Innocence and Reality

In my innocence I grew up believing in the goodness of people and all things. My parents and grandparents modeled this in front of me. I saw in them patience. Joy. Human warmth. Integrity. I felt their love and affection. I observed and absorbed their goodness. 

I grew up extremely sheltered because of this. My world was small, provincial, full of church life. 

I had great school friends. As a teen my buddies were not necessarily honor roll, but they were smart, athletic, and fun to be around. My girlfriends were cute, clever, flirtatious and, yes, honor roll.  Aren’t most girls?

In college I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I loved my speech and radio and TV production classes. But then, after an emotional church service I attended, I believed, as it was described then, that I was being “called into the ministry.”

It wasn’t until I had my first rural church as a single, young, naive minister, barely out of college, that I began to understand there is a darker, often jarring other side to life. 

I never knew the church could sometimes be prejudiced, elitist, and even cruel. That some ministers could be arrogantly ambitious, jealous, and petty. 

I never once thought my marriage would one day end, that in all the various forms I would later fill out I would check the box marked “Divorced.”

I never dreamed that in their early 20s three of my siblings would be diagnosed with a slow-developing debilitating and ultimately fatal neuromuscular disease. And that my twin brother and I would not have the gene and be spared it. 

I had no idea my youngest son Luke as a toddler would endure a botched surgery that would leave him with a lifelong scar on his face, though you would never know it now. Anyone who knows him never sees the scar, only Luke’s handsome features and his extraordinary persona. 

I didn’t plan that my precious and amazing grandson Austin would, only a few days old, be diagnosed with Down Syndrome. And yet his cleverness, his brilliant smile and laugh, and his little warrior spirit has taught me a tenderness and love I could not have known. 

And so, life deepens and often humbles us. And sometimes brings us to our knees. 

In my early innocence I believed everything was good. Now in my later life I know there is more to it than that. 

I also know that with its mystery and misery, life is still astonishing—and sprinkled—if not with rainbows, certainly many clear skies and a warm, beaming horizon. 

(c) 2020 Timothy Moody