I just finished reading a memoir called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. It was quite a read. The story of her childhood is both heart breaking and inspiring. Jeannette's parents were brilliant, troubled people. The father was fascinated by science and physics, he was an inventor of sorts, but also a drunk who refused to work for "the man."
Her mother was an artist and stay at home mom who made me feel like I should get a mother of the year award if only because I feed my children on a daily basis and attempt to protect them from harm. This mom also hated to work and only did so when her own children dragged her out of bed and forced her out the door. These were proud people who refused help from anyone but relatives, therefore welfare was not an option. The children were regularly left with no food in the home, so they were required to scavenge for lunch in the trash at school - at times this was their only meal.
I was, at turns, inspired by the father and infuriated by him. One Christmas when they had nothing to give their children, the father took each child outside to sit on the hood of his car and pick a star. That was to be their Christmas present, a star in the sky. Jeannette (the author of the book) chose Venus. Her father explained that it wasn't actually a star, but conceded that if she wanted to choose a planet as her own, he didn't see why she couldn't.
As I read that I wished that I were that creative as a parent. Instead of going into debt or panicking about the perfect gift for my kids, why not give them a star in the sky? Granted, you can't take it home and play with it, but every time you look up in the sky, you'd know it was yours. It was a beautiful moment that clearly meant a great deal to the author.
Another Christmas, a few years later the dad came home in a drunken stupor and burned the Christmas tree to the ground. This was only after another humiliating trip to Christmas Eve mass. The dad's favorite activity during the priest's sermon was to shout out arguments against the plausibility of Mary's virgin birth and other miracles. The man certainly kept life exciting.
It amazed me when, toward the end of his life he discovered that there was a God. It was not through some miracle or a person's love or kindness, but through physics. In his readings he found that there is a natural order in the world. That, he decided, pointed to an intelligent design, a creator. This proud man was actually humbled for a moment.
Of course, the miracle of the story is how the kids survived, how they escaped the poverty and dysfunction of their home to create a safe, clean, hard working, well-fed life of their own. It is both encouraging and inspiring. And an amazing testimony to the potential of every human life.
