Dear Nicole, I Love You Chair
The Healing Power of Remembered Love
by
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When Kyle was about three or four years old, we went to watch Bevin at a gymnastics meet. I think you and your family were there too. I was sitting in the bleachers with Kyle and he said to me, "Grandpa, would you like to know how much I love you?" Of course I said yes. So he said, "If there was a snail that went all the way around the world," and he took his right hand and made a big circle to represent the trip all the way around the world, "it would take a long, long time. And if he carried something heavy it would take even longer. It would take forever! Grandpa, that's how long I would love you!" He paused for a few seconds and then added, "You would be dead by then, but even then , I would still love you!" When he got to be a little older, I think in the first grade, he wondered about infinity. “What is it?” he asked. When I tried to explain it, he didn’t agree that infinity went on forever, and that there was no number higher than infinity. “There must be a higher number than that!” he said. “Maybe you could run out of numbers, but then you could use words. One word could mean all the numbers in infinity, and then another word could mean all the numbers after infinity. Chair, for instance, could mean all the numbers past infinity.” Then he said, “Grandpa, I love you CHAIR!” Nicole, that’s how much I love you. I love you more than infinity.
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About the Book
"I'm seriously considering not going to Church and not reading the Bible any more. They are too judgmental!" That was my granddaughter Nicole, age 20,defending her gay and her non-Christian friends. This book is our conversation about that statement, agreeing that people often divide into us against them rather than living in love or compassion. But there is a solution, one examined in depth in a series of letters to Nicole. The story of Adam and Eve is taken as a symbolic creation story, one that has supported a Patriarchal view of women. A new interpretation of this story provides support for viewing men and women as equals rather than women as submissive to men. This interpretation changes a mindset that has influenced the Western World for 2000 years. The book indicates the importance of living out our best ideals and the recognition that all human life is of enormous value because we are all created in the Image of God.
About the Author
Pastor Jerry Bongard M.A, M.Div., has taught in the Psychology Department of St. Olaf College, is an ordained Lutheran pastor, a certified counselor who spent nine years counseling survivors of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), has been a chaplain for people with Alzheimer's Disease, and has been a Support Officer with the police and fire departments of Skagit County, working with first responders and victims of tragedy. He has also authored "The Near Birth Experience." He lives in Anacortes, Washington, is married to Gail, has three daughters and four grandchildren. One of them is Nicole, to whom these letters are addressed.