Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-15-26

Some things in life run in parallel tracks. Coincidences, maybe. Mixed blessings, invariably. Like a kid whose birthday is on Christmas Day: convenient for relatives buying presents; tough on the kid whose gift is a “combination.”

This year, D Day celebrations, just passed, are close to Fathers Day, just ahead. And with Memorial Day in the calendar’s neighborhood too, none of us has to stretch our memories and emotions to appreciate the role of fathers in our lives. You dad did not have to die in a war or go ashore on “The Longest Day” for you to savor the role of fathers in the human family… nor the role of father-figures assigned to us, going forward.

Obviously I am addressing men and boys, but the nuclear family – those duties, responsibilities, and blessings that God has laid out – are generally universal. Ignoring the liberal halfwits who think they are smarter than God as they think they can better arrange the physical plumbing (so to speak) of peoples’ bodies and minds, we all do have assignments in life.

Back when Theodore Roosevelt was the first major political figure to advocate full voting rights for women, he also warned that “Equality of rights does not suggest equality of functions.” Contemporary America has a way of taking a good idea and hijacking it to absurd extremes, and this curious tendency is the cause of many social tensions. Ignoring the common-sense dictum of TR, or believing that idiots can turn boys into girls on a whim, illustrates my point.

In my case (regarding the confluence of holiday observances, not social pathologies) I remember my father who served in World War II, participating in the D Day invasion – not on the beaches, but overflying the battles in weather reconnaissance flights. Three reasons to remember him during these days… not that I need special days on a calendar, or promotions by Hallmark Cards. Every time I finish a piece of writing, or give advice to my kids, or discover a new piece of classical music, I have the impulse to wonder what Dad would have thought, or done, or discussed.

… and it is the same with recollections of my mom. The same impulses, but different contexts: and that is how God designed us: The same love, different expressions.

Yes, the same love, different expressions. That IS God. He is Father of all; “God is love,” as the Word reminds us – a definition of God! – yet an emotion He expresses in 8 billion ways. Even more ways than that, of course. Every creation, every act, every blessing in life is a manifestation of God’s love. Which brings us back to the “confluence” I mentioned earlier.

That is to say, our Father which art in Heaven has a surrogate on earth. Yes, His Son Jesus was God in the flesh come to redeem us from the punishment to which our sins sentence us. But I rather point us to our earthly dads… and ourselves, in turn, as parents; and how we are to be heads of our households, examples to our families; protectors. We are representations of our Heavenly Father, or should be.

Can we be perfect and consistent “imitators” of God as per Ephesians 5:1? Of course not; but we can devote ourselves to that goal. We must devote ourselves to that goal. A multitude of Biblical injunctions paint the picture of Godly fathers. To be good and faithful servants is not an option; not even a marching order; but supremely, a privilege.

“Honor thy father and thy mother.” When the cycle of time is due, receive honor too. We teach by example, and we learn by leading. This is God’s way, and worthy of celebration!

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Click: Daddy And Home

6-17-13

Thinking about Father’s Day, there is someone in the news who, perversely, might be deemed “Father of The Year.” Not that he is a great role model, or has been honored by his children. Someone named Desmond Hatchett has fathered 30 children by 11 different women in the past few years.

Proud, not ashamed, of himself (“the wimmins just be lovin’ me”), Hatchet recently petitioned the courts to reduce or void his child support requirements. Although a previous court divided his financial responsibilities among the children he was found to have fathered (some of them slated to receive, thereby, $1.47 a month), he claims that chronic unemployment, partly due to his criminal record, prevents him from meeting the obligation.

In some American cities, unwed pregnancies account for 70 per cent of births, at least among certain ethnic groups. To discuss ethnicity in relation to such social maladies is virtually verboten in today’s politically correct culture. We will never “right the ship” in America unless honest debates return: it is just as wrong, for instance, to excuse a person due to race, as it is to condemn a person because of race. And that applies from reckless baby-makers to presidents. Nobody is immune from personal responsibilities, and nobody is immune from the responsibility to address social and spiritual crises.

Similarly, it is a mistake to exempt some citizens – that is to say, every citizen – from frank discussions. I take the news item about Daddy Hatchett as a take-off point for this essay. But illegitimacy, irresponsible parenting, crummy and absent fathers infest every group, every class, every race, and, yes, the church population too… almost in the same numbers as the overall population.

The courts can only go so far (except when they overturn deep traditions and voters’ referenda about, say homosexual marriage and legalized drugs), but it is a sad commentary how they address irresponsible fathers. Enforced employment? Prison? Sterilization? No, child support, alone, is the routine application of justice. Justice… to the children? And child support frequently goes unpaid, and often is scarcely sufficient, even on paper, to begin with.

But officially, when we are at a cultural crisis, the System’s official definition of Fatherhood is boiled down to “child support.” Spare change, and you’re done, dad.

To read other headlines, you would think that neglect, abuse, and all manner of dysfunction inhabit every home on Main Street, every apartment on Broadway, in contemporary America. To the extent this is true (and can we all generally agree we live in a flawed, corrupt, society?) let us fix things, starting with the nearest mirror we can find, and proceeding: our households, our larger families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, our governments and courts, our nation.

It is proper to relate all those problems, and all these areas where solutions can be made, to Fatherhood.

Fathers are heads of households, or should be (I mean there should BE fathers present in family units). Fathers are role models. Mothers make physical sacrifices; fathers do, too, but must add to the qualities of nurture. Guidance and example, counsel and wisdom, integrity in the workplace and in relationships, forbearance and leadership, strength and tenderness. All in ways much different than mothers’ duties to their children. Not more or less important, but, certainly, different.

It is best to look beyond the statistics and the poor examples in our news and neighborhoods. Work to correct… but look beyond. We should even look beyond the great examples – surely we all have them! – of our own loving fathers, tender parents, grandfathers who dispensed wisdom. For those of us whose fathers were heroes, as I can say, and who miss them every day, even then, even on Father’s Days, we may look past them.

The example is our Heavenly Father. Almighty, Omnipotent, Giver of life and of laws, Who loves us so much that His Son gave Himself so that all His other children might be free of their sins and commune eternally with Him. Father. “Abba” in the Bible – it means “Daddy”!

There is a story that James Abram Garfield, 20th president of the US, once gave advice to a father who asked about the possibility of the man’s son’s short-cutting his training. “Certainly,” Garfield is supposed to have replied. “But it all depends on what you want to make of your boy. When God wants to make an oak tree, He takes a hundred years. When He wants to make a squash, He requires only two months.”

The story says a lot about the type of children we may produce in this country. But it also says a lot about the proper attitude of proper fathers in this country.

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One of the great sentimental songs about Daddy was written by Elsie McWilliams and Jimmie Rodgers, and recorded by Rodgers, the “Father of Country Music.” Elsie was Jimmie’s sister-in-law and wrote many of his hits. Here it is performed with feeling by Tanya Tucker, a tribute to her own dad.

Click: Daddy and Home