Mom's Whistle

Greetings,

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Proverbs 22:6 NIV


I have always believed that children grow up to be their parents. This rule doesn’t always apply to everything but it applies to most things. Children grow up learning how to be adults by watching their parents. They mimic what they see their parents doing because they believe that’s what it means to be an adult. They learn from mom and dad what it means to be a mom or dad and they rarely part from it. I know that there are many people in the world who would disagree with me and that’s alright. To spend time on the psychology of children would take us way too far in to the nurture vs. nature debate. Suffice it to say the rule doesn’t apply to all people but it does to me.

I was born in a town named Marion, IN. It is a typical mid west town with typical mid west people. My parents, Jim and Dixie Hutchison, were typical mid western parents. They taught me the typical things that mid western parents taught their Midwestern children. So, it’s easy to say that I am a typical Midwestern person. Having said all that I am still not sure what that means. Being typical doesn’t sound so wonderful especially when you are talking about the Midwest. However, I believe that being raised by typical Midwest parents, in a typical Midwest home, in a typical Midwest town is anything but typical.

Indiana is Big Ten country, basketball is king and the hard court is its palace. Being raised in Big Ten Country, or the mid west, means something to me. I am proud of my hometown and proud of the way that my parents raised me in that hometown. I am proud that things like honesty and integrity mean something in that town. Society today says that you can have everything you want and it doesn’t matter how you get it. Society touts the “ I” and forgets about others. “Do whatever you want”, that’s what our society believes. That’s not what my parents believe and that’s not what they taught. I was taught that your last name matters and the things that you do reflect on not only you but your family as well. I was taught that “please” and “thank you” are respectful and holding the door open for other people is the way we do business in a Midwestern town. Don’t get me wrong I’m not going to tell you that I always followed the rules of what I was taught I’m just saying that I was taught them.

Looking back it seemed that mom and dad did a great job of teaching me and my brother and sister what it meant to be a good person. We rarely went to church when I was young. I would go to church with my friends on the occasional Sunday but that was it. We didn’t read scripture in my home but I came to find out my mother and father lived it. Without knowing it my parents showed me how to live a Godly life. Later in their years they would come to Christ and become very active in a local Christian Church. My father has served many years as the President of the church board and my mother became a leader within the women’s circle. I give thanks to God each day for them and praise God that the Godly lives that they chose to live when I was young gave me directions on my own path to Christ.

Home is a strange word. Just saying the word gives everyone a different feeling. Even though I live in a small town in Colorado I still consider Marion, IN my hometown. I consider it to be the place where I grew up and learned life. It reminds me of a place of safety and great joy. My hometown reminds me that wherever I might go in my life there is one place that anchors me, the place where my roots are. It’s always nice to go back home for a visit. Even though my hometown has changed since I was a young man there I am still reminded of wonderful memories. I believe that each one of us have a yearning to go back home. I believe that we were made to want to return home however the home that we were made to yearn for isn’t on a map. It doesn’t lie in the midwest or the coasts. You can’t “mapquest” the directions to this home because the directions aren’t found on a map but, rather, a book. God has made us to want to come home and that home is with Him.

I remember when I was young my mother and father were very good about letting us explore our surroundings and share time with our friends. We were allowed to go wherever we wanted as children as long as where you were you could hear “the whistle”! My mother had a whistle that she would blow to let us know that it was time to come home. If my memory serves me correctly one blow was for my sister, two was for my brother, and three loud whistles meant I was to come home. I believe to this day that my mother knew that it was impossible to tell how many times the whistle had been blown. Being deeply involved in a game of whiffle ball was never a good time for me to try and determine whether it was one whistle or two or three. What if in my great concentration of getting Bobby Pilken out at first base I had inadvertently missed one of the whistles? What if I thought I heard only two whistles when actually my mother had blown it three times? You see my dilemma. I know my mother knew that dilemma and whether we heard one, two, or three whistles we would come running home. It seemed like a good system to me. I got to go and play at my friend’s house and mom could call me home whenever she wanted. I guess mom’s whistle was a precursor to the cell phone, only cheaper.

There was only one problem with the whistle program. Sometimes I would get out of whistle range. Just thinking about the repercussions of mom blowing the whistle and me not being able to hear it gives me chills to this day. I can still remember coming home from a friend’s house and mom would be standing there with the whistle in her hand. When that happened you knew that you had “blown” it. I had tested the whistle boundary. I had measured the wind and thinking it could give me an extra block I had gone beyond mom’s range.

I think that is the way it is with God. He lets us go out into the world, to be in it and not of it, to be a light for Him. We know there are boundaries that He gives us. We all know what they are and, yet, there are times in our lives when we want to test them. We believe that it’s okay to just go a little further. We are sure we can still hear God’s whistle. But, sadly, there are times when we don’t. We are so caught up in our lives when we don’t hear God telling us it’s time to come back home to the grace He provides and so lovingly gives us.

I like the idea of mom’s whistle. I probably didn’t grasp the metaphor when I was young. At that age the most important thing was where was the next baseball game was and whose turn was it to bring the tennis balls. Life was so much simpler then. It was easier. You heard the whistle and you came home. It was almost like some Pavlovian response. I wish I could hear God’s whistle a little more than I do. It takes effort. I remember always keeping an ear open for mom’s whistle. I would like to do that with God more. Maybe if we all took the time to listen for God’s reminder that it is time to come home maybe we wouldn’t get in as much trouble as we do or as far away from home as we get.

I didn’t have a relationship with Christ when I was young. I wish I had but wishing doesn’t make it so. I do know this, looking back on my childhood I can remember many times that my parents prepared me for my life as a Christian. They taught me to love and be honest, to have integrity and to show compassion. And even though I might not have always shown those things at all times, I knew they were in me. It was hard coming home when you knew you had ignored mom’s whistle. Walking home with the knowledge that you were in trouble was the hardest part. But it never failed that mom showed love in my disobedience. Correction came, yes, but the love is what I remember. That memory would play a big part in my journey home to God. Thanks, mom, for that whistle.