Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: the Life and Reflections of Tom Carson by D. A. Carson

Author:D. A. Carson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crossway

The journal entries all through this period hold many one-line entries on family members. Many have the words “Talked with Marg.” When Tom came in from visitation in the afternoon, he and Marg often disappeared into his study for half an hour, where they talked through family matters, what had gone on in his visits, and doubtless many more things that have not surfaced in the literary remains. There are also entries like this one, dated Sunday, 2 July, 1961: “Last night started reading Through Gates of Splendour with Marg.” One-liners on his children also abound. One comments rather acidly on a young man whom Joyce brought home for a visit. About this time one finds, “Most of the afternoon was spent on Don’s cupboard”—surely one of the most opaque entries for those who have no knowledge of our family. The basement had a couple of old walk-in cupboards that had been used as root cellars for storage or the like. At my urging, Dad converted one of them into a small lab, complete with good lighting, running water, a sink, a gas cylinder for a Bunsen burner, etc. I was beginning to take chemistry seriously. Tom spoke to our local pharmacist, and through him I managed to buy, from money saved from my after-school job at Canadian Tire, chemicals and in particular various reagents that simply do not come in ordinary chemistry sets (e.g., almost pure sulphuric acid). Five days later, “Had walk with Marg.” Sometimes he took one of us on one of his trips: “Today Jimmie and I went to Ottawa. We drove the Lesages in to Montréal, and then we went on from there. . . . [We] went for a swim at Brighton Beach.” A month later, “‘Golfed’ [i.e., miniature golf] with Jim.”

In the recovery period after Jim’s tonsillectomy, compounded with flu, “Jim beginning to seem somewhat better. Read books to him yesterday and today.” The care for the family extended, of course, to looking after his own mother: “This day started on Mother’s bedroom in the morning. Plastered. Bought paint. Gave ceiling one coat. . . . Joyce came home and slept at Grandma’s. Bed at 12:45 A.M.” Again: “Worked long hours on other things relating to Joyce’s going away” (Joyce had quit her job in Montréal and had returned home long enough to pack up and move to Hamilton, Ontario, almost five hundred miles away, to begin nurses’ training). In other words, whatever his own struggles, Tom was certainly not neglecting his own family. Moreover, after Joyce left home, Dad and Mum often had another young person living in the home, using her bedroom—usually a French-Canadian high-school student who lived with us while attending the English high school so as to become bilingual.

His own tendency to blame himself for everything during this period made it especially difficult for him to understand his kids when they were trying to shift the blame to someone else:

*Sunday, Aug. 27, 1961

Rose 7:30. Prayer of confession and worship. Read 1 Cor.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.