Bill McKinney on the Fombell Bridge. Acrylic Painting by Lynda McKinney Lambert, circa 1982.

In 2002,  Kota’ Press published  my first book, Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage.

See it Here.

My book of poetry and journal reflections was created as a  part of my tenure project at Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA.The book’s cover is a detail from a painting I created in Austria one summer.  It is part of a series of mixed-media paintings that I did in our Austrian classroom each summer.

For that 5-years of working for my  tenure project,  I created a traveling art exhibition that appeared in galleries and museums in  the U.S. for 3 years.  The artworks in that show were all created during the summers as I traveled with my students.  This book accompanied the exhibition.

Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage, by Lynda McKinney Lambert

Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage, is now out of print. I do  have a few copies available from me, but it’s not available on-line any longer.

However,  the introduction to Dad’s  role in my life is buried  in the message that appears on the back cover of my first published book. This sets the tone for my life journey in ways that can only be discovered much later in life.

Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage, features  drawings and  short journal passages I created during the summers when I took students to Austria for  drawing and writing on a month-long travel/study experience. My students lived in  a village in Austria, where we studied in the local school from Monday through Thursday.  On Thursday afternoons, we traveled to other countries each weekend.  Italy, Czech Republic, and Germany..  These weekend excursions  provided my  students with additional opportunities as we traveled and worked in our sketchbooks, on trains, busses, mountain tops, cathedrals, boats, festivals, and more.

Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage 

was so special to me because it was literally written while traveling over several years.  Throughout the book, readers will enjoy my drawings made on location.   One little bird appears through the entire book!  As the pages are turned, here and there, the little drawing of a bird pops up in different locations.   Other drawings  were made as I sat on a ledge in the mountain, viewed a cathedral, saw  people on streets, and as I looked at ancient iron gates that lead into rose gardens and hidden restaurants..

Yes!  You can imagine that I was delighted when Kota’ Press chose to publish my first book!

This Sunday  is  Father’s Day.

When I was thinking about how I could write about my father, I remembered the  endorsement  that was written for the book’s back cover. It is a good place for me to begin today, as I introduce you to my father, Bill McKinney. The beginnings of my life are intermingled with world events that changed the lives of everyone in 1943.

I’ve written a number of essays and poems about my father.  They have been published in additional books, and in literary magazines, and in a new anthology that was published recently by Stacy Russo and Julie Artman –  Look here!

But for today, I want to share what New York City artist and author, Howardena Pindell wrote for the back cover of my first book.  This is a beautiful place for me to introduce my Dad to you.  It reveals the beginning of our life journey together, in a unique way. I was born in August 1943, and the world was already deeply into a war in Europe.

Below is Howardena’s message that is on the back cover of my first book.

She wrote:

I read Lynda Lambert’s “Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage” while on a three-day trip  to Winston-Salem , North Carolina, from New York City and back during which I spent 24 hours traveling by train.   Reading and reflecting on her poems felt like a friendly fragrant  embrace from decades past, reliving and renewing my own sense of personal history and visual, visceral memories.   I  have always found hearing other memories to be profoundly healing as they make me feel less  extremely alone  and they illuminate my own  reservoir  of suffering and  in contrast  my capacity to feel joy.

“Book of Remembrance in Lidice” brought to the surface unsettling images and emotions felt by me as a child during World War II.  During my childhood in Philadelphia  there were frequent citywide blackouts and food rationing.  “Remembrance in Lidice,” brought back childish memories of feeling  unprotected as my father was exiled to the Army for 3 years of war.

I am grateful for Lynda Lambert’s healing tapestry  of words spun of sounds, images, and emotions.

(End Quote)

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Like Howardena, I did not have a father during the first two years of my life because he was drafted into the Army shortly after my birth.  This will have so much to do with  my life in ways I could  not know for many years as an adult. Dad was a photo on the living room table that I kissed every night before going to bed.

I have written a number of stories about Dad, and you can find them in my book, “Walking by Inner Vision: Stories  & Poems. See it Here. Dad was an avid vegetable gardener, hunter, woodsman, and a hot-tempered Irishman with dark red hair.  He worked in the local Steel Mill until his retirement when the mills shut down and our city lost  all the jobs that our fathers had.

The painting of my father standing on the Fombell Bridge shows him in his final decade of life.  I owned the Fombell General Store during the early 80s, and Dad loved to come out there to the country to visit while I was working. I snapped a photo of him one day, standing on the bridge and looking down at the stream below.  I painted this picture from one of the photos of that day.  When I was not busy with customers, I had a little easel set up in the office and I painted there during the winter months when business was slow.

I think this painting of Dad, shows the internal loneliness that many children  carry inside of them when their fathers are not a  part of their everyday life for those early years of our childhood.

Dad’s life was a hard one.

His mother died  when he was 3 years old. Life for a little boy who lost his mother turned into a living nightmare for him.  Not only did he lose his mother, three of the five children also died in early childhood.

Of the five children born to Effie Pearl and David Garfield, only 2 would live to be adults. Dad, and his sister, Cora Bell.

One afternoon as I was standing in the driveway with Dad, he shared a little bit about his early life. Dad was in his 70s at that time.  It was the first and only time I ever saw my father shed tears.  “I can’t remember her face, ” he said through the tears.

__Scripture

“The Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son.” —Deuteronomy 1:31

__Daily Action Plan

If you are fortunate enough to have your father still living, please don’t take it for granted.

Don’t waste a day that you can talk with him or be with him.

I still have the Father’s Day  card I never got to give to my father as he died  shortly before  that day.

I feel regret each time I think of how close it came to being in his hands and I can imagine how he would be smiling as he read it.

Dad and Mom were at my home on  Friday  evening.  They told us Dad was to see a new heart specialist on Monday morning.

We had fresh strawberries and  vanilla ice cream as we sat together on the patio.   Our daughter and her little baby were here visiting from Wisconsin. We took photos of Dad  in the house, holding his new granddaughter and his daughter standing beside him.

At 6 a.m. on Saturday, I got a call from Mom.  Dad died suddenly upon rising in the morning.

But here is where I tell you the most beautiful thing about my father!

When Dad was sixty years old, he woke my mother up one night.

Dad had a miraculous encounter with  our Father in Heaven that night.

He asked my mother to pray with him, and he asked Jesus to come into his heart and be his savior.

At age sixty, twelve years prior to this last night on earth, my father  knew that when God called him to come home, his name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, as he entered the Pearly Gates and into Eternity.  I know my father is in the Great Cloud of Witnesses, cheering me on today.

Dad’s most prominent memory for me, was one afternoon as we stood outside together  in the driveway . Dad, shared a little bit about his early life. Dad was about 70  at that time.  It was the first and only time I ever saw my father shed tears.  “I can’t remember her face or her voice, ” he said through the tears.

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This song relates what Dad would want to let you know today  Listen now.