One of the joys of our lives is seeing our children as parents. Both of them are truly wonderful parents. And we have really high standards. After all, the children in their lives are our grandchildren.

I watch our son on the floor under a pile of his children. His work days are long and opportunities for rest and sleep are infrequent. His work is stressful and demands more than a basic 40-hour work week. There are evening meetings and it is common for him to need to deal with work-related phone calls when he is at home. He an his wife are developing and managing their farm in addition to their work and home responsibilities. Life is tough and challenging, but he manages with such grace. And he plays with his children with such love and affection that I can’t help but be delighted.

Watching him reminds me of my father. Our family was spread out and my oldest sisters were starting their families while we were still living at home. I can remember my father coming home from work and lying down on the floor for a bit of rest. He had injured his back in his young adult years and sometimes getting flat on the floor was the best way for him to get comfortable. As soon as he got to the floor, however, there were children and grandchildren who came to climb on him. He always greeted them with a huge smile. The children were an antidote for the stresses of his life.

Our son never met my father face to face. He was born several months after my father’s death.

It is a blessing for us to live in the time of video communications. We converse with our daughter and her family over Skype or FaceTime several times each week. No matter what is going on in my life, I feel such a deep joy when I see their faces on my devices. Our grandson has a ready smile and is quick to offer his mom a hug. She spent years as a preschool teacher before becoming a mother and has just the right skillset for her preschool son. He is intelligent and creative and confident and well behaved.

Fortunately for us we have excellent access to our grandchildren. Their parents encourage their relationship with us. While our daughter and her family live a long ways away, our son and his family are just down the road from us. We share meals nearly every week. I keep my bees and boats and tools at the farm.

One of the roles we try to play in the lives of our grandchildren is to offer them opportunities to show compassion for others. Yesterday our three oldest grandchildren lit the three candles in the advent wreath at our church. They were eager to serve in this manner and to be a part of the leadership of a worship service. Later this morning they will be at our house to help bake Christmas cookies for giving plates that they will deliver to others.

Baking Christmas cookies has become a tradition with our grandchildren. It can be a bit of a messy adventure, but the spirit is always great and the children are generous in their applications of toppings on the sugar cookies. They always have a container of cookies to take home at the end of the adventure. This year it made sense to spread that joy to a wider circle. Susan found plates inscribed with a poem: “This plate belongs to everyone; wherever it may go, with each new sharing of its gift the love and blessings grow. So fill it up and pass it on to family and friends to start the circle one more time, love’s journey never ends.” Those plates will be filled with treats, including sugar cookies, and delivered to others.

We have already had the joy of seeing our grand children’s generosity. It has become a tradition at our house for our grandchildren to go out on Halloween to trick or treat at the neighbors. Then they come back to our house where they eat a few of their treats, but they return a lot of unwrapped candy to our treat bowl and enjoy giving it out to other neighborhood children as they come to our house.

They are encouraged by their parents to share the bounty of the farm. Gifts of flowers, berries, vegetables and eggs are routinely given to neighbors, teachers, and friends. Watching our grandchildren as they learn the joy of giving is a very special gift that we receive from them.

The world in which our grandchildren are growing up is often dangerous and cruel. Daily we read in the news of children who are killed in waves of hatred and violence that sweep up innocents. Children are equipped by parents and grandparents with weapons of lethal force and use them to destroy the lives of others. We cannot ignore the pain and suffering that is present in this world.

We do not know the ins and outs of global politics. We cannot control the events that cause so much suffering for so many. What we can do is to teach our grandchildren to be kind and to have empathy for other people. We can help them to learn to share and to give without expecting anything in return. Fortunately for us, we have the parents of our grandchildren as partners in teaching them the values that we have inherited from generations of loving families.

We know that we cannot shield our loved ones from all danger. We raise our children in love that they might learn to love, and then send them out into the world where they encounter the realities of anger and hatred. Their lives will not be free from all pain and suffering. Grief will come to them as it comes to all. We believe, however, that they will be better equipped to face the realities of this world if they approach it with care, compassion, understanding, and empathy.

Besides, whenever they make cookies at our house, grandpa is sure to get a few.