LESSONS FROM DAD

Today I visited the cemetery where my mother and dad were buried 31 years ago.  At the time they seemed old to me but now that I’m only a few years from the age they were when they left this world in death, it doesn’t seem very old at all.  Dad was 74 years old when he died.  But there is no question he had lived a full life when he left this world.  All of my growing up life dad was a preacher even though he actually began his preaching life as a middle aged man.  But since I was the youngest of eight children I never knew anything else.  He was always a farmer as well as a preacher and through the years did other things as well to try to provide for this family.  it was common for him to work all day in the field and go that night to preach somewhere or to teach a singing school for someone.  To many people he was just as well known for his singing schools as for his preaching.  Just a couple of days ago while back here in Lamar County a man about my age remarked he remembered attending one of Dad’s singing schools and was amazed at how he kept a bunch of young people interested in singing for such a long time.  That same day someone remarked, “I rode your dad’s school bus and remember him as such a sweet man.  I loved to hear him sing everyday on the bus.”

Dad dearly loved the Lord and loved singing His praise.  He seemed to always be part of some quartet that sang in all kinds of places their songs of praise.  As he got older it seemed that everywhere he went people would request that the group sing, “Old Time Preacher man” with Daddy singing bass and pouring his whole being into the song.  It didn’t matter what we were doing on the farm, daddy thought it was a good time to sing.  We sang while milking cows, hoeing cotton, loading corn or bailing hay.  We sang when we killed hogs or as we walked to church together.  When we were in the house he would have one of the girls who had learned to play the piano to play it while the others sang.  There were times when there were friends there when I wished he wouldn’t sing because I thought it seemed strange to them for him to be singing all the time.  Now, I wish I could hear him pour his soul into another great hymn.

When dad died, I got his little books in which he kept the records of what he had done each year.  In it he would write the names of people whose funeral he had held each day and times when he sang for funerals.  He would tell what the sermon was and what the text for it was in the Bible.  In the older ones he told what he was paid at the end of revivals that he held.  Looking through one of the years I noticed that in that year he had either preached or sang for 104 different funerals.  That peeked my interest so I looked back over the next few years before that one and found that every year he was involved in right around a hundred different funerals.  It was interesting in looking back at some of the older ones where he noted how much he was paid for his revival preaching and see that he was paid a certain number of chickens and different groceries.  They called it a pounding during that time.  I suspect it was during times  when the money was scarce for everyone and the food was likely as great a blessing as he could have received with 8 kids to feed.

In growing up most of the time dad preached for churches different from the one we attended at Freewill Chapel.  He would drive to different places around the area, most of which were in Lamar County and stay there for the day while we went to church near home and returned for the afternoon.  If dad ever cared anything about things like hunting or fishing I never knew it.  He had played basketball as a young man but seemed to lose interest in that as well as the responsibilities of life took hold.  He preached for the Freewill Baptist but would go to any kind of church to sing, have singing schools or to preach if he had the chance.

There were lots of things about dad that one could never doubt.  I never questioned his faith in God and dependance on Him.  I never doubted his love for Momma.  They sometimes disagreed about things but it never seemed to hinder their love for each other or their devotion to the family.  Most of the times when I remember them disagreeing it was about dad’s form of discipline for Kenneth, Roy and me.  All the girls except Joyce had already left home before I was of age to remember much about them at home.  Of course, Ed, my oldest brother had already married and started his family.  My three oldest nephews and niece are only about 3 years younger than me.

I don’t remember Joyce ever doing anything to bring on any discipline from dad, but the three boys, including me, pretty often crossed the line in the sand and brought on dad’s discipline.  He was a kind, caring, compassionate man to people generally.  But when it came to giving us discipline it usually involved a rather full whipping with whatever may have been close and available at the time.  When I was really young mother would say when I did something wrong, “Wait until your dad get’s home.”  Somewhere along the way she quit that and didn’t seem to ever tell dad what we did wrong because she felt his discipline was too hard.  Like too many others he usually disciplined more out of his anger than out of teaching.  That was one of the main areas where I promised myself I would be different from him and usually lived up to that.

Dad’s devotion, faith and love for the Lord was obvious to all.  But he was like moat of the men of his time.  He was pretty stoic when it came to expressing his love.  He didn’t do much hugging, encouraging or building up.  I don’t ever remember him being excited about things that we did that were positive or any achievements we may have had unless they were in church.  Probably the closest to such was when Roy was playing football and was being talked about all around for his ability as quarterback.  I remember us going to Mississippi State to watch him practice one time and dad being really happy about it all.  I never doubted Dad’s love for mother but I never heard him express it.  I never doubted his love for me but it was only a few years before his death when I actually had him to say he loved me.  Those were always things I wanted to be different about.  I don’t ever remember him coming to see a ballgame I was playing in but he may have and I may have forgotten.

He was a good, godly, faithful man both to God and his family.  He had learned to parent from his dad, who was a hard man.  If Grandpa Barnes was a man of faith, I don’t remember it.  I’m not sure how dad became a man devoted to serving the Lord but all of my life he was such a person of faith that his faith defined him.  The joy of his life all seemed to center around his faith in the Lord and service to him.  I have no doubt it was from him I learned the blessing of working hard and trusting the Lord.  I probably also took on other marks of his that I’m still unaware of.  I love him dearly and admire his life deeply but there are also those areas of his life that I want to be different.  I really believe it is a matter of respect even there that he wasn’t the kind of man with whom you had to agree on everything to be in his good graces.  I’m thankful for the life he lived and the example he gave me from the beginning to the end of his life.