But we never got much into that, because it wasn’t that important to the kind of relationship we enjoyed.\u00a0 We mostly talked about bigger things — grace, the puzzle of suffering, the prefiguring of Christ in the Old Testament (a Brethren favorite!), the importance of studying scripture diligently, the need for young men who are able to take leadership in the local church as teachers.\u00a0 (Yes, young “men” — debates about women’s roles also weren’t on the radar screen of our relationship.)\u00a0 I know that, particularly as he got older, Poppop could be somewhat irascible, stubborn and grouchy.\u00a0 But not with me.\u00a0 Most of all, he always encouraged me to keep at it, to keep studying, to keep serving faithfully.<\/p>\n
I don’t regret at all the things we didn’t discuss.\u00a0 I regret that, as he became feeble, I didn’t make more effort to visit him outside holiday gatherings.\u00a0 I thought of doing that many times — just stopping by for a cup of coffee — and I never did.\u00a0 My great loss.<\/p>\n
But now this reminiscence is in danger of becoming too serious, which isn’t really suitable, because Poppop was a master of the stupid joke.\u00a0 I do mean “the” stupid joke — he told the same one over and over again.\u00a0 Yet I always laughed, and now I find myself also repeating it (it involves a child named “Pooping Dog” — enough said).<\/p>\n
Most of all, my memory is of Poppop at the table, surveying his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren:\u00a0 “isn’t it nice that we can all be together as a family.”\u00a0 So one of my favorite parts of the Psalms seems appropriate as an epitath:<\/p>\n
As for man, his days are like grass,
\nhe flourishes like a flower of the field;
\nthe wind blows over it and it is gone,
\nand its place is remembered no more.<\/p>\n
But from everlasting to everlasting,
\nthe Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
\nand his righteousness with their children’s children —
\nwith those who keep his covenant
\nand remember to obey his precepts.\u00a0 (Ps. 103:15-18).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Amen — it is so, let it be so.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is a sad day.\u00a0 We are saying goodby to my wife’s grandfather, “Poppop,” who died on Sunday.\u00a0 He was 93.\u00a0 It’s also a day filled with peace and gladness.\u00a0 Poppop is with his savior, and with Nana once again. I always enjoyed hanging out with Poppop at family gatherings.\u00a0 He loved to talk about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-BK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}