The Four Generation Photo

This is not the first 4 Generation

photo.  I'm such a black sheep

in my family that I don't have

any of the 4 Generation photos. 

 This is a stand-in photo.

I have no memory of the first Four Generations Photo, but I have seen it. Going from right to left is my great grandfather, Luther Norman, my grandfather, Wilford “Bill” Norman, my father, Richard “Dick” Lee Norman, and in my father's arms was me, Richard Lee Norman Jr.

Every Four Generation Photo taken, except the last one, had the four oldest sons arranged in this order. For many years I was last of the Norman first born sons.

At first I had no understanding of what was going on, or the significance was represented by these photos. All the photos taken at family gatherings were arranged. The idea of candid shots was not common in the family at that time. Pictures were posed. It was as if we could not just photograph the vitality of a family gathering.

Let's get all the brother's together, someone would say.

Let's put Louise in the center and all the girls in the family, someone else might say.

Cousins were arranged with cousins. In the early 1950s a candid depiction of our family gathers would just have seemed wrong. It wasn't done. Perhaps it was a reflection of the times. The history of photography started out with a requirement of poses the depicted could hold for long periods of time, because the exposure of the film took so long.

The long roots of the Victorian Era sent strands deep into the thirties, and surprisingly, the influence of that Victorian Era continued to play a role in families far into the 40's and 50's.

In movies I have seen this Victorian influence depicted in the very rich. In some of these movies the rich families wearing suits and ties, every day, having meals at a long table, with servants who serve from the left, mothers who were formal when interacting with their children, children who spoke to their fathers as if they were drill sergeants, or some form of royalty.

My family was similar, but we were not rich, nor did we have servants, or even status in our community. We were, however, an important family in the mind of the patriarchs. Actually all the adults seem to buy in to the idea that our family was important.

I saw the Norman family as an important family.

What did I know? I was a little kid. As I gained awareness of myself, and my surroundings, I was in this family. I was living with my mom and dad who were living with my grandparents, Wilford and Louise Norman. My grandfather, who seemed a little like he was mad most of the time, was the Vice President of the First National Bank of Austin, Texas. He was also the head elder of the Northside Church of Christ. [Note: he seemed more cheerful and funny later in his life.]

Now if you were drug up in the church of Christ you know that they don't have head elders, but in my mind there was no question that my grandfather was the most important of the panel of elders.

I grew up around all these adults, my grandparents, my parents, my uncle Burt, and visits from other adult like my great grandfather. I was the only child around. My aunt Pat, I called her Patsy then, was a child, she was still older than me and did not seem like a child to me. I don't recall any children around when I was first coming aware of my life. I was a child surrounded by adults and gradually putting my world together like it was a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes the jigsaw puzzle of my life seemed like it was a picture of a white rabbit in a field of snow. I had to look for the edges and very slowly put my world together.

I can't claim that everything I put down here is true. I won't vouch for the chronology. When I think of my childhood it is as if I toss a net into the sea of recall and dredge up whatever I can find, and there is a chaos to my memory like a net full of trash with a few squirming things I sort of recognize.

My recall is so ragged and fragmented that I hesitate to share anything, and yet, I do have memories and while they are imperfect memories they still work together to form the mess that is me.

I remember the Northside Church of Christ. I remember sitting in the pew and my grandmother giving me a stick of gum and then she folded the foil into a goblet.

I remember being pulled by my arm, out of a pew, the sinews of my shoulder near the tearing point. At some point my mother pulled me from the earth by that one arm and she squeezed me to herself. The noise I was making that triggered this act was made worse by my crying because, unfortunately for me, it was not the first time I was jerked up and taken outside to be spanked.

I remember my mother getting me just outside the doors to the auditorium where she started to whack on me with her open hand. How many times did she hit me? It seemed to depend on how angry she was. I know now her level of anger was linked to how embarrassed she was. It seemed like there were always three, or four, or six slaps, some to my thigh, or the side of my torso and sometimes to my face.

I was then tugged along to the car where I sat in the backseat with my mother who proceeded to shame me for my behavior.

You are a very bad boy, she might say. You have been very naughty in front of Jesus. Jesus doesn't like children to act up in church.

I made Jesus mad? I asked. It was a surprised because I didn't see Jesus. Jesus was not someone anyone I know actually saw. Jesus went to heaven a long time ago, I'd been told.

Good children go to heaven when they die, my mother said. Bad children go to hell. I love you and I want you to go to heaven.

Jesus is going to put me in hell? Why would I doubt this certainty. This information came directly from my mother, who was the boss of me, and who was perfect. What my mother told me was confirmed by all the other adults in my life. The good go to heaven and the bad go to hell.

Over time I came to know about hell. I actually heard a lot more about hell than I heard about heaven. Hell was a fire that never burned out. In hell there were millions of people, or the souls of the people, and those souls felt the burn of fire just like they did before, when they were alive.

The preachers I heard were very descriptive of hell. It was a lake of fire where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth and the worm was not consumed. Everything about hell was horrible, because it was constant pain that never, never, ever stopped. God sent Jesus to save us, and all he asked us to do is to do what he told us to do in the Bible. The people going to hell all have Bibles, and they either just don't get it, or they are being bad on purpose. Either way, if you don't obey the commandments of God you are going to be lost, which means on judgment day, or before the judgment seat of Christ, all your sins will be shown to you on a movie screen and you will see that all your sins were on purpose, that all your wickedness was avoidable, and you just didn't avoid it, and then a chute would open up and you went down fast and splashed into that lake of fire where you started screaming and you never stopped.

Hell was a scary idea to me, even as a very young child. It didn't make complete sense to me. In Sunday school class we sang songs about Jesus.

Jesus loves me, this I know

for the Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves the little children.

All the children of the world.

