Father’s Day or Cat’s in the Cradle

I am writing this as we all approach Father’s Day. Many of us think that Father’s Day is just another Hallmark invention. At least, I used to think that. I mean, how many “special” days do we have to observe before there are no regular days? That is the way I felt before I became a father. I could go on and on about what fatherhood means and how challenging it is, but that would only be another sermon out of my mouth. Actually, being a father is a privilege.

Of late, two things have reminded me of fatherhood, and they aren’t my two daughters. It is the song “Cats and the Cradle” by Harry Chapin and my recent visit to my own father. I have always considered myself a good son, but remember, that is my opinion. However, I have received tons of affirmation from both my parents.

I have always found “Cats and the Cradle” a bit chilling because it presents the picture of a son becoming just like his father who was a good man but lost perspective on what was important in parenting. Namely, putting in the time to be with your children at the same time as being challenged by the responsibili-ties of job and other obligations that keep a family afloat. In the end, the song simply says, “I have become like you, Dad” or, put differently, “I have missed a lot of my children’s life by trying to be a good father and providing for my family.”

I remember coming home from college very close to Christmas and being picked up by my parents who had missed me enormously. Upon getting out of the car I asked them if I could have the car to go see my girlfriend. I can see their faces drop even now as we stood in the driveway, unloading the car. However, at that age you feel you have all the time in the world - there will be other times when we can be together. Sometimes those times never come again, though.
So, as I was sitting at the kitchen table with my father recently at his house in Sacramento, CA, I asked him, “So, what shall we do today?” He replied, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” I shrugged my shoulders, and he said, “Just sitting here and looking at you is great.” For a moment a chill went up my spine because of the preciousness of the opportunity that had availed itself to me and the reminder that I had ignored it many times previously amid all of the “important” things I had to do.

My visits now to California are infrequent and short, much too short, and so I feel a bit haunted by “Cat’s in the Cradle”, especially the refrain, as I have to say goodbye to my father again:

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then.

Father’s Day is just another opportunity to remind dads and their children that time is fleeting, life is short, and moments together are more important than you think. Don’t miss the opportunity to connect.

Getting Through the Lunacy of Another Day

Last year I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Eat, Pray, Love”. While I do not agree with a lot of her positions on religion and faith, I thought the following quote from her book was a “right-on” observation about the practice of faith itself:

The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane world order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon your comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered you in return for what you’ve given up. Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple – get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. We all agree that it would be easier to sleep in, and many of us do, but for millennia there have been others who choose instead to get up before the sun and wash their faces and go to their prayers. And then fiercely try to hold on to their devotional convictions throughout the lunacy of another day.

Faith requires practice. It is not simply a cerebral activity taking place in our head that gives intellectual assent to what we believe. We are always swimming upstream, feeling the pull of gravity that will prevent us from moving forward on this journey. In the end, when you come through the doors on a Sunday morning, put a smile on your face - you made it. I am part of those who are holding on to their devotional convictions “throughout the lunacy of another day.”

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is an interesting day in the life of most Americans. On one hand, it is the inauguration of summer, a green light for family gatherings and BBQs. It sort of announces to many of us that we need to slow down, relax, and have a lazy weekend.

On the other hand, it is the time to remember those who have made the “supreme sacrifice” and given their lives for their country. In cemeteries, American Legion halls, and other places people gather around the flag to remember and to pray for the families who are not the same because of war. War has robbed them of their brightest and their best, with only their memories remaining.

One of the best-known poems that still touches my heart is Flanders Fields, written in 1915 by a Canadian surgeon, John McCrae. This weary doctor, having just buried someone close to the place where he was conducting surgery to save another victim of the carnage of war, wrote this:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Dr. McCrae, in twenty minutes, penned lines that gave voice to the emptiness he felt as he sat across the road from a cemetery where the poppies had blossomed in the ditches adjacent to the graves.

Today, in battlefields far away, in places with strange names foreign to our ears, the poem is relived. We pray that our Lord would beat our swords into plowshares and we hope for a day when the vision of a lamb lying down with the lion would come true.