6-20-11<\/p>\n
Theodore Roosevelt, about whom I currently am writing a biography, began his own autobiography \u2013 the story of a crowded life and successful careers \u2013 with the sentence \u201cMy father was the best man I ever knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surely, no man could desire a better epitaph. Such an assessment by one\u2019s children is worth more to one\u2019s soul than material success or inventories of accumulations. Even the plaudits of peers or hoped-for \u201cposterity\u201d are fickle and, in the end, worthless. Fathers who have earned the loving respect of children do not need such things; and without the sincere regard of one\u2019s children, other things seem meaningless.<\/p>\n
These are universal truths. It matters little whether you meditate on them from the perspective of being a father or being a son or daughter; whether your father has passed on or is still with you. I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that if you are reading this, you have a father. And let\u2019s say that you cannot quite quote Theodore Roosevelt about your own dad, think for a second about words attributed to Mark Twain: \u201cWhen I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to be around him. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is, in the Bible, a concept called the \u201cScarlet Thread of Redemption,\u201d where the person, and the work, of Christ, is seen in countless prophecies, references, allusions, allegories, types, numerologies, before His coming, apart from His immediate incarnation. So it is \u2013 or should be \u2013 with our families, and our fathers. We cannot be free of examples and influences, words and advice. We cannot even escape what every generation of human history but our own has believed in: bloodlines, tendencies, inherited talents. \u201cWe are our fathers\u2019 children\u201d is meant to convey the inevitable patrimonies we inherit.<\/p>\n
In the rare and sorry cases where fathers are not<\/em> the role models we wish for \u2013 like some Dickens characters \u2013 it is still wise for us to learn and know about our families\u2019 pasts. For correction, for reproach, as curatives. In my own case, I can state a variation on TR\u2019s tribute: my own father was the best friend<\/em> I ever had. Every project I do, I wonder how he would like it; every week, I start to reach for the phone to share something he would find interesting. But he has been gone for more than a dozen years.<\/p>\n But this is not about my father, or me as a father; or your father; or \u2013 stick with me \u2013 even on Father\u2019s Day, any mortal fathers. God did not put any qualifiers on the Commandment. \u201cHonor your father and your mother.\u201d Nothing about \u201cif\u201d this or that; or \u201cafter\u201d they have proven themselves. Think of another famous Father in the Bible \u2013 remember when God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac: a father should sacrifice his son??? God intervened, of course, when Abraham showed his obedience, and then our minds rush forward \u2013 along the Golden Thread of Fatherhood \u2013 and realize that we had a picture of our Heavenly Father willing to sacrifice for the sake of history\u2019s children, all of us, uncountable numbers except to Him, \u201cfor He so loved the world.\u201d<\/p>\n As good a man, as good a friend, as we have in this world; or try ourselves to be, or ever hope to be, is nothing compared to the love of Father God. In this regard, every day of the year should be FATHER\u2019S Day. And at the end of our days, if our children can say (doubly paraphrasing), \u201cWell done, good and faithful father,\u201d then we are blessed indeed.<\/p>\n +<\/p>\n I have chosen a memorable and beautiful song, \u201cGoing Home,\u201d to illustrate this message. It has been a Negro spiritual, hymn, and folk song; its tune is taken from, of all things, Antonin Dvorak\u2019s 9th Symphony (which, in turn, had relied on American folk melodies). Clearly, it sings of death\u2026 but in the context of that precious tradition I spoke of, of family-generations not being separate things, but close parts. One day we shall not only share eternal life, but be reunited with mother and father who, the song says, \u201care waiting there; expecting us.\u201d The performance is by the astonishingly impressive London boys\u2019 choir called Libera. This will move you. <\/p>\n