Celebrating Fatherhood

" This is what the Lord says: ' I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.' " [Ezekiel 17: 22-24].

This Scripture tells the story of how God sent Jesus as a 'tender sprig', a tiny baby that was as a shoot from a High Cedar, God Himself.  This tender shoot was planted on a high and lofty place. The delicate green tip grows to become a splendid cedar in His own right.

Many "will find shelter in the shade of its branches." Thus, Jesus shelters us in His loving arms. He provides not only sheltering branches, but also much fruit.

I like to think, on this Father's Day, of this splendid cedar as a metaphor for Jesus, but also as an image of the ideal earthly father. Good and loving fathers on this earth are to provide fruit for us to thrive upon. They are to shelter us in their loving arms.

Yet, in my case, my own father was largely absent. He worked for the same company for close to forty years. Every weekday, he arose to the sound of his alarm clock, dressed in his business suit and went  to the office. When he was not in the office, he often traveled for business.

On weekends, he mowed the lawn, and did all of the gardening, and then drove to the gas station to put fuel in the family car. In other words, he was physically not present. Not on weekdays, not on the weekends.

Of course, this was not his fault. This was the life of fathers, when I was a little girl.

Over the years,  my father changed. He became more and more emotionally distant. When he got home from work, he would sit silently in his favorite chair, nursing his drinks. At dinner, he seemed to be fuming over the events of the day. After dinner, he would wander outside into the yard and "survey his domain." He reminded me of  Adam in Genesis, who named all the plants and the animals and had dominion over them all. And in his capacity to disappear, I began to call him, "The Ghost."

At other times, he would turn angry. His dark eyes flashing, he would point his index finger in my face and speak furiously about some matter or other. Usually, I felt as if I were being blamed for something I did not do. It was very unsettlingly to me that I never knew which father I was going to get.

I feel a deep sadness over the father I never had. It was as if my father, who had the capacity to be a tall tree, was brought low; and he brought us all down low with him. He became a dry tree, he withered up and disappeared, a ghost of a father, a whisper of a man.

This fundamental sadness of mine is reflected in the eyes that stare back at me in the mirror, as I try to divine who I really am? The sadness is a deep hole in my heart that can never be filled. Endlessly I ask others in my life: 'Why, how could you possibly love me?' No matter what the response, I never feel loved or loveable.

So I observe the contempt with which our modern culture treats fathers, and I fall into despair.  Why do we tolerate advertisements that show fathers as inept, hapless and even hopeless?  Why do even married women pretend that they are single mothers, even as they complain bitterly about how useless their husbands are?

"Husband jokes" make me cringe. I always longed for a present, loving father, who provided the fruits of his labors AND who sheltered his children in his strong arms. Why do we dismiss fathers who are very willing to be present and involved?

I have spoken before about how we expect mothers today to be perfect. [Related posting: "Mother's Day, May 12, 2012].

The shame of it is, at the same time, we actually expect fathers to be useless, and pretty much a joke. Or worse, irrelevant DNA donors. We used to marginalize women who were mothers; we rendered them invisible. Theirs were the silent, nameless hands that bathed us, dressed us, fed us, soothed us.

Doing the same to fathers is no remedy. Actually, it is a tragedy.  This Fathers' Day, I hope that you spend time with your father. I pray that you have a loving, tender conversation with your father, that you hug your father and tell him how much he means to you. Before he disappears. . . . before he gives up on the honor and the love that is fatherhood.

(c) The Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.