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There are a thousand stories behind every family picture.
The three men standing in front of this seascape were all participants in the McDonald clan’s visit to the Galapagos Islands last week. They include my brothers Scott and Bruce, who were accompanied by their wives Gina and Ruth, respectively. My wife Mary Sue chose to stay home and watch over our farm and its resident critters.
Ever since the three of us could stand, our pictures have never varied.
Bruce, the youngest, is always on the viewer’s left. Scott is always on the right. I’m always in the middle. For easy reference, I’m the guy wearing the brightly colored sports jersey, just in case a search and rescue team needed to find us in a pinch.
When Bruce turns 70 later this month, all three of us will officially be in our eighth decade of life. The years have flown by faster than any of us could have imagined.
As kids, we were tall and skinny. It’s been easy to hang on to the tall part. Sustaining the skinny part has turned out to be more of a challenge.
Bruce set the bar when it came to being thin. Early on he became known as Bone. As Scott entered his teenage years – vacillating between childhood and adulthood – Bruce and I thought it only fair to call him Boy. I never did get a nickname. So we were Boy, Bone…and Glenn.
We each pursued different callings. Scott became an exotic animal veterinarian, specializing in parrots. Bruce trained as a civil engineer and became a project manager for the construction of Eli Lilly bio-labs. I became a Presbyterian pastor. An animal person, a corporate person, a people person – even though we all ate the same green beans, went to the same church, and watched the same shows on TV.
At one point in our adolescence the three of us sat down to watch the 1965 movie Shenandoah.
Jimmy Stewart plays Charlie Anderson, a rugged individualist working a Virginia farm during the Civil War. Charlie, a widower, is the father of six sons and one daughter. He is ravaged by the death of his wife. He has run out of enthusiasm for life, and apparently also children’s names. His youngest son, who is 16 years old, answers to Boy.
That got our attention. When the credits roll at the end of the film, the role played by the young actor Phillip Alford is identified simply as Boy.
We howled. You mean there is really someone else in the world who goes by Boy?
Ultimately, we gave Scott a measure of respect. He became known as Mr. Boy. When he graduated from the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine, he became (of course) Dr. Boy. And that’s how I addressed him all last week. Some sibling habits die hard.
We were just gangly teenagers when we first saw Shenandoah. We didn’t grasp its deeper meaning.
Charlie Anderson is bitter toward God. He drags his family to church only because his wife, as she died, made him promise to do so. They always arrive late and always force other people to move so they can find seats – something that always annoys the preacher.
When Charlie says grace before each meal, it’s always the same:
“Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eating it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you, just the same anyway, Lord, for the food we’re about to eat, Amen.”
We can get through life all by ourselves, Lord, no thanks to you.
Charlie tries to keep his family out of the war. But the fighting comes to them just the same. He loses two of his sons and his daughter-in-law. Boy, simply because he’s wearing a Confederate cap, is dragged off by Union soldiers as a prisoner of war. Charlie searches desperately for him, but to no avail.
At the breakfast table, he can’t even utter his self-reliant prayer. Heartbroken, he staggers to his wife’s grave, which is now surrounded by three more family graves.
The church bells begin to ring. He’s forgotten it’s Sunday. He says to his wife, “You never give up, do you?”
Once again, the Andersons arrive late to worship. They sing half-heartedly. Suddenly, there’s a commotion at the back of the sanctuary. Boy is standing there, leaning on a crutch. Waves of relief, joy, and pure grace break over Charlie Anderson’s face as he embraces his son. The congregation sings, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”
Even when we’ve convinced ourselves that life is a grim trudge propelled only by exhausting self-effort, we discover there is hope after all.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
We are never alone.
It’s taken a lifetime, but that’s the lesson that has transformed the lives of Dr. Boy, Bone…and Glenn.