective, I see a different story: the story of an experience through the channel of healing a father wound, and a joyful celebration of that. That’s a great thing… even if once in awhile certain ways of accessing the transformative power of Christ are held up on a pedestal a bit more loudly and, er, forcefully than others by well-intentioned people. At the end of the day, it’s still a great testimony of the goodness and holistic healing power of the Living God.
And I suppose that I’ve been there and done that as well. Certainly I’m more passionate and vocal about the channels through which God has transformed and renewed me. If nothing else, my own previous response and your comment on it, Dave, are reminders to myself.
Thanks!
Ethan,
i appreciate you bringing up your concerns about the Dads-expressing-love issue. And Dave, for your comment that all types of nurturing cause wounds.
I’m not a parent, but I help parents in my job (and watch my sister and her husband work like crazy to love my nephew and 3 nieces). Years ago, the focus was placed on the children, to be respectful and responsible. Now, there’s so much pressure on the parents: not just TO love their children, but HOW TO love them so as not to mess them up. The message seems to be that if you can just love your kids “right” they should not have (much) adolescent pain or adult dysfunction. Knowing that the wounds will happen anyway — no matter what you do or how you do it — makes all the resulting imperfections and anger a little less personal. Plus, knowing this in advance can give parents plenty of time to save for their children’s counseling fees when they’re finally old enough to leave the house!
I see both sides. My husband and I both as loving parents gave our children a good stable up bringing with lots of love, good morals and values, but yet other’s feel that because our daughter is gay it is the result of something we have done, and that could not be further from the truth.
I know what it is like to feel the void of not having the love of parents as a child, and I know what it is like to feel whole again and to have that void filled by my heavenly father who in turn gave me the gift of having a relationship with my own father, who went home to be with the Lord Oct 15. I miss him terribly.
Fatherless girls /women, boys/men we all feel the same. We all have a hole in our heart and life can leave us empty unless we stand and fight for it to be right again.
joyce,
i am so sorry you lost your father. October must seem like yesterday. my dad died last September and sometimes i feel lonely for the days right after he passed, because his memory filled me.
as odd as this sounds, the most comforting place i found during that time — the people who best understood — is an online community designed for kids who have lost a parent: http://www.hellogrief.org. it helped me to embrace the girl in me who is now fatherless. plus, the kids are so resilient, it is truly inspiring! they gave me strength, and a place to celebrate the goodness of my dad (we also had many empty years). if you decide to check it out, let me know what you think!
with care, kati
Cannot wait to read this book! I used to watch Ian sing at Young Life camp.
Crazy small world.
~ Wendy
Wow, that gave me chills. Amazing writing.
Ian Morgan Cron is creative, relevant, and about as nice as they come! He is a wonderful storyteller, both in person and via his writings! Loved meeting him at Storyline, and I am looking forward to every story he decides to share with the masses!
I love all the imagery in this post. This is a book I will definitely look into buying!
Thanks for sharing! I haven’t heard of this one yet; though, I’m very intrigued.
This book is one of those that pulls you in so much that you forget you’re reading a book – like a great movie that makes you forget you’re sitting in the living room looking at a pane of glass. And it is packed with beautiful stories and thoughts like in this excerpt. Oh…and I got it in June at Storyline! They gave us free copies…thanks Don.
I love this book — and this excerpt from it especially — because I have experienced how even the smallest moments of grace or love or truth can burn like a pilot light one’s whole life. His image of the farmer’s life line is perfect to express my own feelings of the faith that was given to me as a child.
Wow. Love this excerpt. Never heard of this author and now I can’t wait to get my hands on this book! Thanks!
[...] Excerpt from Jesus, my father, the CIA, and me – Don Miller [...]
Got the book last week and finished in one afternoon. A life rescued from the pit. How great is our God? Love it!
Donald, Thank you for your ministry brother! I didn’t know if you were aware but Ian is doing a pilgrimage from Assisi to Rome. He’s doing it through Discovery Venture Tours. I believe it is somehow related to his Chasing Francis book. Just thought I’d pass it on. I enjoyed Chasing Francis and look forward to reading his new book. Blessings, Mark
Wow Don thanks so much for posting this. I can already tell how much i will enjoy this book. His writing style seems in some ways that I can’t describe, similar to yours and Anne Lamott’s. I’m a fan of both.
Can’t wait to see the movie!