Red and Yellow Black and White

they are precious in His sight

But God did not seem as loving as Jesus. I figured God knows everything, God knows us better than Jesus and that's why God wants to send us to hell and Jesus wants to save us. The older I got the more stuff I did in secret or in my mind, and imagining God knew about all that stuff made me sure that sooner or later I was going swimming in the lake of fire.

I can remember talking to my daddy once, he was driving a car, I was sitting beside him in the front seat. Throughout my childhood, almost all of my memories of talking with my father took place when we were in the car together, just me and him, and he would talk with me as we drove.

I must asked him something like, Is it true that you have to be a member of the church of Christ to get into heaven?

It's true, my father said, but not because we say so, but because the Bible tells you what you must do to be saved. The church of Christ only does what the Bible says, and so if you do what the Bible says, you are automatically in the church of Christ.

I tried to follow this logic.

But I know kids at school, and at least some of them were good people, I said.

It's not enough to just be a good person, my daddy told me. You have to obey God's word, and only then can you be saved.

Why would God put good people in hell? I asked. It just seemed so mean.

Look at this way, my father explained. God doesn't want anyone to go to hell. That's why God sent his only son to die on a cross. God has done everything he can to get us into heaven. But if we don't do what he tells us to do, then God has no choice. It's like the people going to hell are picking to go to hell. And the Bible tells us that God hates sin.

Well this seemed absolutely ridiculous to me. Who would pick to be burned forever? I knew people who believed the Bible, I said, but they do different stuff from what we do in the church of Christ. But they think they are dong the right stuff.

You are right, my father said, but those people think the Bible laws can be ignored, or bent to fit what they want to do.

My father went on to explain that really, everyone who can read understands the Bible understand what it says. They all can agree on what the Bible is saying, but they just don't think what the Bible says matters. For example, my father told me about Philip and the Eunuch. Sometimes my father got all animated and excited because he'd already preached a sermon on this topic and had the verses memorized and knew how he wanted to lay things out for me.

The Bible says, that Philip preached unto the Eunuch about Jesus and after they talked awhile the chariot they were riding in got close to a pond or something. The eunuch says to Philip, “See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized.”

Do you see what happened there? my daddy said, Philip preached about Jesus and for some reason the eunuch asks if he can be baptized since they have gotten close to a body of water. That has to mean that the story of Jesus includes the importance for us to be baptized.

My father was getting loud and talking nonstop and I knew this was no time for me to ask other questions.

And this means that baptism has to be immersion and not sprinkling or pouring water on your head. If it was just sprinkling, surely they would've had a jug of water on that chariot. They didn't have to wait until they came to a lake unless baptism required enough water to immerse a whole body in. And then, and then the Bible says, “. . .they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch,” and then it says “and when they were come up out of the water. . .” Don't you see, when you preach baptism you preach baptism by immersion. Anyone can see that. What these denominational people say is 'yeah, it says immersion, but it doesn't really matter so long as Jesus comes into your heart.'

It seemed to me like it shouldn't be so big a deal that it would cause you to roast in hell for all eternity, but I was a kid, and my parents were the boss of me. I looked at them as if they were perfect. Flawless.

How much is religion the honoring of one's parents? – the wish not to upset, not to offend, not to disappoint.

Joyce Carol Oats, The Lost Landscape

Like Mary of the mother of Jesus, I took the answers to my questions and pondered them in my heart. I pondered them for a long time.

In grade school I had school friends who went to the Baptist church. Those kids told me that they baptized by immersion just like they did in my church.

I can remember clearly going to my daddy and asking if Baptists could go to heaven just like us.

The answer was No, of course.

But why? I remember asking, since they baptize the same way we do in the church of Christ. I guess I thought I'd found an exception or something.

My daddy told me a story.

He said when he was in high school he had a friend who went to the Baptist church. One day he was over at this Baptist friend's house.

I guess, my friend's father thought he would talk me out of being a member of the church of Christ, my daddy said. The man asked, Why we church of Christers believed only they were getting into heaven?

We think this, because of Acts Chapter 2 and verse 38, my daddy said he said.

What does that verse say? I asked. By the time I was a teenager I'd learned not to leave myself wide open for an extra sermon, but at this time I was accidentally inviting a sermon almost every time I asked a question.

It says that “Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” You see, my father explained, the Baptists believe you “get saved” first by inviting Jesus into your heart, and then you are baptized as a sign that you have been saved. Acts 2:38 clearly says that you have to ONE repent, and TWO get baptized and THEN you get remission of your sins. Until you are baptized for the remission of sins, you just can't be saved.

So if the person doing the baptizing says the wrong words when you get baptized then you go to hell? I asked. This didn't seem fair to me. I might go to hell because the person baptizing me slipped up and said the words wrong.

This all seemed so unfair to me. I had to accept it as true because my daddy told me it was true and it was from the Bible which was the perfect word of God, but it still just didn't seem fair. It seemed like if you were not lucky enough to be born to church of Christ parents then there was a good chance you were going to burn in hell forever.

I don't want anyone to think as a young child that I had all these profound doctrinal questions and doubts. I was a dumb kid. I was told that I was stupid almost every day of my childhood. I wasn't smart enough to argue the topic, I didn't have any loop-hole rationale, I just thought that this going to hell over little stuff did not seem fair. I accepted what I was told. I accepted it as very unpleasant truth.

The Norman Family

No one can really understand me without understanding the family I was born into and even then you may not understand me. Two Things:

1. It doesn't matter if anyone understands me. I am insignificant both in the macro and the micro, and
2. How could you understand me when I have trouble understanding myself.

Nevertheless, write these things to leave a trace of myself for those who might have some mild interest in these memories, and perhaps the greater value is that I gain insight into myself, and it might not happen if I didn't write about my life.

“What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?”

Thomas Merton