Father’s Day

As we head into Father’s Day, I am happy so many have (or have had) good fathers that they love and honor, and who have loved and honored their children and spouses. It gives me hope for the world when I see a man interacting in kind, patient, and loving ways with children. It gives me hope to see and hear of men who know how to love and be loving and kind.

For some of us, Father’s Day is a bit problematic. In the first place, what do we mean by love? It’s such a nebulous concept, overlain with heaps of ideas and expectations which might or might not be true. I’m not going to give an exhaustive treatise here; many tomes have been written on love. What I do know is that among the many things a father ought to be is an example of a loving relationship with his spouse and children. I never saw even the tiniest glimmer of that.

So I grew up with a suspicious concept of love. All I had to inform me were theories and fictional accounts. On the one hand, my fictional notions set me up to believe that there was some ideal person out there who could make me feel whole, meet every one of my needs, rescue me from my loneliness and dark imaginings, and grant me a problem-free relationship. On the other hand, I didn’t believe in love at all. That tension wreaked havoc in my brain which hadn’t yet healed of the negative overlay from my childhood.

When I talk about love, I am often reminded of the 70s book, Love Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry. I never understood that sentiment then, and I still do not now. I certainly grew up with people who never professed to love, and also never made any apologies, but according to everything I read and observed, these were people who were supposed to love me. So if love really did mean never having to say you’re sorry, they must’ve loved me a lot, but showed it in a very warped way. There was a whole lot of drama, trauma, and abuse, and that didn’t seem very loving to me. But then, I had little to go on.

Then there were other people, mostly men, telling me that G!d is love out of one side of the mouth, while the other side of their mouth was constantly reminding me I was a horrible rotten sinner constantly on the verge of meriting hell with every tiny mistake I made. And according to them, I sure seemed to make a LOT of mistakes! It was confusing. We all know that it is not good for a child to grow up feeling hated and rejected and not loved.

Through the centuries, many philosophers have waxed and waned rather eloquently about love. The ancient Greek philosophers spoke of seven different kinds of love... seven! Eros, philia, storge, ludus, agape, pragma, and philautia. Aristotle wrote that all friendly feelings for others are an extension of how each of us feels about ourselves.

The Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, took the Greek concepts and narrowed them to four, in his classic work, The Four Loves. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love save that which is manifested in loving.

In our society today, we have only one word––four little letters––to convey all of this. And we use it for everything. Why, we have more words to describe coffee than we do love!

While my background did not foster love, since then, life has been good to me, and G!d has given me friends and relationships and animals who have all been my teachers, and who have showed me what unconditional love really is. I have learned that love is not something out there; it is not something I must obtain from an external person/source; it is within me. I can create it and share it, every day. I can take actions that are loving, and it serves both me and the world to do so. And yes, I will make mistakes. Real love will find a way to forgive me, not condemn me to hell. Humans condemn to hell; G!d does not.

I have learned that love is not in short supply. And just like this planet, it is not something that can be owned, or kept to oneself. It needs proper care, respect, and handling. Love is not a rare thing about to face extinction. There is more love available than we have capacity for holding! And the more loving we become, the more love we can hold.

I have also learned that love is more than an idea, more than a sentiment or feeling. Love is a vibrational energy force, and it comes of both my actions and my thinking. The nuances of this vibrational energy force is as deep as the ocean. There is no one single meaning to love, and while the ancient Greeks got a bit closer than our single word today, I don't think love can be narrowed into seven categories. In fact, I think we do a disservice to love when we try to categorize it at all.

While pure love isn’t messy, relationships sure are. But love, the authentic kind that isn’t afraid to say I’m sorry, also isn’t afraid to forgive. And that’s the kind of deeper love that gets to the reality of our every day.

I am truly blessed. While I wouldn’t wish a severely addictive, dysfunctional background on anyone, the gift I can find in it for me today is that love is not something I take for granted. I treasure all who love me, most especially those who have an amazing capacity to love me without conditions and simply accept me, foibles and all, while cheering me on as I do my best to continue to grow and heal. I have been amazed at how I sometimes unconsciously try to push away those who love me the most, and they have tenaciously held on, in a healthy way, not a dysfunctional way, showing me now what was never given to me as a child.

Finally, it has begun to sink in that perhaps I really am lovable. It’s made all the difference in the world. The good news is that, while it took a long time, I didn’t have to stay stuck in the addiction and dysfunctions in which I was involuntarily immersed as a child. After a lot of work, I finally broke free of most of what was overlain onto my brain. None of that childhood stuff was love. And while they couldn’t love me, and told me every day how unlovable I was, I finally figured out, and experienced, how wrong they were and what real love is.

Father’s Day reminds me that there is always hope, and even if my own father was incapable of showing or giving love––to the degree that he did great harm and left a legacy of damage and pain––I know now that there are men who are real fathers. There are good fathers in the world.

So to all those men who are good fathers, Happy Father’s Day! May you be blessed as you model what a good father is, and pass it on to your children! And to all who have had the experience of a good father, may you extend that blessing which you received out into the world. The entire world will be better for it!



p.s. If anyone reading this has struggled with some of these issues I’ve mentioned, I highly recommend watching this 39 minute video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKeaAbM2kJg), especially the last 5 minutes. Follow the speaker’s directions. Listen to it every day for a week, and watch what happens within. For some of us, so much of our lives are tangled up in false brain overlays we were given as children, and from which we’ve not found a way to break free. We can. And it will make all the difference in the world. Do be forewarned that the speaker is a bit unconventional. My apologies if anything she says is offensive. I can say that the last 5 minutes can truly be life changing. It has been for me.