The Stranger
Editor's Note - Many of you have seen this before. Perhaps we
should repeat this little story periodically. -web
A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small
town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and
soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and
was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.
As I grew up, I never questioned his place in our family. Mom taught me to love
the Word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our
storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries,
and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound
for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family.
He took Dad, Bill, and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always
encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us
to several movie stars. The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to
mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up while the rest of us were
enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places. She would go to her room,
read her Bible, and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger
would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions.
But this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for
example, was not allowed in our house--not from us, from our friends, or adults.
Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four letter words that burned my
ears and made Dad squirm.
To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My Dad was a teetotaler who
didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt
like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us
beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars
manly, and pipes distinguished.
He talked freely (too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes
blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my
early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the stranger.
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not
influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents, yet he
was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than thirty years have passed
since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. But if I
were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in
a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his
pictures.
His name?.....We always just called him...TV.
By Warren E. Berkley
The Final Page
From Expository Files 6.8; August 1999
