I was driving by the Civic Center baseball complex recently and a wave of nostalgia rolled over me as I thought about all the hours I spent parked on those bleachers when my boys played youth baseball.
Baseball season offered abundant opportunities for people-watchers like me to observe folks from all points on the socio-economic spectrum, from the reddest of rednecks to the yuppiest of yuppies.
One memory from those days lives on as legend in our family. All these years later, the mere mention of the name “Petey” makes our family chuckle out loud.
Petey was the little brother of one of my son’s baseball teammates. Petey’s parents faithfully attended their son’s games, but while the older son was playing baseball, Petey, who was probably four years old, was left to entertain himself.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot purge from my memory the image of Petey’s dad sitting at those games in his lawn chair, always clad in a t-shirt that was much too small and never quite covered his furry, beach-ball belly. I’m scarcely in a position to cast stones when it comes to toting around a few extra pounds, but at least I try to keep mine sufficiently covered up in public. (And all God’s people said, “Amen!”)
Petey’s father displayed his paunch with pride, as though it were a glorious testament to years of plenteous eating and drinking. We might have been able to simply avoid looking at this guy had he not also loudly barked at Petey throughout the practices and games.
From his lawn chair throne, Petey’s dad issued a nearly constant string of high-volume commands to his oblivious little son: “PETEY – GET OUTTA THAT MUD! PETEY – GET OVER HERE! PETEY—STOP DIGGIN’ THEM HOLES!”
Petey’s dad never got up. He just yelled, and we all had to listen…except for Petey, who was obviously tuned in to a different channel.
I only remember hearing Petey respond to his father once, but it was quite memorable, as the youngster informed his daddy and everybody within a hundred yards that a certain unsavory part of his body itched.
For all I know, Petey may be a nuclear physicist by now, although the deck certainly seemed stacked against that. I never saw this family again when that baseball season ended, but Petey and his dad taught me some enduring lessons.
Petey’s family sadly modeled the kind of “do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do” parenting that seems to guarantee children a bumpy ride on the Rebellion Express. We can bark at our kids loud and long, but if they know we’re never going to get out of our lawnchairs, our children will probably just plain ignore our words.
Petey wasn’t gonna get out of the mud as long as Daddy just parked on his haunches and yelled.
So simply telling our kids to go to church and to be good people isn’t enough. Not these days. They’re watching to see how we live, and how we relate (or don’t relate) to Jesus.
We have a perfectly wise, loving God who understood this about His kids. He didn’t just sit in heaven and tell us what to do; He put on human skin (Jesus) and showed us.
God didn’t sit on His throne and rail at us; He came, demonstrating a perfect balance of power and tenderness, truth and grace, majesty and intimacy. May He teach us to model the same to the children He has entrusted to our care.