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Unity Center
| Articles by Rev. Chad O'Shea | |||||||||||
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Unity Center
| Articles by Rev. Chad O'Shea | |||||||||||
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"Hallmark's Dilemma"by Rev. Chad O'Shea - June, 2007 Well, here we are again, doing our best to wrap our minds and hearts around another celebration of that day dedicated to Dads . . . a most challenging special occasion that typically inspires all the fathers, such as I, to do our best to remember how we managed to navigate that adventure without losing our marbles or ruining our kids for all time and purposes. As far as I know, as I stand here this morning, all my children, the near ones and the far away and dear ones, are still permitted to move freely about in our society, unencumbered by electronic surveillance anklets or restraining orders. And, I'm confident that none of them are on a mafia
"hit list," or a post office portrait. Their diets aren't paragons of nutritional correctness, but are relatively nurturing and harmless enough to keep their gizzards from falling out. The drugs they do these days top out at a little caffeine with, perhaps, a finger or two of
Bailey's Irish Cream on St. Paddy's Day. They've learned the hard way not to trust the dubious wisdom of the second six pack. They can eat out without attracting a lot of attention. Their fashion statement no longer includes holes in the knees, or pants riding low enough to demystify certain anatomical features. Their musical tastes, once restricted to hard rock and hip-hop, have evolved to include a touch of jazz, some R&B, and, now and then, a little 1812 or
Beethoven's Ninth. Except for fourteen-year-old Katie, they are all gainfully employed, or in college and self-supporting. And
I'm absolutely delighted to report that they all think I'm a pretty neat player of the father game. All that being the case,
Fathers day rolls around for me as a joy and a pleasure. Recently, though, on these
Fathers Day occasions, I've found myself wondering how many fathers might be out there dreading having to face their special day. All the men who found themselves up to their necks in the father role without a clue for how to pull it off. All the ones who never quite made it home with a paycheck. All the ones who majored in Jack Daniels and violence, and all the ones who worshipped at the altar of vocation and never quite made it to a recital, or a ball game, or a birthday party.
Where could they possibly go on Fathers Day to find a little comfort or connection? That dilemma brings up a poignant reality that often attends these special days dedicated to celebrating our lineage.
It's the assumption that most folks were raised by an attentive parent whose worst failing was watching too much golf on the tube or missing a soccer practice now and then. And where does that put the men who have not only miserably failed the attentive test, but have also dumped a load of challenging ignorance into the lives of their children?
The truth is, there are many Fathers in our world living in deep and abiding grief, and some existing in a state of perpetual shame because of the unenlightened nature of their fathering energy. Its just inevitable that not every father will be loved, appreciated and praised this weekend in the same way, for example, that ex-governor of New York, Mario Cuomo remembered his dad when he wrote,
"I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands, work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his
example."
On the flip side of that inspiring example of parent/child relationship we find all the children who were left to deal with parents who were indifferent to their needs and
didn't seem to care. The kind of parents that inspired the famous psychiatrist, R. D. Laing to think about his dad this way. . .
Many people have asked, "Has writing this book made you feel closer to your
father?" To which I could only answer: "My relationship with him has greatly improved since his
death."
Ouch! And where might folks stuck in that kind of mindset go for a little relief? Well, obviously, for both the guilty parent and the resentful child, the answer is a generous dose of good, old fashioned mercy and compassion, but based on what? Which brings to mind the John Lennon take on the role of the father. He observed,
"The pressures of being a Father are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious father and really look to that little
being's mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time, because
it's just too
hard."
And though we live in fervent hope that compassion and understanding be the constant reality between human beings, we are forced to acknowledge that those virtues often comes hard or not at all in the course of we humans getting it on with each other. So, where do we go from there?
Is there anything written in scripture that might help us in getting beyond the impasse of both father/child resentment and parental guilt, and move into a clearer region of understanding insight that takes some of the pressure off this human enterprise of being a father.
Let's take a look at
Matthew 23:9 and see if Jesus can shed a little light on why it seems to be so hard to play this
"father" role and get it right. In that scripture He is recorded to have counseled . . .
"And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in
heaven." That's not going to bring joy to those folks down at Hallmark, but I think
there's a revelation implicit in His words that could take a lot of the heat of high expectations off this human enterprise of being a Dad. Think about his instruction for a moment.
He's obviously making a distinction here about the role of
"father." To me, it seems real clear... I hear Him encouraging me to make sure I
don't confuse my earth dad with my Heavenly Father, lest I lay a trip on my earth dad that he is nowhere close to being ready to accommodate. Being an earth dad
doesn't automatically qualify us as omniscient players of advanced guru status. In most respects, regards the enlightenment game, we earth dads are in about the same boat as our kids... hanging out here in space/time doing our best not to turn the Garden of Eden into a rock and a hard place. From that reality base,
it's easy to see what a set-up for disappointment it is to expect
"Pop" to play the "Father" role as if he was a direct transmission of purely refined heavenly insight. Now
what's the chances? Consider the possibility that what Jesus is doing here is to remind us that calling someone on earth
"Father" is to project onto his humanity a level of transcendent response that can only flow from a pure divinity he is still in the process of realizing. The
"Father" role may well be a deep and ancient archetype that speaks to our relationship with the Universal Father and conjures up all the qualities of the ultimate protector, provider, philosopher and friend... A powerful combination of Mr. Rogers, Socrates, George Carlin and Jesus the Christ that no human father could hope to emulate.
By calling the man who is our biological father, Cosmic Father, we perhaps drown our Earth Dads in a deluge of expectations that only the Divine has a prayer of fulfilling in their entirety. And, since we have a tendency to remember most vividly our relational disappointments, could it be that we are blaming our earth dads for failing to be God?
But, even with all that, there are those times when dad gets it right and when he does, it's beautiful. Leave no stone unturned in capturing those blessed moments as your working portrait of Dad that you might not miss the grace of those times you were blessed with the fierce and steadying love of both your Father and your Dad.
Happy Father © 2007 Rev. Chad O'Shea 
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