Fathers And Honour

This year started with some conversations around fatherhood and honour that were very triggering for me. Triggering because these two things have and continue to cause me so much heartache that it’s often better for me to ignore them as it were. See, in my experience the older people under whom I have been entrusted tend to break me 8 out of 10 times. The balance of 2 times out of the 10 is what I perceive as a silent and polite rejection. And coming from where I am from, I’ll take that rejection and work around it for what I need in that time because it’s better than betrayal and abuse which is what I know more of. So when I am told that I have to honour the older people in my life in a certain way that lays me bare to abuse in their hands; you can see why I would take a few steps back and press pause on that relationship. Not because I do not respect these people, but rather the language and expression of honour demanded is one that demands that I give from a place that has nothing left to give but flesh and blood and as far as I understand it, Jesus died on the cross the way he did, giving his own flesh and blood so that I don’t have to. So yes I will step back and press pause.

I dare say that this story is not mine alone. That this is the reality of so many in my generation today. Who and what is a father that is trustworthy and dependable? Where is the blueprint for how we engage with authority when what we have lived through is a fight just to exist? And somehow we are expected to play to a certain script of honour for blessings that look like unhealthy competition between siblings to prove who is worthy of the parents favour and then they graduate into protracted court battles with said siblings, each believing they’ve been played and its their other siblings fault… erm… I don’t know. This fatherhood and honour situation is looking more like a cruel generational game from where I sit.

So when concerned christian brothers or sisters start presenting the scripture about honouring parents in a particular predetermined formula and expression as a prerequisite to any meaningful interventions… Houston, we have a problem.

Come with me as I lay out the problem and what I believe is a way towards solving this problem.

So, our parents are often our first exposure to authority of any kind and they tend to influence how we grow up through the values and character they instil as well as the lived experience of being within their care for the developmental period in our lives. So when a generation starts coming out as rebellious, angry and insatiable, before pointing fingers at them, we must interrogate where it is they are coming from. You cannot plant bitter lemons and expect to harvest sweet mangos.

If ever there was a sore spot in my generation, it’s the place where fathers have been absent, or worse, present and damaging fathers. Sadly absent fathers are more of a norm than an oddity in our generation. So much so that women will endure and cover up abusive husbands so that their children can, ‘have a father’. This is like pouring poison into water, it’s started out looking like all is well until all the water is poisoned. Yes, the physical presence of a father has often overridden the safety and well-being of the rest of the family. Think of situations where the father or father figure is abusive towards their families, physically, financially and emotionally. The headline that comes to mind is something along the lines of lonely retirees abandoned by wife and children. I know you have seen the stories, have you asked yourself what the real stories behind the salty headlines are.

My reality is a father who can be exuberantly present while quietly, strategically and systematically breaking you. And so many times my tears are dismissed because I should be thankful to have had a present father. But my question is, of what value is a present father whose presence continuously breaks you with abuse and violence? If he wasn’t there perhaps there is a chance that I wouldn’t be so broken? When I started finding a voice to cry about the nonsense at home, often I was told that I was being a bad and dishonourable child. That I should honour my parents and not expose them in that way. I wondered then if honour was to be quiet and be okay with being driven on the edge of a bridge because someone felt he needed to remind me he has the power to end all of us! How is keeping quiet honour? The cry that was accepted was when I edited out the nonsense at home and focused on how sad I was and how worthless I was and how life was losing meaning…. But when I mentioned something a parent did that sent me into a spiral, it was all cancelled because now I was being dishonourable.

So many years later and the response hasn’t changed when I talk about the uncomfortable realities of my familial relationships. When it gets uncomfortable, I am quickly censured with variations of, ‘honour your parents that it may go well with you’. So I decided a few years ago to try one more time because now this was starting to look like a prerequisite to the relationships I thought would be meaningful for me.

I tried to do this honour thing in the way I was told I should, I would go gift in hand. It would be scoffed at and I would sit and endure verbal diarrhoea for hours and leave before my tongue lashed back. Oh I tried to contort myself into whatever was asked of me when I went and I would take the abuse for the hours I was there and then drive the hour back home in tears, because it’s impossible to sit under such abuse and not feel it.

So I decided to space out my time being a so called ‘good’ and ‘honourable’ child and try and take control of the environment to limit the space for the madness. But that’s when you learn that your parents are older than you and will out manoeuvre you whichever which way they deem fit so the result was intensified and strategic vitriol. I wondered, where is the honour in laying down flat to be trampled on? Where is the honour in presenting yourself every so often like a hapless sheep to a parent who seems to enjoy tearing you apart and slow roasting you alive? What kind of sacrifice is this where I am the meat in the fire? And to whose benefit is this sacrifice? In whose name I’m I doing this to myself? God? Which god? What kind of God would demand that his children offer themselves to satisfy human beings who have nothing but acid on their tongues and cruelty in their hands and use their parenthood as license for such evil? Does God hate me this much? I’m I paying for something I did before I was dispatched into this existence? What madness is this?

I got my answers thankfully, they are hard answers to those who cannot understand what it is I am writing about. Suffice it to say, it is no small matter that I confidently call God my father today. It has taken his divine intervention many many times to get me here. But my question remains, where is the honour in laying oneself open to abuse because we must honour our parent in the culturally accepted, expected and proscribed manner?

Now I know my experience is not unique, I just am willing to lay it bare despite the uproar this usually brings. Too many in my generation have a similar cry but they dare not speak because there’s the ever hanging threat that if you don’t honour your parents it will not go well with you. But where is the truth in this? Because in my view, this is exactly what gives parents a licence to interfere and manipulate their children in the name of inheritance and blessing. But what blessing is this that glorifies torture and demands our flesh and blood? And is it worth it? It doesn’t end there because now I want you to replace father with teacher, leaders, authority… Then you can begin to see a totally different monster that pervades the socio-economic constructs we live in. When the home is broken, everything else is broken.

