Fathers Day - June 2004
This Weeks Reflection
June 20, 2004We had been married twelve years when Lynn suggested we take a long vacation, a car trip to Sanibel, three weeks. The plan was to return with a decision whether or not to try to have children. Toward the end of our time there we walked one afternoon on the beautiful shell beach and returned to our room to make the decision. Lynn was concerned that one of us might influence the other as we expressed our choices. She wanted us to each speak our hearts independent desire and so she suggested we write our decisions and simultaneously show the other what we had written.
I think we were each somewhat surprised to look at those two pieces of paper with the “yes” on each.
It’s twenty-six years later now. John and Mike are now twenty-four and twenty-one. Lynn died seventeen years ago this week. The lightening bugs that start to fill the June night air remind me of those nights following her death.
In a sense I felt the newness and the fear of parenthood twice; first when my oldest son was born and again when Lynn died. I was frightened to be a father and I was terrified to be the only parent. Bringing John home from the hospital, this miracle of new life, impressed on me that whatever else I was, whatever other label I hung on myself, none could ever be more important than this new one of “father”. I had trained, been supervised, tested and licensed for other labels I used to identify myself. But here I was with the most important label of all, feeling very untrained and certainly untested in the roles of father and single parent.
I didn’t know what to do. I was lost. I so relate to the reading this morning, what Steven Lewis said about being lost in Queens. I think we are sometimes too slow to rely on instinct but I agree with Lewis when he said you just sometimes have no alternative when confused and overwhelmed but to follow your instincts, to be as Alan Watts said, “perfectly and simply human”.
Other animals are better at this. Horses find their way home when, on their backs, you loose yourself deep in the woods. Salmon swim to the right place without GPS, as do birds in their migratory flights. Even Cicadas know without benefit of watch or clock when seventeen years is up and it’s time to party.
I’ve been thinking that maybe we have it backwards, this getting gifts for being a parent. Maybe it should be the other way around. Maybe we parents on our parents’ day should be the givers the appreciative ones. After all aren’t we the thankful ones?
I am so thankful that John and Mike gave me this status as father and so today I expressed my gratitude for how they enriched my life immeasurably. Fathers Day this year for me is a day for thankfulness, gratitude. I choose to be among the appreciative ones.
And among the things I appreciate today is how this status of parent has put me in touch with and given me faith in my instincts, the simply human. Being a parent has kept me in touch with the fact that we humans, like other animals, are creatures of instinct. And living by instinct is a good way to live.
Parenting introduced me to instinct. Even though it was my resource of last resort, when knowledge and training were not equal to the complexity and enormity of the parent opportunity, it was for sure my best resource. I have little doubt that I’ve done my bests work in this instinct guided role of parent. I’ve certainly done my most creative work here.
Being a parent has put me in touch with who I am at a very fundamental level. It’s given me a sense of who I am, how I am put together. It’s made me an animal in the best sense of that word. It’s acquainted me with the me I was designed to be and caused me to realize the good, the value that comes from letting my instincts lead the way, the value of being simply human.
I’ve noticed, no one teaches the mare how to nurture, protect and care for and instruct the foal. No one teaches the dog, the cat how to care for the puppies and kittens. It’s instinct, something that we are too slow to discover and slower yet to trust.
And isn’t it love that’s at the core of instinct? Isn’t love the most fundamental and enduring part of our identity? Isn’t loving the expression of self that blends and harmonizes with all of life, with reality, with the universe? And doesn’t human need, no matter how major or how minor, isn’t human need responded to with instinct, isn’t it that that puts us in touch with the reality that fundamentally, at our core, instinctively, we are loving creatures?
Parenthood puts us up against major human need, up close and personal; a child, helpless and vulnerable, close, very close range, in our lives. And our best response to such overwhelming need, such intimidating need, is to let instinct take over, and let the love which is at the core of who we are lead the way.
Last week John and I got lost on a backcountry road. And as we were in the process of calling ONSTAR, a woman pulled along side us, asked where we were trying to go and upon learning our destination said, “Get in your truck and follow me.” She led us through twisting country roads turning left and right and soon had us on the road we were looking for. As she left her car to come back to ours to make sure we knew where we were, it wasn’t hard to sense her joy and excitement with having chosen to be involved in helping us. We were the needy ones. We were the ones who didn’t know which way to go and anyone observing this scene would have not missed our relief, our joy and our appreciation but you know what, that same observer would also not have missed the sense of great joy and satisfaction that was all over the helping one.
Whether linked to others in a first hand biologic way or not, we are all parents because we all have the good fortune to come up against human need. And if you stop to think about it, it is good fortune to come up against human need. Don’t we yearn, aren’t we drawn to find an opportunity to respond to need and thereby find opportunity to give expression to who we really are? Isn’t it after all our good fortune more than the good fortune of those with the need that more greatly accrues when need and help collide?
Can you see why today is a day for fathers to celebrate, a day for all who have encountered others in need, all who have been looked to and called Daddy; can you see why it is a day for these to celebrate with gratitude; gratitude for the opportunity to give vent to instinct and live creatively?
