charles osewalt's blog

‘A parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child’ anonymous grandparent

In J. K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ Dumbledore’s life ends as he tries to parent. But the child he has been lovingly trying to help at his end is not just Harry Potter, but Draco Malfoy. And us.

Wand less, injured, exhausted, Albus Dumbledore tells Draco on/ in “lightning stuck tower” as The white blond student moves to kill him ‘ … come over to the right side, Draco…you are not a killer’

Draco responses to Dumbledore that without a wand and alone Dumbledore is at Draco’s ‘mercy.’

Albus replies, ‘No, Draco ‘ said Dumbledore quietly. ‘It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.’ p. 492

At Dumbledore’s life end, these words illustrate the first and most important principle of parenting:

1. All parents will both be inflicted and be inflectors of pain with and for their children.

Draco has mercy; Dumbledore affirms this, yet at this specific moment it is the surrogate parent’s mercy that matters. At this moment Dumbledore feels Draco’s pain and his own coming pain. He is inflicted.

Dumbledore is inflicted by this own loving choice. He wants, deeply desires, to give Draco the choice to either kill him and become another horcrux breeder or to love by putting his wand down.

Parents, Dumbledore tells us in these last acts and words, must accept the pain of stepping back and allowing their children to inflict pain on themselves and perhaps even others. This is how we grow: by making choices, rightly or wrongly.

We can not blame ourselves as parents when our children hurt and disappoint us. We can blame ourselves when we hurt and inflict pain on our children. This is life’s way; God’s design, Dumbledore’s final gift to Draco and parents:

Step back and breathe; let the child chose; even if it means you must fall off a lightning struck tower. Be hurt; be inflicted.

We love fo He first

loved

We sing for He first sang over us

We can pray as first prayed over and then taught us prayers

We meditate because He listens to our breathes

We walk because He walks with, among all

We fellowship because He ate, sat, slept, thirsted with

Pharisees, sinners and disciples, and, especially, me

We laugh because He loved life

We cry as He wept over death

We serve for He first served us

He knows us; He feels us; He touches, breathes, understands me, us, better than we know ourselves

Jesus is closer to me than I am to

myself

He rose for us

rise

on the metro, subway

‘I want mercy for myself; justice for everyone else’

the good, things I like to do, have on my train trips

the recording in London, ‘Mind the Gap’

if you are 60 years of age in London, all tube and bus rides are free

for one set fare in NYC you can ride all day from one end to the other (Dyre Avenue, the Bronx, to Coney Island, Brooklyn)

musicians play in the W always of the subway in NYC, from singers to actors; from violinists to drums and more

helpful, friendly staff ( Paris, London, Europe calling)

people giving up seats to seniors, Mums, with children or pregnant with children to come, or to give a seat up for anyone at all

public transportation is the ultimate going green

the baddies, peoples and things who are driving me crazy

the recording in London, ‘Mind the Gap’

people who stand still in the middle of passageways to trains

those who take up more than one space. standing or sitting

those who stand by a subway/metro/tube doors (and won’t move for love, money or the disabled- this is London calling)

people who play their cell phones loud on the subway (NYC calling)

loud talkers

slow walkers

slow walkers who are reviewing the mobiles/cells

slow walking tourists (please stand aside, preferably to the right)

those who block the escalators by standing next to a companion speaking and oblivious to those who want to walk on the left (please stay right, in your slow lane)

slow walkers )did I say this already?)

the uglies, the unthinkable, the unmentionables, the unimaginable

changing service without any notice (NYC, NOT calling)

‘Weekend works’ with ‘free’ shuttle bus services

urine puddles, (especially in NYC at Penn Station when the weather gets hot) stains and smells on the Metros stairwells, walkways and elevators’ enclosures.

full meals with their assortments of: drippings, visuals and odours left on seats and floors in subway cars and stations

large packages and or bags on seats in cars replacing the living

unbearable announcements on cars

people pressing onto you, touching you, on packed trains

vermin in the subway eating piazza

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UPXUG8q4jKU

muffled, muttered, the incomprehensible

oral announcements on the NYC transit cars (I used to tell excited noisy primary students on field trips to understand carefully to such announcements as the speaker was giving out the secrets of the universe-we never could quite get these secrets translated)

the recording in London, ‘Mind the Gap