Now when fathers abdicate their position or use their position oppressively, why are we then surprised and shocked at the number of people who despise God? Don’t we sing that God is a good…. father…. ? When our blue print of fathers, fatherhood and authority at large is so broken, what then is a good father? How then is authority good? How then can a god that seems to protect the abusive systems and turn away from the cries of so many abused children be called good? Now we can start to see the nihilistic reality of who we are as a people… a people who behind closed doors, in the silence of the darkness, believe that life is meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. So many people filling churches on Sunday, so few believing in the God whose name they trade for social positioning.

Can we really be shocked at the emergence of young people who have no idea how to relate with authority and want nothing to do with family and call it protecting their pride (every pun intended)? In my experience the church shames and condemns the broken children from broken families, victim blaming is the norm, and so it is easier not to talk about the very real problems we live through… until marauding youth targeting grandmothers and accusing them of witchcraft start to become common occurrence. How does this connect? Because more often than not, when you scratch the surface of these incidents a child of the home has grown tired of waiting for his land inheritance/blessing. What would move a child to orchestrate the murder of his/her parents? And we still want to postulate honour; armed with the word of God devoid of the Spirit and heart of said God?

We are a very broken people. It is what it is. A nihilistic people with an aversion to truth. We are a generation of multigenerational complex trauma and hiding behind religion can no longer contain the crisis.

But God.

God always has a plan to rescue us from our own madness. His plan is a word in Malachi 4 and particularly verses 5 and 6.

See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 

The prophet Elijah is known for speaking truth to power. The truth is, that things are not well. The fathers have spat on and cursed their children, the children have run away from home and only come back to destroy and take what they were denied in their youth. And here remember I am talking to every parent, every father in the land, every leader who has had people or a people entrusted to them. Take a break from finger pointing and take a long hard look at yourself. Hard conversations need to be had and it’s on you to start those hard conversations in humility and grace and wisdom. Gods word is very deliberate in the order in which it is recorded. Receive the truth for what it is, turn away from causing strife against those entrusted to you and allow God to turn your heart to your children. Trust that the same God will turn the hurts of your children back to you and all will be restored.

But should you choose to look for an easy way around it, there’s a dire warning that closes out Malachi – or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.

Hard conversations look like;

1. Mum, dad, uncle, aunty, person in authority…. No. I will not allow you to drag me into your problems. (tips for adult children looking for peace)
2. Child; I see now you are hurting and I did not protect you like I should have, can you forgive me? (tips for parents)
3. Hard conversations about what true forgiveness is. Where accountability takes its place in the conversation and parties take responsibility for their part in the mess and there’s a plan towards rebuilding these relationships where everyone is held accountable.

You will find more resources at the end of this post 🙂

I cannot emphasize this enough, we must see the truth of what is plaguing us as a people to truly work through it. This is exactly what God is saying through the prophet Malachi that he sends out the spirit of Elijah, also known as the truth teller because this was his main prophetic characteristic. He spoke truth to power that was given to how things looked rather than how things are. God is more interested in the substance of a matter rather than how it looks. In our approach to honour, we are more concerned about how things look rather than how things are. This is why relatives and concerned church people pester me about honouring my parents by doing things that look good enough to calm their itchy eyes instead of interrogating the substantial and continuing effects of broken family relationships. This is the function of the spirit of Elijah, to lay bare the uncomfortable things that God wants us to change. To uncover the secrets that continue to scourge generation after generation. And in a world that is increasingly more concerned about how things look as opposed to how things are, this is not a sound that finds a comfortable place to land. No wonder Elijah got to a place where he was tormented, depressed and suicidal and God loved him enough to rescue him out of that place….

So once the true state of affairs is exposed, God then begins to work where truth has been received.

Kenya, we have been in one drought after another and famine is spreading through the land. Can we be still enough to hear the uncomfortable truth of our condition? Can we bear the exposure of our ugly family secrets and receive what God wants to do? I pray we don’t choose the safety of status quo that doesn’t address the monster under our beds, we need the children to feel safe enough to return to their homes. Fathers, leaders, bosses, do you hear me?

When the family is restored, now we can talk about the substance of honour which doesn’t exasperate anyone, which is a joy to both the parents and the children, which brings ease to the marketplace and in governance. When we allow the scabs to be scrapped off, a true healing of the nation can begin.

This is to the fathers, leaders, people in authority, the current culture is one that celebrate and promotes the breaking of those who are entrusted to you. It’s in your power to turn things around and it starts with you being open and vulnerable to those entrusted to you. The tears of too many people rest on your shoulders and your sleep is ravaged. Rest is a myth and ease is a fairy-tale. Turn away from the systems of abuse in your jurisdiction, rewrite the script for those in your care, allow God to expose the ugly and work you through it and when he is done the words of Isaiah in chapter 60 will become your truth, that Gods glory will rise over you, that you will see your sons and daughters coming from afar bearing the wealth of faraway lands and all that is written in that chapter.

RECONCILIATION RESOURCES

1. How to Manage Estranged Children – Reconcile Parent Child Relationship (empoweringparents.com)
2. ESTRANGED: What to Do When Your Adult Child Wants Nothing to Do With You | LifeWise by Dr. Jan Anderson (drjananderson.com)
3. Adult Survivors of Emotional Child Abuse – The Invisible Scar (wordpress.com)
4. 6 Ways To Deal With Emotionally Abusive Parents – Avens Blog | Avens Blog (avensonline.org)