And so my take on this day, this Fathers Day, is that the cause for celebration is the opportunities that all of us have, all of us, those called by the name of Daddy or any other name, opportunities all of us have to be in relationships where others look to us for help, however major or minor. This is the cause for celebration today; that someone looks to us for help in this life journey and that we trust instinct in our effort to respond and thereby get in touch with who we really are and what meaningful living, perfectly and simply human, is all about.
And so, thank you, John. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for presenting me the beautiful challenge of fatherhood, a challenge, an opportunity that can only be meaningfully responded to with human instinct, with who we most truly are, sons and daughters of Love. Because it’s in the getting in touch with and giving life to this instinctive reality that makes life just right.
Steve, in his e-mail to all of us, preparing us for this service, asked that we think about what we received from our fathers that we value the greatest. I’m aware that this isn’t an easy day for some. Because I realize some do better at this experience of living than others, some fathers come closer to reminding us of God, the Love which is at the core of all that is, than others but fortunately most people observing this fathers day can reflect on people who have extended them fatherly love.
And for me, what I have received from my father that has been the greatest value has been this sense of who God is. Those that fathered me gave me love; they let me know that they loved me. They taught me about love, that God is love and that we are made in His image, his sons and daughters.
I remember a story I once heard about a little boy who had worked long and hard on a father’s day project. He had built with care a special gift for his father. It had involved a lot of pieces that had been carefully assembled. The family was gathering at one of the relative’s house and the little boy decided that he would give his father this special gift he had made for him during the family gathering. As the story goes, as the little boy was coming into the house where the family was gathering, carrying his precious gift, he tripped and his gift fell on the hard floor and scattered into broken parts all around. One of the relatives standing near snapped at the little boy “Now you’ve done it, look what you’ve done.” But the little boy’s father, quickly, instinctively stooped over, put his arm around his son and said, “Come on son, let’s pick up the pieces and see if we can make something even more special with the broken parts.”
Well, my friends, Love comes to us through those that father and mother us and it helps us pick up the pieces over and over and make something special out of the broken parts. Who among us hasn’t come face to face with brokenness? How devastating it can be. But also how wonderful it is to find in such moments a father’s kind of love that instead of condemning us helps us pick up the pieces and make something good out of the broken parts.
I think about my father today. He would have turned 94 this fall had he lived. He died many years ago. But I think of him often and especially today. He knew what it was like to be a father although he never received a biological father’s love. He faced difficult challenges very early in life, the kind of challenges that undo some. But he found the father kind of love elsewhere. Rejected and abandoned by a birth father, he found love and he discovered the love, the father love that God placed in him and all around him in others. And he gave this father love to many.
I may not have rivaled some children in my need to display my imperfection, but I certainly served up to my father and mother moments that displayed that I was less than perfect. I remember one moment in particular. My friend, Jimmy, had just bought a brand new Cushman Eagle motor scooter. It was brand new. It had to have had less than a hundred miles on it. He came by, and proudly offered me a ride. And I hopped on the back and off across town we went to his girlfriend’s house.
When we got there Jimmy jumped off, leaving the motor running and the scooter in neutral. He said he’d just be a minute. He wanted to show his new scooter to his girlfriend. So, while he was knocking on the door, waiting on his girlfriend, I began to further admire his new scooter.
Any of you who remember the old Cushman Eagle will recall that its gearshift was a stick that came up along side the gas tank. And in my exploring and admiring Jimmy’s new scooter, I touched the gearshift and tugged on it just enough to accidentally put it in gear. And as it started to move forward with me on the back I reached for the handlebars and only succeeded in getting a partial hold on them, enough, as it slipped from my grasp, to turn the throttle which was on the right handle bar grip. And with that the scooter shot out from under me, out into the middle of the street where it fell onto the pavement, with the throttle fully open. I watched in horror, along with Jimmy, and his girlfriend as the scooter went round and round on its side tearing itself apart.
If you want to know what it feels like to a thirteen year old to have his world fall down around him, then I can tell you. I can remember walking back home in utter panic and despair. I had destroyed my friend’s brand new motor scooter and it was all my fault. I was a broken despairing mess. Hope was nowhere to be seen.
When I got home my father was sitting on the screen porch reading the paper. He must have seen the despair on my face and when he asked after me I can remember feeling the rush of emotions as I told him of what I dad done. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a sense of failure, such displeasure with myself.
But what I remember most today about that moment was what my father did. He came to me, put his arms around me and said, “Come on son. Come with me and let’s see what we can make of this.” And so I got in the car with him and over to Jimmy’s house we went. Jimmy and his dad were in their garage, standing over what was left of his new scooter. My father walked right up to them and said, “My son and I are interested in buying a new Cushman Eagle and we were wondering if this one is for sale?” And with that he got out his checkbook and wrote Jimmy’s dad a check for the price they had paid for the scooter.
