Wisdom of the Generations

By Robert W. Bastian

The Bastian family has been working with Mom on her upcoming memoir. Hers will complement Dad’s memoir of a few years ago, From Kitchen Chair to Pulpit: A Life of Family, Faith, and Ministry, and document Swallow family history for the three generations of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 

Mother was born Kathleen Grace Swallow, in 1926, the fourth of seven children who lived on a farm in Saskatchewan and then, forced by circumstances, moved to Niagara Falls, Ontario.

We are amazed by what Mom has written and hope to have the book completed within the next few months.

One of the things we have learned is the role of aphorisms in Mom’s family. Her widowed mother was famous for her good-natured teaching/teasing comments to her seven children, such as, “Pride is warm,” when a daughter didn’t want to disturb her hair with a hat in winter. Another one was, “Of all my father’s family, I love myself the best,” said when one of the children took the largest cookie on the plate instead of leaving it for someone else. Many other Swallow aphorisms will be found in Mom’s memoir.

Dad’s family also had aphorisms from his English immigrant parents. “Your chickens will come home to roost.” Or, on a Saturday morning to rouse a teenager wanting to sleep in: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.”

We think the refrain of there’s a right way to do everything wisdom may have been handed down by his parents. And Dad’s English major and wide reading gave him some others that he applied more sparingly that deserve mention.

For example, all three of us children had at least one experience (as does almost everyone) with dishonesty and betrayal from a friend or co-worker. “Lies circle the globe, while truth is pulling its boots on” might have been a word of comfort from Dad at such a time.

We can each think of a time when we felt trapped by a bad work environment, an impossible task, the sting of injustice. Dad might provide insight into our emotional state by saying, “It seems to me that you are feeling like a victim. Nobody does well in victim mode.” And then he’d brainstorm with us how to get out of that mode.

And now in our generation, we each have a favorite aphorism. One is, “Truth is violated by falsehood, but outraged by silence.” Another: “ In matters of taste, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Or here’s a good one: “You can cover a lot of ground in life if you don’t stop to throw rocks at all the barking dogs.”

The reader can find the source of each of these aphorisms, with a simple Internet search, and, in so doing, find more aphorisms of their own.

My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.

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