When we got in the car and had started home, my dad turned to me and said, “You have heard the last from me on this. Someday, somehow I want you to pay me back but I’ll leave that to you and what happened, what you did is forgotten.” And then he told me he loved me.
I couldn’t wait to pick up another paper route. I worked hard to be able to pay him back several months later. And I can remember even then knowing that I had been shown a deep, a powerful clue about who we are at our core and about how to confront imperfection in myself and in others.
You need to know that I happen to believe that those who have finished their courses here and have passed on into the venue that comes next, I happen to believe that they are able to see us and be aware of us. I believe that they are still with us. And so today I say again to my dad, thank you, Daddy. Thank you for loving me with a father’s kind of love and thank you for helping me to discover that I have also been given this kind of love by the Author of life and the author of love.
And so the greatest gift those that fathered me gave me; was an introduction to God, to Love, to myself, to how we are made in the image of Love. And they did it with an effortless ease that could have only been instinctive, simply human and they taught me that this kind of living, being perfectly and simply human is the wonderful way we are made and as a result that we are equal to any challenge, any opportunity. For me, that’s more than enough cause to celebrate today.
Readings
From, “Zen and the Art of Fatherhood,” by Steven Lewis
“Fathering is a dreamy road trip full of contradiction and paradox… For me, becoming a father- and being a daddy- has sometimes felt like getting lost in Queens. You know you’re in New York City, but frankly it doesn’t look like it’s supposed to look- and at least half the people on the street don’t speak the same language or dialect as you- and admitting that you’re disoriented to the scowling presence on your right is more that your pride can bear- and, anyway, you’re not really lost, you simply need to find a familiar landmark. So you just keep driving. As Tobias Wolff’s clueless stepfather says in This Boy’s Life, “I know a thing or two about a thing or two….”
“As such, fatherhood to me is the perfect oxymoron, pure contradiction. Zen. And like Zen, there ’s no adequate way to describe it. …Over the past twenty six years, as family matters have grow exponentially more complicated and busier with the birth of each of our seven children, my inner life has paradoxically become simpler and quieter. Is that Zen? I don ‘t know. In 1977 when my third daughter was born and the children suddenly outnumbered my wife and me by a ratio of two to one, I awoke to the knowledge that, despite any illusions to the contrary, we were no longer in control of the family. That’s when all my notions about what it mens to be a father dropped like a toy boat over a raging waterfall- leaving me sharing a crowded inner tube floating down a slow moving creek with an extraordinary feeling of freedom. And it was then that I began to grasp the elusive notion, as expressed by Alan Watts, that the “perfection of Zen- or fatherhood- is to be perfectly and simply human.” Nothing more. And as Hermann Hesse wrote in Siddhartha, “everything is necessary.” Everything.
From, “Fathers,” edited by Alexandra Towle
My Father
by Ted Hughes
Some fathers work at the office, others work at the store,
Some operate great cranes and build up skyscrapers galore,
Some work in canning factories counting green peas into cans,
Some drive all night in huge and thundering removal vans.
But mine has the strangest job of the lot.
My Father’s the Chief Inspector of - What?
O don’t tell the mice, don’t tell the moles,
My Father’s the Chief Inspector of HOLES.
It’s a work of the highest importance because you never know
What’s in a hole, what fearful thing is creeping from below.
Perhaps it’s a hole to the ocean and will soon gush water in tons,
Or maybe it leads to a vast cave full of gold and skeletons.
Though a hole might seem to have nothing but dirt in it,
Somebody’s simply got to make certain.
Caves in the mountain, clefts in the wall,
My father has to inspect them all.
That crack in the road looks harmless. My Father knows it’s not.
The world may be breaking into two and starting at that spot.
Or maybe the world is a great egg, and we live on the shell,
And it’s just beginning to split and hatch: you simply cannot tell.
If you see a crack, run to the phone, run;
My Father will know just what’s to be done.
A rumbling hold, a silent hole,
My father will soon have it under control.
Keeping a check on all these holes he hurries from morning to night.
There might be sounds of marching in one, or an eye shining bright.
A tentacle came groping from a hole that belonged to a mouse,
A floor collapsed and Chinamen swarmed up into the house.
A Hole’s an unpredictable thing -
Nobody knows what a Hole might bring.
Caves in the mountain, clefts in the wall,
My father has to inspect them all!
Quotes
“A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.” — Enid Bagnold
“It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.” — Alice Walker
“None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of SUCH a Father who has not his equal in this world-so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don’t be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal.” — Victoria, Queen of England
“That is the thankless position of the father in the family-the provider for all, and the enemy of all.” — J. August Strindberg
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” — William Shakespeare
“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” — Anne Sexton
“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” — English Proverb
“To be a successful father . . . there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.” — Ernest Hemingway
“A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.” — Gabriel García Márquez
“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” — Sigmund Freud
“I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.” — Mario Cuomo
“Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee.”
– Margaret Courtney
“If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right.” — Bill Cosby
“Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!” — Lydia M. Child
